Todd Phillips (3)

American film director, producer and screenwriter (b. 20 December 1970, Brooklyn, New York City). Todd Phillips directed such critically-acclaimed movies as Road Trip (2000), Starsky & Hutch (2004) and, most recently, psychological thriller Joker (2019). His numerous accolades included the 2009 "Best Musical/Comedy Motion Picture" Golden Globe Award for The Hangover and Golden Lion prize at the 76th Venice International Film Festival for Joker in 2020. Phillips also earned four Academy Award nominations: for Borat story he co-wrote with Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham and Anthony Hines (the "Best Adapted Screenplay" in 2007), and three nominations for Joker. Phillips attended New York University's Film School and directed his debut biopic documentary as a junior student in 1993. Hated: GG Allin & the Murder Junkies centered on the life and death of notorious extreme punk rocker, singer, and band leader GG Allin and saw a limited theatrical release in addition to several "direct-to-video" editions on VHS and DVD. Hated won the "Best Documentary Film" award at New Orleans Film Festival in 1994, subsequently ranking as the highest-grossing student documentary of all time. While working on the film, Phillips contacted a notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy in prison, asking him to paint a movie poster. Eventually, Todd raised $10,000 for the film's budget by selling replicas of Gacy's artwork, jokingly referring to him as the "real executive producer." GG Allin attended one of Hated screenings days before his death, heavily intoxicated, and sabotaged it midways by throwing beer bottles at the screen and injuring someone in the audience; in GG's fine tradition, the arriving police shut down the event early. (Despite never seeing an entire film, Allin was pleased and gave Todd Phillips positive feedback and hugs the following day.) The director soon dropped out from NYU, unable to pay tuition after funding Hated. He briefly worked at the "Kim's Video and Music" retail store in East Village, Manhattan, and appeared as one of the drivers in the first season of HBO's "hidden cam" docu-series Taxicab Confessions. Despite such a morbid and explicit debut, Phillips raised to prominence by working in comedy, reaching the top-tier Hollywood blockbuster success with The Hangover (2009) and its two sequels, Hangover Part II (2011) and Part III (2013). He gradually began shifting back to darker storytelling with the 2016 War Dogs black comedy/criminal drama. Following the Joker release in 2019, Phillips named "woke culture" as the main reason he gave up comedy. The Joaquin Phoenix cover story in Vanity Fair's November 2019 issue quoted the director: "There were articles written about why comedies don't work anymore — I'll tell you why, because all the fucking funny guys are like, Fuck this shit, because I don't want to offend you. It's hard to argue with 30 million people on Twitter."