Wednesday, January 19, 2022
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Maybe not since the late John Hughes has a filmmaker captured how it feels to be a teenager as successfully as Catherine Hardwicke. She is the most commercially successful female director in Hollywood and has helped create a new generation of teen idols: Evan Rachel Wood; Kristen Stewart; Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Even though when she was a teen in south Texas, the local theatre only ran two types of films - Westerns and movies in Spanish.
Catherine started in Hollywood as a production designer, on films like Vanilla Sky and Three Kings. In 2003, she made her directing debut, with an explosive film about adolescent sex and drug-use called Thirteen. The film feels like a docudrama, but for parents of teenaged girls, it's more like a horror movie. Thirteen won Catherine the director's award at Sundance and at 47, she was Hollywood's hot new filmmaker.
Next, she made Lords of Dogtown, which explored the original skate-punk culture in southern California. Then she landed Twilight, one of the most anticipated films in Hollywood history. And even though the film made nearly $400 million, Catherine turned down the chance to direct the sequel.
Instead, she's got another supernatural love triangle. Red Riding Hood puts a Gothic twist on the classic fable. And it's a long way from Grandma's house.
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