Simon West | |
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Born | Simon Alexander West 17 July 1961 [1] Letchworth, Hertfordshire, England |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1986–present |
Notable work | |
Spouse | Amadea West |
Children | Lillie West |
Simon Alexander West (born 17 July 1961) [1] [2] is an English film director and producer. He has primarily worked in the action genre, most notably as the director of the films Con Air , Lara Croft: Tomb Raider , The Mechanic , and The Expendables 2 . Outside of action, he also directed the films The General's Daughter and When a Stranger Calls . Before his film career, West directed music videos such as "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley. [3]
West was born in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. He began his career as an assistant film editor with the BBC Film Department, where he worked on dramas and documentaries. [4] He then left the BBC to work on commercials and music videos. [4] His daughter Lillie West of the band Lala Lala described the experience being a filmmaker's daughter to Paper Magazine in a 2018 interview, "My dad is a filmmaker, and he has filmed pretty much every moment of my life from when I was born."
West's directorial debut in 1997 with Con Air , starring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, and John Malkovich. [4] [5]
West directed the 2001 action film, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Although it's an adaptation of the popular video game Tomb Raider, the development of the film was influenced by a market that "wasn't used to women leading summer blockbusters" (with the exception of the Alien film series). [6] This factor influenced his decision to cast Angelina Jolie as Croft, though she was not well known (she was not the studio's first choice, in contrast to Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ashley Judd, and Jennifer Lopez). [6] While Lara Croft led to box office totals that were the highest for a female-led action film at that time, ($131 million), inspired theme park rides, led to a sequel, and made a star of Jolie, [7] West was disappointed that it did not lead to similar films. He noted that "at the time, the studio was incredibly nervous at what the outcome could have been. I'm surprised it's taken so long [for other female-fronted action stories to rise up], because I thought that two or three years after, there'd be 10 other movies like it cashing in on its success ...[b]ut it's amazing how things work so slowly. But finally The Hunger Games and Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman have caught up!" [6]
Joey Nolfi (Entertainment Weekly) states that West "molded his heroine – never bogged down by romantic subplots – as a badass genre role model for girls, with more scenes of assured tomb raiding and less overt sexuality" (West said to have done so "probably would've been the death of the film and the character"). [7] Critic Cristina Lucia Stasia also argues that the film Lara Croft distinguished itself from other popular "girl power" shows and films of the same period: The Matrix (1999), Charlie's Angels (2000), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Dark Angel (2000), and Alias (2001). "Simon West, the director of Tomb Raider, foregrounds [a] tension between female sexuality and female action heroes when he argues that 'Angelina should be a role model for action actors. We turned her into something you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley – but then again you would'." [8]
West would eventually work on a number of action films including the 2012 film The Expendables 2 with Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. [9] He also reunited with Nicolas Cage in 2012 for Stolen . [9] In 2015, he directed the crime thriller film Wild Card with Jason Statham. It is a remake of the 1986 film Heat, based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. [9] In 2017 West directed his first feature musical comedy Gun Shy starring Antonio Banderas and based on the novel Salty by Mark Haskhell Smith.[ citation needed ] West directed the 2019 big-budget disaster movie from China, Skyfire , [10] [11] and will also direct another Chinese action film, The Legend Hunters . [10]
Director
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
1997 | Con Air | |
1999 | The General's Daughter | |
2001 | Lara Croft: Tomb Raider | Also writer |
2006 | When a Stranger Calls | |
2011 | The Mechanic | |
2012 | The Expendables 2 | |
Stolen | ||
2015 | Wild Card | |
2016 | Gun Shy | |
2017 | Stratton | |
2019 | Skyfire | |
2024 | Old Guy | |
TBA | The Legend Hunters | Co-directed with Li Yifan |
TBA | Bride Hard |
Executive producer
Producer
Director
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
2003 | Keen Eddie | Episodes "Pilot" and "Horse Heir" |
2005 | Close to Home | Episode "Pilot" |
2006 | Split Decision | Unsold pilot |
2010 | Human Target | Episode "Pilot" |
2011 | The Cape | Episode "Pilot" |
2022 | Sin límites (Boundless) | Miniseries |
Executive producer
Year | Title | Artist(s) |
---|---|---|
1986 | "Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)" | Mel & Kim |
1987 | "Respectable" | |
"Never Gonna Give You Up" | Rick Astley | |
1992 | "Everybody Gets a Second Chance" | Mike and the Mechanics |
Jonathan Vincent Voight is an American actor. He has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and four Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2019, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Films in which Voight has appeared have grossed more than $5.2 billion worldwide.
Tomb Raider, known as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider from 2001 to 2008, is a media franchise that originated with an action-adventure video game series created by British video game developer Core Design. The franchise is currently owned by CDE Entertainment; it was formerly owned by Eidos Interactive, then by Square Enix Europe after Square Enix's acquisition of Eidos in 2009 until Embracer Group purchased the intellectual property alongside Eidos in 2022. The franchise focuses on the fictional British archaeologist Lara Croft, who travels around the world searching for lost artefacts and infiltrating dangerous tombs and ruins. Gameplay generally focuses on exploration, solving puzzles, navigating hostile environments filled with traps, and fighting enemies. Additional media has been developed for the franchise in the form of film adaptations, comics and novels.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a 2001 action adventure film based on the Tomb Raider video game series featuring the character Lara Croft, portrayed by Angelina Jolie. An international co-production between the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, it was directed by Simon West and revolves around Lara Croft trying to obtain ancient artifacts in competition with the Illuminati.
Lara Croft is a character and the main protagonist of the video game franchise Tomb Raider. She is presented as a highly intelligent and athletic British archaeologist who ventures into ancient tombs and hazardous ruins around the world. Created by a team at British developer Core Design that included Toby Gard, the character first appeared in the video game Tomb Raider in 1996.
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