Gareth James Edwards is a British film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, production designer, and visual effects artist best remembered for his work on the independent 2010 film Monster. He gained recognition for directing the 2014 reboot of Godzilla. He rose to fame for directing the epic space opera film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), the first in the Star Wars Anthology series.
Early life
Edwards was born in 1975 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire and is of Welsh parentage. His father worked in computer systems, and does his older sister, Ruth. His mother was a mathematics teacher. He attended Higham Lane School, and pursued BA (Hons) Film & Video at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, formerly the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, and graduated in 1996. In 2012, he completed Master of Arts from UCA.
Movie career
As a director
Edwards began his career in the film industry by directing the feature film Monsters in 2010 starring Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, which fared quite well with good response from audiences and critics. The movie revolves around a NASA probe crash in Mexico that results to the sudden appearance of giant tentacled monsters, and the challenges an American photojournalist faces while escorting his employer's daughter back to the US by having to cross Mexico, which is infected by these creatures. Along with directing Monsters, Edwards was the screenwriter, director of photography and production designer too. The movie was a box office success and received positive reviews from critics. It won him London Critics Circle Film Awards for Breakthrough British Filmmaker (2011), Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best First Film (2010), British Independent Film Awards for Best Director (2010), and nominations at Empire Awards, UK for Best Newcomer (2011) and Toronto Film Critics Association Awards for Best First Feature (2011). This hit film landed Edwards a few more big projects.
The director got his first major Hollywood project with Godzilla reboot (2014), a science fiction monster movie, a reboot of Toho's Godzilla franchise. It is the 30th film in the Godzilla franchise and the first film in Legendary's Godzilla–Kong film series. The film revolves around how Godzilla, an ancient behemoth, rises to fight the giant MUTO creatures, and stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche and Sally Hawkins. It turned out to be a huge success at the box office with positive reviews from critics, praising the movie for great filmmaking. This also was one of the most successful directorial ventures in the film career of Edwards.
He then directed the 2016 epic space opera movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, and Mads Mikkelsen. It is the first Star Wars Anthology film, a standalone story which is set before the events of the original Star Wars.
As a visual effects artist
Edwards not only wrote and directed the science fiction Monsters but also personally created the special effects for the movie using off-the-shelf equipment. For this, he won the British Independent Film Awards for Best Technical Achievement (2010).
As a producer
Edwards was the executive producer of Monsters: Dark Continent directed by Tom Green, a sequel to 2010's Monsters, directed by Gareth Edwards. This film mostly garnered negative reviews as critics claimed that they found nothing fresh in it.
Television career
Gareth Edwards has been a part of various television series. He entered the television business by posing as an animator for the popular award-winning science series Nova (2002-2003) for two episodes. He followed this up by working as a visual effects artist for seven episodes in the 7-part British docudrama television miniseries Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, which originally aired on BBC and later released on DVD.
In 2005, he worked as the director and screenwriter for a television film End Day, and was the digital artist for the television documentary Hiroshima, for which he won BAFTA Awards for Best Visual Effects (2006). He was also the digital effects artist and designer for the BBC docudrama Space Race in 2005. Edwards' first television series direction came with the American documentary television mini-series Perfect Disaster in 2006, for which he was also the visual effects artist. For this, he was nominated at the Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series (2006). He fetched another BBC TV docudrama series Heroes and Villains in 2008, for which he was the director and also visual effects artist.