Filmmaker Louis Leterrier, whose latest feature was Clash of the Titans starring Sam Worthington and Liam Neeson, has joined Saville Productions for exclusive North American representation in commercials.
Leterrier’s filmography as a director also includes The Incredible Hulk, Transporter 2 and martial arts film Unleashed, which starred Jet Li and Morgan Freeman. Leterrier also shares a directorial credit with Cory Yuen on the movie The Transporter.
In the spotmaking arena, Leterrier has experience as reflected in spots he helmed for BNP and the Asian Games.
Born in Paris, Leterrier was guided artistically from an early age by his mother, the Academy Award-nominated costume designer Catherine Leterrier. At the age of 18, after some training in advertising and publicity, he left France to study cinema at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Leterrier’s first break came when he was chosen to assist Jean-Pierre Jeunet on the set of Alien: Resurrection. On returning to France, he secured a position working with Luc Besson on commercial projects as well as on the film Joan of Arc.
In 2002 Leterrier directed The Transporter, a Luc Besson produced action movie starring Jason Statham–although the U.S. release lists him as artistic director and Yuen as director, the opening credits of the European release grant him directorial credit and list Yuen as action director. The success of The Transporter persuaded Besson to entrust him to direct Unleashed, and later Transporter 2.
Two years later Leterrier directed his first big-budget American film, The Incredible Hulk. The film gained favorable reviews, earned $134 million in the U.S. boxoffice and was nominated for Best Superhero Film at the 2008 National Movie Awards and for Best Science Fiction Film at the Saturn Awards.
Filmmaker Richard Curtis Discusses Charity, The Oscars and The State of Rom-Coms
Richard Curtis may be widely known for his contributions to romantic comedies with "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill" and "Love, Actually." But writing and directing some of modern cinema's most quotable scenes only occupy a portion of his professional life.
Since a trip to Ethiopia in 1985 during the famine, Curtis has also devoted much of his time and energy to charitable causes: Co-founding Comic Relief, producing Red Nose Day for years and helping create organizations like Make Poverty History and more. Decades of work has helped raise more than $2 billion and supported over 170 million people.
On Sunday he's being celebrated for those efforts by the film academy with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Getting an Oscar is especially exciting for Curtis who remembers as a teen having to wait until the night after to watch the broadcast in the U.K.
"I've been excited by their existence for 50 years," he said. "This is particularly a special award, but it's not work for which one expects praise or needs praise. So it's very lovely."
Curtis spoke about his second career, the state of romantic comedies and Hugh Grant's second act. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: When you started Comic Relief, did you imagine it would continue this long?
CURTIS: No, it's been one of those cascading things. I have always found that if you create a sort of venue for generosity, the public reaction is so often astonishing. When did this first TV show, we thought we'd make £5 million, but we made £15 million. The next year we made £27 million. I would have had to be a monster not to continue with it. I thought it was going to last a year. Instead, it's lasted a... Read More