Joel Schumacher, the filmmaker behind the '80's cult classics, "St. Elmo's Fire" and "The Lost Boys" and the final two installments of the first Batman film franchise; "Batman Forever" and the notorious, "Batman and Robin", has passed away on June 22nd at the age of eighty. He had been battling cancer over the last year.
Born in New York City, Schumacher began his professional career in the fashion industry after attending Parsons and the Fashion Institute of Technology in the city. It wasn't long before he realized his passion was actually in cinema. He headed West and got in to the movie business first as a costume designer, working on a couple of early Woody Allen films, "Sleeper" and "Interiors". Schumacher's first major break was getting the original screenplay he co-wrote with Howard Rosenman produced in 1976. "Sparkle" was set in the '60's about three sisters in Harlem who become a singing group and the difficulties they encounter during their climb to success. The film was not big success but would go on to achieve cult status and was remade by Whitney Houston in 2012 which she had stated was one of her favorite films.
Schumacher went on to write the scripts for the comedy, "Car Wash" and the film adaption of the musical, "The Wiz" before he got the opportunity to direct with "The Incredible Shrinking Woman" in 1981 which starred Lily Tomlin. While the film was not a critical nor box-office success, Schumacher went on to have an extensive film career. In addition to a couple of Brat Pack films (a term he disliked and found unfair to the actors), he directed two adaptions of John Grisham's novels; "The Client" and "A Time To Kill" (which helped make a star of Matthew McConaughey), "Flatliners", "8MM", "Falling Down", "The Number 23" and the big screen version of the long-running Broadway musical, "The Phantom of the Opera". The last feature Schumacher directed was "Trespass" in 2011, a crime-thriller that starred Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman which was sadly met with some of the worse reviews of his career.
Another of Schumacher's great gifts was identifying potential new talent and gave early star-making roles to McConaughey, Kiefer Sutherland ("Flatliners", "The Lost Boys"), Julia Roberts ("Flatliners", "Dying Young"), Demi Moore ("St. Elmo's Fire") and Colin Farrell ("Tigerland", "Phone Booth").
I don't think the wildly diverse work of Joel Schumacher has been fully appreciated. It's clear he liked to challenge himself as he made a variety of different films in all genres of cinema. And while the outcome may not have always been entirely successful, his films still managed to be entertaining and worth watching. Joel Schumacher was an amazing talent who will be certainly be missed.
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