42 Facts About Joe Dante

Joe Dante was born in Morristown, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Livingston.

Joe Dante's father was a professional golfer who encouraged him to play sports; however, Dante was more interested in drawing cartoons and frequenting Saturday matinees at the cinema.

Joe Dante was 12 when Famous Monsters of Filmland, a magazine dedicated to horror films, came onto news shelves.

Joe Dante soon wrote to the magazine with reviews of certain horror films, which he did for a number of years.

Joe Dante had originally planned on becoming a cartoonist, but was told that it wasn't a real art form and that he should try something else.

In 1975, Joe Dante moved up to directing when he collaborated with fellow Corman school alumni Allan Arkush to make the satirical exploitation film Hollywood Boulevard.

Two years later, Joe Dante directed Piranha, written by John Sayles.

Joe Dante, who was convinced the film would be a disaster, spent a month in the editing room.

People came to visit him, but as Joe Dante recalled he was in "such a fog" that he didn't even recognize who they were at first.

The film won the attention of Steven Spielberg who, unbeknownst to Joe Dante, prevented Universal from blocking the film's release, convincing them that Piranha was a parody and that it wasn't in competition with Jaws 2.

In 1979, Joe Dante directed some scenes of Rock 'n' Roll High School when Allan Arkush fell ill due to exhaustion, but remains uncredited.

Joe Dante helped plot the premise of the film with Arkush.

Joe Dante again collaborated with John Sayles when he enlisted him to rewrite the previously adapted draft of Gary Brandner's werewolf tale The Howling.

Joe Dante said that at the time he made The Howling, werewolves were considered by many to be "corny and old hat".

Joe Dante took over editing duties on George Miller's segment of the film, after he left the project feeling repulsed by the news of the fatal helicopter accident.

Joe Dante liked the script, but felt the film needed a better third act.

Joe Dante initially turned the film down until the script was later rewritten as a comedy by Jeffrey Boam.

Joe Dante said he had a "wonderful experience" making Innerspace, mainly because of the cast which included actors Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, and Meg Ryan among others.

However, after one particular day of filming, Joe Dante recalled that studio executives from Warner Brothers had invited him out to lunch and told him that what he was doing was not funny and described Short as being "not very attractive", wanting to recast the role.

Joe Dante said this was because the studio did not know how to promote it and that the original poster failed to include the movie's actors on it.

In 1988, Joe Dante agreed to direct the black comedy The 'Burbs, intrigued by its premise and the blending of real-life situations with elements of the supernatural.

Joe Dante referred to Hanks as "the reigning everyman, a guy that everybody can identify with", comparing him to James Stewart.

Joe Dante was asked many times to helm a sequel to Gremlins, due to its financial success.

Joe Dante declined, because he saw that story as having a proper ending, and thus a sequel would only be meant to be profitable.

Since Chris Columbus was not available to write the sequel's script at the time, Dante brought on screenwriter Charles S Haas to help plot the film.

Joe Dante later claimed it was the film into which he had put the most of his personal influence.

Joe Dante referred to it as "one of the more unconventional studio pictures ever," imagining it as a satire of Gremlins and sequels in general, resulting in a film with several meta-references and self-referential humor.

From 1993 to 1994, Joe Dante was attached as the director of The Phantom, developing a draft of the script together with Jeffrey Boam, which was originally tongue-in-cheek in tone.

In 1994, Joe Dante directed the television film Runaway Daughters, that aired as part of the anthology series Rebel Highway which paid homage to 1950s "drive-in classic" B movies by revamping them "with a '90s edge".

Joe Dante directed the 1997 made-for-television film The Second Civil War, a social satire about anti-immigration.

Joe Dante claimed there were 12 uncredited writers who did work on the film over the course of five years.

Joe Dante agreed to direct the film to pay tribute to his idol Chuck Jones, and as somewhat of a placeholder for his unmade biographical comedy Termite Terrace.

In 2007, Joe Dante launched the web series Trailers from Hell, which provides commentary by directors, producers and screenwriters on trailers for classic and cult movies.

Joe Dante returned to feature films several years later in 2009 with the independent 3D horror comedy The Hole, which received the Premio Persol award at the Venice Film Festival.

Joe Dante cited Dial M for Murder, Kill, Baby, Kill, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Killer Klowns from Outer Space as influences on the film.

Subsequently, Joe Dante directed Anton Yelchin and Ashley Greene in Burying the Ex, adapted from Alan Trezza's 2008 short film.

Joe Dante served as executive producer on the independent feature length thriller Dark, starring Whitney Able and Alexandra Breckenridge, directed by Nick Basile.

For years, Joe Dante has tried to make a film about his mentor Corman and the making of his 1967 film The Trip, but has struggled to gather funding for it.

In October 2016, Joe Dante directed a live table-reading of the film's script at the Vista Theatre in Los Angeles, which starred Bill Hader as Corman, Jason Ritter as Peter Fonda and Ethan Embry as Jack Nicholson.

Joe Dante directed a segment of the 2018 horror anthology film Nightmare Cinema starring Mickey Rourke, which featured shorts directed by Alejandro Brugues, Mick Garris, Ryuhei Kitamura, and David Slade.

In 2020, Joe Dante served as a consultant on the HBO Max prequel series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.

Joe Dante has cited Roger Corman, Chuck Jones, Frank Tashlin, Ernst Lubitsch, Mario Bava, James Whale and Jean Cocteau among his major influences.