From Horror to... EPICS?

[facsmth]

Peter Jackson, maker of two mainstream movies (Heavenly Creatures & The Frighteners) & several splatter flicks moves onto being directing three Lord of the Rings movies simultaneously. You owe it to yourself to watch his earlier flicks to see how just awful they look.

Sam Raimi was probably better known for this cult action/ horror/ spoof movies (two Evil Deads & one Army of Darkness) and an off-beat comic superhero movie, Dark Man.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Dark Man was an unusual in that he wore masks for a very good reason: his face was horribly scarred in an explosion. And I'm pretty sure it came out before the Spawn comic... at any rate the hero is presumed dead, lives as a homeless person when he isn't impersonating other people, and he must try to rekindle his love with an old girlfriend who doesn't know his grim secrets.

The star of Dark Man, Liam Neeson, moves onto two other big film projects where his character is killed off to further the plot (George Lucas' "Phantom Menace" & Martin Scorses's "Gangs of New York." Raimi himself is lucky enough to be one of the few directors to helm a series of films based on a populair comic book character & remains faithful to his source material. We had gotten the same amount of devotion, again, from "PJ" in that he regularly studied the "novel" LotR as he worked with his screenwriters.

By now everyone just takes these two director's work for granted. They both did a great job. We get to watch their movies again & again on DVD. PJ was nice enough to release both theatrical & Extended Edition cuts of his movie trilogy.

But we also hear the rumors... "hobbits" are gay. Various sources note how the plot of a persecuted few battling against adversity of the many is a gay-friendly theme without necessarilly being "homosexual" (X-Men comics & movies) and also the controversity of Superman Returns being helmed by a gay director. And... well... the young Mark Hamill (despite kissing Carrie Fischer) always... well.... nevermind... But has anyone ever refered to Ian McKellan & Christopher Lee's (another horror actor) battle in FotR as a "lover's spat" (since McKellan is, afterall, gay)?

Anyhow... what other directors of minor projects back-in-the-day have made it big? Many people have seen "Willy Wonka," but how many other Wopler movies have you seen?