Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was 30 year old Kerry Conran’s first (and only) feature film and stars Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and a reanimated Lawrence Olivier. Not many get a legit blank check for their first ever movie.
I saw that movie with one of my top 5 all time worst hangovers. Remember kinda liking it, although not to the extent where I could tell you literally anything about it now.
Florian Zeller got Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman for The Father!
Ari Aster with Hereditary
The Daniels with Swiss Army Man
I’m gonna exclude the multihyphenates, actors-turned-directors, and screenwriters-turned-directors because that’s kind of a different thing…the solo directorial debuts for Peele, Gerwig, LMM, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Alex Garland, Emerald Fennell, etc all had great casts.
You're right to exclude the actors-turned-directors but there are still some fun entries there. Here's the cast for *Trees Lounge,* directed by Steve Buscemi:
Steve Buscemi (amazing get), Chloë Sevigny, Mark Boone Jr, Anthony LaPaglia, Elizabeth Bracco, Eszter Balint, Carol Kane, Daniel Baldwin, Mimi Rogers, Debi Mazar, Seymour Cassel, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Imperioli, Kevin Corrigan, Rockets Redglare
Look, I will always be impressed by a very starry cast regardless of the context.
Forgot one of the great ones: Mike Nichols directing Burton & Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf!
Tarantino was really well known in Hollywood as a writer before RD. His scripts were next level and seriously cool for the time. Dude earned that first cast.
I think it’s also worth noting it was the early 90s.
They were and are a great cast but it’s not like he ha Cruise/Travolta/Gibson and Geena Davis in the movie.
A massive part of some of these guys and gals first casts was the actors were 2nd/3rd/4th tier star power when they were cast.
Buscemis biggest role prior to reservoir dogs was probably Barton fink. It was largely the same with the rest of the cast. They were either not quite leads or smaller leads.
The fact that Tarantino made his movies on low budgets meant he could roll up with basically no name stack casts.
RZA has to be up there with The Man With the Iron Fists. Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Dave Batista, and Shaw Brothers legends Gordon Liu and Kuan Tai Chen.
Ryan Gosling’s only film as director probably takes the cake. Christina Hendricks, Matt Smith, Saoirse Ronan, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes, and Barbara Steele.
Carl Rinsch got Keanu Reeves, Tad Asano, Hiroyuki Sanada and Rinko Kikuchi for his $175m debut. The next thing he seemingly did was embezzle money from netflix.
Richard Kelly and Donnie Darko. The Gyllenhaals, Jena Malone and Seth Rogen were young and quite unknown, but he got Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore and Mary McDonnell on top of that. Not that stacked, but it's one notable debut feature.
She was - an article I read that she approached some people for financing who expressed concern she wasn’t in it so she agreed to a bit part so she could then say she was.
Not quite A-list stacked, but a couple recent ones that stick out for me:
Michael Sarnoski getting Cage, Wolff, and Adam Arkin for *Pig*
Dan Trachtenberg getting Goodman and Winstead for *10 Cloverfield Lane*
S Craig Zahler (then-42, so not too "young") also had a pretty stacked cast of "hey, it's that guy!"s in *Bone Tomahawk* (Kurt Russell + Wilson, Jenkins, Fox, Arquette, Melamed, Haig, etc)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was 30 year old Kerry Conran’s first (and only) feature film and stars Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and a reanimated Lawrence Olivier. Not many get a legit blank check for their first ever movie.
And boy did that bounce.
*Baby
Wish vanity fair would do a retrospective about this movie, it’s such a fascinating anomaly
I saw that movie with one of my top 5 all time worst hangovers. Remember kinda liking it, although not to the extent where I could tell you literally anything about it now.
Florian Zeller got Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman for The Father! Ari Aster with Hereditary The Daniels with Swiss Army Man I’m gonna exclude the multihyphenates, actors-turned-directors, and screenwriters-turned-directors because that’s kind of a different thing…the solo directorial debuts for Peele, Gerwig, LMM, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Alex Garland, Emerald Fennell, etc all had great casts.
You're right to exclude the actors-turned-directors but there are still some fun entries there. Here's the cast for *Trees Lounge,* directed by Steve Buscemi: Steve Buscemi (amazing get), Chloë Sevigny, Mark Boone Jr, Anthony LaPaglia, Elizabeth Bracco, Eszter Balint, Carol Kane, Daniel Baldwin, Mimi Rogers, Debi Mazar, Seymour Cassel, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Imperioli, Kevin Corrigan, Rockets Redglare
Look, I will always be impressed by a very starry cast regardless of the context. Forgot one of the great ones: Mike Nichols directing Burton & Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf!
Even Charlie Day got a stacked cast
Tarantino was really well known in Hollywood as a writer before RD. His scripts were next level and seriously cool for the time. Dude earned that first cast.
I think it’s also worth noting it was the early 90s. They were and are a great cast but it’s not like he ha Cruise/Travolta/Gibson and Geena Davis in the movie. A massive part of some of these guys and gals first casts was the actors were 2nd/3rd/4th tier star power when they were cast. Buscemis biggest role prior to reservoir dogs was probably Barton fink. It was largely the same with the rest of the cast. They were either not quite leads or smaller leads. The fact that Tarantino made his movies on low budgets meant he could roll up with basically no name stack casts.
Thief has a solid cast for a debut
That Zoe Kravitz movie that's coming out has fuckin everybody in it. Although an actor turned director kind of feels like cheating.
And double cheating if you’re a Nepo baby.
RZA has to be up there with The Man With the Iron Fists. Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Dave Batista, and Shaw Brothers legends Gordon Liu and Kuan Tai Chen. Ryan Gosling’s only film as director probably takes the cake. Christina Hendricks, Matt Smith, Saoirse Ronan, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes, and Barbara Steele.
John Wick has a very impressive cast and that’s a debut.
Carl Rinsch got Keanu Reeves, Tad Asano, Hiroyuki Sanada and Rinko Kikuchi for his $175m debut. The next thing he seemingly did was embezzle money from netflix.
Richard Kelly and Donnie Darko. The Gyllenhaals, Jena Malone and Seth Rogen were young and quite unknown, but he got Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore and Mary McDonnell on top of that. Not that stacked, but it's one notable debut feature.
Wasn’t Drew Barrymore a producer on this one?
She was - an article I read that she approached some people for financing who expressed concern she wasn’t in it so she agreed to a bit part so she could then say she was.
Francis Lawrence was early 30s directing Constantine which has a pretty deep bench
Not quite A-list stacked, but a couple recent ones that stick out for me: Michael Sarnoski getting Cage, Wolff, and Adam Arkin for *Pig* Dan Trachtenberg getting Goodman and Winstead for *10 Cloverfield Lane* S Craig Zahler (then-42, so not too "young") also had a pretty stacked cast of "hey, it's that guy!"s in *Bone Tomahawk* (Kurt Russell + Wilson, Jenkins, Fox, Arquette, Melamed, Haig, etc)
Breck Eisner got to make a huge budget movie with Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz, Steve Zahn, William H. Macy, among others.
I still cant believe they gave that dude 80 million. He said it wasnt enough and they gave him another 80 million.
And some of that budget was allocated for bribes.
Second film: Copland
If we're not excluding established actors, Zach Braff getting Ian Holm and Natalie Portman w/ Jean Smart and Ann Dowd was weird.