Paul King

Paul King (birthname: Paul Thomas King) is a British writer-director of wide-audience movies that are already becoming beloved modern classics. After a period of directing shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which were then adapted to TV on Channel Four (such as the six-part horror parody, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004), King had a lauded period as a BBC director until he debuted as a feature filmmaker with the road movie comedy, Bunny and the Bull (2009), co-starring Edward Hogg, Simon Farnaby, and Richard Ayoade, and released by Optimum Releasing.

King had a six-year gap between his first and second features as director-writer, but the follow-up became an instant hit and widely embraced—Paddington (2014)—based on Michael Bond’s book of Paddington Bear stories, co-starring Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Nicole Kidman, and Ben Whishaw, and grossing worldwide a strong $283 million (over four times costs) for producer-distributor StudioCanal.

This success immediately led to King writing and directing the successful sequel, Paddington 2 (2017), again mixing live-action and animation and reuniting the original cast, while earning a rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating and grossing $227 million globally. Paul King took another six years between features to return with the anticipated musical, Wonka (2023), based on Roald Dahl’s characters but not his book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and starring Timothée Chalamet, with Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Hugh Grant, and Olivia Colman, and made on a $125 million budget by Village Roadshow Pictures and Heyday Films with Warner Bros. as distributor.

Along with having a story and executive producer credits for the sequel, Paddington in Peru (2024), King was director of the comedy-fantasy, Everyday Parenting Tips (date to be announced), starring Ryan Reynolds, as well as his first biopic, starring Tom Holland as Fred Astaire (date to be announced), and co-written by Lee Hall and Micah Schraft.