Joel Schumacher

At 80 years old, Joel Schumacher has this physical status:

Joel T. Schumacher (born August 29, 1939) is an American filmmaker. Schumacher rose to fame after directing three hit films: St. Elmo's Fire (1985), The Lost Boys (1987), and Flatliners (1990).

He went on to direct John Grisham's adaptations The Client (1994) and A Time to Kill (1996).

Falling Down (1993) and 8mm (1999) were both competing for Palme d'Or and Golden Bear respectively. He committed to directing the upcoming Batman film series in 1993.

Both critics and the public reacted an enthusiastically to Schumacher's Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997).

Schumacher took a break from blockbusters and reverted to making minimalist films like Tigerland (2000) and Phone Booth (2002), both receiving glowing reviews.

He also directed The Phantom of the Opera (2004), The Number 23 (2004), and two episodes of House of Cards. Schumacher introduced actors like Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Matthew McConaughey to start their careers.

Early life and education

Joel T. Schumacher was born in New York City on August 29, 1939. Francis Schumacher, a Baptist from Knoxville, Tennessee, who died of pneumonia when Joel was four years old, and Marian (Kantor), a Swedish Jew, were his parents. He was raised in Long Island City by his mother. Hetamine and LSD were used during his youth, and by age nine, he began to drink alcohol. He graduated from Parsons School of Design in 1965 after studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and then became a Revlon designer in 1966.

Schumacher said his "life seemed like a joke" at the time of his mother's death in 1965, when he was $50,000 in debt, missing multiple teeth, and only weighed 130 pounds (59 kg). However, he ceased using opioids in 1970 and went to Henri Bendel. "I got my self-respect back to getting a good day's work," he said later.

Personal life

In a 2019 interview, Schumacher said he became sexually active at age 11 and that he had sex with between 10,000 and 20,000 men throughout his life. Schumacher said the first person he knew who died from the AIDS epidemic in 1983 was "not promiscuous," prompting Schumacher to believe he would die shortly after, "I was positive I had it, I was planning my death."

Schumacher bought the horse stables that had belonged to Rudolph Valentino of Doris Duke in 1984.

Schumacher funded both legislative campaigns and John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid.

Schumacher died of cancer on June 22, 2020. Jim Cary and Matthew McConaughey, who praised Schumacher for starting their careers, lauded him after his death.

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Career

Schumacher appeared as a costume designer for Play It Lays and supervised the costumes of Dyan Cannon, Joan Hackett, and Raquel Welch for the film The Last of Sheila in 1972. He appeared as a costume designer for Woody Allen's Sleeper and Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love in 1973. He was the production designer of Killer Bees in 1974. He worked as a costume designer for The Time of the Cuckoo, The Prisoner of Second Avenue and Interiors, later.

Schumacher wrote a script for an eponymous biographical made-for-television film based on Virginia Hill's life in 1974. On September 9, he was chosen to direct the film and began filming.

Sparkle's script was written by him and Howard Rosenman in 1974 and was published in 1976. His initial intention for the film was for the film to be a "black Gone with the Wind," but it had to be modest due to the limited funds available to the production by Warner Bros. Jesse Jackson, Angela Davis, Tammi Terrell, and Diana Ross appeared in the film, according to Schumacher, "personal fascination" with Jesse Jackson, Angela Davis, Tammi Terrell, and Diana Ross. Later on, he was chosen to write screenplays for Car Wash and The Wiz.

Schumacher was chosen to direct Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill in 1978, which was later released in 1979. On January 31, 1980, he wrote a script for A Chorus Line, but the film underwent rewrites in development hell.

He was selected to direct The Incredible Shrinking Woman, his first theatrically released film, in 1979, after Universal Pictures cut the film's budget by half. The film was released to critical reviews in 1981 and was a box office bomb. The film was initially expected to cost $30 million, but it was later reduced to $11–13 million, but it would later rise to over $20 million due to special effects' costs.

Mr. T.'s 1982, he directed D.C. Cabin, but later said he only worked on the film because he needed a job.

Schumacher was chosen by Columbia Pictures in 1984 to direct St. Elmo's Fire, but he was undercover during the film's production. He created The Lost Boys in 1987. Both films were well-received among young people, and they were his first big cultural and commercial hits.

Following the Lost Boys, Schumacher produced Cousins (a French film Cousin Cousine), Flatliners, Dying Young, Falling Down, and The Client.

Schumacher was chosen by Warner Bros. in 1993 to replace Tim Burton as the Batman film's director. Batman Forever was a stylistic departure from Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. Batman Forever was the subject of mixed reviews, but it was more profitable than Batman Returns.

He later directed Batman & Robin, which was rushed into production after Batman Forever and was deliberately made toyetic and light-hearted to appeal to children and sell items. The film received mainly critical feedback and did not do as well at the box-office as any of its predecessors, which led to the cancellation of a planned sequel, Batman Unchained. Schumacher came back to Warner Bros. to pitch ideas for a new Batman film based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, Batman: Year One and Returns. However, Warner Bros. declined to allow him to make another Batman film due to the box-office bombing of Batman & Robin, as well as the negative effects that the film had on his image. In 2017, Schumacher apologised for Batman & Robin's high quality.

Schumacher, a gay man, was accused of adding homoerotic elements to the film, the most notable being the rubber nipples, codpieces, and close-up camera photos of Batman and Robin's buttocks. According to Schumacher, the suits' designs were based on anatomically correct Greek statues and medical drawings. Clooney claimed that Schumacher told him that Batman was gay in 2005.

Following Batman and Robin Schumacher's 8mm film Flawless, Tigerland, Bad Company, Phone Booth, Veronica Guerin, The Phantom of the Opera, The Number 23, Blood Creek, Twelve, and Trespass.

Schumacher supervised the music video for American rock band Scars on Broadway's single "Life Long Gone" in August 2008.

In 2013, he penned two episodes of House of Cards.

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