Alexandre Aja

Alexandre Aja (birthname: Alexandre Jouan-Arcady) is a French-born director/writer/producer identified with both the New Extremity movement (including the movies of Gaspar Noe, Claire Denis, Carlos Reygadas, Ulrich Seidl, Lars von Trier, Leos Carax, Catherine Breillat, Bruno Dumont, and Philippe Grandrieux) and the so-called “Splat Pack” of makers of extremely violent horror movies (including Neil Marshall, Eli Roth, Leigh Whannell, Rob Zombie, and Darren Lynn Bousman). Aja launched his feature filmmaking career with the French post-apocalyptic romance Furia (1999), co-starring Marion Cotillard and Stanislas Merhar, and based on Julio Cortázar’s short story, “Graffiti.”

Aja co-wrote the Russian mafia crime drama Entre chiens et loups/Break of Dawn (2002) with his filmmaker father Alexandre Arcady and Aja’s regular co-writer Gregory Levasseur, and co-starring Richard Berry, Said Taghmaoui, Joaquim de Almeida, and Anouk Grinberg. Aja wrote (with Lavasseur) and directed the splatterfest, High Tension (2003), winning him best director and best fantasy film at the Sitges Film Festival but which was also accused by some of lifting or copying plot points from Dean Koontz’s 1995 novel, Intensity, though Koontz said he wouldn’t pursue legal action against the filmmakers since he wanted no association with a film he found “so puerile, so disgusting and so intellectually bankrupt.”

Alexandre Aja was asked by Wes Craven to remake his landmark 1977 slasher movie, The Hills Have Eyes, which he did as co-writer (with Gregory Levasseur) and director in 2006, featuring Aaron Stanford, Kathleen Quinlan, Vinessa Shaw, Emilie de Ravin, and Ted Levine, and grossing a strong $70 million for Fox Searchlight, and then Aja co-wrote and co-produced (again with Levasseur) the psychological horror movie, P2 (2007), starring Rachel Nichols and Wes Bentley under Franck Khalfoun’s direction, and released by Summit Entertainment.

Aja directed and co-wrote (with Gregory Levasseur) the supernatural horror movie, Mirrors (2008), his significantly revised version of the Korean horror film, Into the Mirror (2003), starring Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, and Amy Smart, earning a solid $78 million return for Regency/20^th Century Fox. Aja directed and produced another remake, Piranha 3D (2010), a re-do of the John Sayles thriller, Piranha (1978), with Elisabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Jerry O’Connell, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, and Richard Dreyfuss, grossing a terrific $83 million (against $24 million costs) for Dimension Films/The Weinstein Company.

Alexandre Aja continued on his string of genre remakes as co-writer (with Gregory Levasseur) and producer on the French-U.S. redo of the 1980 horror cult hit, Maniac (2012), starring Elijah Wood and Nora Arnezeder, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and released by IFC Midnight and Warner Bros. Pictures France. Aja directed and produced his first fantasy movie, Horns (2013), starring Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, and Max Minghella and based on Joe Hill’s 2010 novel, and released by Dimension Films/RADiUS-TWC after a Toronto Film Festival premiere.

Aja served as producer only on The Pyramid (2014), directed by Aja’s frequent screenwriter collaborator Gregory Levasseur and co-starring Ashley Hinshaw, Denis O’Hare and James Buckley, and Aja was also producer only on the supernatural horror movie, The Other Side of the Door (2016), with Sarah Wayne Calies and Jeremy Sisto under Johannes Roberts’ direction, earning a solid $14.3 million return for 20^th Century Fox. Aja then directed and produced the Canada/US/UK psychological thriller, The 9^th Life of Louis Drax (2016), adapted from Liz Jensen’s novel by Max Minghella (following his late filmmaker father Anthony Minghella’s intention to make it) and co-starring Jamie Dornan, Sarah Gadon, Aaron Paul,  Molly Parker, Oliver Platt and Barbara Hershey, but delivering poor returns for distributor Lionsgate.

Alexandre Aja directed and produced his most successful movie to date with the Sam Raimi-backed horror movie, Crawl (2019), with Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper, delivering a strong $91 million return on a $15 million budget for Paramount Pictures. Aja returned to France as director/producer of the Gallic sci-fi thriller Oxygen (2021), starring Melanie Laurent, Mathieu Almaric, and Malik Zidi, and released by Netflix.

Aja was a producer on the Franck Khalfoun crime thriller remake, Night of the Hunted (2023), starring Camille Rowe and released by Shudder. Aja returned to his usual director/producer role with the survival horror movie Never Let Go (2024), starring Halle Berry and released by Lionsgate after premiering at Fantastic Fest.