Hughes Brothers - Career

Career

After Allen had a son at the age of 18, Eric Alexander-Hughes (http://ericalexanderhughes.tumblr.com/), the twins dropped out of high school and soon began working on music videos as teenagers, directing for artists like Tone Loc and Tupac Shakur. Their first film, 1993's Menace II Society premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Centering on black, disenfranchised youth, it was made on a budget of $3.5 million when they were only 20 years old. Not only did they co-direct the film, but they also wrote it with screenwriter Tyger Williams. It became a critical as well as a box office success and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. Because of their previous experience in directing music videos, they became the first sibling duo since Jerry and David Zucker allowed a waiver by the Directors Guild of America to take co-credit as directors.

Their second film was Dead Presidents in 1995. Dealing with the black underclass society like their feature film debut, and also starring Larenz Tate, the film centered on war veterans during the racially charged Vietnam War era. The film, which was released at the New York Critics Film Festival, failed to make as much of a profit as their first film. They followed Dead Presidents with American Pimp, a feature-length documentary about the underground pimp culture and exploitation of women. It premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. They had originally set out to do an adaptation of Iceberg Slim's novel Pimp, but someone else acquired the rights. The brothers have stated that the film's perspective was partially shaped by being raised by their mother, who is a feminist, whereas some members of their family "dabbled" in the pimp lifestyle. In between projects, they filmed several anti-handgun public service announcements.

In a departure from their previous material, the Hughes brothers co-directed From Hell, the 2001 film adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel of the same name about the Jack the Ripper murders in Victorian England, starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham. Considered too violent and gory by some critics, the film had to be edited in order to avoid an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. As described by the film's star, there were sometimes disagreements between the twins regarding the direction of the film. For example, the amount of shown violence was a point of contention between the two; one brother thought that the brutality should be shown, while the other believed implied violence would suffice.

After From Hell, the brothers separated duties on their next projects, although they stayed in close proximity to one another. Allen directed a few episodes of the American version of the TV series Touching Evil (for which his brother was an executive producer) as well as the 2005 television feature Knights of the South Bronx. In 2005 it was announced that Albert would direct a feature film, called Art Con, without Allen, although no further news was reported on its development.

Their first film since 2001's From Hell was the post-apocalyptic drama Book of Eli for Warner Bros., which was released in January 2010. They are attached to direct The Ice Man, a fact-based film about Richard Kuklinski, and a screen version of the classic TV series Kung Fu. It was announced in February 2010 that the brothers have been tapped to direct a live-action adaptation of the 1988 manga Akira. However, as of May 26, 2011 they are no longer involved in the project.

Allen Hughes' next project is Broken City, an upcoming crime/drama starring Mark Wahlberg as Billy Taggart, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Barry Pepper, Kyle Chandler, and Jeffrey Wright.

As a team, Allen typically works with the actors while Albert handles the technical aspects of their films, stemming from Albert's experience of taking classes at Los Angeles City College's film school.