Tarsem Singh is an American director best known for the thriller The Cage, released in 2000. Tarsem Singh's films are consistently a hit with fantasy fans as the visuals of his films always amaze viewers.
Biography
Tarsem Singh was born in the Indian city of Jalandhar in 1961. His father was an aeronautical engineer. Tarsem attended Bishop Cotton School, a boarding school for boys. His father planned that he would go to Harvard, but Tarsem Singh himself was determined to direct. After graduating from college in Delhi, he moved to California in 1985, where he entered a private art college.
Tarsem Singh began his career as a film director with music videos, the most famous of which are Losing My Religion and Sweet Lullaby. Singh has directed dozens of commercials, including for Nike.
Directoral Debut: "Cage"
Singh made his feature film debut in 2000 with a psychological thrillerwith elements of fantasy "Cage". The film stars Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D'Onofrio. Singh's quirky, surreal film received mixed reviews from film critics, but audiences praised it highly, quickly earning it cult status.
The picture grossed $104 million on a budget of $33 million, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of the year. It was thanks to this thriller that Tarsem Singh became known all over the world. The films he made in the coming years will continue to be in demand.
Nine years later, inspired by the box office success of Tarsem Singh's film, director Tim Yakafano directed a sequel - "Cage 2". The film lost to the original both in the plot and in the cast, so not even all avid moviegoers know about its existence.
Further projects
Singh's next feature film, Outland, was released in 2006. The picture became the debut for 6-year-old actress Katinka Untaru.
Taarsem Singh's fantasy-themed "Outland" made a favorable impression on critics. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, writing, "You might want to watch this film simply because it exists. There will never be another like it."
The New York Times was neutral about Outland, calling it a true labor of love - and a true bore. Despite generally good reviews from critics, the picture grossed only $4 million at the box office, becoming suchthus, the first and only box office failure of Singh's directing career.
In 2011, Tarsem made another film in his favorite fantasy genre - "War of the Gods: Immortals". The picture is partly based on Greek myths, although it has little in common with them. The film stars Luke Evans, Mickey Rourke and Henry Cavill.
Critics did not understand the director's original approach to the film adaptation of Greek myths, praising the "War of the Gods". Commercially, the project was quite successful - with a budget of 75 million, the box office was 227 million.
The following year, Snow White: Revenge of the Dwarfs was released, directed by Tarsem Singh. Singh's filmography has replenished with another colorful fantasy project. In fact, work on the painting began in the summer of 2011.
Julia Roberts was the first to get the part as the director didn't envision anyone else as the queen. It was planned that the role of Snow White will be played by Saoirse Ronan, but it was decided that Lily Collins was more suitable for this role. The role of Prince Andrew went to Armie Hammer, who managed to bypass James McAvoy and Alex Pettifer in screen tests. The film premiered in March 2012. Like most of Singh's previous films, Snow White was hailed by critics as "an undeniably beautiful film".
The latest feature film in the director's career so far, the science fiction thriller "Beyond/Yourself" was released infilmed in 2015. The main roles were played by Ryan Reynolds, the star of "Deadpool", and Ben Kingsley. The protagonist of the film is businessman Damian Hale, who has cancer. Not wanting to part with his life, he agrees to an expensive and risky procedure - the transfer of his consciousness into the body of a young and he althy man. The operation is successful, but the past of the person in whose body Hale's consciousness was transferred relentlessly chases him.
TV career
Currently, Tarsem Singh is working on the television series "Emerald City", based on the book by Lyman Baum "The Wizard of Oz". The pilot episode aired in January 2017. Filming took place in Europe - Hungary, Croatia, Spain. So far, only one season of the television series has been released, and it is not known if a sequel is planned.
