Troy: About the filmmakers
WOLFGANG PETERSEN (Director/Producer) was named 2001 ShoWest Director of the Year after his epic sea drama, The Perfect Storm (2000), starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, grossed over $327 million and earned two Academy Award nominations.
Petersen shot to international attention in 1981 as the director of the extraordinary underwater thriller Das Boot. For his work on the film, the Motion Picture Academy recognized Petersen with two Academy Award nominations, Best Director and Best Screenwriter, making him the first Best Director nominee ever to have been so honored for a German-language film. Das Boot earned six Academy Award nominations and became the highest-grossing foreign language film ever released in the U.S. at that time.
Noted for his remarkable string of commercially and artistically successful films, Petersen directed and produced the multiple-Academy Award nominated box office smash Air Force One (1997), starring Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman and Glenn Close. That same year, he supervised the director’s cut of Das Boot which was re-released theatrically to enormous critical and audience acclaim.
In 1995, Petersen directed and produced the Warner Bros. Pictures hit Outbreak, starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Morgan Freeman. His classic suspense thriller In The Line of Fire (1993), starring Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich and Rene Russo, received three Academy Award nominations.
After Das Boot, Petersen wrote and directed the lavish fantasy The Neverending Story (1984) and directed the futuristic Enemy Mine (1985) starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Dennis Quaid. Upon taking up permanent residence in the United States, Petersen wrote and directed the stylish thriller Shattered (1991), starring Tom Berenger, Bob Hoskins and Greta Scacchi.
Petersen began his feature film career as the winner of the German National Film Prize for best new director for One of Us in 1973. He first gained international notice with the controversial 1977 drama The Consequence. The following year he won the award for Best Director at the Paris Film Festival for Black and White Like Day and Night.
Through his company, Radiant Productions, Petersen also produced the feature film Bicentennial Man starring Robin Williams, and executive produced Instinct, starring Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding, Jr., as well as the suspense thriller Red Corner with Richard Gere. Radiant also developed the television series The Agency.
Petersen’s upcoming directing projects include the epic survival story Endurance; Shutter Island by best-selling author Dennis Lehane; and the sci-fi thriller Ender’s Game based on the classic novel.
He is also set to produce Whiteout starring Reese Witherspoon; the action/adventure Cold Shelter with Alexander Witt directing; and the remake of The Poseidon Adventure.
DIANA RATHBUN (Producer) began her film career as a literary agent with International Creative Management, following her early professional life as a teacher in Morocco and the Ivory Coast, then a job in communications at the Quebec Government House in New York.
She joined Warner Bros. Pictures as a production executive in 1991 and rose to the rank of senior vice president before leaving in 1999. Among the projects green lit under her supervision were Maverick, Conspiracy Theory, Fearless, City of Angels and Wolfgang Petersen’s The Perfect Storm, on which she later served as consultant.
Taking time off to travel following her tenure at WB, she returned to the film business as Petersen’s producing partner. Troy is the initial venture under that partnership.
COLIN WILSON (Producer) most recently produced Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Claire Danes and the box office hit Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
Wilson began his film career as an editor, then became an associate producer on Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park in 1993. He served as co-producer on the live-action adaptation of the animated television favorite The Flintstones before moving up to producer on the live-action animation hit Casper.
He revisited The Lost World: Jurassic Park as a producer in 1997 and produced Spielberg’s prestigious Amistad that same year. Wilson’s subsequent credits as a producer include Small Soldiers and The Haunting.
DAVID BENIOFF (Screenwriter) adapted his first screenplay from his own novel, The 25th Hour, which director Spike Lee turned into a critically praised film starring Ed Norton and Brian Cox. His third produced screenplay, Stay, directed by Marc Forster and starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, recently finished shooting.
The native New Yorker worked at a variety of jobs, including nightclub bouncer, high school English teacher and radio deejay, before selling his novel in 2000. Viking will publish his collection of stories, When The Nines Roll Over, in October 2004.
Benioff is currently writing an adaptation titled Right As Rain for director Curtis Hanson, after which he begins scripting For Whom The Bell Tolls.
ROGER PRATT, BSC (Cinematographer) earned an Academy Award nomination for his work on Neil Jordan’s End of the Affair, which also brought the first of his two BAFTA nominations. He earned his second BAFTA nod for Chocolat for which he received the third of his three British Society of Cinematographers nominations. He most recently directed photography on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Pratt grew up in the British Midlands, the son of a minister. He became interested in movies as a child and earned a degree from the London Film School. He began working on television commercials and documentaries, then got his first movie job as assistant cameraman on My Childhood in 1972. He worked as lighting designer and camera operator before serving as cinematographer on The Dollar Bottom in 1981, which won an Oscar for Best Short Subject.
In the mid 1970s, Pratt began a long association with director Terry Gilliam, which led to his serving as cinematographer on The Crimson Permanent Assurance segment of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life in 1983 and director of photography on Gilliam’s Brazil in 1985. Among Pratt’s other credits as cinematographer are The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, Shadowlands, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Mona Lisa, Batman and 102 Dalmatians.
Pratt is a member of the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC).
NIGEL PHELPS (Production Designer) began his career by working with Academy Award winning production designer Anton Furst. He started as an illustrator on Neil Jordan’s Company of Wolves and then served as the assistant art director on Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Phelps followed that by moving up to art director for Mr. Furst on Tim Burton’s Batman.
Shortly thereafter, Phelps moved to Los Angeles and began designing cutting edge music videos and commercials for a variety of influential directors including Mark Romanek, Alex Proyas and Michael Bay. This work garnered Phelps multiple nominations for MTV Video Awards. His first feature credit as a production designer came on the futuristic science fiction film Judge Dredd. Subsequent film credits include Alien Resurrection with acclaimed French filmmaker Jean Pierre Jeunet and The Bone Collector with Phillip Noyce. He renewed his collaboration with Neil Jordan on In Dreams and later designed Michael Bay’s military epic Pearl Harbor for producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
PETER HONESS, A.C.E. (Editor) received an Academy Award nomination for his work on L.A. Confidential, which earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Editing. He most recently edited Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second installment of the Warner Bros. Pictures hit fantasy franchise.
Honess began his motion picture career editing on low budget films and documentaries, earning an ACE nomination for his editing of the documentary Following the Tundra Wolf in 1974. As an assistant editor he worked on many films including The Dirty Dozen, Half A Sixpence and Dogs Of War.
Among Honess’ early credits as an editor were It’s Alive, Plenty, Highlander, Madame Sousatzka, The Russia House, Ricochet, Mr. Baseball, Six Degrees of Separation, The Shadow, Rob Roy and Eye for an Eye. More recently, he edited Domestic Disturbance, The Fast and the Furious, The Kid and The Next Best Thing.
In 2003, JAMES HORNER (Composer) added four films to his illustrious filmography, which already includes more than 130 film and television projects. He collaborated for the seventh time with director Ron Howard on his Western drama The Missing, while beginning a new creative partnership with first-time director Vadim Perelman on the dramatic thriller House of Sand and Fog (for which Horner received his ninth Academy Award nomination). He also scored the inspirational Radio, and the romantic adventure Beyond Borders.
In film music circles, rarely has there been a more meteoric success story than that of James Horner. Having composed the music for dozens of the most memorable and successful films of the past two decades, Horner is among the world’s most prolific and celebrated film composers. He has earned two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for his music from James Cameron’s Titanic (one for Best Original Score and one for the Best Original Song “My Heart Will Go On”), seven additional Academy Award nominations, five additional Golden Globe nominations, and has won six Grammy awards, including Song of the Year in both 1987 (for “Somewhere Out There”) and 1998 (for “My Heart Will Go On”). In April of 1998, Horner’s Titanic soundtrack album on Sony Classical completed an unprecedented run of 16 weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart, setting a new record for the most consecutive weeks at number 1 for a score album. It remains the largest selling instrumental score album in history, having sold nearly 10 million copies in the US and more than 27 million copies worldwide. Sony Classical’s multi-platinum sequel soundtrack album Back to Titanic featured additional music from the film as well as several new compositions by Horner based upon themes from his original score.
Known for his stylistic diversity, his other film credits include Stroke of Genius, House of Sand and Fog, The Missing, Windtalkers, A Beautiful Mind, Iris, Enemy at the Gates, Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Perfect Storm, Freedom Song, Bicentennial Man, Mighty Joe Young, The Mask Of Zorro, Deep Impact, The Devil’s Own, Ransom, Courage Under Fire, To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday, The Spitfire Grill, Braveheart, Apollo 13, Casper, Legends of the Fall, Clear and Present Danger, The Pagemaster, Bopha, The Pelican Brief, The Man Without a Face, Patriot Games, Thunderheart, Sneakers, The Rocketeer, Glory, In Country, Field of Dreams, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Land Before Time, Willow, An American Tail, The Name Of The Rose, Gorky Park, Cocoon and Cocoon: The Return, 48 Hours and Another 48 Hours, and Star Treks II and III.
Born in Los Angeles in 1953, Horner spent his formative years living in London where he attended the prestigious Royal Academy of Music. His initial interest was to become a composer of serious, avant-garde classical music. Returning to his native California, Horner continued his music education at the University of Southern California where he received a Bachelor of Music in Composition. He then transferred to the Masters program at UCLA where he earned his Doctorate in Music Composition and Theory. In 1980, Horner was approached by the American Film Institute and asked to score a short film entitled The Drought. It was then that he discovered his passion for composing music for film.
After scoring a number of films for the AFI, Horner left the academic world and began working for Roger Corman at New World Pictures. It was in this milieu of low-budget horror films (Brainstorm, Battle Beyond the Stars) that Horner developed his craft. It was also where he became acquainted with a number of young directors including Ron Howard, for whom he would later score such films as Willow, Cocoon, and the hit Apollo 13. Also during his time at New World, Horner met a young cameraman named James Cameron, with whom he would later collaborate on the hit sequel Aliens and, of course, Titanic. In the ensuing years, Horner has gone on to collaborate with many of Hollywood’s most noted and successful filmmakers, including Ed Zwick, Joe Johnston, Phil Alden Robinson, Steven Spielberg, William Friedkin, Mel Gibson, Oliver Stone, Philip Noyce, Michael Apted, Lasse Hallstrom, Norman Jewison and Francis Ford Coppola.
Equally comfortable with lush orchestral scoring and contemporary electronic techniques, Horner has likened his approach to composing to that of a painter, where the film serves as the canvas and where musical color is used to describe and support the film’s emotional dynamics. He is also noted for his integration of unusual ethnic James instruments into the traditional orchestral palette in order to achieve exotic colors and textures. An accomplished conductor, Horner prefers to conduct his orchestral film scores directly to picture and without the use of click tracks or other mechanical timing devices. He has also composed several concert works, including a work entitled “Spectral Shimmers” which was performed by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Horner’s most recent concert work is “A Forest Passage,” commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreational Area in Ohio.
BOB RINGWOOD (Costume Designer) received an Academy Award nomination for his work on Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, for which he also earned a BAFTA nomination. He has also earned BAFTA nominations for his designs on the films Excalibur and Batman.
Ringwood won the Academy of Science Fiction Saturn Award for costumes on Excalibur and Dune and was recently nominated for a third Saturn Award for Star Trek: Nemesis.
Ringwood’s other major movie credits as costume designer include Solarbabies, Prick Up Your Ears, Chicago Joe and the Showgirl, Alien 3, Batman Returns, Demolition Man, The Shadow, Batman Forever, A.I. and the 2002 remake of The Time Machine.