Paul Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven (born July 18, 1938) is a Dutch film director, screenwriter, and film producer who has made movies in both the Netherlands and the United States. Explicitly violent and/or sexual content and social satire are trademarks of both his drama and science fiction films. He is best known for directing the American feature films RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Starship Troopers (1997), and Hollow Man (2000).

Turkish Delight (1973) received the award for Best Dutch Film of the Century at the Netherlands Film Festival. His films altogether received a total of 9 Academy Award nominations, mainly for editing and effects. Both RoboCop and Total Recall won an Academy Special Achievement Award. In contrast, his film Showgirls (1995) was poorly received and won 7 Golden Raspberry Awards, but has become a cult film over time.

Trade Mark

Famous for his extremely violent, yet intelligent, science fiction films (RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Starship Troopers (1997) and Hollow Man (2000)).

Frequently works with screenwriter Gerard Soeteman (on his Dutch films), photographer Jost Vacano, and Rutger Hauer (Turks fruit (1973), Keetje Tippel (1975), Soldier of Orange (1977), Spetters (1980) and Flesh+Blood (1985)).

A lot of his films include media coverage of some kind, ranging from real archive footage (Soldier of Orange (1977) ) to fictional news (RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Starship Troopers (1997)) and sportscasts (Spetters (1980)).

Heavy use of Christian symbolism (Turks fruit (1973),Spetters (1980), The Fourth Man (1983), Flesh+Blood (1985), RoboCop (1987), Basic Instinct (1992) )

Sexually-charged subject matter (Turks fruit (1973), Basic Instinct (1992), Showgirls (1995) and Black Book (2006)).

His films usually have the two main antagonists hostile to each other (Dick Jones and Clarence Boddicker in RoboCop (1987), Cohaagen and Richter in_Total Recall (1990)_, and Catherine Trammel and Beth Garner, the two main suspects in Basic Instinct (1992), who were possibly framing each other)

Trivia

Was a member of the Leiden students body “Minerva”, which played a central role in his famous Soldier of Orange (1977) (“Soldier of Orange” / “Survival Run”), after Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema’s book), produced by Rob Houwer.

Became the first nominee ever to actually show up at the Razzie Awards, when he personally accepted his Worst Director “award” for Showgirls (1995). He also accepted the Worst Picture award for that film.

Of all his films, claimed that Starship Troopers (1997) was the only one he would be interested in revisiting for a true sequel (the 2004 Phil Tippett directed Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004) (V) did not involve him) but at one point he wanted to do Minority Report (2002) (directed by Steven Spielberg) as a follow-up to his Total Recall (1990).

Says he declined the offer to direct three back-to-back sequels to The Fast and the Furious (2001) and 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003).

Was set to direct a (then record) $150-million epic called “Crusade” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1995 for Carolco. Being an independent company, Carolco couldn’t take two risks at the same time and preferred Renny Harlin’s Cutthroat Island (1995), which made Verhoeven decide to do Showgirls (1995) first. Harlin’s swashbuckler flopped and bankrupted Carolco, so “Crusade” never got made. Given the current position of Schwarzenegger as governor of California (and who still owns the rights to the screenplay) and the recent Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven (2005), it is unlikely “Crusade” will ever be made, although Verhoeven is still often quoted as saying he’d be interested.

Drinks Cola light

Likes to relax on music from the German hard rock band Rammstein.

His only Hollywood films that have not yet had a sequel are Flesh+Blood (1985) and Showgirls (1995). All his other Hollywood epics (RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Starship Troopers (1997) and Hollow Man (2000)) have had one or more sequels made. He did not direct any of them.

2007: Member of the jury at the 64th Venice Film Festival.

Considers John Landis his only friend in Hollywood.

Filed under: Birthdays

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