The Genre Roulette equivalent of the Renaissance Man, it basically means when one or several creators end up working with a multiple set of genres or even different forms of media.
So get this. One day you decide to watch a, let's say, some old science fiction movie. It got the main protagonists flying across space with their Cool Ship, shooting some bad guys with their frickin Ray Guns and then saving the day by destroying The Empire. Then the next day, you decide to watch a simple, Coming of Age Story about teenagers from The '50s, goofing around in their old retro cars or something like that. 'But wait!' What's the name of the director in the credits? George Lucas. Huh...well that name sounds familiar. Then, you decide watch some other unrelated movie, about an bold adventurer archeologist and... Now hold on your seats! Produced by George Lucas? Again? But how... how could this fella be related to these different movies?!? They're not even the same genre! How could it be? Well, it appears that The Creator Is Genre-Prolific.
Perhaps they wanted to experiment with some new idea they have or even subvert the Creator Thumbprint by trying something that's considered different for what they usually do. Suprisingly, this is Older Than Radio, as many of the classical authors, such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens, didn't really bother to distinguish serious literature from speculative ones. Compare with Genre Roulette, which is applied to individual works, and Renaissance Man which covers jobs and occupations. See also Jack of All Trades and Omnidisciplinary Scientist. Contrast with Crippling Overspecialization and Creator's Oddball.
Examples: (Note: They should apply to the creator only! Go to the Genre Roulette page to add examples related to individual works.)
open/close all folders
Live-Action Directors & Producers
- Director Robert Zemeckis has touched almost every genre. From comedies from his early career (I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars) to fun action adventures (Romancing the Stone) to Science-Fiction (Back to the Future) to mystery noir mixing live-action and animation (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) to westerns (Back to the Future Part III) to black comedy (Death Becomes Her) to romantic comedy-dramas (Forrest Gump) to straight up dramas (Cast Away and Flight) to Hitchcock horror suspense (What Lies Beneath) to Christmas movies (The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol (2009)) to folklore (Beowulf (2007)) to biographical films (The Walk) to war romance thrillers (Allied) and fantasy psychological drama (Welcome to Marwen).
- Stanley Kubrick: tried out different kinds of genres all his life: war films (Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket), science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange), historical drama (Spartacus, Barry Lyndon), crime film noir (The Killing), comedy (Dr. Strangelove), erotic thriller (Lolita, Eyes Wide Shut) and horror (The Shining).
- Martin Scorsese: Also showed his versatility by making biopics (Raging Bull, The Aviator, The Wolf of Wall Street, Hugo), historical dramas (The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York), comedy (The King of Comedy, After Hours), film noir/real life drama (Taxi Driver), musical (New York, New York), gangster films (Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Casino, the remake The Departed), bible movies (The Last Temptation of Christ), thrillers (Cape Fear), concert films (The Last Waltz, Shine A Light), children-family films (Hugo), documentaries (Italianamerican, A Personal Journey Through American Films) and horror (Shutter Island).
- George Miller, best known for directing the post-apocalyptic action Mad Max films, has also tried his hand at biographies (Lorenzo's Oil), dark fantasy (The Witches of Eastwick), and family friendly live-action (Babe) and animated movies (Happy Feet).
- Howard Hawks did war movies (The Dawn Patrol and Sergeant York), screwball comedies (Twentieth Century, Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday), westerns (Red River and Rio Bravo), a historical epic (Land of the Pharoahs), noir (The Big Sleep), a musical movie (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and science fiction (The Thing from Another World)...maybe
. He also codified gangster movies (Scarface (1932)).
- Woody Allen: While best known for comedy, he has made movies that are serious dramas too (Interiors, September), a musical (Everyone Says I Love You), slapstick (His early films before Annie Hall), historical movies (Bullets over Broadway, Radio Days,...), jazz biopics (Sweet and Lowdown), etc.
- Terry Gilliam: Started out in animation (Monty Python's Flying Circus), then directed live-action films: which where fantasy (Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), science fiction (Brazil, 12 Monkeys, The Zero Theorem), fairy tales (The Brothers Grimm), stoner movie (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and adventure (The Man Who Killed Don Quixote).
- Long before Jonathan Demme cemented himself as an A-Tier director with the psychological thriller The Silence of the Lambs and the courtroom drama Philadelphia, he was known for directing concert films (which he continued making up until his death) like Stop Making Sense, quirky comedies like Something Wild and Married to the Mob and a prison movie (Caged Heat).
- Steven Spielberg can do monster movies (Jaws, Jurassic Park), science fiction (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, War of the Worlds), action adventure (Indiana Jones), comedy (1941 (1979)), war drama (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse), fantasy (Hook), biopics (Lincoln), racial drama (The Color Purple (1985), Amistad, Munich), comic book movies (The Adventures of Tintin), etc.
- George Lucas did science fiction with A New Hope and THX 1138, a Coming of Age Story with American Graffiti and he co-created and produced the adventure film series Indiana Jones with Stephen Spielberg.
- Sam Mendes: Suburban dramas (American Beauty and Revolutionary Road), gangster drama (Road to Perdition), war (Jarhead), light-hearted road comedy (Away We Go) and James Bond films (Skyfall and Spectre).
- Peter Jackson: Began as a splatter horror director (Bad Taste, BrainDead), demented puppet movies (Meet the Feebles), drama (Heavenly Creatures), fantasy (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit), monster movies (King Kong (2005)), comic book movie (A Christmas Carol (2009)) and horror comedy (The Frighteners).
- Roman Polański: He did horror (Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby), horror comedy (The Fearless Vampire Killers), adventure comedy (Pirates), Shakespeare (Macbeth), war drama (The Pianist), film noir (China Town), erotic thriller (Bitter Moon) and an adaptation of Oliver Twist.
Mangaka and Anime Directors & Producers
- Isao Takahata: Compared to Studio Ghibli's other leading director, Hayao Miyazaki, who specialized in fantasy-inspired films driven by a sense of adventure, Takahata focused on a much more varied palette of genres, with the main glue between them being a dramatic tone. Going from his work with Ghibli alone, he directed a dark war drama (Grave of the Fireflies), a coming-of-age-meets-adult-drama film with Magic Realism elements (Only Yesterday), a Green Aesop fantasy dramedy (Pom Poko), a Slice of Life vignette film (My Neighbors the Yamadas), and a medieval fantasy-drama Epic Movie (The Tale of the Princess Kaguya).
- Osamu Tezuka, God Of Anime, did science fiction (Astro Boy), fantasy (Princess Knight), historical fiction (Buddha and Dororo), medical suspense (Black Jack), dark spy fiction (Adolf) and produced adult/erotic movies (Cleopatra and A Thousand & One Nights).
Western Animation Directors & Producers
- William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. They did Golden Age's slapstick (Tom and Jerry), science fiction (Space Ghost and The Jetsons), pulp action-adventure (Jonny Quest), horror comedy (Scooby-Doo and the thousand of its clones), superhero (Super Friends and The Atom Ant Show), spy fiction (Secret Squirrel) and western (Quick Draw McGraw).
Musicians
- Taylor Swift has dabbled in country pop (her debut album, Fearless, Speak Now, Red), folk music (folklore and evermore) in addition to her primary genre pop music (the rest of her discography). She notably has won 3 Grammy Award for Album of the Year for each of the different genre she dabbled in (Fearless, 1989, folklore).
- Ladies and Gentleman, The Beatles. They did rock'n roll, psychedelic rock, doo-wop, proto-punk, baroque pop, and that is just a fraction of their discography. For example, This video alone covers more about 50 genres!
- Paul McCartney's work on The White Album alone includes music hall (Honey Pie), country (Rocky Raccoon), straight rock (Back in the USSR), and proto-metal (Helter Skelter). While his body of work is largely rock and pop music, he has dabbled in classical music (the Liverpool Oratorio, Ecce Cor Meum) and electronic music through his side project The Fireman (alongside Youth).
- Dolly Parton has famously recorded multiple hit albums in Country, Pop, Bluegrass, and Gospel. When she was nominated for induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, she protested at first that she had never technically recorded any Rock albums... then proceeded to release 2023's Rockstar, which went to no.1 on both the Rock and Country charts, making it official.
Game Developers
- Shigeru Miyamoto has laid his finger on platform games (Super Mario Bros.), racing games (F-Zero), real time strategy (Pikmin), role-playing games (The Legend of Zelda) and a shoot'em up (Star Fox).
- Rare is famous for the large variety of genres that they have worked in, including platformers (Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, and Conker's Bad Fur Day), first-person shooters (Goldeneye 1997 and Perfect Dark), beat-em-ups (Battletoads), and racing(Diddy Kong Racing and Mickey's Speedway USA), among others.
Writers
- As already said above, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote horror (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Body Snatcher), adventure (Treasure Island and Kidnapped), comedy (The Wrong Box) and historical fiction (The Black Arrow and The Master of Ballantrae).
- Meanwhile, Charles Dickens wrote political fiction (The Pickwick Papers), historical fiction (A Tale of Two Cities), semi-biography/Bildungsroman (David Copperfield) mystery (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) and christmas stories (A Christmas Carol and The Battle of Life).
- Though most famous for his horror works, Stephen King has written fantasy (Eye of the Dragon, The Green Mile), hybrids of ghost stories and coming-of-age stories (Joyland), detective fiction (Mr. Mercedes), fantasy (Fairy Tale), and straight noir (Billy Summers).
- James Patterson has written several genres with the help of collaborators, ranging from mystery (Alex Cross, Women's Murder Club) YA thrillers (Maximum Ride), YA dystopian fantasy (Witch & Wizard), and Children's Books (Middle School, Katt vs. Dogg).
- Mary Shelley is best known for Frankenstein, but she wrote far more than that, ranging from post-apocalyptic fiction in The Last Man to the historical fiction novel Valperga to a Parental Incest Romance novel titled Mathilda (published posthumously in 1959).
- Sergey Lukyanenko is best known for his many Space Operas (A Lord from Planet Earth, Line of Delirium, The Stars Are Cold Toys, etc.) and Urban Fantasy (the Night Watch saga), but he also wrote in Young Adult (Knights of the Forty Islands), post-apocalypse (Nuclear Dream, Quazi), Heroic Fantasy (Wrong Time for Dragons), Cyberpunk (Labyrinth of Reflections), and Alternate History-slash-Steampunk (Seekers of the Sky) genres.
- Neil Gaiman, while mostly writing fantasy novels, he also did it within comic book stories (The Sandman (1989) and Black Orchid). As for his other works, he wrote non-fiction (Norse Mythology (2017)), horror (Coraline), humorous short stories (I, Cthulhu) and even a fanfiction about Sherlock Holmes and the Cthulhu Mythos (A Study in Emerald).
