Paul W.S. Anderson

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Paul W.S. Anderson
Aliases:	Paul William Scott Anderson; Paul Anderson
Gender:	Male
Medium(s):	Film
Roles:	Director Producer
Date of birth:	March 4th, 1965
Place of birth:	Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Notable works:	AVP: Alien vs. Predator Death Race Event Horizon Soldier
First:	Event Horizon (1997)

Paul W.S. Anderson is an English filmmaker born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England on March 4th, 1965. Paul is known for his avid love of video games as well as the stylistic approach that he takes towards his film work, most of which are based on video games or franchises that have spawned video game adaptations.

Career[]

Paul's first film work was the 1995 fantasy/action movie Mortal Kombat, based on the Midway Games video game developed by John Tobias and Ed Boon. Following the PG-13 Mortal Kombat, Paul wanted to strike out on a unique science fiction project with an r-rating. This desire culminated in the 1997 sci-fi/horror gorefest Event Horizon by Paramount Pictures. The film was pitched by screenwriter Philip Eisner as "The Shining in space". Despite casting A-list actors such as Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill, Event Horizon faired poorly at the box office as well as with critics, but it has since gained a strong cult following in the home video market.

In 1998, Paul Anderson helmed another science fiction venture called Soldier starring Kurt Russell, Gary Busey and Jason Scott Lee. Paul postponed principal filming on Soldier for three months to allow Kurt Russell enough time to build up his muscle definition for the role of Sergeant Todd 3465. Anderson also paid homage to his previous work on Event Horizon by including a piece from the Lewis & Clark from that film amongst the wreckage found on the planet in Soldier.

In 2002, Paul returned to his favorite media, video games, by adapting the popular Capcom game Resident Evil to the big screen. Though treated unfavorably by critics, the film proved popular enough to spawn several sequels and even an animated movie. Anderson typically does not care to direct sequel films, but he did return to the franchise Resident Evil: Afterlife and Resident Evil: Retribution.

In 2004, Paul directed AVP: Alien vs. Predator, the first film to combine the main antagonists from both the Aliens and Predator film franchises. The joining of both properties had previously been demonstrated in the Alien vs. Predator video game as well as several Alien vs. Predator comic books by Dark Horse Comics. Originally, Anderson had been approached to direct Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but turned it down in favor of directing AVP. As with many of his works, Paul Anderson received a fair amount of criticism for AVP, with several reviewers citing the film's soft PG-13 rating as well as it's thin, carboard characters. Although this was the first Aliens-related project that did not involve actress Sigourney Weaver, Anderson tried to maintain the continuity of the franchise by casting Lance Henriksen as Charles Bishop Weyland, founder of what would eventually become the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which was the ubiquitous corporate empire featured in James Cameron's Aliens.

Paul W.S. Anderson was then tapped to direct Death Race in 2008, which was a remake of the 1975 cult sci-fi/action movie Death Race 2000 by Paul Bartel. Anderson had been dreaming of visualizing a new Death Race movie for thirteen years. Originally, the film was intended to be a sequel called Death Race 3000, which would have involed highly futuristic vehicles with hovercraft technology, but due to what would have been extreme budget costs, Anderson instead restructured the film as a prequel to Death Race 2000. Anderson returned to the franchise in 2010 as both producer and writer of the film's direct-to-video sequel, Death Race 2, which was directed by Roel Reiné.