Adam Wingard
Adam Wingard (born December 3, 1982 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee) is a filmmaker, best known for horror films such as You're Next (2011), The Guest (2014), and Blair Witch (2016).
Wingard grew up in a small town in west Alabama and graduated from Marion Academy. He earned a degree at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida in 2002 and moved to Birmingham where he focused on making independent films. He participated in several Sidewalk competitions as part of "Team Bloodjet".
After his first independent feature, Home Sick, he made Pop Skull in Birmingham on a $2,000 budget. It showed at the International Rome Film Festival and the American Film Institute's Film Festival in 2007. That spring, he appeared on the FOX TV reality show "On The Lot," but his concept of a violent horror film about a monstrous dog was passed over.
Wingard made several short films before establishing a working relationship with screenwriter Simon Barrett. They completed 2010's A Horrible Way to Die, which was picked up by Starz/Anchor Bay for distribution. His 2011 feature, You're Next, was likewise distributed by Lionsgate. During the editing of that film, Wingard relocated to Los Angeles, but continued to shoot his films in Alabama and elsewhere.
During the next year, Wingard contributed short "segments" to various horror anthology films. His next feature film project, The Guest, completed in 2014, edged into the action/thriller genre. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was distributed to theaters by Time Warner's Picturehouse subsidiary. Acclaim for that film led Lionsgate to pick Wingard as the director for Blair Witch, a sequel to the 1999 hit film The Blair Witch Project.
Following Blair Witch, Wingard signed on to direct a live-action version of the manga series Death Note.
Filmography
- Home Sick, 2007
- Pop Skull, 2007
- A Horrible Way to Die, 2010
- Autoerotic, 2011
- What Fun We Were Having: 4 Stories About Date Rape, 2011
- You're Next, 2011
- The Guest, 2014
- Outcast, 2016
- Blair Witch, 2016
- Death Note, 2017
- Godzilla vs. Kong, 2021
- Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, 2024
References
- Fitzpatrick, Kyle (October 29, 2012) "The New Horror Maker, Part Two: An Interview With Adam Wingard." Los Angeles, I'm Yours.
- "Adam Wingard" (September 25, 2016) Wikipedia - accessed September 28, 2016
- Flanagan, Ben (February 11, 2021) "Alabama’s Adam Wingard to direct ‘Face/Off’ reboot." The Birmingham News
- Flanagan, Ben (March 25, 2021) "‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ director Adam Wingard on movie monsters and his Alabama roots." The Birmingham News
- Flanagan, Ben (March 29, 2024) "‘Godzilla x Kong’ director from Alabama helped save movies, now roaring back with ‘New Empire’." AL.com
External links
- Adam Wingard at the Internet Movie Database