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52-557: Alexander B. H. Cox (born 15 December 1954) is an English film director, screenwriter, actor, non-fiction author and broadcaster. Cox experienced success early in his career with Repo Man (1984) and Sid and Nancy (1986). Since the release and commercial failure of Walker (1987), his career has moved towards independent films , including Highway Patrolman (1991) and Three Businessmen (1998), and microbudget features such as Searchers 2.0 (2007) and Repo Chick (2009). Cox has taught screenwriting and film production at

104-525: A road movie , Cox reconfigured the story to take place mostly in Los Angeles to maintain its budget. Michael Nesmith of The Monkees came on board the project as an executive producer , and secured a negative pickup deal with Universal Pictures . Principal photography ran through summer 1983, during which Cox encouraged improvisation from the cast; the film's ending notably differed from what had originally been written. The soundtrack, headlined by

156-405: A 40-minute surreal short about an artist struggling against society. After graduation, Cox formed Edge City Productions with two friends with the intention of producing low-budget feature films. He wrote a screenplay for Repo Man , which he hoped to produce for a budget of $ 70,000, and began seeking funding. Michael Nesmith agreed to produce Repo Man , and convinced Universal Studios to back

208-622: A Bachelor of Science in journalism, specializing in advertising, from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1975. Richardson made his film debut as the Fairy Godmother, in the 1977 American erotic musical comedy Cinderella . He is perhaps best known as a regular in the films of Alex Cox , having appeared in Repo Man , Sid and Nancy , Straight to Hell , Walker , The Winner and Searchers 2.0 . He played "Turbo" in

260-410: A backdrop of anachronisms that drew parallels between the story and modern American intervention in the area . The $ 6,000,000 production was backed by Universal , but the completed film was too political and too violent for the studio's tastes, and the film went without promotion. When Walker failed to perform at the box office, it ended the director's involvement with Hollywood studios, and led to

312-418: A busy stretch on the movie beat: Three days during which I saw more relentlessly bad movies than during any comparable period in memory. Most of those bad movies were so cynically constructed out of formula ideas and "commercial" ingredients that watching them was an ordeal. Repo Man comes out of left field, has no big stars, didn't cost much, takes chances, dares to be unconventional, is funny, and works. There

364-703: A concert film there featuring the Clash , the Pogues and Elvis Costello . When he could not get backing, he decided instead to write a film that they would all act in. The film became Straight to Hell . Collaborating with Dick Rude (who also co-starred beside Strummer, Sy Richardson and Courtney Love ), he imagined the film as a spoof of the Spaghetti Western genre, filmed in Almería , Spain, where many classic Italian westerns were shot. Straight to Hell

416-474: A crime spree, steal it. After visiting a nightclub, Parnell appears and tricks the punks into opening the trunk, killing one of them and scaring the other two away. Later, he picks up Otto and drives aimlessly, before collapsing and dying from radiation. After surviving a convenience store shootout with the punks that leaves Bud wounded and punk Duke dead, Otto takes the Malibu back to Helping Hand and leaves it in

468-599: A deal with Dutch producer Wim Kayzer to produce another dual TV/feature production. Three Businessmen . Initially, Cox had hoped to shoot in Mexico but later decided to set his story in Liverpool , Rotterdam , Tokyo and Almería . The story follows businessmen in Liverpool who leave their hotel in search of food and slowly drift further from their starting point, all the while believing they are still in Liverpool. The film

520-448: A feature-length film, but the BBC was uninterested. Japanese investors gave him $ 100,000 to expand the film in 1993, but the production ran over-budget, allowing no funds for post-production. To secure funds, Cox directed a "work for hire" project called The Winner . The film was edited extensively without Cox's knowledge, and he tried to have his name removed from the credits as a result but

572-615: A film adaptation of Nikolai Gogol 's novel Dead Souls , which he says will be his last film. In May 1988 Cox began presenting the long-running and influential BBC series Moviedrome . The weekly strand was a showcase for cult films. Though most of the films shown were chosen by series creator and producer Nick Jones, each film was introduced by Cox. By the time he left the show in September 1994, Cox had introduced 141 films. Various film directors have cited Moviedrome as an influence, including Ben Wheatley and Edgar Wright . The series

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624-465: A main theme composed and performed by Iggy Pop , is noted as a snapshot of 1980s hardcore punk ; Cox wanted the music to underscore the life of repo men. Despite a troubled initial release due to Universal's skepticism towards the film's commercial viability, Repo Man received widespread acclaim, and was deemed by critics to be one of the best films of 1984. It has since gained a cult following , particularly surrounding Cox's re-edited version of

676-565: A period of several years in which Cox would not direct a single film. Despite this, Cox and some critics maintain that it is his best film. In 1988, The Writers Guild of America West barred Cox from any future membership because he had worked on scripts during the writers’ strike. Effectively blacklisted , Alex Cox struggled to find feature work. He finally got financial backing for a feature from investors in Japan, where his films had been successful on video. Cox had scouted locations in Mexico during

728-502: Is a 1984 American science fiction black comedy film written and directed by Alex Cox in his directorial debut . It stars Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez , with Tracey Walter , Olivia Barash , Sy Richardson , Vonetta McGee , Fox Harris , and Dick Rude among the supporting cast. Set in Los Angeles , the plot concerns a young punk rocker (Estevez) who is recruited by a car repossession agency and gets caught up in

780-406: Is a lesson here. Neil Gaiman reviewed Repo Man for Imagine magazine, and stated that "one of last year's cult movie successes was Repo Man [...] and it's not hard to see why. A lobotomised nuclear scientist is driving around Los Angeles in a car with something in the boot. Dead extraterrestrials, a neutron bomb or something even more bizarre?" The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives

832-493: Is able to enter the car. He slides behind the wheel and beckons Otto into the Malibu. After Otto settles into the passenger seat, it lifts straight up into the air and flies away, first through the city's skyline (Miller telling Otto what Bud had said earlier, "The life of a repo man is ALWAYS intense.") and later into space. Numerous scenes were filmed around the Downtown Los Angeles , such as south of downtown in

884-587: Is largely recreational. In 2006, Alex Cox tried to get funding for a series of eight very low budget features set in Liverpool and produced by locals. The project was not completed, but the director grew interested in pursuing the idea of a film made for less than £100,000. He had originally hoped to shoot Repo Man on a comparable budget, and hoped that the lower overhead would mean greater creative freedom. Searchers 2.0 , named after but based on The Searchers , became Cox's first film for which he has sole writing credit since Repo Man , and marked his return to

936-408: Is widely considered to be one of the best films of 1984. In 2008, the film was voted by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors as the eighth-best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years. Entertainment Weekly ranked the film seventh on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films". Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of a possible 4, and wrote: I saw Repo Man near the end of

988-508: The Circle Jerks , Suicidal Tendencies , Iggy Pop (with Steve Jones , Nigel Harrison , and Clem Burke as his backing band) and others. The film score was created by Tito Larriva , Steven Hufsteter, Charlie Quintana and Tony Marsico of The Plugz . Iggy Pop volunteered to write the title song after his manager viewed a screening of the film. Chris Bones saw the script on Cox's website and asked, and received, permission to adapt

1040-627: The Garment/Fashion District and southeast of downtown in the Arts District . Early in the film when Otto was walking along the tracks, the 4th Street bridge over the Los Angeles River was in the background. When Parnell and Leila are in nearby phone booths talking to each other, the scene is located at the corner of Wilson and Violet in Los Angeles. Repo Man garnered widespread praise upon its release, and

1092-531: The School of Theater, Film and Television with an MFA . Cox began reading law as an undergraduate at Oxford University , but left to study radio, film and TV at Bristol University , graduating in 1977. Seeing difficulties in the British film scene at the time, he first went to Los Angeles to attend film school at UCLA in 1977. There he produced his first film, Edge City (also known as Sleep Is for Sissies ),

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1144-498: The University of Colorado, Boulder and has written numerous educational books on film and television. Cox was born in Bebington , Merseyside, England in 1954. He attended Worcester College, Oxford , and later transferred to the University of Bristol where he majored in film studies . Cox secured a Fulbright Scholarship , allowing him to study at the University of California, Los Angeles , United States, where he graduated from

1196-675: The Venice Film Festival on 9 September 2009. As of July 2012, Cox was teaching film production and screenwriting at the University of Colorado at Boulder . In 2013 Cox directed Bill, the Galactic Hero , developed from a science fiction book by Harry Harrison . It was funded by a successful Kickstarter funding campaign, raising $ 114,957 of the original $ 100,000 goal. The film was to be made, created and acted by his film students in monochrome with supervision from professional film makers who would be giving their time on

1248-521: The Venice Film Festival the following month, but he remained ambivalent as to whether the film would ever be distributed to cinemas. His previous film, Searchers 2.0 , was not released theatrically, and only appears on DVD in Japan and North America after a televised screening in the UK on the BBC. Cox is a fan of the Japanese Godzilla films and appeared in a 1998 BBC documentary highlighting

1300-671: The Compass , The Winner , Three Businessmen , Repo Chick among others). Although the film was unable to achieve a cinema release in America or Europe, Cox claimed the experience of making a film with a smaller crew and less restrictions was energising. It is available on DVD in Japan, and was released in October 2010 in North America. Alex Cox had attempted to get a Repo Man sequel, titled Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday , produced in

1352-584: The car to the Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation, where he learns the car he drove was being repossessed. He refuses to join Bud as a "repo man," and goes to see his parents. After learning that his burned-out ex-hippie parents have donated the money that they promised him as a reward for graduating from college to a televangelist , he decides to take the repo job. After repossessing a flashy red Cadillac, Otto sees Leila running down

1404-469: The car. Parnell arrives in L.A. driving the Malibu, but he is unable to meet his waiting UFO compatriots because of a team of government agents led by a woman with a metal hand. When Parnell pulls into a gas station, Helping Hand's competitors, the Rodriguez brothers, take the Malibu. They stop for sodas because the car's trunk is hot. While they are out of the car a trio of Otto's punk friends, who are on

1456-510: The comedy genre. A road movie and a revenge story, it tells of two actors, loosely based on and played by Del Zamora and Ed Pansullo, who travel from Los Angeles to a desert film screening in Monument Valley in the hopes of avenging abuse inflicted on them by a cruel screenwriter, Fritz Frobisher ( Sy Richardson ). It was scored by longtime collaborator Dan Wool aka Pray for Rain ( Sid & Nancy , Straight to Hell , Death &

1508-591: The film a 98% approval rating based on 51 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, " Repo Man is many things: an alien-invasion film, a punk-rock musical, a send-up of consumerism. One thing it isn't is boring." On Metacritic , the film received a score of 82 based on 21 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim", and was given the "Must-See" badge. Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films American Film Institute Lists The soundtrack features songs by various punk rock musicians such as The Plugz , Black Flag ,

1560-514: The film for free. Cox's 2013 book The President and the Provocateur examines events in the lives of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald leading up to Kennedy's assassination, with reference to the various conspiracy theories . In 2017 Cox directed another crowdfunded film, Tombstone Rashomon , which tells the tale of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral from multiple perspectives in

1612-496: The film for television due to its deliberate inclusion of surreal overdubs to replace profanity . A stand-alone sequel based on an unproduced screenplay by Cox, Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday , was published as a graphic novel in 2008, while a spiritual successor , Repo Chick , was released in 2009. In the Mojave Desert , a policeman pulls over a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu driven by J. Frank Parnell. The policeman opens

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1664-591: The film to earn a re-release in a single cinema in New York City, but only after becoming available on video and cable. Nevertheless, it ran for 18 months, and eventually earned $ 4,000,000. Continuing his fascination with punk music , Cox's next film was an independent feature shot in London and Los Angeles, following the career and death of bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen , initially titled Love Kills and later renamed Sid and Nancy . It

1716-620: The film was in post-production. The bulk of the film was shot in front of a green screen , with backgrounds filmed and composited-in during post-production. Sy Richardson He was born in Cincinnati and grew up in Chicago . He attended Farragut Career Academy . He served two years in the United States Navy . He received an associate of arts in black history and music from Kennedy–King College in 1972 and received

1768-554: The late 1980s, he has found himself on a self-described blacklist , and turned to producing independent films . Cox is an atheist and is decidedly left-wing in his political views. Many of his films have an explicit anti-capitalist theme or message. He was originally set to direct Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but was replaced by Terry Gilliam due to creative differences with Hunter S. Thompson . By August 2009, Cox had announced completion of Repo Chick , which premiered at

1820-681: The lot. The car is stolen again, and a chase ensues. By this time, the car is glowing bright green. Eventually, the Malibu reappears at the Helping Hand lot with Bud behind the wheel, but he ends up being shot. The various groups trying to acquire the car soon show up; government agents, the UFO scientists, and the televangelist. Anyone who approaches it bursts into flames, even those in flame-retardant suits. Only Miller, an eccentric mechanic at Helping Hand who had explained earlier to Otto that aliens exist and can travel through time in their spaceships ,

1872-485: The mid-'90s, but the project fell apart, with the script adapted into a graphic novel of the same name. For his next micro-feature, he wrote a fresh attempt at a Repo follow-up, although it contained no recurring characters, so as to preserve Universal's rights to the original. Repo Chick was filmed entirely against a green screen, with backgrounds of digital composites, live action shots, and miniatures matted in afterwards, to produce an artificial look. It premiered at

1924-415: The original play's dialogue, with some additional bits written in a more modern tone. The film is also notable for its soundtrack, composed by Chumbawamba . Following this, Cox directed a short film set in Liverpool for the BBC titled I'm a Juvenile Delinquent – Jail Me! (2004). The 30-minute film satirised reality television as well as the high volume of petty crime in Liverpool which, according to Cox,

1976-514: The pre-production of Walker and decided he wanted to shoot a film there, with a local cast and crew, in Spanish. Producer Lorenzo O'Brien penned the script. Inspired by the style of Mexican directors including Arturo Ripstein , he shot most of the film in plano secuencia ; long, continuous takes shot with a hand-held camera. El Patrullero was completed and released in 1991, but struggled to find its way into cinemas. Shortly after this, Cox

2028-411: The project with a budget of over a million dollars. During the course of the film's production, the studio's management changed, and the new management had far less faith in the project. The initial cinema release was limited to Chicago, followed by Los Angeles, and was short-lived. After the success of the soundtrack album (notable for featuring many popular LA punk bands ), there was enough interest in

2080-593: The pursuit of a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu that might be connected to extraterrestrials. A satire of America under the Reagan administration , consumerism and the Atomic Age , Repo Man was developed by Cox in partnership with his fellow film school graduates from UCLA , independent producers Jonathan Wacks and Peter McCarthy . His inspiration for the film came from his own experiences working with repossession agent Mark Lewis. Originally conceiving of it as

2132-479: The script into a graphic novel . The book, Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday , was released in March 2008 by Gestalt Publishing . On December 3, 2008, a sequel was reported to be going into development with the working title Repo Chick . The story would be set in 2008 and the resulting boom in repossession that extends far beyond cars and homes. On February 13, 2009, Cox announced on his blog that shooting had finished and

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2184-570: The series. He also narrated the documentary Bringing Godzilla Down to Size and wrote the Godzilla in Time comics for Dark Horse . He tried to direct an American Godzilla film at one point, but unsuccessfully submitted his outline to TriStar Pictures . As of 2011, Cox resided in Colestin, Oregon , United States, with his wife, writer Todelina Babish Davies. Repo Man (film) Repo Man

2236-486: The street. He gives her a ride to her workplace, the United Fruitcake Outlet. On the way, she shows him pictures of aliens that she says are in the trunk of a Chevy Malibu. She says they are dangerous due to the radiation they emit. Meanwhile, Helping Hand is offered a $ 20,000 bounty notice for the Malibu. Most assume that the repossession is drug-related because the bounty is far above the actual value of

2288-485: The style of Akira Kurosawa 's 1950 film Rashomon . In September 2019, Cox started the podcast ‘Conversations with Cox and Kjølseth’ with his friend and colleague Pablo Kjølseth. In October 2022, Cox announced the end of the podcast, citing its small audience and the comparative success of podcasts by Joe Dante , Quentin Tarantino and Cox's one-time collaborator Roger Deakins . In June 2024 Cox began crowdfunding

2340-425: The trunk, sees a blinding flash of white light, and is instantly vaporized, leaving only his boots behind. Otto Maddox, a young punk rocker in L.A., is fired from his job as a supermarket stock clerk. His girlfriend leaves him for his best friend. Depressed and broke, Otto is wandering the streets when Bud drives up and offers him $ 25 to drive a car out of the neighborhood, supposedly for his wife. Otto follows Bud in

2392-562: Was completed for a small budget of $ 250,000. Following this, Cox moved back to Liverpool and became interested in creating films there. Cox had long been interested in the Jacobean play, The Revenger's Tragedy , and upon moving back to Britain , decided to pursue adapting it to a film. Collaborating with fellow Liverpudlian screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce , the story was recast in the near future, following an unseen war. This adaptation, titled Revengers Tragedy , consisted primarily of

2444-524: Was denied, but the money was enough for Cox to fund the completion of Death and the Compass . The finished, 82-minute feature received a limited cinema release in the US, where the TV version had not aired, in 1996. In 1996, producer Stephen Nemeth employed Alex Cox to write and direct an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas . After creative disagreements with the producer and Thompson, he

2496-473: Was invited to adapt a Jorge Luis Borges story of his choice for the BBC. He chose Death and the Compass . Despite being a British production and an English language film, he convinced his producers to let him shoot in Mexico City . This film , like his previous Mexican production, made extensive use of long-takes. The completed 55-minute film aired on the BBC in 1992. Cox had hoped to expand this into

2548-485: Was later presented by film director and critic Mark Cousins . Cox has cited Luis Buñuel and Akira Kurosawa as influences, as well as the Western film directors Sergio Leone , Sergio Corbucci , Sam Peckinpah , John Ford and Giulio Questi . Cox also wrote a book on the history of the genre called 10,000 Ways to Die . While he once directed films for Universal Pictures , such as Repo Man and Walker , since

2600-696: Was met warmly by critics and fans, though heavily criticised by some, including Pistols' frontman John Lydon , for its inaccuracies. The production of this film also sparked a relationship with Joe Strummer of the Clash , who would continue to collaborate with the director on his next two films. Cox had long been interested in Nicaragua and the Sandinistas (both Repo Man and Edge City made references to Nicaragua and/or Latin American revolution), and visited in 1984. The following year, he hoped to shoot

2652-420: Was sacked from the project, and his script rewritten when Terry Gilliam took over the film. (Cox later sued successfully for a writing credit, as it was ruled that there were enough similarities between the drafts to suggest that Gilliam's was derivative of Cox's. Gilliam countered that the screenplays were based on the source book and similarities between them were a consequence of this.) In 1997, Alex Cox made

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2704-558: Was widely panned critically, but successful in Japan and retains a cult following. On 1 June 2012, Cox wrote an article in The New York Times about his long-standing interest in spaghetti westerns. Continuing his interest in Nicaragua, Cox took on a more overtly political project, with the intention of filming it there. He asked Rudy Wurlitzer to pen the screenplay, which followed the life of William Walker , set against

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