Paul W. S. Anderson - Career

Career

Anderson made his debut as the writer-director of Shopping, which starred Sean Pertwee, Jude Law and Sadie Frost as thieves who smashed cars into storefronts. When released in the United Kingdom it was banned in some cinemas, and only gained a release in the United States as an edited, direct to video release.

After this, he directed the successful 1995 video game adaptation Mortal Kombat. While prior video game movies, like Street Fighter and Super Mario Bros., had been all-out disasters, Mortal Kombat was well received by fans, and some critics. He declined to direct the sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which was not well received by critics or fans. Anderson was asked to direct a third movie, Mortal Kombat: Devastation, but declined again because he was too busy filming Resident Evil.

The success of Mortal Kombat gave Anderson free rein to choose his next project, Soldier, written by Blade Runner screenwriter David Webb Peoples. Intended as a "sidequel" to Blade Runner, the movie was set in the same universe (but not the same planet), and contained numerous references to the earlier film. Kurt Russell was attached to star, but was unavailable at the time, which delayed the production. In the meantime, Anderson made the science fiction horror film Event Horizon. It was poorly received at the box office, and Anderson blamed the failure on studio-enforced cuts. While not a box-office success, the film gained a small cult following. Soldier was eventually completed and released in 1998, but was a disaster both commercially and critically.

After the poor performance of both Event Horizon and Soldier, Anderson was forced to think smaller. His planned remake of the cult film Death Race 2000 was put on hold, and he set about writing and directed a TV movie, The Sight, in 2000. It was a minor success, and Anderson returned to cinema screens in 2002 when he wrote and directed an adaptation of the survival horror video game series Resident Evil. At that point he began to credit himself as "Paul W. S. Anderson", to avoid confusion with the American director Paul Thomas Anderson.

Produced on a moderate budget in comparison to his earlier movies, Resident Evil was a commercial success in cinemas and on DVD. Resident Evil was budgeted for a smaller budget of 33,000,000 and brought in a $102,441,078 in the box office. Anderson then wrote (but did not direct) the sequels, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Extinction both were commercial successes.

Anderson's next project was the much-anticipated Alien vs. Predator, a concept hinted at in Predator 2 and later popularized by a series of Dark Horse Comics. A movie version had been stuck in development hell for several years despite the franchise crossing into every other form of media, from books to comics to video games. The film was finally released in August 2004, grossing $172,544,654 internationally on a budget of $60 million, despite its success it received mostly negative reviews. Screenwriter Peter Briggs, who had penned the very first Alien vs. Predator screenplay, disputed some of Anderson's other comments in an online interview, saying Anderson's claim that Briggs' original screenplay was "locked down" was incorrect, and that many elements of Anderson's screenplay were suspiciously similar. A sequel was made, called Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, which Anderson was not involved in.

After completing Alien vs. Predator Anderson rebooted his Death Race 2000 remake and finally got it released as Death Race in 2008. A prequel was made in 2011, called Death Race 2, which Anderson wrote (but did not direct). In 2010, Anderson wrote and directed the fourth installment in the Resident Evil film franchise, Resident Evil: Afterlife.

Anderson directed the 2011 adaptation of The Three Musketeers, who were played by Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, and Luke Evans.

Anderson wrote and directed the fifth installment in the Resident Evil film franchise, Resident Evil: Retribution.