Movies

Todd Phillips trivia: 80 facts about the famous director

Todd Phillips is the director of films such as The Hangover trilogy and the new Joker film!

So is the perfect time to dive into some unknowns about his life and career!

Todd Phillips is an American filmmaker and actor
He is best known for writing and directing the comedy films Road Trip (2000), Old School (2003), Starsky & Hutch (2004), The Hangover Trilogy (2009, 2011, and 2013) and Due Date (2010)
For his work on the satirical comedy film Borat (2006), Phillips was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Phillips also expanded into other genre work
Directing biographical crime film War Dogs (2016) and the psychological thriller film Joker (2019)
The latter of which received the Golden Lion at the 76th Venice International Film Festival
Phillips was born in Brooklyn, New York City
To a family of Jewish background
He was raised in Huntington, New York, on Long Island
He attended New York University Film School
But dropped out in order to focus on completing his first film
Around that time, he worked at Kim’s Video and Music
Phillips appeared as one of the drivers in the first season of the HBO hidden camera docuseries Taxicab Confessions
In a New York Times profile, Phillips claimed to have gotten in trouble for shoplifting as a young man
Phillip’s first documentary film, Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies, centered on the life and death of controversial punk rocker GG Allin
While as a junior at NYU and it went on to become one of the highest grossing student films at the time
Even getting a limited theatrical release
Next, he co-directed with then-partner Andrew Gurland for Frat House
A second documentary about college fraternities
It premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival
And won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary features
It was produced by HBO
But never aired on its channel because many of the film’s participants claimed they were paid to re-enact their activities
It was never proven either way
His third documentary film Bittersweet Motel centered on the jam band Phish, covering its summer and fall 1997 tours
Plus footage from their 1998 spring tour of Europe
It ends at The Great Went, a two-day festival held in upstate Maine
Which attracted 70,000 people
While at Sundance with Frat House, Phillips met director-producer Ivan Reitman
He led Phillips into writing and directing his comedy films, Road Trip and Old School, for Reitman’s Montecito Picture Company
Phillips also wrote and directed the 2004 film Starsky & Hutch starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson
As well as the 2006 film School for Scoundrels, starring Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Heder
In 2005, Details Magazine cited Judd Apatow, Adam McKay and Phillips as “The Frat Pack”
He worked on the satirical comedy Borat (2006)
But he resigned his position as a director in early 2005
Due to creative differences
Nevertheless, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his role in fashioning the story
After establishing Green Hat Films in 2008, Phillips directed and produced The Hangover
It was made for a reported $35 million
And went on to become the highest-grossing R-rated comedy in 2009
Its worldwide gross stood at $480 million on February 3, 2012
The film went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy)
It also won Best Comedy at the 2009 Broadcast Film Critics Awards
Phillips took almost no up-front salary in exchange for a large share of the film’s profits
And has said that the movie’s enormous success, combined with his deal, makes it “my Star Wars”
After a worldwide gross of $467 million, his share in the film made Phillips around $50 million
In 2010, Phillips directed, produced and co-wrote the comedy Due Date, which starred Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis
It was a box office success, grossing $211,780,324 worldwide
In the fall of 2010, production on The Hangover Part II began in Bangkok, Thailand
Phillips directed, produced and co-wrote it
The film shot for 63 days
It broke various records upon its release on May 26, 2011
With the film debuting at midnight with showings in 2,600 theaters
The film earned $10.4 million
Breaking the record for the biggest midnight opening for an R-rated film
The Hangover Part II went on to accrue a launch day total of $31.6 million
Nearly doubling The Hangover’s Friday launch opening ($16.7 million)
This amount broke two further records
The highest-grossing opening day for a live-action comedy
And the highest-grossing opening day for an R-rated comedy film
Replacing Sex and the City ($26.7 million)
The three-day opening weekend accumulated $85,946,294
An average of $23,923 per theater
Becoming the highest grossing opening weekend for a comedy film
Replacing The Simpsons Movie ($74 million)
For the Memorial Day four-day weekend, the film amassed $103.4 million
It became the fourth-highest-grossing Memorial Day weekend opening
Finally, the film’s worldwide gross of $581,464,305 beat the previous R-rated comedy record holder The Hangover to become the third-biggest R-rated comedy film of all time
He returned to direct, write, and produce The Hangover Part III, which was released in 2013
It grossed over $300 million
Pushing The Hangover Trilogy’s total box office gross to $1.4 billion
In 2016, following the successes of The Hangover trilogy, Phillips directed, produced and co-wrote the crime film War Dogs, starring Jonah Hill and Miles Teller
In August 2017, it was reported that Phillips would direct, co-write and co-produce an origin story movie
It is set during the 1980s for DC Comics’s supervillain, The Joker
The script was co-written by Scott Silver
The film starred Joaquin Phoenix as the titular Joker
It premiered at the 76th Venice International Film Festival and is scheduled to be released in October 2019
Phillips is scheduled to direct a biographical film about Hulk Hogan, starring Chris Hemsworth in the lead role
Frequent collaborator Scott Silver is a co-writer, alongside John Pollono
Philips is producing the film with Bradley Cooper, one of the protagonists of Phillips’ The Hangover trilogy