John Moore

John Moore was born in Dundalk, Ireland in 1970, a small town situated about 60 miles from the country’s capital Dublin. Moore attended a technical college in Dublin where he studied filmmaking and after completing the school he went on to direct and write a series of short films all produced in his native Ireland. These include Jack’s Bicycle (1990) which has been broadcasted on Irish TV channel RTV on occasion. Moore then was hired to make a series of commercials and ended up making the launch advertisement for the Sega Dreamcast, the ad was so bombastic and visually impressive that Twentieth Century Fox ended up offering him the job on Behind Enemy Lines (2001), a $40 million action film centered around the conflict in Bosnia. The film starred Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson. Whilst a modest box-office success the film fared only average with critics who varied in their opinions, and in later years Moore himself admitted that perhaps his approach had been to lightweight and a conflict of that scope required a more deep and thoughtful motion picture. On the set of Behind Enemy Lines (2001) Moore was nearly killed via a Tank in an action sequence and had his life saved in the last moment by a stuntman who dragged him from harm’s way. Moore’s next film was a remake of The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and shared the same name only dropping the “the” at the titles beginning. Flight of the Phoenix (2004) starred Dennis Quaid and Miranda Otto and told virtually the same story as the original, a group of people stranded in the desert after a plane crash. The picture was a huge box-office flop making just slightly over $21 million worldwide on a considerably larger budget. Critics showed the same unsure reaction to the film as they had on Behind Enemy Lines (2001), lavishing praise on certain aspects but harshly criticizing others. Moore himself was more pleased with the finished article on this occasion but the public’s financial rejection suggests others weren’t. After this Moore was involved with two other films one entitled “The last mission” which collapsed due to script issues and the 2006 smash X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). In the end it was not Moore who directed the third in the X-Men trilogy but Rush Hour 2 (2001) director Brett Ratner. However Moore did manage to get a film into cinemas during Summer 2006 in the end, he remade The Omen (1976) and had it released on the 06/06/06, a gimmick associated with the films satanic plot. The Omen (2006) was a fairly faithful remake and starred Julia Stiles along with Liev Schreiber and David Thewlis. Moore agreed to make the film as he names the 1976 original among his all time favorite movies along with Jaws (1975) and Freaks (1932). The film made a worldwide $120 million from a $25 million budget and thus had to be considered a success in terms of box-office. The critics were once more split, most criticized the picture for following the original too closely but by the same token generally a kind word was spared for Moore’s impressive visuals and the strong cast. This marked the director’s third collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox, a fourth arriving in the form of video-game adaptation Max Payne (2008) in October 2008. Moore currently resides with his son and partner, Fiona Connon in Los Angeles occasionally returning home to Ireland.