Certain directors have made themselves right at home in the genre of
science fiction -- George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron are three directors who come to mind for whom their science fiction films are their
cultural calling cards. But scifi flicks aren't only made by
specialists -- some of the great films, in fact, are by directors who found their greatest fame outside the genre. Now, not every great director is a great fit for science fiction -- see
Robert Altman's Quintet or Stanley Donen's Saturn 3 for evidence of
that -- but for the curious, here's a sampling of the ones who were.
Franklin J. Schaffner
Schaffner won his directing Oscar for Patton and made his technical bones as an innovative television director who brought movie techniques to the small screen in shows like Studio 90. But science fiction fans know him as the director of Planet of the Apes, a directing gig he got on the recommendation of star Charlton Heston, who had worked with him on the historical drama The War Lord. Apes isn't Schaffner's only sci-fi hit; he also went on to helm the creepy Nazi clone classic The Boys From Brazil, with Gregory Peck.
Franklin J. Schaffner
Schaffner won his directing Oscar for Patton and made his technical bones as an innovative television director who brought movie techniques to the small screen in shows like Studio 90. But science fiction fans know him as the director of Planet of the Apes, a directing gig he got on the recommendation of star Charlton Heston, who had worked with him on the historical drama The War Lord. Apes isn't Schaffner's only sci-fi hit; he also went on to helm the creepy Nazi clone classic The Boys From Brazil, with Gregory Peck.
Don
Siegel
Siegel's enduring cultural legacy is as the director of tough, gritty thrillers, and as the man who introduced the world to Clint Eastwood's cop-on-the-edge in Dirty Harry. But that same propulsive, no-nonsense sensibility got an early run-through in 1956 with one of the science fiction classics of that Cold War decade, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, whose story has since been remade (officially) twice. To give you a sense of what a different time it was then, the total special effects budget for Siegel's film was $15,000.
Robert Wise
Wise won his four Oscars on two classic musicals: West Side Story and The Sound of Music, the latter so culturally successful that when you adjust for inflation, it's the third highest-grossing film at the domestic box office (behind Gone With the Wind and Star Wars). Wise was also a noted film editor, Oscar-nominated for his work on Citizen Kane. In science fiction, he directed three notable films, the best of which was the first, 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still. He also directed The Andromeda Strain, the first film based on a Michael Crichton novel, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, whose sloggy, disjointed nature was not entirely Wise's fault, and which Wise would later revise in a home video director's cut.
Woody Allen
Everyone knows what kind of movies Allen makes: He makes "Woody Allen movies," i.e., small movies driven by mostly neurotic characters, often set in New York but sometimes not, mostly comedies but sometimes not. But Allen has also made one of the relatively few successful science fiction comedies, and also one of the earliest: 1973's sci-fi spoof Sleeper, in which Allen falls asleep in the 1970s and wakes up 200 years later, and, of course, leads a revolution. The complicated (for Allen) nature of the shoot made this one of the few times Allen went over budget on a film, but since the budget was $2 million, and the film grossed about ten times that in theaters, he got away with it.
Jean-Luc Godard
One of the leading lights of the French New Wave of cinema playfully took a whack at science fiction with his 1965 film Alphaville, in which the future looked just like the run-down parts of 60s Paris, space travel was performed by a standard Ford Galaxie, and the computer that ran the world was some lights viewed through a fan. One fears to imagine the $200 million Hollywood remake. (Directed by Michael Bay, no doubt.)
John Sayles
As a director and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, Sayles is best known for his character-driven stories and ensemble casts in contemporary settings. His 1984 film The Brother From Another Planet is a perfect example of that sort of film -- it just happens that the main character, played by Joe Morton, is also a silent, fugitive alien hiding out in Harlem. It should be noted that Sayles had some experience with science fiction before Brother; one of his earliest-filmed screenplays was the 1980 Roger Corman Star Wars rip-off Battle Beyond the Stars -- which features, as it happens, a surprisingly amusing script.
Siegel's enduring cultural legacy is as the director of tough, gritty thrillers, and as the man who introduced the world to Clint Eastwood's cop-on-the-edge in Dirty Harry. But that same propulsive, no-nonsense sensibility got an early run-through in 1956 with one of the science fiction classics of that Cold War decade, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, whose story has since been remade (officially) twice. To give you a sense of what a different time it was then, the total special effects budget for Siegel's film was $15,000.
Robert Wise
Wise won his four Oscars on two classic musicals: West Side Story and The Sound of Music, the latter so culturally successful that when you adjust for inflation, it's the third highest-grossing film at the domestic box office (behind Gone With the Wind and Star Wars). Wise was also a noted film editor, Oscar-nominated for his work on Citizen Kane. In science fiction, he directed three notable films, the best of which was the first, 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still. He also directed The Andromeda Strain, the first film based on a Michael Crichton novel, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, whose sloggy, disjointed nature was not entirely Wise's fault, and which Wise would later revise in a home video director's cut.
Woody Allen
Everyone knows what kind of movies Allen makes: He makes "Woody Allen movies," i.e., small movies driven by mostly neurotic characters, often set in New York but sometimes not, mostly comedies but sometimes not. But Allen has also made one of the relatively few successful science fiction comedies, and also one of the earliest: 1973's sci-fi spoof Sleeper, in which Allen falls asleep in the 1970s and wakes up 200 years later, and, of course, leads a revolution. The complicated (for Allen) nature of the shoot made this one of the few times Allen went over budget on a film, but since the budget was $2 million, and the film grossed about ten times that in theaters, he got away with it.
Jean-Luc Godard
One of the leading lights of the French New Wave of cinema playfully took a whack at science fiction with his 1965 film Alphaville, in which the future looked just like the run-down parts of 60s Paris, space travel was performed by a standard Ford Galaxie, and the computer that ran the world was some lights viewed through a fan. One fears to imagine the $200 million Hollywood remake. (Directed by Michael Bay, no doubt.)
John Sayles
As a director and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, Sayles is best known for his character-driven stories and ensemble casts in contemporary settings. His 1984 film The Brother From Another Planet is a perfect example of that sort of film -- it just happens that the main character, played by Joe Morton, is also a silent, fugitive alien hiding out in Harlem. It should be noted that Sayles had some experience with science fiction before Brother; one of his earliest-filmed screenplays was the 1980 Roger Corman Star Wars rip-off Battle Beyond the Stars -- which features, as it happens, a surprisingly amusing script.
