30 Amazing Things Every Fan Needs To Know About The Famous Director - Gore Verbinski

23 March 2019, 10:24 am EDT By Ruby Karnick

Gore Verbinski, famous for directing the first three films of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film saga, is one of the highest-grossing film directors in the world. He is known to easily jump from genre to genre, with the focus of offering something unique in the realm of visual creativity. Here are some little known facts about the American film director:

He has an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film and the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film to his name, along with five other wins and 12 nominations.
One of his trademarks is wide detailed shots in his movies, with his characters carrying a weapon. He is also known to frequently cast Johnny Depp in his movies.
In his movie "Mousehunt," the mousetraps scene was done without any digital effect whatsoever, with over 800 mousetraps set individually and rigged with wires under the floor. The scene actually took several takes, for which each trap had to be reset, baited and wired one at a time.
For the movie "The Mexican," with the unusual nature of the script, he attracted Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt to the project for the bargain basement of $15 million.
He directed the 1994 music video for "American Jesus" from Bad Religion's 1993 Epitaph Records release "Recipe For Hate." A Bad Religion sticker is partially visible in the scene in Noah's locker in the A/V room in the movie "The Ring."
In the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," he was the one to have chosen Orlando Bloom for the role of Will Turner, because he heard that Bloom was in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and felt Bloom would be a more bankable choice.
Before hitting it big in the film industry, he was the guitarist of the punk band "The Daredevils," along with Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion and Josh Freese of The Vandals. He had played in various other bands including the Bulldozer, The Little Kings, The Drivers, and The Cylon Boys Choir.
His movie "The Weather Man," is said to be the lowest budget film in his entire career, which was shot entirely in Chicago, mainly on Nicolas Cage and his insistence, while the Paramount Pictures suggested Canada as a substitute for Chicago.
His first animated movie "Rango" released in the year 2011 was a critical and commercial success, grossing $245.7 million. The movie is the first non-Disney or Pixar film to win the 2011 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 2006's "Happy Feet."
It is reported that Disney CEO Michael Eisner asked to shut down the production of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," following the box office failure of "The Country Bears," and also because he didn't think the movie perform, being not big fan of Johnny Depp's performance.

However, Verbinski had asked the concept artists to keep working on the picture, and was ready to showcase it to Eisner, during his visit. Eisner was reportedly astonished by what had been created.
Gregor Verbinski was born on March 16, 1964 to Victor Vincent Verbinski and Laurette Ann McGovern, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His father, a polish descent, was nuclear physicist. He has four siblings.
He is married to Calyton Verbinski and has two sons - Ivan Verbinski and Anton Verbinski. The family's main residence is in the Crescenta/San Gabriel Valley community of La Cañada Flintridge, California. He reportedly purchased a 1.46-acre property of contemporary architecture, in the Montecito foothills, for around $7.2 million.
For his 2013 movie "The Lone Ranger," he along with Jerry Bruckheimer, Johnny Depp, and Armie Hammer, has reportedly equally deferred twenty percent of their salaries, in an effort to minimize the overall cost of the movie.
In the initial days of his career, he directed music videos for different bands, and then moved to commercials, working with several famous brands including the Nike, Coca-Cola, Canon, Skittles and United Airlines, with the most famous being Budweiser commercial, featuring frogs croaking the brand name. He has four Clio Awards and one Cannes Advertising Silver Lion to his name, for his work in the commercial field.
His first films were reportedly a series of 8 mm films called "The Driver Files," which is said to have been captured in the year 1979, when he was in his teens.
In the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," he and Jerry Bruckheimer, initially decided to use to massive water tank in Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico used for "Titanic" and "Pearl Harbor," but at the time of shooting, the tank was already booked for the Peter Weir's film "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World."
His Sci-Fi movie "Spaceless," which is still said to be in the pre-production stage, was reportedly sold to Fox 2000 in 1995, by Jeff Vintar. Verbinski was chosen by 20th Century Fox, to direct the movie initially but the project fell into development hell. Five years later, Vintar reacquired the rights to the inactive project and took it to Verbinski's Blindwink Productions and Universal in 2009.
During the shooting of the movie "The Weather Man," he was surprised to find the Chicago weather in the month of February to be warm, without any snow. For the scenes with snow, the production designers had to recreate snow from scratch.
The 2013 movie "Lone Ranger" is reportedly one of the biggest financial flops of all time, with an estimated loss of 94 and 119 million dollars, for the studio. However, Quentin Tarantino, who is considered by many as "the single most influential director of his generation," named this movie to be one of his ten favorite films of the year.

It is reported that he had initially rejected Casting Director Denise Chamian's suggestion to cast Naomie Harris as Tia Dalma in the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," claiming her to be too young for the role. But, on Chamain's insistence, gave her a screen test, and was satisfied with her performance.
For the 2002 movie "The Time Machine," he was brought in as a substitute for director Simon Wells, over the last 18 days of shooting, as the director was suffering from severe case of exhaustion. Wells reportedly returned at the post-production stage of the movie.
Given his musical background, Verbinski is said to have played guitar on Hans Zimmer's score in the movie "The Weather Man."
For the 2007 movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," he had collaborated with Hans Zimmer on the "Hoist the Colors" song, and also assisted Zimmer on composing the musical score, throughout the movie. He reportedly plays the guitar in the parley scene.
He, along with Vintar are said to have laid out a plan for a whole series of Spaceless films, though the first movie "Spaceless," which has become almost legendary in insider circles due to its tortuous twenty-three year struggle through Hollywood's "development hell," is yet to cross the pre-production stage.
The crew of The Flying Dutchman in the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," was first conceived by the writers as ghosts, but Verbinski had totally disliked the idea, and had wanted to keep it realistic, even rejecting a character with a turtle shell.
He was roped in to direct a film centering on Gambit, which was to be set within the X-Men film universe. However, in January 2018, he revealed that he had dropped out of the project.
He was ranked at #79 in the Power 100 list of the year 2004, by the Premiere magazine. Since then, he had been listed as one of the most influential people in the world, by several magazines.
His second movie in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" saga - "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," till date holds many box office distinctions - fastest film to reach $100 million, within just two days, largest sum earned in seven days - a total of $196 million and counting, and most tickets sold in a single day - worth $55.8 million.
The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” and the "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," have reportedly reached the mark of $200 million in a short period of eight days, tying the industry record.