Gore Verbinski, predestined to make horror movies?

With a name like his, Gore Verbinski seemed predestined to be interested in horror movies. His first feature of its kind, the scary The Ring , has enjoyed international success but we had to wait 15 years for him to come again.

A Cure for Life , released in the US Friday, is located halfway between Shutter Island (2010) Martin Scorsese and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Milos Forman.

“I always develop four or five things. Then I put them on hold and I say to myself: “I have to tell this story now”. I do not really have a career plan, “Verbinski told AFP to justify the 15-year break.

His 2002 film remake of a classic Japanese Ringu (1998), impressed people with its history of cursed videotape a week later killing anyone having viewed, and revealed to the world.

It is one of the most profitable horror films of its kind, generating more than five times its budget of $ 48 million. And spawned a series of American remakes of Japanese supernatural classics as The Grudge and Dark Water .

But the American director did not persevere, leaving it to others to direct two sequels – badly received – and turned to varying degrees of success to other genres. Drama, western, animated film or adventures with three strands of Pirates of the Caribbean .

2017 marks its return in horror.

A Cure for Life , filmed filmed almost entirely in Germany, tells the story of an ambitious stock broker played by Dane DeHaan ( The Amazing Spider-Man: the fate of a hero ) who is sent by his firm in An isolated thermal establishment in the Alps where patients receive a so-called miraculous treatment.

But they actually seem to be getting sicker.

For the shooting of seven months, Gore Verbinski transformed a abandoned military hospital near Berlin into a gothic spa.

Director of the most lucrative

This last creation can be seen as a metaphor of the constant – and often unassuaged – quest for humanity for perfection.

“I think we live in an increasingly irrational world. We know the story. We are heading straight into the wall and we can not fork and it is horror, nightmare, “said the 52-year-old director, believing that society lived in denial of his ill-being.

“Why are we tempted by the pharmaceutical industry? Why are we tempted by algae wraps and cabbage kale milkshakes? There must be something in our hearts that knows that we are going wrong, “he added.

With a combined global revenue of $ 3.7 billion, this native of the state of Tennessee is among the ten most lucrative directors of all time.

His last film, released in France on February 15, is the tenth – and only the fifth without the actor Johnny Depp, Heroes Pirates of the Caribbean .

His CV is rather eclectic. Punk guitarist in his teens in Los Angeles, he played in several rock bands and directed music videos before embarking on film, with unloved comedies Mouse (1997) and The Mexican (2001).

After two successful The Ring and the first Pirates of the Caribbean (2003), he chained The Weather Man (2005) with Nicolas Cage then two “Pirates” whose bad reviews did not prevent good recipes in theaters.

His animated film Rango (2011), true business success earned him an Oscar and the opportunity to engage in a conceptual Western, Lone Ranger (2013). But this big budget film (production of $ 225 million, marketing $ 150 million), with Johnny Depp in the title role, made a flop ($ 260 million).