Andrew Dominik is an Australian director and screenwriter. He made headlines with his latest film “Blonde”.
So let’s find out some trivia and facts about the director.
- Andrew Dominik was born on October 7, 1967
- He is a New Zealand-born Australian film director and screenwriter
- He has directed the crime film Chopper (2000), the Western drama film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), the neo-noir crime film Killing Them Softly (2012), and the pseudo-biographical psychological drama Blonde (2022)
- He has also directed the documentary film One More Time with Feeling (2016)
- And two episodes of the Netflix series Mindhunter in 2019
- He was born in Wellington, New Zealand
- Andrew Dominik has lived in Australia since he was two years old
- He graduated from Melbourne’s Swinburne Film School in 1988
- His career in films began in 2000 when he directed Chopper
- His first film was based on notorious Australian criminal Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read, starring Eric Bana and Simon Lyndon
- Chopper received generally positive reviews
- Bana in particular received widely praised for his intense portrayal of Chopper
- The Australian Film Institute awarded the film with Best Director (Dominik), Best Actor (Bana), and Best Supporting Actor (Lyndon)
- His next film was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
- Starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck
- The film was based on the novel of the same name which he came across in a second-hand bookstore
- The film explores the peculiar relationship between Jesse James and his eventual assassin Robert Ford
- Pitt was a big fan of Dominik’s first feature Chopper and had hoped to collaborate with the filmmaker in the future
- Pitt contacted the director, and with a big star interested to lead his new film, Dominik was therefore able to get Warner Bros. to finance the production
- Principal shooting in Canada was completed in 2005
- The Assassination’s 2006 release was delayed to a fall 2007 release, largely due to studio interference with the film’s editing process
- Dominik and Pitt were pulling for a less quick-paced and more contemplative cut of the film while the studio wanted “less contemplation and more action”
- There were reportedly more than a dozen edited versions of the film at one time fighting to be the final cut, the longest version being over four hours
- The disputes during post-production lasted for over a year before a final version was settled upon
- Over an hour of scenes were deleted for the theatrical version
- Dominik remarked he was still very proud of the theatrical version of the film
- The film garnered two Academy Award nominations: Best Cinematography (Deakins) and Best Supporting Actor (Affleck)
- Dominik reteamed with Brad Pitt in their second collaboration in a thriller/dark comedy based on George V. Higgins’ Boston-set crime novel Cogan’s Trade
- The film was renamed Killing Them Softly
- Shooting began in January 2011 and wrapped in May 2011
- The film competed for the Palme d’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival
- In 2022, Dominik completed Blonde, based on Joyce Carol Oates’s fictional Marilyn Monroe memoir of the same name
- The film was scheduled to start shooting in January 2011
- The project was put on hold when he announced Killing Them Softly
- In 2014 Jessica Chastain was in talks to play Monroe
- In late 2019, Cuban actress Ana de Armas was cast in the lead role
- Blonde had its world premiere at the 79th Venice Film Festival on 8 September 2022
- It was released in the United States on 16 September 2022
- Before its streaming release on 28 September 2022, by Netflix
- It is rated NC-17 for its graphic sexual content and is first of its kind released through a streaming service
- In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll of the greatest films of all time, Dominik chose Apocalypse Now, Badlands, Barry Lyndon, Blue Velvet, Marnie, Mulholland Drive, The Night of the Hunter, Raging Bull, Sunset Boulevard, and The Tenant as his top ten
- Dominik has one son
- He was engaged to actress Bella Heathcote in 2017
Blonde Trivia | 42 facts about the new Netflix film
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