Biography
Coscarelli was born in Libya and raised in Southern California. Although his family was not connected with the motion picture business, he was fascinated with cameras and filmmaking at an early age. Long before he was old enough to attend film school, his short films, made with the help of neighborhood friends in his home town of Long Beach, California, were winning prizes on television.
At the age of nineteen, Coscarelli became the youngest director to have a feature film distributed by a major studio when he sold his independently produced and critically acclaimed drama, Jim the World's Greatest, to Universal Pictures. The film was the first collaboration for Coscarelli with the accomplished actor Lawrence Rory Guy, who went on to achieve legendary horror icon status under the screen name Angus Scrimm. Jim the World's Greatest was an official selection of the USA Film Festival.
Coscarelli is best known for the Phantasm films. Phantasm and its three successful sequels spawned a huge cult of fans around the world and have become staples in the home video and DVD market. The original Phantasm was a worldwide critical and box-office success and won the Special Jury Prize at the Festival du Cinema Fantastique at Avoriaz, France.
Mr. Coscarelli also co-wrote (with Paul Pepperman) and directed The Beastmaster, which was described recently in Entertainment Weekly as "one of the most popular films of all time on cable television." The Beastmaster has spawned two sequels and a television series. He was the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay for his film Bubba Ho-Tep, which he also directed. Based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, Bubba Ho-Tep stars Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis and frequent Coscarelli collaborator Reggie Bannister. In addition to being a critical hit, Bubba Ho-Tep was also a festival favorite, playing in such prestigious international film festivals as the Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, Florida Film Festival, Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Films, and the Hong Kong International Film festival. At HBO's US Comedy Arts Festival, Coscarelli was the recipient of the Best Screenplay Award. At Montreal's FantAsia Festival Bubba Ho-Tep was the recipient of the Best International Film award.
Coscarelli also directed the premiere episode of the American TV series Masters of Horror entitled Incident On and Off a Mountain Road and co-wrote the teleplay with Stephen Romano. In 2008 Coscarelli purchased film rights to the horror novel and internet series John Dies at the End by David Wong. The film was completed in 2011 and will be released in 2013. Coscarelli is currently planning Bubba Nosferatu, as a sequel to his film Bubba Ho-Tep.
Read more about this topic: Don Coscarelli
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