Marc Forster (born on 30th November 1969) is a German-Swiss filmmaker who will be directing and co-producing the upcoming Thomas & Friends: The Movie. He has also directed World War Z, Stranger than Fiction, Quantum of Solace, Monster's Ball and Christopher Robin.
Life and career
Forster was born in Au (today Illertissen), in the Neu-Ulm district of Bavaria, Germany. His parents, a German doctor and a Swiss architect, moved to Switzerland when Forster was nine years old. He spent his adolescence in Davos, a winter resort in eastern Switzerland and as well as at the international boarding school Institut Montana Zugerberg in central Switzerland.
In 1990, when he was twenty years old, Forster moved to New York, in the United States. For the next three years, he attended New York University's film school, making several documentary films. In 1995, he moved to Hollywood and shot an experimental low-budget film ($10,000) called Loungers, which won the Slamdance Audience Award. Forster's first feature-length motion picture was the psychological drama Everything Put Together (2000), which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
His breakthrough film was Monster's Ball (2001), in which he directed Halle Berry in her Academy Award-winning performance as the wife of a man on death row. The film also starred Billy Bob Thornton, Heath Ledger, Peter Boyle, and Sean Combs. His next film, Finding Neverland (2004), was based on the life of author J.M. Barrie. The film was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Forster received BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, and Golden Globe nominations for his direction.
Forster's next film, the thriller Stay (2005) starred Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts and grossed $8 million (USD) in the United States on an estimated budget of $50 million.[1]Stranger than Fiction (2006), a surreal romantic comedy starring Will Ferrell, was a critical success. The film grossed $54 million worldwide [3] and earned Will Ferrell a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
Forster then directed an adaptation of best-seller Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, scripted by repeat collaborator David Benioff and starring British newcomer Khalid Abdalla. The film follows an Afghani-American man who returns to his war-ravaged country to save the son of his former best friend. The Kite Runner was released on 14 December 2007 and grossed $73 million worldwide. It also earned a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and a BAFTA bid for Film Not In the English Language.
Additionally, Forster directed the twenty-second James Bond film, Quantum of Solace which began shooting on 2 January 2008, shortly before his 39th birthday, making him the youngest director in the series' history (beating the previous record set by Guy Hamilton, who was 41 when he directed Goldfinger five years before Forster's birth). Quantum of Solace was released in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2008. It became one of the highest grossing Bond films in the franchise's history, with a worldwide box office of more than $586 million.
Forster directed the film adaptation of the novel World War Z, starring Brad Pitt, which Paramount announced at the July 2010 San Diego Comic-Con. The film opened 21 June 2013 to more than $66 million and has grossed more than $540 million worldwide. To date, it is the highest-grossing film of Brad Pitt's career and is the most successful Zombie movie of all time.
Forster directed his screenplay of All I See Is You, a visually driven drama following a blind woman (Blake Lively) and her husband (Jason Clarke) who, upon the restoration of her sight, begin to discover previously unseen and disturbing details about themselves and their marriage, released in 2016.
In February 2014, Universal Pictures won the screen rights to Red Rising, a debut novel by Pierce Brown, in a seven-figure deal. Red Risingis a dystopian science fiction tale set on a terraformed Mars. Forster is attached to direct the project.
In June 2015, Forster signed on to direct the first installment of the anti-civil war trilogy The Downslope, an original Stanley Kubrick screenplay composed in 1956. Forster will be a producer on all three films.
In November 2016, Walt Disney Pictures announced that Forster will direct the live-action film adaptation of Winnie the Pooh, which was titled Christopher Robin. The film had its world premiere on 30 July 2018 and was theatrically released on 3rd August 2018. Forster along with Will Smith bought German rights group Telepool in June 2018.
Forster is now directing an upcoming live-action/animated hybrid film Thomas & Friends: The Movie. It currently has no release date planned, but it will be the second feature film in the franchise following Thomas and the Magic Railroad.
Filmography
Films
| Year | Title | Director | Producer | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Loungers | Yes | No | Yes | Co-wrote with Sebastian Roche |
| 2000 | Everything Put Together | Yes | No | Yes | Co-wrote with Adam Forgash and Catherine Lloyd Burns |
| 2001 | Monster's Ball | Yes | No | No | |
| 2004 | Finding Neverland | Yes | No | No | Cameo as "Costume Room Worker" |
| 2005 | Stay | Yes | No | No | |
| 2006 | Stranger than Fiction | Yes | No | No | |
| 2007 | The Kite Runner | Yes | No | No | |
| 2008 | Quantum of Solace | Yes | No | No | |
| 2011 | Machine Gun Preacher | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2013 | World War Z | Yes | Executive | No | |
| 2016 | All I See Is You | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-wrote with Sean Conway |
| 2018 | Christopher Robin | Yes | No | No | |
| 2022 | A Man Called Otto | Yes | No | No | |
| 2024 | White Bird | Yes | No | No | |
| TBA | Thomas & Friends: The Movie | Yes | Yes | No |
Producer only
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Sueño | |
| 2012 | Disconnect | Executive producer |
| 2018 | Come Sunday | |
| 2019 | My Dog Stupid |
Short films
| Year | Title | Director | Producer | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | LX Forty | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2017 | The Receipt: Lost & Found | Yes | No | No |
Television
| Year | Title | Director | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014–17 | Hand of God | Yes | Executive | 20 episodes (executive producer);
2 episodes (director) |
Awards
| Title | Notes |
|---|---|
| Everything Put Together | Independent Spirit Award for Someone to Watch Award |
| Finding Neverland | Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Direction
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Director Nominated—DGA for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film Nominated—Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Director |