Joel Schumacher, costume designer-turned-director who helmed films such as St. Elmo’s Fire, The Lost Boys, Falling Down and two Batman films, has passed away, according to a report by Variety. He was 80 and was suffering from cancer for a year.
Schumacher took over the reins of the Batman franchise when Tim Burton exited Warner Bros Caped Crusader series after two enormously successful films.
The first movie by Schumacher, Batman Forever starring Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey and Nicole Kidman, grossed more than $300 million worldwide.
Schumacher’s second and last film of the franchise was Batman and Robin, with George Clooney as Batman and Arnold Schwarzenegger as villain Mr. Freeze. Many years after the Batman debacle, Schumacher directed the feature adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical The Phantom of the Opera that received three Oscar nominations.
In 1985 Schumacher struck gold with his third feature film, St. Elmo’s Fire, which he directed and co-wrote. His next film The Lost Boys, too, was a big hit. It became a cult favourite, and a TV series adaptation has long been in the works.
Schumacher’s A Time to Kill, an adaptation of a John Grisham novel, sported a terrific cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd and Matthew McConaughey. The film raised important questions about race.
Some of Schumacher’s other films include Bad Company, Veronica Guerin, The Number 23 and Trespass.
Schumacher directed a couple of episodes of House of Cards in 2013, and in 2015 he exec produced the series Do Not Disturb: Hotel Horrors.
(Inputs: Variety)