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Joseph James Dante Jr. (/ˈdɑːnteɪ/; born November 28, 1946) is an American film director, producer, editor and actor. His films—notably Gremlins (1984) alongside its sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)—often mix the 1950s-style B movie genre with 1960s radicalism and cartoon comedy.

Dante's output includes the films Piranha (1978), The Howling (1981), Explorers (1985), Innerspace (1987),  The 'Burbs (1989), Matinee (1993), Small Soldiers (1998), and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). His work for television and cable include the social satire The Second Civil War (1997), episodes of the anthology series Masters of Horror ("Homecoming" and "The Screwfly Solution") and Amazing Stories, as well as Police Squad! and Hawaii Five-0.

Early life

Dante was born in Morristown, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Livingstone. His father was a professional golfer, and Dante was encouraged by him to play sports, however he was more interested in drawing cartoons and frequenting Saturday matinees at the cinema.

Dante had originally planned on becoming a cartoonist, but was told that it wasn't a real art form and that he should try something else. While attending the Philadelphia University of the Arts, Dante realized he was more inclined toward filmmaking:

"I was told that cartooning isn't an art form and if I was smart I would take something else. So I took film. This was back in the days when everything was black and white, 16mm, silent – we were essentially making underground art films, so I can't say my filmmaking acumen derived from my teachings at the Philadelphia College of Art. Almost all of it came from the school of Roger Corman"

In his free time as a student, Dante began assembling The Movie Orgy, an epic collection of B movie clips, 16mm films, cartoons, commercials, and trailers that was seamlessly edited together into one 7-hour compilation.

Career

1970s

I didn't really learn much about making films, but I did spend as much time as I could at the local grindhouses where I caught up with old movies from the '30s on, most of which I could never have seen elsewhere. When it came time to try actual movie directing, I found I had a wellspring of images and ideas in my head to draw on.

After a stint as a film reviewer, Dante began his filmmaking apprenticeship in 1974 when producer Roger Corman offered him a job in the trailer-cutting department at New World Pictures, where he edited the trailers for such films as Cover Girl Models and Amarcord. Other established directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich had already emerged from Corman's de-facto film school.

In 1975, Dante moved up to directing when he collaborated with fellow Corman school alumni Allan Arkush to make the satirical exploitation film Hollywood Boulevard. The film was conceived when Corman made a bet that he could make a film within ten days on a budget of only $54,000 dollars, (the cheapest made by New World Pictures). The filmmakers achieved this by coming up with a story about a B movie studio which could incorporate footage from other movies that Corman owned.

Two years later, Dante directed Piranha, written by John Sayles. The film was shot in Texas "in a rush" on a budget of $600,000 dollars, and was considered quite ambitious for the time and cost. Dante, who was convinced the film would be a disaster, spent a month in the editing room. People came to visit him, but as Dante recalled he was in "such a fog" that he didn't even recognize who they were at first. The film won the attention of Steven Spielberg who, unbeknownst to Dante, prevented Universal from blocked the film's release, convincing them that Piranha was a parody and that it wasn't in competition with Jaws 2.

In 1979, Dante directed five scenes of Rock 'n' Roll High School when Allan Arkush fell ill due to exhaustion, but remains uncredited. Dante also helped plot the premise of the film with Arkush.

1980s

Dante again collaborated with John Sayles when he enlisted him to rewrite the previously adapted draft of Gary Brandner's werewolf tale The Howling. Sayles rewrote the script with the same self-aware, satirical tone that he gave Piranha, and his finished script bears only a slight resemblance to Brandner's novel. Dante said that at the time he made The Howling, werewolves were considered by many to be "corny and old hat". His approach was to disguise it as long as possible and make it look like a slasher film — which was a lot more popular at the time — "and then bring in the supernatural elements slowly so that the audience could get acclimated and not immediately reject it as something old-fashioned." The film's special effects, which at the time were considered state-of-the-art, were completed by Rob Bottin after Rick Baker left to work on An American Werewolf in London.

Dante had been previously offered the chance to direct Airplane! by Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. Although he turned it down, Dante agreed to direct two episodes of their police procedural spoof Police Squad!, which was his first experience shooting something on a studio lot.

It's the movie I'm going to be remembered for. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, the headline is going to be "Gremlins Director Hit By Bus". I'll never do something that'll outlast that in terms of the public image of who I am – which is fine with me. It's not my favorite movie that I've ever made, but I'm perfectly happy with it and I think it does what it was supposed to do. It's strange that it's outlasted so many other pictures that were much more prestigious at the time. It expresses my personality too, which is the one thing that's the most difficult to get across in an expensive film.

Due to their work on The Howling, Dante and producer Michael Finnell received the opportunity to make the film Gremlins by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg also brought Dante on as one of the directors on John Landis' Twilight Zone: The Movie. Dante's segment, a remake of the original Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life", features cartoon-style special effects, revolving around a woman played by Kathleen Quinlan who is 'adopted' by an omnipotent boy. Dante also took over editing duties on George Miller's segment of the film, after he left the project feeling repulsed by the news of the fatal helicopter accident. Chris Columbus' original draft of Gremlins went through several rewrites before a shooting script was finalized. According to Dante, it was a gruelling shoot ("The whole thing was so exhausting") and once the design of the gremlins were finalized, the studio's reaction was divisive. The film follows a teenager, played by Zach Galligan, who inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town. It proved to be one of Dante's biggest hits to date, being the third highest-grossing film of 1984. "I'd never seen a reaction like that," Dante said of the film's first preview. "They thought it was the greatest thing ever and Warner Brothers was I think shocked, frankly, by how popular the picture became."

After the success of Gremlins, Dante took on the offer to direct Explorers, about a group of friends who build a working spacecraft and encounter extraterrestrial life. Dante liked the script, but felt the film needed a better third act. After being denied extra time by Paramount executives, Dante and the film's writer, Eric Luke, then improvised the story whilst filming commenced. In the spring of 1985, Paramount changed the film's initial release date from late August to early July, telling Dante and the editors to stop editing and deliver a shorter rough cut. As a result, about an hour and a half worth of footage was left on the editing room floor. Explorers marked the film debuts of both Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix, and has only grown in it's reputation over time, developing a cult following. Dante reflected on the film by saying that he is appreciative of the warm reception it has earned over the years, but continued by saying "the problem is for me is that the movie you'll see is not the movie I wanted to make. It's the movie I got to make up to a certain point and then had to stop. It's hard for me to look at it, cause it's not the film I quite had in mind." The missing and cut scenes are presumably lost, as Dante tried searching for them in recent years.

In the mid-1980s, Dante was offered the script of Innerspace written by Chip Proser, who called it "a rip off of Fantastic Voyage". Dante initially turned the film down until the script was later rewritten as a comedy by Jeffrey Boam. Dante said he had a "wonderful experience" making Innerspace, mainly because of the cast which included actors Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, and Meg Ryan among others. However, after one particular day of filming, Dante recalled that studio executives from Warner Brothers had invited him out to lunch and told him that what he was doing was not funny and described Short as being "not very attractive", wanting to recast the role. While this conversation left him with a lot of anxiety, Dante decided to "plow on" and just make the movie he always intended to make. Despite successful test screenings, the film ended up flopping at the box office in the summer of 1987. Dante said this was because the studio did not know how to promote it and that the original poster failed to include the movie's actors on it.

In 1988, Dante agreed to direct the black comedy The 'Burbs, intrigued by its premise and the blending of real-life situations with elements of the supernatural. Dante and producers Larry Brezner and Michael Finnell agreed that Tom Hanks would be the most suitable actor to portray the married Ray Peterson, a suburban homeowner who tries to introduce excitement into his life by investigating the activities of his mysterious neighbors. Dante referred to Hanks as "the reigning everyman, a guy that everybody can identify with", comparing him to James Stewart. Production on The 'Burbs was filmed in chronological order (due to the 1988 writer's strike) over the course of ten weeks, mainly on the Colonial Street backlot at Universal Studios. "There was a lot of temptation to broaden it and go outside the neighborhood, but it seemed to violate the spirit of the piece," Dante said, "It's almost the kind of thing that could be a stage play except that you could never do on-stage what we've done in this movie."

1990s

Dante was asked many times to helm a sequel to Gremlins, due to its financial success. Dante declined, because he saw that story as having a proper ending, and thus a sequel would only be meant to be profitable. The studio decided to proceed without him, approaching various directors and writers. Storylines considered included sending the gremlins to Las Vegas or even into outer space. After those ideas fell through, the studio returned to Dante, who agreed to make the sequel after receiving the rare promise of having complete creative control over the movie as well as a budget tripling that of the original film. Since Chris Columbus was not available to write the sequel's script at the time, Dante brought on screenwriter Charles S. Haas to help plot the film. Dante later claimed it was the film into which he had put the most of his personal influence. He referred to it as "one of the more unconventional studio pictures ever," imagining it as a satire of Gremlins and sequels in general, resulting in a film with several meta-references and self-referential humor. Both Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates returned to star in the film. It also features several guest stars, including Christopher Lee as a mad scientist. The film was released to theaters in the Summer of 1990 but did not perform as well at the box office as the original.

Charles S. Haas wrote two more films for Dante; one an unproduced script about Chuck Jones' early years at Termite Terrace and the other, Matinee about the Cuban Missile Crisis. In it, John Goodman stars as William Castle-type filmmaker Lawrence Woolsey, who specializes in horror and sci-fi B movies. Originally written by Jerico Stone, Dante said his draft was "quite different than the film that eventually emerged." The film opened in early 1993 and received positive reviews, but failed to turn a profit.

The great thing about Eerie, Indiana was that if I was going to do a feature, I could do that. I could go away and then do more Eerie, Indianas. But then it went off the air. And then I couldn't do that anymore. So the trick is to try and find a way to keep yourself employed that doesn't turn you into a hack. Basically. I mean, I always try and do things that — for movies, my yardstick is I don't make movies I wouldn't go see. And I think if more people did that, we'd have better movies.

Also in the early '90s, Dante served as creative consultant for, and directed several episodes of the short-lived NBC series Eerie, Indiana. Dante also guest starred as himself in the show's eighteenth episode, "Reality Takes a Holiday".

From 1993 to 1994, Dante was attached as the director of The Phantom, developing a draft of the script together with Jeffrey Boam, which was originally tongue-in-cheek in tone. According to Dante, right when the film was to begin shooting, Paramount pulled the plug on the film over its budget. Later, it was put back into production, with the script rewritten under a new director who made it serious, despite the script's humorous tone. Dante ended up with an executive producer credit.

In 1994, Dante directed the television film Runaway Daughters (a loose remake of the 1956 film), that aired as apart of the anthology series Rebel Highway which paid homage to 1950s "drive-in classic" B movies by revamping them "with a '90s edge". Dante also directed the 1997 made-for-television film The Second Civil War, a social satire about anti-immigration. The film was allegedly troubled with a "tremendous amount of interference during post-production" by a studio executive at HBO.

When Dante began pre-production work for Small Soldiers, a film about toy action figures who come to life, he was told to make an "edgy picture for teenagers." Later, after the film finished shooting, he was told by the film's sponsors to soften it as a "kiddie picture" and as a result, several of the action and explosion scenes were edited out at his behest. Dante also claimed there were 12 uncredited writers who did work on the film over the course of five years. When released in 1998, it received mixed reviews and was a moderate box office success.

2000s

Dante directed the 2003 live-action/animation hybrid Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The project was developed several other times before eventually being offered to Dante. He agreed to direct the film to pay tribute to his idol Chuck Jones, and as somewhat of a placeholder for his unmade biographical comedy Termite Terrace. He and screenwriter Larry Doyle reportedly wanted the film to be the "anti-Space Jam" as Dante disliked how that film represented the Looney Tunes brand and personalities. While feeling as though they had both managed to preserve the original personalities of the characters, the film's opening, middle and ending are different from what Dante initially envisioned. Dante stated that he practically had no creative freedom on the project, dubbing the experience as "the longest year and a half of my life." According to Dante, the studio executives grew tired of the film's jokes and wanted them to be changed. 25 gag writers were then brought in to try to write jokes that were short enough to fit into an animated character's mouth. Despite this, Doyle remained the film's only credited writer.

Following the disastrous experience of working on Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Dante took a brief hiatus from movies, instead returning to television, directing two episodes of the horror anthology series Masters of Horror.

In 2007, Dante launched the web series Trailers from Hell, which provides commentary by directors, producers and screenwriters on trailers for classic and cult movies. Dante also actively contributes to the website.

Dante returned to feature films several years later in 2009 with the independent 3D horror comedy The Hole, which received the Premio Persol award at the Venice Film Festival. Dante cited Dial M for Murder, Kill, Baby, Kill, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Killer Klowns from Outer Space as influences on the film.

With Roger Corman producing, Dante directed the interactive web series Splatter for Netflix. The series stars Corey Feldman as a rock star seeking revenge on those he thinks have wronged him.

2010s–present

From 2011 to 2017, Dante returned each season to direct an episode of the Hawaii Five-0 reboot, which he joked was "to get the rent paid."

Subsequently, Dante directed Anton Yelchin and Ashley Greene in Burying the Ex, adapted from Alan Trezza's 2008 short film. Principal photography began on November 17, 2013 and ended two months later in December. The film follows a horror film buff whose controlling girlfriend suddenly dies in a freak accident but when he tries to move on with his life along with his new partner, he discovers that his ex has come back from the dead in the form of a zombie. It was selected to be screened out of competition at the 71st Venice International Film Festival, and was released theatrically in 2015.

For years, Dante has tried to make a biopic about his mentor Roger Corman and the making of his 1967 film The Trip, but has struggled to gather funding for it. Titled The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes, the film went through several permutations over the years, including one starring Colin Firth as Corman. In October 2016, Dante directed a live table-reading of the film's script at the Vista Theatre in Los Angeles, which starred Bill Hader as Corman, Jason Ritter as Peter Fonda and Ethan Embry as Jack Nicholson. Corman himself is also slated to appear in the film's ending in a cameo role, which was reported to already have been shot in case Corman passed away before the film went into production. In 2022, the film's script was adapted and published in the form of a graphic novel. The film has been in its development stage for several years at SpectreVision.

In 2018, Dante directed a segment of Nightmare Cinema, a horror anthology film starring Mickey Rourke and featuring shorts also directed by Alejandro Brugués, Mick Garris, Ryūhei Kitamura, and David Slade. That same month, Dante launched his own weekly podcast The Movies That Made Me, with Josh Olson as his co-host, where filmmakers and entertainers are brought on to discuss the movies that inspired them.

In 2020, it was announced that Dante would be returning to the world of Gremlins serving as a consultant on the HBO Max prequel series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.

Unrealized projects

Frequent collaborators

Throughout his career, Dante has developed a so-called "stock company" of actors who have worked with him across multiple films, appearing in different roles and cameos.

WorkActor	1976	1978	1979	1981	1983	1984	1985	1987		1989	1990	1993	1994	1997	1998		2003	2006	2009		2014	2018
	Hollywood Boulevard	Piranha	Rock 'n' Roll High School	The Howling	Twilight Zone: The Movie	Gremlins	Explorers	Innerspace	Amazon Women on the Moon	The 'Burbs	Gremlins 2: The New Batch	Matinee	Runaway Daughters	The Second Civil War	The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy	Small Soldiers	Looney Tunes: Back in Action	Trapped Ashes	The Hole	Splatter	Burying the Ex	Nightmare Cinema
Mark Alan																				N	N
John Astin										N	N	N
Belinda Balaski		N		N		N	N		N		N	N	N	N	N	N						N
Paul Bartel	N	N							N		N
Phoebe Cates						N					N
Roger Corman				N										N			N
Bruce Dern										N						N			N
Rick Ducommun										N	N
Kevin Dunn														N		N
Corey Feldman						N				N										N
Carrie Fisher									N	N
Joe Flaherty								N					N
Courtney Gains										N			N
Zach Galligan						N					N
Henry Gibson								N		N	N							N
Charles S. Haas											N	N
Heather Haase										N	N
Archie Hahn								N	N	N	N	N	N			N	N				N
Phil Hartman														N		N
Rance Howard								N		N			N	N		N
Jackie Joseph						N					N					N
Chuck Jones						N		N
Denis Leary														N		N
Kevin McCarthy				N	N			N				N		N			N
Dick Miller	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N		N
Shawn C. Nelson		N						N			N
Ron Perlman														N			N
Robert Picardo				N			N	N	N	N	N	N	N	N		N	N
Jason Presson							N				N
John Sayles		N		N
Wendy Schaal								N		N			N			N
William Schallert						N		N						N
Don & Dan Stanton											N						N
Diane Saint-Marie											N			N
Christopher Stone				N									N
Meshach Taylor				N			N
Kenneth Tobey				N		N		N			N
Dee Wallace				N									N
Frank Welker						N					N						N
Alexandra Wilson														N		N
Mary Woronov	N																N

Influences

Dante has cited Roger Corman, Chuck Jones, Frank Tashlin, Ernst Lubitsch, Mario Bava, James Whale and Jean Cocteau among his major influences.

Some of Dante's favorite films include Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be (1942), Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958), Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955) and James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also loves the 1941 comedy Hellzapoppin', a film from which he frequently steals gags.

The director previously named his top five horror picks as The Innocents, Rosemary's Baby, The Old Dark House, Blood and Black Lace and The Black Cat.

Archive

The moving image collection of Joe Dante and Jon Davison is held at the Academy Film Archive. The joint collection includes feature films, pre-production elements, and theatrical trailer reels.

Filmography

Film