James Wan (born 27 February 1977) is a Malaysian-born Australian film director, screenwriter and producer.
He first specialized in the horror genre before branching out on high-budget action/adventure films. In January 2019, he became the second director (after James Cameron) to have two movies from different franchises gross a billion dollars: Furious 7 and Aquaman. He's also a prominent producer/executive producer at New Line Cinema.
Filmography:
- Stygian (2000)
- Saw (2004) (executive producer on all future installments)
- Dead Silence (2007)
- Death Sentence (2007)
- Insidious (2010) (producer on all films after Chapter 2)
- Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
- The Conjuring Universe (producer on all installments except the first film)
- The Conjuring (2013)
- The Conjuring 2 (2016)
- Furious 7 (2015)
- DC Extended Universe
- Aquaman (2018)
- Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
- Mortal Kombat (2021) (producer)
- Malignant (2021)
- M3GAN (2023) (producer, story by)
Tropes:
- Author Phobia: Dolls and puppets show up in his more notable films.
- Creator's Oddball: As noted on that page, Wan got his start on low-budget but profitable horror films before expanding to big-budget action/adventure blockbusters.
- Furious 7 (2015): His highest-grossing film to date that relies heavily on Cool Cars, Car Fu, Stuff Blowing Up, and Rule of Cool above all else.
- Aquaman (2018): His second highest-grossing film to date that tackles the Superhero Genre with
Narm Charm and enough Visual Effects of Awesome to spare. - Mortal Kombat (2021): A Supernatural Martial Arts film based on a very popular video game franchise of the same name that is Bloodier and Gorier than the previous film adaptation with extra buckets of Gorn to boot.
- Creator Thumbprint:
- Props from previous movies like the Billy puppet from Saw or the Annabelle doll show up as Easter Eggs.
- Especially in his action films, the camera will follow along with a character being flipped.
- Creepy Dolls, as seen in Saw, Dead Silence, The Conjuring, and M3GAN. His Instagram handle is even "creepypuppet".
- Nice Guy: James is a very easygoing, happy-go-lucky, and passionate person in real life. He seems to get along well with the people he works with which may explain why he gets a lot of the same people on board for a lot of his projects.
- Production Posse: Of his six films in The New '10s, all but one featured Patrick Wilson. Wan has also produced several more of Wilson’s films, including his upcoming directorial debut Insidious 5.
- What Could Have Been: He was intended to serve as director of an American live-action Robotech adaptation film, but was replaced by Andrés Muschietti.
