Who else is more prolific than Jaume Collet-Serra? The only names that come close are Guy Ritchie, Steven Soderbergh, and Hong Sang-soo.
Collet-Serra is one of the more fascinating mainstream filmmakers out there, and not because he’s directed any great films — he hasn’t — but more due to how much genre-hopping he does, and sometimes with decent success. He’s a master at elevated mediocrity.
Collet-Serra is now set to direct the dramatic psychological thriller “An Innocent Girl” for Netflix. Michael Mohan (“Immaculate”) wrote the script, with current revisions by Marc Guggenheim (“Arrow”).
The film’s official logline reads, “When a young and ambitious woman is seduced by a high powered D.C. couple, she’s drawn into a dangerous world of sex, power and murder.”
Collet-Serra directed the second-most watched film of all time on Netflix with last year’s “Carry On,” starring Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman. With 172.1 million views, the Christmas-set action movie, released during the last holidays, was over-the-top, ludicrous, and somewhat watchable?
Collet-Serra is coming off “The Woman in the Yard,” which received mixed reviews but is doing decent business in theaters. He also has his already-shot “Cliffhanger” reboot coming out sometime this year.
The Spanish-born filmmaker has directed some of Liam Neeson’s better actions movies, such as “Non-Stop,” “Run All Night,” “The Commuter,” and “Unknown.” He’s also sadly responsible for perpetrating on us “Black Adam,” “Jungle Cruise” and “House of Wax” (the Paris Hilton remake). You can’t win ‘em all.
Time for our readers to chime in. Below I’ve posted Collet-Serra’s filmography (via IMDb) — a total of 12 features released. Which film stands out the most for you? My vote goes to “Run All Night,” which is still Liam Neeson’s last good action movie, and released almost 10 years ago to this day.
Nobody expected a 55-year-old NC-17 movie to be one of the surprise box office stories of the fall. Yet here we are, and this absolutely puts a smile on my face.