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You’d think that the training grounds for blockbuster filmmakers in this effects-heavy era would be in visual-effects departments or even animation. And while that still happens (look at what a great job Brad Bird did with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol), more and more we’re seeing that the best way to score a gig directing an action blockbuster is to direct a small, buzzy independent film.
This all started in earnest with Christopher Nolan, who was known for the teensy indie mind-bender Memento and the moody noir remake Insomnia before he got hired to revive the Batman franchise in 2005. Nolan was a gamble at the time — much more than people remember — but he succeeded wildly, and now it’s hard to imagine him making anything but a big-budgeted blockbuster. After Nolan, a trend was set, and today we’re seeing many of our most anticipated blockbusters are being directed by some of our most talented indie storytellers. This makes some degree of sense — in this age of cinematic universes, storytelling in action movies is more important than it’s ever been. It’s not just that we want Black Panther to kick righteous ass, but we need to be invested enough in his story to carry him into several other Marvel movies. This is the work for storytellers and character-building, two things that are readily apparent in good indie movies. (They’re readily apparent in good ANY kind of movies, but they’re less obscured, let’s say, in indies.)
These ten films were indie movies that got their directors noticed by the big boys. The Justin Lins and Rian Johnsons and Colin Trevorrows of the world are making the biggest movies in Hollywood. Here are the excellent and exciting movies that got them there.
'Better Luck Tomorrow' (2002)
Director: Justin Lin
What He’s Done Since: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006); Fast & Furious (2009); Fast Five (2011); Fast & Furious 6 (2013); Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Justin Lin was barely out of his twenties when he made his directorial debut with Better Luck Tomorrow, a teen crime movie about four Asian-American high school students whose model-minority lives fall away to crime and bad behavior. Roger Ebert famously (and vocally) defended the film against bad-for-Asians critiques at Sundance, and the film was bought and subsequently given a decent indie push by MTV Films. Lin would import one of his Better Luck Tomorrow characters, Han (and actor Sung Kang), to the Fast and the Furious franchise when he took over with “Tokyo Drift.”
'Bloody Sunday' (2002)
Director: Paul Greengrass
What He’s Done Since: The Bourne Supremacy (2004); United 93 (2006); The Bourne Ultimatum (2007); Jason Bourne (2016)
Before defining the Bourne franchise with his signature shaky-cam style, Paul Greengrass made a stripped-down, street-level film about the infamous “Bloody Sunday” armed conflict between Irish activists and English soldiers. It was a major critical hit, sharing the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival with Spirited Away, and helping Greengrass nab the Bourne Supremacy gig after Doug Liman dropped out of the franchise.
Brick (2006)
Director: Rian Johnson
What He’s Done Since: Looper (2012); Star Wars Episode VIII (2017)
The production budget on Star Wars: The Force Awakens was reportedly north of $300 million. It’s likely that the budget on Episode VIII will be even higher. It’ll be quite the departure from Rian Johnson’s debut film, Brick, which he made for a scant $500,000. Brick is a high-school noir that takes its concept very literally. The results are sometimes thrilling, sometimes goofy, but never not utterly compelling. It likely still ranks among Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s 2-3 best performances ever.
'Cop Car' (2015)
Director: Jon Watts
What He’s Done Since: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
After seeing Tom Holland’s debut as Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War, expectations are high for Homecoming, which puts a lot on Jon Watts, a director few moviegoers are familiar with. Watts got the gig based on enthusiasm for Cop Car, a tight, gritty little indie starring Kevin Bacon as a bad dude hunting down two kids who stole his cop car. The streak of childlike mischief running down the center of this thing bodes very well for Spider-Man.
'Fruitvale Station' (2013)
Director: Ryan Coogler
What He’s Done Since: Creed (2015); Black Panther (2018)
Coogler’s film about real-life victim of police violence Oscar Grant was a huge hit at Sundance, and it managed to launch both him and star Michael B. Jordan as legit players in the film industry. They reunited for Creed last year, and that neither of those films cracked the Oscar ballot ended up being a huge reason why we’re talking about diversity at the Oscars today. Coogler and Jordan will reunite again for the Marvel film Black Panther in 2018, with Jordan playing the villain opposite the titular Wakandan.
'Monster' (2003)
Director: Patty Jenkins
What She’s Doing Next: Wonder Woman (2017)
While Monster almost exclusively gets talked about in terms of Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning lead performance/transformation as Aileen Wournos, Jenkins deserves more credit for making a daring film that gets inside Wournos’ experience. It’s honestly pretty thrilling that she’s been given the reins on Wonder Woman, even if the DC superhero films have been a disaster lately.
'Monsters' (2010)
Director: Gareth Edwards
What He’s Done Since: Godzilla (2014); Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
This winter’s big blockbuster is poised to be Rogue One, the first side story to the newly resurgent Star Wars saga. The directing reins were handed to Gareth Edwards, after seeing his work on Godzilla. But Edward got the Godzilla gig because he showed what he could do with a monster movie on a tiny budget. That was Monsters, a British sci-fi movie set in Mexico, starring American actors (including Halt and Catch Fire‘s Scoot McNairy in the lead role). Monsters keeps a still, eerie atmosphere throughout, and the eventual appearance of the titular monsters is rather majestic. Surely Edwards will do the same with Darth Vader.
'Safety Not Guaranteed' (2012)
Director: Colin Trevorrow
What He’s Done Since: Jurassic World (2015); Star Wars Episode IX(2019)
Aubrey Plaza and Jake Johnson play magazine writers investigating the story of a local nut (Mark Duplass) who claims to be working on a time-travel experiment. The film was a huge sensation at Sundance after it debuted, and it got Trevorrow a lot of attention. So much attention that he got nabbed to make the fourth Jurassic Park movie and the ninth Star Wars. All off of a tiny, talky indie with hardly any special effects to speak of. He’s the ultimate indie come-up story.
'The Snowtown Murders' (2011)
Director: Justin Kurzel
What He’s Done Since: Assassin’s Creed (2016)
With Assassin’s Creed, Kursel is making his second straight movie with Michael Fassbender (after Macbeth last year). This was all made possible because Kurzel so disturbed and effected critics and audiences with The Snowtown Murders, a creepy and disturbing Australian movie about a grim series of killings. After making a movie like that, you’d want to just sit around and stare at Michael Fassbender all day too.
'What We Do in the Shadows' (2015)
Director: Taika Waititi
What He’s Doing Next: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
There is no current filmmaker who better exemplifies this rags-to-riches trend in directorial ladder-climbing than Taika Waititi, who got nabbed for the Thor: Ragnarok before anybody ever heard of him, but who will have made a bunch of movies that prove his worthiness in the meantime. This started with What We Do in the Shadows, a New Zealand vampire comedy that delighted audiences last year. This year, he did pretty much the same thing with the odd-couple wilderness-trek movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople. He’s also the credited screenwriter on this fall’s Disney animated feature Moana. Expectations for Ragnarok just keep getting bigger and bigger.
