Ron Underwood

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For the vocalist of Opiate For The Masses see Ron Underwood (musician).

Ronald Brian Underwood, (born November 6, 1953), is an American film director. Despite early cult success with Tremors and commercial success with City Slickers, perhaps his best known films, Mighty Joe Young and The Adventures of Pluto Nash, were both box-office disasters.

Underwood was born in Glendale, California but spent some of his teenage years living as an exchange student in Sri Lanka. After graduating from high school he briefly attended medical school, but dropped out after finding the courses too dull. After this he decided to follow a career in the film industry; film having been a passion of his since childhood. He enrolled at University of Southern California's prestigious film school, and upon graduation began working as a staff director and cameraman for Barr films, a company specializing in the production of educational films.

One of the first motion pictures Underwood worked on was Futureworld (1976) as a Production Assistant. The film starred Blythe Danner and Peter Fonda, actors he would later direct himself in 2004. During the filming of Futureworld, one of his tasks was to babysit a young Gwyneth Paltrow. Another early job was acting as an Assistant Director to first-time director David Schmoeller on Tourist Trap, a low-budget horror film. However, after this he continued to produce educational films for the next seven years. In 1986 Underwood established himself as a director when he won a Peabody Award for his animated special The Mouse and the Motorcycle, which was followed two years later by the sequel Runaway Ralph, for which he received a Daytime Emmy nomination.

Following his critically acclaimed venture into television, Underwood decided to have a go at directing a feature film. His first effort was Tremors, released in 1990, which was well received by the critics and later established itself as a cult classic. He received his first taste of commercial success with 1991's City Slickers, which starred Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern and Jack Palance, who won an Academy Award for his performance. The film made $179m worldwide from a budget of only $27m. It was the tenth most successful film released in 1991 (the fifth most successful in the US).

City Slickers was to prove the pinnacle of Underwood's commercial and critical career as a director. His next film, Heart and Souls (1993), was again well-received by critics but struggled at the box office (making a total of $16m). He followed this with Speechless (1994), which made just over $20m over the Christmas period.

Underwood was given his first opportunity to direct a big-budget film by Walt Disney Pictures in 1998 when he was asked to direct a remake of Mighty Joe Young. The film, starring Charlize Theron in her first lead role, was nominated for the Academy Award for Visual Effects and featured some of the most sophisticated and expensive special effects seen in film up to that point, paving the way for later ape films like Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005). The special effects drove production costs to around $90m, and ultimately global box-office takings fell short by about $20m before marketing costs.

Following Mighty Joe Young, Underwood began work on Eddie Murphy fronted The Adventures of Pluto Nash. The film also starred Rosario Dawson and was filmed in Montreal Canada. Unfortunately for Underwood, the film was to prove an even larger box-office failure than Mighty Joe Young. The film cost over $120m to produce and market, took only $7m from the global box office and was quickly pulled from theaters. To date this is the second-largest financial loss of any film ever made, topped only by Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Underwood has recently returned to his roots, directing low-budget films. Since the release of The Adventures of Pluto Nash he has directed Stealing Sinatra (2003) for Showtime, Back When We Were Grownups (2004) for Hallmark Hall of Fame and In the Mix (2005), starring R&B singer Usher. He has also ventured into television drama, directing episodes of Monk and Boston Legal. He is currently in post production on Mary Christmas, a TV movie for ABC Family Channel and directing a live-action version of The Year Without A Santa Claus, based on the 1974 ABC special.