Joel Schumacher

Joel T. Schumacher (Template:IPAc-en; August 29, 1939 – June 22, 2020) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Raised in New York City by his mother, Schumacher graduated from Parsons School of Design and originally became a fashion designer. He first entered filmmaking as a production and costume designer before gaining writing credits on Car Wash, Sparkle, and The Wiz.

Schumacher received little attention for his first theatrically released films, The Incredible Shrinking Woman and D.C. Cab, but rose to prominence after directing St. Elmo's Fire, The Lost Boys, The Client and Falling Down. Schumacher was selected to replace Tim Burton as director of the Batman film franchise, and oversaw two of the series's most commercially oriented entries, Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997). The latter's failure foresaw a steep career decline, although Schumacher continued directing work on smaller-budget films, such as Tigerland and Phone Booth. In 2004, he directed The Phantom of the Opera, which was released to mixed reviews. His final directorial work were two episodes of House of Cards.

Early life and education

Joel T. Schumacher was born on August 29, 1939, in New York City. His parents were Francis Schumacher, a Baptist from Knoxville, Tennessee, who died from pneumonia when Joel was four, and Marian (Kantor), a Swedish Jew. He was raised by his widowed mother in Long Island City. During his youth, he used LSD and methamphetamine and started drinking alcohol by age nine. In 1965, he graduated from Parsons School of Design, after having studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and later became a designer for Revlon in 1966.

Schumacher said that at the time of his mother's death in 1965 his "life seemed like a joke" as he was $50,000 in debt, lost multiple teeth, and only weighed Template:Convert. However, in 1970, he stopped using drugs and became employed at Henri Bendel. He later stated that "I got my self-respect back getting a good day's pay for a good day's work."

Career

Production designer

In 1972, Schumacher served as a costume designer for Play It as It Lays and designed the wardrobes of Dyan Cannon, Joan Hackett, and Raquel Welch for the film The Last of Sheila. In 1973, he served as a costume designer for Woody Allen's Sleeper, and Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love. In 1974, he served as the production designer of Killer Bees. He later served as a costume designer for The Time of the Cuckoo, The Prisoner of Second Avenue and Interiors.

Early filmmaking

In 1974, Schumacher wrote a script for an eponymous biographic made-for-television movie based on the life of Virginia Hill. He was selected to serve as the movie's director and started filming on September 9.

In 1974, he and Howard Rosenman wrote the script for Sparkle which later went into production in 1975, and was released in 1976. His original plan for the film was for the film to be a "black Gone with the Wind", but had to be modest due to the limited budget given to the production by Warner Bros. According to Schumacher the film represented his "personal fascination" with Jesse Jackson, Angela Davis, Tammi Terrell, and Diana Ross. He was later selected to write the screenplays for Car Wash and The Wiz.

In 1978, Schumacher was selected to serve as the director of Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill which was later released in 1979. On January 31, 1980, he submitted a script for A Chorus Line, but the film underwent rewrites in development hell.

In 1979, he was selected to serve as the director of The Incredible Shrinking Woman, his first theatrically released film, to replace John Landis, who had left after Universal Pictures had reduced the film's budget. In 1981, the film was released to negative reviews, and was a box office bomb. The film was initially given a $30 million budget, but it was reduced to $11–13 million although it would later rise to over $20 million due to the cost of special effects.

In 1983, he directed D.C. Cab starring Mr. T, but later stated that he only worked on the film as he needed a job.

St. Elmo's Fire and The Lost Boys

In 1984, Schumacher was selected by Columbia Pictures to direct St. Elmo's Fire and was secretive during the production of the film. In 1987, he directed The Lost Boys. Both films were successful among young people and were his first major critical and commercial successes.

Following The Lost Boys, Schumacher directed Cousins (1989, a remake of the French film Cousin Cousine), Flatliners (1989), Dying Young (1991), and Falling Down (1993). He also directed two film adaptations of John Grisham best-sellers:The Client (1994) and A Time to Kill (1996).

Batman

Schumacher was selected by Warner Bros. in 1993 to replace Tim Burton as the director of the Batman franchise. He directed Batman Forever, which was a stylistic departure from Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. Batman Forever was released to mixed reviews, but was more financially successful than Batman Returns.

He later directed Batman & Robin, which was rushed into production following Batman Forever and was intentionally made toyetic and light-hearted to appeal to children and sell merchandise. The film was released to largely negative reviews and did not perform as well at the box-office as any of its predecessors, causing a planned sequel, Batman Unchained, to be cancelled. Schumacher later approached Warner Bros. to pitch concepts for a new Batman movie which were inspired by Frank Miller's graphic novels Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, but due to the box-office bomb of Batman & Robin, along with the negative impact that the film had on his reputation, Warner Bros. refused to let him develop another Batman film. In 2017, Schumacher apologized for the quality of Batman & Robin.

It was alleged that Schumacher, a gay man, had added homoerotic elements to the film with the most prominent being the rubber nipples, codpieces, and close-up camera shots of Batman and Robin's buttocks. Schumacher said the suit designs had been based on anatomically correct Greek statues and medical drawings. George Clooney, who played Batman in the film, said in 2005 that Schumacher told him that Batman was gay.

Later career

Following Batman & Robin, Schumacher directed 8mm (1999), Flawless (1999), Tigerland (2000), Bad Company (2002), Phone Booth (2002), Veronica Guerin (2003), The Phantom of the Opera (2004), The Number 23 (2007), Blood Creek (2009), Twelve (2010), and Trespass (2011).

In August 2008, Schumacher directed the music video for American rock band Scars on Broadway, for their single "World Long Gone".

In 2013, he directed two episodes of the television series House of Cards.

Personal life

Schumacher was openly gay and described himself as "extremely promiscuous", saying in a 2019 interview that he became sexually active at age eleven, and estimating he had sex with between 10,000 to 20,000 men over the course of his life. He said the first person he knew who died from the AIDS epidemic, in 1983, "was not promiscuous", which led Schumacher to believe he would die soon after, recalling that he thought at the time, "If he has it, I must have it quadrupled [...] I was sure I had it, I was planning my death", though he never contracted the disease.

In 1984, Schumacher purchased the horse stables that had belonged to Rudolph Valentino from Doris Duke.

Schumacher donated to Democratic Party candidates, including multiple congressional campaigns as well as John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Schumacher died from cancer in New York on June 22, 2020, at the age of 80. Following his death, he was praised by Jim Carrey as well as Matthew McConaughey who credited Schumacher with launching his career.

Filmography

Film

Filmmaking credits

Title	Year	Director	Writer	Producer	Notes	Ref.
Sparkle	1976	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Directed by Sam O'Steen
Car Wash	1976	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Directed by Michael Schultz
The Wiz	1978	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Directed by Sidney Lumet
The Incredible Shrinking Woman	1981	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Directorial debut
D.C. Cab (a.k.a. Street Fleet)	1983	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No
St. Elmo's Fire	1985	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No
The Lost Boys	1987	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Cousins	1989	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Flatliners	1990	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Dying Young	1991	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Falling Down	1993	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
The Client	1994	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Batman Forever	1995	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
A Time to Kill	1996	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Batman & Robin	1997	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
8mm	1999	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes
Flawless	1999	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
Tigerland	2000	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Bad Company	2002	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Phone Booth	2002	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Veronica Guerin	2003	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
The Phantom of the Opera	2004	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No
The Number 23	2007	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Blood Creek	2009	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Twelve	2010	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Trespass	2011	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Man in the Mirror	2011	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Short film
Sparkle	2012	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Directed by Salim Akil

Executive producer

• The Babysitter (1995)
• Gossip (2000)

Other credits

Title	Year	Role	Director	Notes	Ref.
Play It as It Lays	1972	Costume designer	Frank Perry
Blume in Love	1973		Paul Mazursky
The Last of Sheila			Herbert Ross
Sleeper			Woody Allen
The Prisoner of Second Avenue	1975		Melvin Frank
Interiors	1978		Woody Allen
Welcome to Hollywood	1998	Cameo appearance	Adam Rifkin	Mockumentary film
Halston	2019	Himself	Frédéric Tcheng

Television

Filmmaking credits

Title	Year	Director	Executive producer	Writer	Notes	Ref.
Virginia Hill	1974	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	TV film
Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill	1979	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	TV film
Now We're Cookin	1983	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Unsold pilot, directed by Noam Pitlik
Code Name: Foxfire	1985	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Creator and producer (8 episodes) / Story (Episode: "Pilot")
Slow Burn	1986	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	TV film, directed by Matthew Chapman
2000 Malibu Road	1992	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	5 episodes
Choose or Lose	2008	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	TV special
House of Cards	2013	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	2 episodes
Do Not Disturb: Hotel Horrors	2015	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	3 episodes

Other credits

Title	Year	Role	Notes	Ref.
The Lie	1973	Wardrobe Designer, Costume designer	TV film, directed by Alex Segal
Killer Bees	1974	Production designer	TV film, directed by Curtis Harrington
Real Housewives of New York City	2012	Cameo appearance	S05E18: "All's Well That Doesn't End Well"
Nightcap	2017		Episode: "Guest in a Snake"

Music videos

Directing credits

Artist	Year	Title
INXS	1988	"Devil Inside"
Lenny Kravitz	1993	"Heaven Help" (European Version)
Seal	1995	"Kiss from a Rose" (Version 2)
The Smashing Pumpkins	1997	"The End Is the Beginning Is the End"
Bush	1999	"Letting the Cables Sleep"
Scars On Broadway	2008	"World Long Gone"
The Killing Floor	2012	"Star Baby"

External links

• Template:IMDb name
• Joel Schumacher interview