Roger Corman (1926-2024) was an American filmmaker whose career began in the 1950s. A screenwriter, producer, director and distributor (and sometime actor), Corman is considered to be a pioneer of independent moviemaking, known for tiny budgets, assembly-line production, and his reputation for profitability. His filmography includes cult classics such as The Little Shop of Horrors, Caged Heat, Death Race 2000 (with David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone), and Android. A number of notable people in the entertainment industry started their careers in Corman projects, including actors Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda and directors Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola.
A former engineering student, Corman entered the motion picture business as a messenger and became a producer/director after a stint as a story analyst and a brief detour to Oxford University. After returning to Hollywood, he saw an opportunity to make money and gain experience by making low-budget films to feed the drive-in and neighborhood theater circuits, which had been abandoned in large part by the major studios. Working from budgets of as little as $50,000, he quickly learned the art of making money with inexpensive films, producing and directing pictures for American International Pictures and Allied Artists. These films were short features (some as little as 62 minutes), but they were entertaining and endeared Corman to generations of young filmgoers.
During the early '60s, Corman became more ambitious and made the serious school-desegregation drama The Intruder. It was the only one of his movies to lose money, because few theaters would book it. Corman also began working in color, most notably on a series of adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories starring Vincent Price that won the respect of younger critics and aspiring filmmakers alike. Corman also employed many young film students and writers during this period, including Francis Ford Coppola, Curtis Harrington, and author Robert Towne. His output decreased as his budgets went up, and Corman moved away from directing and into producing. In the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, Corman was still producing exploitation films (such as Humanoids from the Deep), but his company New World Pictures also distributed several important foreign movies, including Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers and the groundbreaking Jamaican crime drama The Harder They Come. [1]
Reaction to MST3K[]
“ | If you don't have any ability yourself, maybe you can make money by making fun of those who do. | ” |
- Roger Corman, at the IU Cinema, April 18, 2014 |
Corman also took issue with Cinematic Titanic's use of his 1959 film The Wasp Woman. Corman had re-made The Wasp Woman in 1995, and he claimed that this placed the characters from the original film under copyright retroactively. He threatened legal action against the Cinematic Titanic crew if they used or exhibited the 1959 film without compensating him. A compromise was eventually reached.
Notes[]
- Roger Corman produced and co-directed the 1980 science-fiction film Battle Beyond the Stars and produced the 1978 film Deathsport, both of which were identified as films planned to be used in the potential Season 14 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. That crowd-funding effort was not successful, and it remains to be seen if either film will be used on MST3K in the future.
- Roger Corman produced the first feature film adaptation of the comic book The Fantastic Four. It was never officially released, but copies were distributed through unauthorized users and online. This film was eventually used on Movie Jo Night, and some scenes were included in the RiffTrax presentation Super Zeroes.
Riffed Movies[]
MST3K[]
- It Conquered the World (Episode #311) - director, producer
- Teenage Cave Man (Episode #315) - director, producer
- The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (Episode #317) - director, producer
- Attack of the Giant Leeches (Episode #406) - executive producer
- Swamp Diamonds (Episode #503) - director
- Gunslinger (Episode #511) - director, producer
- The Sword and the Dragon (Episode #617) - editor and producer of the US version
- High School Big Shot (Episode #618) - executive producer
- Night of the Blood Beast (Episode #701) - producer
- Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell (Episode #703) - executive producer
- The Undead (Episode #806) - director, producer
- Avalanche (Episode #1104) - producer
- Starcrash (Episode #1106) - editor of the US version
- Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (Episode #1110, also RiffTrax) - executive producer
- Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II (Episode #1111) - executive producer
- Lords of the Deep (Episode #1203) - as Corporate Executive, also executive producer
- Munchie (Episode #1304) - executive producer
- Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans (30th Anniversary Tour) - executive producer
- Day the World Ended (MST3K: The Home Game) - director, producer
RiffTrax[]
- The Little Shop of Horrors (Mike Nelson Commentaries and RiffTrax) - director
- Beast of the Yellow Night (RiffTrax) - executive producer
- Last Woman on Earth (RiffTrax Presents Bridget, Mary Jo, Matthew J. Elliott and Ian Potter) - director, producer
- Creature from the Haunted Sea (RiffTrax Presents Matthew J. Elliott and Ian Potter) - director, producer, boom operator
- She Gods of Shark Reef (RiffTrax Presents Bridget & Mary Jo) - director
Other[]
- The Navy vs. The Night Monsters (Attack of the Killer B Movies) - producer
- The Wasp Woman (Cinematic Titanic, Attack of the Killer B Movies) - as Doctor in Hospital (uncredited), also director
- T-Bird Gang (The Mads Are Back) - producer (uncredited)
- The Brain Eaters (The Mads Are Back) - executive producer (uncredited)
- Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (The Mads Are Back) - producer (uncredited)
- Sorority Girl (Movie Jo Night) - director, producer
- The Fantastic Four (Movie Jo Night, also RiffTrax) - executive producer