Stephen Hopkins is a Jamaican-born[ citation needed ] British-Australian[ citation needed ] director and producer of film and television. He directed Predator 2 , A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child , Blown Away , The Life and Death of Peter Sellers , Lost in Space and Under Suspicion . He also produced and directed several episodes of the first season of 24.
In Australia Hopkins made Dangerous Game (1987). This helped him get the job directing A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child . Hopkins later said, "I went at it like a dog, and had a wild, fun time. But when I look back, I think I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I don't understand how it all happened." [1]
He went on to make Predator 2 , of which he said, "I'm pretty immature, really, so it was kind of a laugh". [1] He followed it with Judgment Night ("a real, absolute, total bomb" according to Hopkins [1] ), Blown Away ("made a lot of mistakes" [1] ) and The Ghost and the Darkness ("It was a mess. I haven't been able to watch it." [1] ).
In 2016, Hopkins directed Race , a biopic about athlete Jesse Owens for Focus Features. [2] [3] Stephan James plays Jesse Owens, opposite Jason Sudeikis and Jeremy Irons. The film was released in February 2016.
Hopkins said that after Predator 2 he "looked around for a good film for a long time, and I couldn't get anything I wanted to do... I didn't realise the Hollywood trick. In American action movies, people get shot to death and their arms are blown off, and they get up and they're fine. These films are supposed to be fun things that people can laugh at. I always thought, 'That's wrong, that's not what violence is like.' I took these films too seriously and tried to add profound depths, and that's not what's wanted. You either do that film or you do the other one, but I kept mixing the two up, and probably unsuccessfully.'" [1]
Hopkins has directed a number of episodes for television. He was a co-executive producer for the first season of the Fox action drama 24, and also directed half of the season's episodes, including the first and last episodes. He is also co-executive producer on 24: Legacy, and director of the show's pilot episode. Hopkins has also directed a number of episodes of Showtime's series House of Lies starring Don Cheadle which premiered on 8 January 2012. He is also a producer on the series.
In 2004, Hopkins directed the controversial biographical film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers , which was broadcast by HBO in the United States but received a theatrical release in a number of countries. The film provoked the ire of the actor's son Michael Sellers and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special. [4]
in 2019 Hopkins directed the pilot episode for a potential The Dark Tower series for Amazon. [5] However Amazon passed on the series. [6]
In 2023 Hopkins directed the 6 episode globe trotting spy thriller Liaison starring Vincent Cassel and Eva Green. He is also a producer on the series. [7] [8]
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
1986 | Highlander | Second Unit Director |
1987 | Dangerous Game | Director / Co-writer |
1989 | A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child | Nominated for: |
1990 | Predator 2 | Nominated for: |
1993 | Judgment Night | |
1994 | Blown Away | |
1996 | The Ghost and the Darkness | |
1998 | Lost in Space | Producer / Director |
1999 | Tube Tales | Producer and director/ writer 1 segment |
2000 | Under Suspicion | Producer / Director |
2007 | The Reaping | Producer / Director |
2016 | Race | Producer / Director |
Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|
1991-94 | Tales from the Crypt | 3 episodes |
2001-02 | 24 | Director / co-executive producer Pilot and 12 episodes Nominated: |
2004 | Traffic | Miniseries – executive producer / director 3 episodes Nominated: |
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers | Television film Won: Nominated: | |
2007-13 | Californication | Executive producer / director Pilot and 2 episodes |
2009 | The Unusuals | Executive producer / director |
In Plain Sight | 1 episode | |
2010 | Thorne | Executive producer / director 4 hour mini series Won: |
2011 | Shameless | 1 episode |
2012-14 | House of Lies | Executive producer / director Pilot and 23 episodes |
2016 | Houdini & Doyle | Executive producer / director Miniseries Pilot and 1 episode |
2016-17 | 24: Legacy | Executive producer / director Pilot and 2 episodes |
2019 | The Dark Tower | Executive producer / director Pilot |
2020 | The Fugitive | 14 episodes |
2023 | Liaison | Executive producer / director 6 episodes |
Preacher is an American comic book series published from 1995 to 2000 by Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics. The series was created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, with painted covers by Glenn Fabry.
Jack Earle Haley is an American actor and director. His earliest roles included Moocher in Breaking Away (1979) and Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears (1976), The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) and The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978). After spending many years as a producer and director of television commercials, he revived his acting career with a supporting role in All the King's Men (2006). This was followed by his performance in Little Children (2006), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American supernatural slasher media franchise consisting of nine films, a television series, novels, comic books, and various other media. The franchise began with the film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), written and directed by Wes Craven. The overall plot of the franchise centers around the fictional character Fred "Freddy" Krueger, the apparition of a former child killer who was burned alive by the vengeful parents of his victims, who returns from the grave to terrorize and kill the teenage residents of the fictional Springwood, Ohio in their dreams. Craven returned to the franchise to co-script the second sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and to write/direct Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). The films collectively grossed $472 million at the box office worldwide.
Frank Árpád Darabont is an American screenwriter, director and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In his early career, he was primarily a screenwriter for such horror films as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), The Blob (1988) and The Fly II (1989). As a director, he is known for his film adaptations of Stephen King novellas and novels, such as The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999), and The Mist (2007).
Jesse Lamont Martin is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his role of Tom Collins on Broadway in the musical Rent and performed on television as NYPD Detective Ed Green on Law & Order, Captain Joe West on The Flash, and professor Alec Mercer on The Irrational.
Freddy's Nightmares is an American horror anthology television series, which aired in syndication from October 1988 until March 1990. A spin-off from the A Nightmare on Elm Street film series, each episode is introduced by Freddy Krueger, and features two different stories, with eight of them throughout the series actually having Freddy Krueger as the main antagonist. The pilot episode was directed by Tobe Hooper, and begins with Krueger's prosecution on child-murdering charges.
Stephen C. Miner is an American director of film and television, film producer, and a member of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is notable for his work in the horror genre, including Friday the 13th Part 2, Friday the 13th Part III, House, Warlock, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Lake Placid, and Day of the Dead. He has also directed numerous comedy and drama films, as well as episodes of notable television series including The Wonder Years, Dawson's Creek, and Smallville.
Carl Franklin is an American filmmaker. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986.
Jonathan Nolan is a British and American screenwriter and producer. He is the creator of the CBS science fiction series Person of Interest (2011–2016) and co-creator of the HBO science fiction/Western series Westworld (2016–2022).
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is a 1989 American gothic slasher film directed by Stephen Hopkins and written by Leslie Bohem. It is the fifth installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and stars Lisa Wilcox, and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. The film follows Krueger, using a now pregnant Alice Johnson's baby's dreams to claim new victims.
Wesley Strick is an American screenwriter who has written such films as Arachnophobia, Wolf and Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear. Since 2015, Strick has worked as a writer/executive producer on The Man in the High Castle.
James Strong is a British television and film director and writer, best known for his work on Broadchurch for which he was BAFTA-nominated for Best Director Fiction 2015. He trained at Granada TV and has directed episodes of the shows Holby City and Doctors, as well as seven episodes of Doctor Who and two episodes of its spin-off series Torchwood. His work on the Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned" won him a BAFTA Cymru award for Best Director in 2008.
Rachel Talalay is an American filmmaker and producer best known for directing films such as Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), Ghost in the Machine (1993), and Tank Girl (1995). She is also a professor at the University of British Columbia.
Peter Levy is an Australian cinematographer known for his collaborations with director Stephen Hopkins on blockbuster action and thriller films like Predator 2, Blown Away, and Lost in Space. He has been a member of the Australian Cinematographers Society since 1983 and of the American Society of Cinematographers since 2000.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 2010 American supernatural slasher film directed by Samuel Bayer, written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer, and starring Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, and Kellan Lutz. Produced by Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes, it is a remake of Wes Craven's 1984 film of the same name, as well as the ninth overall installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film is set in a fictitious town in Ohio and centers on a group of teenagers living on one street who are stalked and murdered in their dreams by a disfigured man named Freddy Krueger. The teenagers discover that they all share a common link from their childhood that makes them targets for Krueger.
Locke & Key is a television pilot of a TV series based on the comic book series written by Joe Hill and published by IDW Publishing. Expected to debut in 2011, Fox opted not to order Locke & Key to series. The plot focuses on adventure stories centered on three children who become the caretakers of a New England mansion, which is home to a bevy of secrets and magic.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge is a 1985 American supernatural slasher film directed by Jack Sholder and written by David Chaskin. It stars Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, and Robert Rusler. It is the second installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film follows Jesse Walsh, a teenager who begins having recurring nightmares about Freddy Krueger after moving into the former home of Nancy Thompson from the first film.
Race is a 2016 biographical sports drama film about African-American athlete Jesse Owens, who won a record-breaking four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Directed by Stephen Hopkins and written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, the film stars Stephan James as Owens, and co-stars Jason Sudeikis, Jeremy Irons, William Hurt and Carice van Houten. It is a co-production of Canada, Germany and France.
The Dark Tower is a 2017 American neo-Western science fantasy film directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel. Based on Stephen King's novel series of the same name, the film stars Idris Elba as Roland Deschain, a gunslinger on a quest to protect the Dark Tower—a mythical structure which supports all realities—while Matthew McConaughey plays his nemesis Walter Padick, and Tom Taylor stars as Jake Chambers, a boy who becomes Roland's apprentice.
Jesse Walsh is a fictional character in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. He was created by David Chaskin and portrayed by Mark Patton. Making his debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge in 1985, Jesse became the first male protagonist of the series. In Freddy's Revenge, Freddy enacts a plan to possess Jesse, using his body to kill in the real world, slowly gaining the strength to manifest his form physically. Outside of the films, Jesse has a main role in the novels. Because of the LGBT representation in a mainstream film, Jesse has developed a large fan base in the gay community and has been called a gay icon. Jesse has been observed by some scholars as a variation of the "final girl" slasher film archetype, and instead a "final boy".