Born: March 16, 1964, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
Early days. His father, Vic Verbinski, worked as a nuclear physicist at the Oak Ridge Laboratory. His mother’s name: Larette. In 1967 the Verbinski family moved to Southern California, where young Gregor grew up in the town of La Jolla. Gregor was the fourth of five children(Claire, Loraine, Diane, Gregor and Steven). He went to Torrey Pines Elementary, Muirlands Junior High, and La Jolla High before attending the prestigious UCLA Film School. The biggest influence on him had Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. His first band Thelonius included drummer Danny Heifetz, he also played in the local all-star band The Sylon Boys Choir. Verbinski started his career directing music videos for bands like Bad Religion and Monster Magnet working at Palomar Pictures. This was not surprising since he also played music for two obscure punk bands called The Little Kings, produced by famed underground tattoo artist Marc "Rude" Hoffman, and the Daredevils (band), which included then-departed member of Bad Religion Brett Gurewitz. Verbinski moved from music videos to commercials, where he worked for many brand names including Nike, Coca-Cola, Canon, Skittles and United Airlines. One of his most famous commercials was for Budweiser (1993), featuring frogs who croak the brand name. Verbinski graduated with BFA in Film from UCLA in 1987.
Film career. After completing a short film, The Ritual (which he both wrote and directed), Verbinski made his feature film directing debut with his comedy flick, Mouse Hunt (1997). The film was a hit globally and he soon followed up the success with the action/comedy The Mexican, starring Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. The film received mixed reviews, and performed modestly at the box-office. Verbinski followed it up with the Japanese horror film remake The Ring (2002), which struck gold globally, grossing well over $230 million worldwide. Verbinski also had a directorial hand in The Time Machine that year, temporarily taking over from the exhausted Simon Wells. Verbinski directed some of the underground Morlock sequences and is given a Thanks to credit in the film. He then directed the very successful Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) which earned over $650 million at the international box office. This film brought five Oscar nominations. His next film was The Weather Man starring Nicolas Cage. The film received mixed to positive reviews. Two sequels of Pirates were shown: in 2006 the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and in 2007 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The former then became his biggest success so far, making the industry record for highest opening weekend of all time ($135,600,000) and becoming the third film ever to gross over $1 billion at worldwide. The sequel reached $200,000,000 in eight days tying the industry record. Gore Verbinski does not like publicity. He has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife and his two sons. He is currently residing with his family in Los Angeles, California.
Awards, prizes. For his efforts in commercials, Verbinski won four Clio Awards and one Cannes advertising Silver Lion. In 2003 he won Hollywood Movie of the Year Award; in 2004 he was nominated for Amanda Award (Norway) and for Saturn Award.
Main source:
This article uses, among others, material from the Wikipedia article "Gore Verbinski" licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. :
Wikipedia
Supplemented with information included in:
IMDB
TVGuide
YAHOO! Mocies
Return to home page:
Prominent Poles
