Name George Huang | Role Filmmaker | |
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Alma mater University of Southern California Occupation Director, producer, screenwriter Education University of Southern California Books Swimming with Sharks Movies Swimming with Sharks, Trojan War, How to Make a Monster, Final Recipe, Madman Similar People Frank Whaley, Jason Marsden, Will Friedle, TE Russell, Kevin Spacey | ||
George Huang is an American filmmaker. In addition to working on his own films, he also contributes work to other independent film-makers, including Robert Rodríguez.
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Early life
The son of Taiwanese immigrants, George Huang grew up with an avid love of motion pictures. After high school, he attempted to move from his love of film into something tangible by enrolling in a producing program at the University of Southern California. After graduating, he began working from the bottom-up as an aspiring executive assistant at Columbia Pictures.
Career
In 1992, Columbia acquired the distribution rights to the film El Mariachi by Robert Rodríguez. As the film was being prepared for release, Rodriguez struck up a friendship with the young studio assistant with whom he shared a love of film. As Rodriguez, a native and resident of Austin, Texas, had no L.A. residence, he stayed at Huang's apartment.
Rodriguez -known for his money-saving/high-quality filmmaking techniques- was amazed by Huang's blasé attitude toward the way his superiors spent millions and millions on the production of a single motion picture. Huang, believing his own original stories will never be told, shared some story ideas with Rodriguez who promptly told his new friend and roommate that he needs to immediately quit his job and make his own films. Huang was understandably reluctant to this idea, but in January 1993, he resigned from his post at Columbia.
Huang next began writing, and seeking financing for, a script loosely based on his experiences at Columbia. Released in 1994, Huang's debut film, Swimming with Sharks, is a satire of Hollywood politics from the point of view of a studio underling.
Since then, Huang has gone on to do a lot of behind-the-scenes work with directorial turns on several short-lived television series such as Significant Others, Live Through This, and The Invisible Man. He also directed the independent films Trojan War (starring Jennifer Love Hewitt) and How to Make a Monster (which has become a cult favourite, starring Clea DuVall as the only leading role).
Huang shot Elijah Wood's audition tape that landed him the role of Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
In 2005, comic book creator Mike Allred announced that Huang was writing the screenplay for the movie Madman, based on Allred's comic of the same name. In February 2006, Allred announced that script was near completion and that he and Robert Rodríguez hoped to begin co-directing before the end of the year.