Alex Cox experienced success early in his career with Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, but since the release and commercial failure of Walker, his career has moved towards independent films.
31 Facts About Alex Cox
2.
Alex Cox received a co-writer credit for the screenplay of Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for previous work on the script before it was rewritten by Gilliam.
3.
Alex Cox attended Worcester College, Oxford, and later transferred to the University of Bristol where he majored in film studies.
4.
Alex Cox secured a Fulbright Scholarship, allowing him to study at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he graduated from the School of Theater, Film and Television with an MFA.
5.
Alex Cox began reading law as an undergraduate at Oxford University, but left to study radio, film and TV at Bristol University, graduating in 1977.
6.
Alex Cox wrote a screenplay for Repo Man, which he hoped to produce for a budget of $70,000, and began seeking funding.
7.
Alex Cox had long been interested in Nicaragua and the Sandinistas, and visited in 1984.
8.
On 1 June 2012, Alex Cox wrote an article in The New York Times about his long-standing interest in spaghetti westerns.
9.
Alex Cox asked Rudy Wurlitzer to pen the screenplay, which followed the life of William Walker, set against a backdrop of anachronisms that drew parallels between the story and modern American intervention in the area.
10.
Effectively blacklisted for working on a studio project during the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, Alex Cox struggled to find feature work.
11.
Alex Cox finally got financial backing for a feature from investors in Japan, where his films had been successful on video.
12.
Alex Cox had scouted locations in Mexico during the pre-production of Walker and decided he wanted to shoot a film there, with a local cast and crew, in Spanish.
13.
Shortly after this, Alex Cox was invited to adapt a Jorge Luis Borges story of his choice for the BBC.
14.
Alex Cox had hoped to expand this into a feature-length film, but the BBC was uninterested.
15.
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.
16.
Alex 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.
17.
The 30-minute film satirised reality television as well as the high volume of petty crime in Liverpool which, according to Alex Cox, is largely recreational.
18.
In 2006, Alex Cox tried to get funding for a series of eight very low budget features set in Liverpool and produced by locals.
19.
Alex Cox had originally hoped to shoot Repo Man on a comparable budget, and hoped that the lower overhead would mean greater creative freedom.
20.
Alex Cox had attempted to get a Repo Man sequel, titled Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday, produced in the mid-'90s, but the project fell apart, with the script adapted into a graphic novel of the same name.
21.
In 2013 Alex Cox directed Bill, the Galactic Hero, developed from a science fiction book by Harry Harrison.
22.
In 2017 Alex Cox directed another crowdfunded film, Tombstone Rashomon, which tells the tale of the Gunfight at the OK.
23.
In October 2022, Alex Cox announced the end of the podcast, citing its small audience and the comparative success of podcasts by Joe Dante, Quentin Tarantino and Alex Cox's one-time collaborator Roger Deakins.
24.
In May 1988 Alex Cox began presenting the long-running and influential BBC series Moviedrome.
25.
Alex Cox has cited Luis Bunuel and Akira Kurosawa as influences, as well as the Western film directors Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, Sam Peckinpah, John Ford and Giulio Questi.
26.
Alex Cox wrote a book on the history of the genre called 10,000 Ways to Die.
27.
Alex Cox is an atheist and is decidedly left-wing in his political views.
28.
Alex Cox 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.
29.
Alex Cox is a fan of the Japanese Godzilla films and appeared in a 1998 BBC documentary highlighting the series.
30.
Alex Cox narrated the documentary Bringing Godzilla Down to Size and wrote the Godzilla in Time comics for Dark Horse.
31.
Alex Cox tried to direct an American Godzilla film at one point, but unsuccessfully submitted his outline to TriStar Pictures.