Marcus Nispel is a German-American commercials and music video director who remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Friday the 13th (2009).
Quick Specs
| Born | May 26, 1963, Frankfurt, West Germany |
| Background | Fulbright scholar, Brooklyn College and New York Institute of Technology |
| Before features | about 1,000 commercials and more than 150 music videos |
| Horror | The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Frankenstein (2004), Friday the 13th (2009), Exeter (2015) |
| Other features | Pathfinder (2007), Conan the Barbarian (2011) |
| Key collaborator | cinematographer Daniel Pearl |
| Years active | 1990-2021 |
Who He Is
Marcus Nispel was born in Frankfurt, West Germany, on May 26, 1963. He grew up near McNair Barracks, a U.S. Army base, and learned English from the children of American soldiers. He left home at 15 and went to work at a Frankfurt agency, Hessler and Kehrer. At 20 he won a Fulbright Scholarship and came to the United States to study at Brooklyn College and the New York Institute of Technology.
He worked as an art director for Young and Rubicam, then founded Portfolio Artists Network, which merged with RSA’s Black Dog Films to become Portfolio/Black Dog. He directed commercials at RSA for years before resigning in 2000 to make features. He is married to Dyan Humes-Nispel, a singer, songwriter and editor who has written for Whitney Houston, and they have two children. He is now described as retired.
The Work, and What He Did in It
Before he made a feature, Nispel had directed roughly 1,000 commercials and more than 150 music videos. His videos include C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” George Michael’s “Killer / Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” Billy Joel’s “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel),” Janet Jackson’s “Runaway,” No Doubt’s “Spiderwebs,” the Fugees’ “Ready or Not” and the Spice Girls’ “Spice Up Your Life.” His regular cinematographer was Daniel Pearl, who had shot Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 1974.
His feature debut was supposed to be End of Days, the Arnold Schwarzenegger supernatural thriller. He stepped down before shooting, and Peter Hyams directed it.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) became his real debut, the first feature from Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes, written by Scott Kosar. Nispel didn’t want it. In his own telling, he said, “Daniel, this is blasphemy.” Pearl talked him into it, with a condition: “If you’re going to direct it, you’re gonna hire me and I’m gonna make the same movie twice. Once at the beginning of my career and once at the end of my career.”
So Nispel shot it in Austin in 2002 with the original’s cameraman. John Larroquette returned as narrator, as in 1974. The story is set in 1973, Jessica Biel plays Erin, the family becomes the Hewitts, and Leatherface gets a name, Thomas Brown Hewitt. The shot every retrospective singles out is Pearl’s, tracking backward through the hitchhiker’s gunshot wound and out the van’s window. Critics were hostile. The film made $107 million worldwide and kicked off the 2000s wave of horror remakes.
Frankenstein (2004), which he directed and produced for USA Network, had a strange pedigree. Dean Koontz conceived it with Kevin J. Anderson, then withdrew over creative differences and turned his version into his Frankenstein novels. Martin Scorsese was attached as executive producer to the Koontz-era version. John Shiban wrote the teleplay, Angelo Badalamenti scored it, and the cast included Parker Posey, Michael Madsen and Vincent Perez. It was meant as a series pilot and never went to series.
Pathfinder (2007), which he directed and produced, was inspired by Norway’s Oscar-nominated Ofelaš and moved to pre-Columbian America, with Karl Urban as a Viking boy raised by Native Americans. Pearl shot it. It made $31 million on a $45 million budget.
Friday the 13th (2009) made Nispel the director who remade both founding slasher films, again for Platinum Dunes. Derek Mears played a lean, fast Jason Voorhees whose mask was recreated from a mold of the original Part III mask, and who keeps prisoners in tunnels under the Voorhees property. On a $19 million budget it grossed about $91 million worldwide, second in the series at that point behind Freddy vs. Jason.
Conan the Barbarian (2011), which he took over after Brett Ratner, starred Jason Momoa. It cost $90 million and made $63.5 million worldwide.
Exeter (2015) was his first original horror film after a decade of remakes; he directed, produced and has a story credit. Announced in 2011 as Backmask and released in the UK as The Asylum, it stars Stephen Lang as Father Conway and was shot in a real abandoned institution in Rhode Island. Nispel said the location was “photographed as they found it.”
Cool Verified Facts
- He directed the “Regenerate” teaser for Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the fake beauty-product commercial.
- Daniel Pearl shot The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at the start of his career and its remake almost 30 years later, because Nispel hired him.
- His unmade projects include The Last Voyage of the Demeter, American McGee’s Alice, Hack/Slash, an early version of The Expendables and his own seafaring horror script, Stowaway, announced in 2015.
Signatures, Habits and Behind the Scenes
- The commercial eye. A thousand ads and 150 videos trained him in slick, high-gloss images, and he brought that polish to grimy 1970s horror.
- Loyalty to a cameraman. Pearl shot his videos, the Chainsaw remake and Pathfinder.
- The remake specialist. Within six years, for the same company, he re-shot the founding films of both big slasher series.
Why He Matters
Whatever the reviews said, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre proved that a revered 1970s horror title could be re-shot slick, hard and profitable, and the industry spent the next decade following that template. Nispel is also a bridge between two industries: a Fulbright kid from Frankfurt who shot American commercials, then inherited two of the most American horror franchises there are through the original film’s own cameraman. His record is honest and complete: a lost debut, an era-defining hit, diminishing returns, and a small original horror film shot in a real ruin.