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).
Neil Marshall | |
|---|---|
 Marshall at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con | |
| Born | 25 May 1970 Newcastle upon Tyne, England |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1989–present |
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
editMarshall 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
editIn 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
editFilm
edit| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Executive Producer |
Editor | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Killing Time | No | Yes | No | Yes | |
| 2002 | Dog Soldiers | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| 2005 | The Descent | Yes | Yes | No | No | |
| 2008 | Doomsday | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| 2010 | Centurion | Yes | Yes | No | No | |
| 2015 | Tales of Halloween | Yes | Yes | No | No | Segment: "Bad Seed" |
| 2019 | Hellboy | Yes | No | No | No | |
| 2020 | The Reckoning | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2022 | The Lair | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2024 | Duchess | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| TBA | Compulsion | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Post-Production |
Executive producer only
- The Descent Part 2 (2009)
- Soulmate (2013)
- Dark Signal (2016)
Television
edit| Year | Title | Director | Executive Producer |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012, 2014 | Game of Thrones | Yes | No | Episodes "Blackwater"[13] and "The Watchers on the Wall" |
| 2014 | Black Sails | Yes | No | Episodes "I." and "III."[14] |
| Constantine | Yes | No | Episodes "Non Est Asylum" and "Rage of Caliban" | |
| 2015 | Hannibal | Yes | No | Episode "The Great Red Dragon"[15] |
| 2016 | Poor Richard's Almanack | Yes | Yes | Episode "Pilot" |
| Timeless | Yes | Yes | Episodes "Pilot" and "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln" | |
| Westworld | Yes | No | Episode "The Stray" | |
| 2018 | Lost in Space | Yes | Yes | Episodes "Impact" and "Diamonds in the Sky" |
Writer
- Dog Soldiers: Legacy (2011) (Pilot episode)
Awards and nominations
edit| Year | Association | Category | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | British Independent Film Awards | Best Director | The Descent | Won |
| Saturn Awards | Best Horror Film | Won | ||
| 2013 | Hugo Awards | Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form | Game of Thrones | Won |
| 2014 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series | Nominated | |
| 2020 | Golden Raspberry Awards | Worst Director | Hellboy | Nominated |
References
edit- ^ Muller, Bill (4 August 2006). "Director rises to 'Descent'". The Arizona Republic.
- ^ a b "Neil Marshall". bifa.org.uk. British Independent Film Awards. Archived from the original on 21 May 2008. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
- ^ Keegan, Rebecca Winters (22 October 2006). "The Splat Pack". Time. Archived from the original on 5 May 2007. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
- ^ "Past Saturn Awards". Saturn Awards. Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. Archived from the original on 9 February 2010. Retrieved 24 June 2008.
- ^ a b "Doomsday Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. IGN Entertainment, Inc. Archived from the original on 24 May 2008. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
- ^ "Doomsday (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. CNET Networks, Inc. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
- ^ "Tales of Halloween - Fantasia 2015". Fantasia Festival. 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
- ^ "Neil Marshall and his longtime agent Marc Helwig have formed a TV/film production company, Applebox Entertainment". Dread Central. DC. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
- ^ "Neil Marshall & Marc Helwig Launch Production Company, Sign Deal With Legendary Television". Deadline Hollywood. DC. Retrieved 30 July 2008.
- ^ Perry, Spencer (8 May 2017). "Neil Marshall to Direct Hellboy Reboot Starring David Harbour!". TComingsoon.net. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
- ^ "Hellboy (2019) - Director talks Bad Scripts and Studio Interference". YouTube. 25 March 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
- ^ "Meet Charlotte Kirk: The 28-Year-Old Actress Who Took Down Two Studio Chiefs". Variety. PMC. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
- ^ Goldberg, Lesley (12 September 2011). "'Game of Thrones': Neil Marshall Among Season 2 Directors". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 18 September 2011.
- ^ "Neil Marshall Directing Pilot for Starz' Treasure Island Prequel Series, Black Sails". Screenrant.
- ^ 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.
External links
edit
- Neil Marshall at IMDb
- Harbinger Of Doom interview Future Movies
