Neil Marshall

Last updated

Neil Marshall
Neil Marshall 2006.JPG
Marshall at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con
Born (1970-05-25) 25 May 1970 (age 53)
Occupations
  • Director
  • editor
  • producer
  • screenwriter
Years active1989–present

Neil Marshall (born 25 May 1970) is an English film and television director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. He directed the horror films Dog Soldiers (2002) and The Descent (2005), the science fiction action film Doomsday (2008), the historical war film Centurion (2010), the superhero action film Hellboy (2019), and the adventure horror film The Reckoning (2020).

Contents

Marshall has also directed numerous television series, including two episodes of the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones : "Blackwater" and "The Watchers on the Wall", the latter of which earned him a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.

Early life

Marshall was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He was inspired to become a film director when he saw Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) at the age of eleven. He began making home movies using Super 8 mm film, [1] and in 1989, he attended film school at Newcastle Polytechnic. In the next eight years, he worked as a freelance film editor.

Career

In 1995, he was hired to co-write and edit for director Bharat Nalluri's first film, Killing Time . Marshall continued to write and develop his own projects, directing his first film in 2002, Dog Soldiers , a horror film that became a cult film in the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005, he followed up with a second horror film, The Descent . [2] With his direction of The Descent, he was identified as a member of the Splat Pack. [3] Marshall won the British Independent Film Award for Best Director, [2] and the film received the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. [4]

His next film, Doomsday , is a 2008 science fiction action film he wrote and directed. The film takes place in the future in Scotland, which has been quarantined because of a deadly virus. When the virus is found in London, political leaders send a team led by Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) to Scotland to find a possible cure. Sinclair's team runs into two types of survivors: marauders and medieval knights. [5]

Doomsday was conceived by Marshall based on the idea of futuristic soldiers facing medieval knights. In producing the film, he drew inspiration from various movies, including Mad Max , Escape from New York and 28 Days Later . Marshall had a budget three times the size of his previous two films. The director filmed the larger-scale Doomsday in Scotland and South Africa. The film was released on 14 March 2008 in the United States and Canada and in the United Kingdom on 9 May 2008. Doomsday did not perform well at the box office, and critics gave the film mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 49% of critics gave the film positive write-ups, based on a sample of 69, with an average score of 5.1/10. [5] At Metacritic , which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 51, based on 14 reviews. [6]

Marshall went on to write and direct the 2010 historical war film Centurion , starring Michael Fassbender and Dominic West. He also wrote and directed a segment, titled "Bad Seed", of the anthology horror film Tales of Halloween , which had its world premiere on 24 July 2015 at the Fantasia International Film Festival. [7]

Marshall directed episodes of several television series, including Black Sails , Constantine , Hannibal , Westworld , Timeless , and Lost in Space , the lattermost two of which he also executive produced. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for his work on the Game of Thrones episode "The Watchers on the Wall". In February 2015, Marshall and his agent Marc Helwig founded the television production company Applebox Entertainment [8] and signed with this company, a two-year deal with Legendary TV. [9]

In 2017, Marshall signed on to direct a reboot of Hellboy , released in April 2019. [10] Marshall has since disowned the film, criticizing the script and calling the job "the worst professional experience of my life." Marshall only accepted the film due to not making a feature film in nine years and also being initially intrigued by the horror pitch. [11]

He then wrote and directed the horror film The Reckoning , which was released in 2020. He created a production company, Scarlett Productions, with actress Charlotte Kirk. [12]

Filmography

Film

YearTitleDirectorWriterExecutive
Producer
EditorNotes
1998 Killing Time NoYesNoYes
2002 Dog Soldiers YesYesNoYes
2005 The Descent YesYesNoNo
2008 Doomsday YesYesNoYes
2010 Centurion YesYesNoNo
2015 Tales of Halloween YesYesNoNoSegment: "Bad Seed"
2019 Hellboy YesNoNoNo
2020 The Reckoning YesYesYesYes
2022 The Lair YesYesYesYes
TBACompulsionYesYesYesNoFilming

Executive producer only

Television

YearTitleDirectorExecutive
Producer
Notes
2012, 2014 Game of Thrones YesNoEpisodes "Blackwater" [13] and "The Watchers on the Wall"
2014 Black Sails YesNoEpisodes "I." and "III." [14]
Constantine YesNoEpisodes "Non Est Asylum" and "Rage of Caliban"
2015 Hannibal YesNoEpisode "The Great Red Dragon" [15]
2016Poor Richard's AlmanackYesYesEpisode "Pilot"
Timeless YesYesEpisodes "Pilot" and "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln"
Westworld YesNoEpisode "The Stray"
2018 Lost in Space YesYesEpisodes "Impact" and "Diamonds in the Sky"

Writer

Awards and nominations

YearAssociationCategoryWorkResult
2006 British Independent Film Awards Best DirectorThe DescentWon
Saturn Awards Best Horror Film Won
2013 Hugo Awards Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Game of ThronesWon
2014 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series Nominated
2020 Golden Raspberry Awards Worst Director HellboyNominated

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Combs</span> American actor (b. 1954)

Jeffrey Alan Combs is an American actor. He is best known for starring as Herbert West in the Re-Animator film series (1985–2003) and portraying a number of characters in the Star Trek universe, most notably Brunt and the various Weyouns on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1994–1999) and Thy'lek Shran on Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doug Jones (actor)</span> American actor, contortionist and mime

Doug Jones is an American actor, contortionist, and mime artist. He is best known for portraying non-human creatures, usually via heavy make-up and visual effects. He has most notably collaborated with acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, appearing in the films Mimic (1997), Hellboy (2004), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Crimson Peak (2015), and The Shape of Water (2017).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Goldman</span> British screenwriter and producer

Jane Loretta Anne Goldman is a British screenwriter and producer. She is mostly known for collaborating with director Matthew Vaughn on the screenplays of Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and its sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), as well as X-Men: First Class (2011), Kick-Ass (2010) and Stardust (2007). Goldman also worked on the story of X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), the sequel to First Class, again in partnership with Vaughn. Both met high critical praise for their work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guillermo del Toro</span> Mexican filmmaker and author (born 1964)

Guillermo del Toro Gómez is a Mexican filmmaker. A recipient of three Academy Awards and three BAFTA Awards, his work has been characterized by a strong connection to fairy tales and horror, with an effort to infuse visual or poetic beauty in the grotesque. He has had a lifelong fascination with monsters, which he considers symbols of great power. He is also known for his use of insectile and religious imagery, his themes of Catholicism, anti-fascism, and celebrating imperfection, underworld motifs, practical special effects, and dominant amber lighting.

Graeme Richard Harper is a British television director. He is best known for his work on the science-fiction series Doctor Who, for which he is the only person to have directed episodes of both the original run (1963–89) and revived run (2005–) of the programme. Doctor Who Magazine has described him as "the longest-serving crew member on Doctor Who."

<i>The Descent</i> 2005 film directed by Neil Marshall

The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film follows six women who enter a cave system and struggle to survive against the humanoid creatures inside.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Wong (filmmaker)</span> American producer, writer, and director (born 1959)

James Wong is an American television producer, writer, and retired film director. Wong is best known for co-writing episodes of the Fox science fiction supernatural drama series The X-Files with his writing partner, Glen Morgan. Morgan and Wong are founders of the Hard Eight Pictures and co-created Space: Above and Beyond. Wong also directed the films Final Destination (2000) and Final Destination 3 (2006) in the Final Destination film series, The One (2001), starring Jet Li, and Dragonball Evolution (2009).

<i>Doomsday</i> (2008 film) 2008 film by Neil Marshall

Doomsday is a 2008 science fiction action film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film takes place in the future in Scotland, which has been quarantined because of a deadly virus. When the virus is found in London, political leaders send a team led by Major Eden Sinclair to Scotland to find a possible cure. Sinclair's team runs into two types of survivors: marauders and medieval knights. Doomsday was conceived by Marshall based on the idea of futuristic soldiers facing medieval knights. In producing the film, he drew inspiration from various movies, including Mad Max, Escape from New York and 28 Days Later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Dougherty</span> American director, screenwriter, and producer

Michael Patrick Dougherty is an American writer, director, animator, and producer known for his work in a variety of genre films, both big and small.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drew Goddard</span> American screenwriter and director

Andrew Brion Hogan Goddard is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. He began his career writing episodes for the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, and Lost. After moving into screenwriting in film, he wrote Cloverfield (2008), World War Z (2013), and The Martian (2015), the latter earning him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2011, he made his directorial debut with The Cabin in the Woods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles de Lauzirika</span> American film director

Charles de Lauzirika is an American DVD and Blu-ray producer and filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Brand</span> Scottish actor, director and producer

Steven Brand is a Scottish actor. His feature debut was The Scorpion King (2002), where he portrayed Memnon. He has had many guest appearances on television series, and in 2015, Brand was nominated for Best Guest Starring Role on Television at the Saturn Awards for his performance in Teen Wolf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ed Speleers</span> British actor

Edward John Speleers is an English actor and producer. He is known for playing the title role in the 2006 film Eragon, antagonist Stephen Bonnet in the TV series Outlander and Jimmy Kent in the TV series Downton Abbey. He recently appeared as Rhys Montrose in the fourth season of You (2023) and Jack Crusher in the third season of Star Trek: Picard (2023).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Reeves</span> American filmmaker (born 1966)

Matt Reeves is an American filmmaker who first gained recognition for the WB drama series Felicity (1998–2002), which he co-created with J. J. Abrams. Reeves came to widespread attention for directing the hit monster film Cloverfield (2008). He also directed the vampire drama Let Me In (2010), and the critically acclaimed science fiction sequels Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017). He directed the superhero film The Batman (2022), which stars Robert Pattinson as the title character.

Andrew Cosby is an American comic book creator, film producer, and screenwriter. He is the co-creator of the SyFy TV series Eureka, and the co-founder of Boom! Studios.

Blackwater (<i>Game of Thrones</i>) 9th episode of the 2nd season of Game of Thrones

"Blackwater" is the ninth and penultimate episode of the second season of HBO's medieval fantasy television series Game of Thrones, and the 19th overall. The episode was directed by Neil Marshall, his directorial debut for the series, and written by George R. R. Martin, the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels from which the series is adapted. It first aired on May 27, 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saturn Awards</span> Annual awards for film and TV production

The Saturn Awards are American awards presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The awards were created to honor science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, but have since grown to reward other films belonging to genre fiction, as well as television and home media releases. The Saturn Awards were created in 1973 and were originally referred to as Golden Scrolls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guillermo del Toro's unrealized projects</span>

The following is a list of unproduced Guillermo del Toro projects in roughly chronological order. During his decades-long career, Mexican filmmaker and author Guillermo del Toro has worked on a number of projects that never progressed beyond the pre-production stage. Some of these projects fell into development hell and are presumably canceled, while some were taken over and completed by other filmmakers.

<i>Hellboy</i> (2019 film) Film by Neil Marshall

Hellboy is a 2019 superhero film based on the Dark Horse Comics character of the same name, created by Mike Mignola. A reboot of the Hellboy film series, it is the third live-action entry in the franchise; directed by Neil Marshall, the film stars David Harbour in the title role, alongside Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim, and Thomas Haden Church. The film draws inspiration from the comic books Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, The Storm and the Fury, and Hellboy in Mexico. In the film, Hellboy struggles with his psyche while preventing a resurrected sorceress from conquering the world.

The 45th Saturn Awards, presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films and honoring the best in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other genres belonging to genre fiction in film, television, home entertainment, and local stage production from March 1, 2018, to July 7, 2019, were held on September 13, 2019, in Avalon Hollywood, and hosted by actress and comedian Aisha Tyler. Nominations were announced on July 15, 2019.

References

  1. Muller, Bill (4 August 2006). "Director rises to 'Descent'". The Arizona Republic .
  2. 1 2 "Neil Marshall". bifa.org.uk. British Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on 21 May 2008. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
  3. Keegan, Rebecca Winters (22 October 2006). "The Splat Pack". Time . Archived from the original on 5 May 2007. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
  4. "Past Saturn Awards". Saturn Awards . Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. Archived from the original on 9 February 2010. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
  5. 1 2 "Doomsday Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes . IGN Entertainment, Inc. Archived from the original on 24 May 2008. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
  6. "Doomsday (2008): Reviews". Metacritic . CNET Networks, Inc. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
  7. "Tales of Halloween - Fantasia 2015". Fantasia Festival. 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  8. "Neil Marshall and his longtime agent Marc Helwig have formed a TV/film production company, Applebox Entertainment". Dread Central . DC. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
  9. "Neil Marshall & Marc Helwig Launch Production Company, Sign Deal With Legendary Television". Deadline Hollywood . DC. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
  10. Perry, Spencer (8 May 2017). "Neil Marshall to Direct Hellboy Reboot Starring David Harbour!". TComingsoon.net. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
  11. "Hellboy (2019) - Director talks Bad Scripts and Studio Interference". YouTube. 25 March 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  12. "Meet Charlotte Kirk: The 28-Year-Old Actress Who Took Down Two Studio Chiefs". Variety . PMC. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
  13. Goldberg, Lesley (12 September 2011). "'Game of Thrones': Neil Marshall Among Season 2 Directors". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 18 September 2011.
  14. "Neil Marshall Directing Pilot for Starz' Treasure Island Prequel Series, Black Sails". Screenrant.
  15. Fuller, Bryan (22 March 2015). "EP 8 "THE GREAT RED DRAGON" DIRECTOR NEIL MARSHALL MADE THE BEST HORROR MOVIE OF THIS CENTURY #HannibalReturnsJune4". Twitter. Retrieved 22 March 2015.