Gore Verbinski
Birthday:
16 March 1964, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
Birth Name:
Gregor Verbinski
Height:
185 cm
Gore Verbinski, one of American cinema's most inventive directors who was a punk-rock guitarist as a teenager and had to sell his guitar to buy his first camera, is now the director of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) which made the industry record for highest opening weekend of all time ($135,600,000) and grossed over $1...
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Gore Verbinski, one of American cinema's most inventive directors who was a punk-rock guitarist as a teenager and had to sell his guitar to buy his first camera, is now the director of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) which made the industry record for highest opening weekend of all time ($135,600,000) and grossed over $1 billion dollars worldwide.He was born Gregor Verbinski on March 16, 1964 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to Laurette Ann (McGovern) and Victor Vincent Verbinski, a nuclear physicist who worked at the Oak Ridge Lab. His paternal grandparents were Polish. In 1967, the family moved to California, and young Gregor grew up near San Diego. His biggest influences as a kid were Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Black Sabbath's Master of Reality. He started his professional career as a guitarist for punk-rock bands, such as The Daredevils and The Little Kings, and also made his first films together with friends. After having developed a passion for filmmaking, he sold his guitar to buy a Super-8mm camera. Then Verbinski attended the prestigious UCLA Film School, from which he graduated in 1987 with his BFA in Film. His first professional directing jobs were music videos for alternative bands, such as L7, Bad Religion, and Monster Magnet. Then he moved to advertising and directed commercials for Nike, Canon, Skittles, United airlines and Coca-Cola. In 1993 he created the renowned Budweiser advertising campaign featuring croaking frogs, for which he was awarded the advertising Silver Lion at Cannes and also received four Clio Awards.Verbinski made his feature directorial debut with Mousehunt (1997), a remarkably visual cartoonish family comedy. His next effort, The Mexican (2001), came to a modest result. However, Verbinski bounced back with a hit thriller The Ring (2002), grossing over $230 million dollars worldwide. His biggest directorial success came with the Disney theme park ride based Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), with a brilliant acting ensemble, grossing over $650 million dollars, and bringing five Oscar nominations and many other awards and nominations. Disney ordered two more films which Verbinski shot one after another on location in the Carribean islands, for which he had to endure both tetanus and typhoid immunization shots. After having survived several hurricanes, dealing with sick and injured actors, and troubleshooting after numerous technical difficulties of the epic-scale project, Verbinski delivered. He employed the same stellar cast in the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and the third installment of the 'Pirates' franchise Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).Gore Verbinski does not like publicity. He has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife and his two sons. He resides with his family in Los Angeles, California. Show less «
I think when you remake a movie you try not to mess it up. I think the original movie worked really well in certain places and there's part ...Show more »
I think when you remake a movie you try not to mess it up. I think the original movie worked really well in certain places and there's part of it that's different. We're not dealing with the ESP aspect to the original movie or the volcano. Choices were made in this case to emphasize the more viral aspects of the tape. I think it's very important for me to try not to take away from what worked well in the original movie. ... There's something wonderful about an outside perspective on the horror genre, which has a real history in American cinema. And I think there was a wonderful minimalism to the original movie that I felt was very important to keep. -- on remaking "Ringu" with "The Ring" Show less «
I just tried to keep what's great in the original movie and improve it where I could. -- on remaking "Ringu" with "The Ring"
I just tried to keep what's great in the original movie and improve it where I could. -- on remaking "Ringu" with "The Ring"
They just sent me the tape - a really bad-quality tape, which was horrifying. I don't know if you've seen the original movie, but I loved it...Show more »
They just sent me the tape - a really bad-quality tape, which was horrifying. I don't know if you've seen the original movie, but I loved it. And that tape came with the offer. -- on how "The Ring" came to him Show less «
There were discussions very early on, because I think there's always a temptation for marquee value when you're making a movie, and movies c...Show more »
There were discussions very early on, because I think there's always a temptation for marquee value when you're making a movie, and movies cost money. But the star of this movie is the concept of this movie. ... I think Naomi is a great choice, because there isn't a lot of audience expectation for the plot. In movies in general, but horror movies in particular, you suffer if you're able to watch them from a more comfortable place. I think there's comfort in somebody you recognize and somebody you can distill and categorize into a character. And I think that that process of not immediately liking a character in a film, but slowly coming to terms with that character throughout the story, creates a proximity for the audience. If you achieve that, then you're able to access a different part of the brain. So horror movies are stories and psychological experiments at the same time. -- on casting Naomi Watts in "The Ring" Show less «
I think there's a lot of trying to keep what did work well, and I think as a director there's two answers to that question. One is, as a dir...Show more »
I think there's a lot of trying to keep what did work well, and I think as a director there's two answers to that question. One is, as a director, I wish I could make a movie once and then look at it and make it again. It's really nice to have Hideo Nakata's template. We talked about the movie. When I saw it, there were particular things I really enjoyed about it and things that I wanted to change. I think every director wants to change a movie after they've finished it. In terms of the popularity of the movie, I think it's inevitable to get persecuted for remaking a film that people love. I think there's pride of ownership. I felt that Wages of Fear is a great movie and I despised the remake, so I know what that's like. I kind of expect that, but we still had a great time making the movie, and it's a great story. -- on the challenges of making "The Ring" Show less «
Watching these images, how do they affect you? That was important to me. The tape is something that is promised throughout the movie, so I f...Show more »
Watching these images, how do they affect you? That was important to me. The tape is something that is promised throughout the movie, so I felt it was important that there was enough there that resonated. And yet, in our movie, they have to also serve as clues. So we had the burden of just creating something that felt abstract but then also had to work in a concrete fashion and also had to be justifiable from the story about the child.The tape had to sort of function on three levels. It had to be disturbing on its own, and it had to provide a series of clues, and then it had to also have some resonance to the author ... in the movie. I just started with images that I found horrific, and then we built the tape long and kept reducing and reducing and tried to avoid the temptation to make it narrative. It's amazing how when images fall together how quickly they start to tell a story even when you're trying not to. -- on the videotape in "The Ring" Show less «
We didn't want to play to the sort of noir aspects of the genre. The language of horror is so steeped in clichés because it's just been rei...Show more »
We didn't want to play to the sort of noir aspects of the genre. The language of horror is so steeped in clichés because it's just been reinvented so many times it's hard to set a shot and not feel like it's a shot that's in someone else's movie when you're making a horror film. So you kind of have to celebrate that but at the same time try to reinvent it where you can.[Cinematographer Bojan Bazelli] and I discussed the removal of shadows to try to keep the characters feeling like they're floating a little bit, in space. I find films like The Tenant, where there's a kind of nauseousness you get in the process of the movie, and a lot of that comes from the composition. In this case, we really emphasized lighting and the oppressive nature of the softer light, overcast skies and rain. It's not a movie that evolves into the light, it's a movie that ends where it begins. -- on trying to be original without ignoring genre conventions with "The Ring" Show less «
That opening is right out of the original movie, and it's kind of a problem and a solution, I think. When I first watched the movie, I thoug...Show more »
That opening is right out of the original movie, and it's kind of a problem and a solution, I think. When I first watched the movie, I thought, oh, boy. This movie really takes a tonal shift from straight-up teenage horror movie to kind of a more serious movie about a journalist. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that's what's wonderful about the perspective in the original. It kind of sets up the promise and almost comments on the genre right off the bat, and it gets rid of all the exposition in that genre, and then we're able to move on. So I grew from being nervous about it to actually trying celebrating it and enjoy it. -- on the opening scene of "The Ring" Show less «
I think that horror movies work best when they deal with some kind of contemporary issue. The thing I responded to with this movie was [the]...Show more »
I think that horror movies work best when they deal with some kind of contemporary issue. The thing I responded to with this movie was [the] actual moral ambiguity of the film, which is this kind of transferable nature of hatred. That you can hurt me and then I can find it justifiable to hurt somebody else, that I can transfer that. And that seems to be a very contemporary issue. And the idea that you can play a tape and die and be like, "I didn't do anything, why is it me? And there's a kind of powerless nature to that that I think is contemporary terror. And I think that that is something that's universal. -- on why the horror genre remains popular Show less «
[on The Ring (2002)] We set the film in Seattle and we focused on creating this dark, sombre mood, a kind of coldness. And I felt I wanted t...Show more »
[on The Ring (2002)] We set the film in Seattle and we focused on creating this dark, sombre mood, a kind of coldness. And I felt I wanted to go with this kind of dream logic and focus on just a few main characters. So, in a way, it's quite clinical. Show less «
I like horror movies and in fact I like them even more now after making one. I just think they're much more liberating because you don't rea...Show more »
I like horror movies and in fact I like them even more now after making one. I just think they're much more liberating because you don't really have to apply a very strict logic. You can experiment a lot more with sound and image. -- on making a horror film Show less «
Naomi's great. She's completely dedicated to her performance and not to her image. That process allows her to become Rachel in this movie an...Show more »
Naomi's great. She's completely dedicated to her performance and not to her image. That process allows her to become Rachel in this movie and go to some darker areas that I think a lot of actors wouldn't feel comfortable doing. -- on Naomi Watts and her performance in "The Ring" Show less «
I think "The Weather Man" is one of my favorite experiences just because when you work on a film that costs a lot less money you get to say,...Show more »
I think "The Weather Man" is one of my favorite experiences just because when you work on a film that costs a lot less money you get to say, 'Hey, this movie isn't for you, and it's not for you either. And it's okay that you don't like it.' Because you don't spend $100 million and you don't need everybody to like your movie. And I think that's incredibly liberating. People talk about four quadrant movies all the time but those used to be accidents, like, 'Wow 12-year-olds are going and 26-year-olds are going!' Now it's an algorithm. Show less «
Sergeant Turley