Foreign directors taking on Hollywood

February 29, 2008 Bekmambetov is hardly the first overseas director to try to make his mark in the U.S. From Anatole Litvak to Paul Verhoeven to Roland Emmerich, directors have been trickling into Hollywood from non-English-speaking countries for about as long as Hollywood has existed. Bekmambetov represents the growing confidence studios have in imported directors, more of whom are entering bigger projects right off the bat and forgoing the training wheels of low-budget studio productions for $50 million-$100 million mountain racers. The list of directors now making the jump from local fare to U.S. wide releases with surprising speed is wide and varied.

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