Rob Marshall

Rob Marshall (birthname: Robert Doyle Marshall Jr.) is Hollywood’s leading director of movie musicals since his feature directorial debut with Chicago (2002). Marshall’s career began as a dancer, first with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and then on Broadway, until his dancing career ended with a herniated disc injury suffered while in the Broadway production of Cats.

Marshall transitioned into a highly successful run as a choreographer and director for theater and television, earning five Tony nominations during the 1990s for choreography and musical direction for such shows as Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), Damn Yankees (1994), She Loves Me (1994), and Cabaret (1998).

In a remarkable jump into moviemaking, Rob Marshall’s feature debut with Chicago landed the movie 13 Oscar nominations and six wins, including best picture and supporting actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones) as well as nominations for Marshall for directing, best actress (Renée Zellweger), supporting actor (John C. Reilly), supporting actress (Queen Latifah), and screenplay (Bill Condon).

Marshall’s second feature also received Oscar glory (six nominations, three wins)—a controversial adaptation of Arthur Golden’s 1997 novel, Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), in which all of the lead Japanese female characters were cast with non-Japanese actors (Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li), but also being banned from Mainland Chinese theatrical distribution.

As director-producer-choreographer, Marshall cast Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead role of the film adaptation of the Maury Yeston/Arthur Kopit musical, Nine (2009), itself based on Federico Fellini’s 1963 film, 8½, and co-starring Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Fergie, and Kate Hudson, and scoring four Oscar nominations including best supporting actress (Cruz).

Marshall’s Oscar run then ended with his biggest-grossing movie as director–Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), the fourth entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise starring Johnny Depp, Cruz, Ian McShane, and Geoffrey Rush.

Rob Marshall resumed his frequent three-threat role as director, producer, and choreographer for the Disney-produced screen version of Stephen Sondheim’s and James Lapine’s brilliant musical, Into the Woods (2014), with Meryl Streep (nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar), Depp, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, and Christine Baranski, grossing $213 million (over four times the $50 million budget).

Once again for Disney, Marshall was director-producer-choreographer (as well as story writer) for the sequel, Mary Poppins Returns (2018), starring Blunt in the title role with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Streep, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, and Colin Firth, earning a solid $350 million (on a $130 million budget) and four Oscar nominations.

It was five years until Rob Marshall returned to the chairs of director and producer for a big-screen musical, Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid (2023), becoming the first breakout hit of the summer movie season, starring Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Melissa McCarthy, and Awkwafina.