Timur Bekmambetov

Timur Nuruakhitovich Bekmambetov (Тимур Нуруахитович Бекмамбетов, ; Темір Нұрбақытұлы Бекмамбетoв; born June 25, 1961) is a Russian-Kazakh film director, producer, screenwriter, and tech entrepreneur.

Bekmambetov was born on 25 June 1961, in the city of Atyrau, formerly known as Guriev.

His father, Nuruakhit Bekmambetov, worked in management positions with the energy supplier GuryevEnergo.

He was chief power engineer of Western Kazakhstan.

His mother, Mira Bogoslovskaya, was deputy editor leading the party issues department at the regional newspaper Prikaspiyskaya Kommuna.

He has Kazakh ancestry on his father's side, and Jewish ancestry on his mother's side.

The film was a remake of the 1974 gladiator exploitation film The Arena.

After graduation from school, Bekmambetov entered the Moscow Power Engineering Institute in 1979 and left it in 1980, on the eve of the 1980 Summer Olympics.

Bekmambetov started his career in the late 1980s as a production designer at the Ilkhom Theatre in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and at Uzbek national film studio Uzbekfilm.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bekmambetov moved from Uzbekistan to Moscow, where he started making commercials for the Russian market.

His commercial series World History, retelling life episodes of the world's prominent rulers (from Nero and Tamerlan to Napoleon and the last Russian emperor Nicholas), is still considered the best video advertising in Russia.

He was deported from Moscow on the grounds of being "unreliable" and moved to Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, to study at the Alexander Ostrovsky Theatrical and Artistic Institute, from which he graduated in 1987 with a degree in theater and cinema set design.

In 1994, he founded Bazelevs, an advertising and film production company, in Russia.

Its advertising division continues making commercials for major Russian and international brands; in 2021, its commercial featuring Apple's new iPhone in the Hermitage Museum interiors was nominated for the Cannes Lions festival.

Bekmambetov's directorial debut was Peshavar Waltz (1994) depicting the war fought by the USSR in Afghanistan.

In 1998, Corman invited Bekmambetov to direct his production of The Arena (2001) starring Karen McDougal and Lisa Dergan.

The film was dubbed in English as Escape from Afghanistan and released direct-to-video by Roger Corman in 2002.

He is best known for the fantasy epic Night Watch (2004) and the action thriller Wanted (2008), as well as for the pioneering screenlife films Unfriended (2015), Searching (2018) and Profile (2018).

He founded Baselevs, a production company that earned a spot among the 2021 World's 10 Most Innovative Companies in Video, according to Fast Company.

In 2004, Bekmambetov wrote and directed Night Watch (2004), a Russian fantasy film based on the book by Sergey Lukyanenko.

The film was the first Russian production which, after the demise of the Soviet Union, managed to top the domestic box office, making US$16.7 million in Russia alone, thus overtaking The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

The sequel to Night Watch, Day Watch (2006), was likewise written and directed by Bekmambetov and set a new record for the Russian domestic box office, having grossed more than US$26 million in the first two weeks.

The Russian blockbuster epic attracted the attention of Fox Searchlight Pictures, which paid US$4 million to acquire the worldwide distribution rights (excluding Russia and the Baltic states).

Bekmambetov's Hollywood directorial debut was Universal's action thriller Wanted (2008), an adaptation of the graphic novel series created by Mark Millar and J. G. Jones.

Starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman, the action film grossed US$341 million worldwide, became Universal's highest grossing R-rated film, and earned two Oscar nominations.

In 2009, alongside Tim Burton and Jim Lemley, Bekmambetov produced an animation film titled 9 (2009), the story of a rag doll in a post-apocalyptic world, directed by Shane Acker.

In 2010, the tape entered the 100 Best Films of World Cinema by Empire Magazine.

The film received positive reviews from American directors Quentin Tarantino and James Gunn.

In 2011, Bekmambetov produced the science fiction thriller Apollo 18, together with The Weinstein Company, and the science fiction film The Darkest Hour set in Moscow and produced by New Regency.

In 2012, Bekmambetov directed and produced the live-action adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's novel – Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, together with Tim Burton and Jim Lemley.

He was awarded the 2012 International Filmmaker of the Year award by the National Association of Theatre Owners.

In 2013, Variety (Russian Edition) named Bekmambetov one of the most commercially successful Russian directors of the decade.

In 2016, Bekmambetov directed Ben-Hur, the fifth film adaptation of the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace.

At the same time, he produced the action film Hardcore Henry, directed by Ilya Naishuller, using the perspective of a first-person shooter.

In 2017, Bekmambetov produced the historical drama The Current War starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland and Nicholas Hoult.

The film was inspired by the 19th-century war of currents between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse.

In 2021, Bekmambetov directed the WW2 action film ''V2.

Escape from Hell'', with its aircraft battle scenes using the War Thunder game engine.

The film was released in Russia both theatrically as a feature and on a streaming platform as a smartphone-only vertical series.

In 2021, Deadline announced that Bekmambetov would be bringing to the screen a new universe based on the unexploited works in the horror genre by the Marvel Сomics creator Stan Lee.