Joe Cornish

Joe Cornish
Cornish in May 2009
Birth name	Joseph Murray Cornish
Born	(1968-12-20) 20 December 1968 Westminster, London, England
Medium	Comedian, television and radio presenter, film director, writer and actor

Joseph Murray "Joe" Cornish (born 20 December 1968) is an English comedian, television and radio presenter, film director, writer and actor, who together with his long-time comedy partner, Adam Buxton, forms the comedy duo Adam and Joe. In 2011, Cornish released his directorial debut Attack the Block. He has also co-written The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, with Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright, and Ant-Man, with Wright, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd.

Early life

Cornish was educated at the independent Westminster School in central London, where he became friends with both Adam Buxton and Louis Theroux. He went on to study at the Bournemouth Film School.

The Adam and Joe Show

The Adam and Joe Show was an ironic pop culture sketch show written, presented and directed by the duo. The show found cult success during its four series between 1996 and 2001. The best-known segments featured hit feature films recreated with stuffed toys, British television shows parodied using Star Wars action figures, and Vinyl Justice, in which the pair invaded rock stars' homes and searched their record collections for embarrassing records.^[1]

In 2001, he fronted the topical discussion show This Week Only, alongside Nick Frost and Lauren Laverne. Since the demise of The Adam and Joe Show, Cornish has continued to work in British television and radio as a presenter, writer and director, both with and without Buxton. In 2007, he and Buxton began presenting Adam and Joe, a radio show on BBC Radio 6 Music. This was put on hold during 2010 while Cornish directed Attack the Block; a new series began on Saturday 2 April 2011.

Directing

Cornish has made a number of behind the scenes documentaries/video diaries. They include Cornish following the making of Little Britain series 2, which was screened on BBC Three and is included on the Little Britain Series 2 DVD; a video diary of his brief cameo as a zombie, which appears on the UK Shaun of the Dead DVD; and Hot Fuzz: The Fuzzball Rally, where he followed his friends and collaborators, Edgar Wright, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg on the US press tour for their film Hot Fuzz.

There have been two cuts of the Fuzzball Rally: a 28-minute version was included on the Hot Fuzz HD DVD (UK/US) and a 71-minute version was included on both the 3-Disc Collectors Edition DVD (US) and the Blu-ray Disc (US/UK) of Fuzz. The documentary caused the latter's certification to be changed from a 15 certificate to an 18 certificate, due to the very strong language the documentary contains.

Cornish has continued his work in television comedy, directing parts of the pilot of Modern Toss, and the pilot to Channel 4's Blunder. According to an interview in Word Magazine, he pulled out of directing the series of Blunder due to creative differences with Channel 4 and the production company. In early 2007, he directed the video for Charlotte Hatherley's single "I Want You to Know".

Attack the Block

On 13 May 2011, Optimum released Attack the Block, Cornish's directorial debut, which was executive produced by his friend and collaborator, Edgar Wright, and produced by Film4, Big Talk Pictures, The UK Film Council and StudioCanal. The film is a science fiction action comedy horror film set in South London that pitches a gang of youths against an alien invasion. The film initially had no US distributor, but after the reaction of the press and attendees at the SXSW premiere,^[2] the US rights were purchased by Screen Gems for theatrical release on 29 July 2011.^[3]

Variety quotes Optimum Releasing's Will Clarke as saying, "Attack the Block is one of the most inventive and entertaining scripts we have ever read and a great project to kick off the relationship."

Snow Crash

In June 2012, it was announced that Cornish had been signed as director of a future film adaptation of Neal Stephenson's classic 1992 novel Snow Crash for Paramount Pictures.^[4]

Filmography

Other work

He wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 film programme Back Row between 2002 and 2003. In 2007, he made a brief appearance in Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz as a white suited and bemasked Scenes-of-Crime Officer named "Bob".

He has recently been involved with several non-comedy projects. In 2006, he was announced as co-writer on a feature film adaptation of the Marvel Comics comic book character Ant-Man, with Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright. Both Wright and Cornish received story by and screenplay credit on the finished film, after Wright's departure from the project in 2014. Wright and Cornish also rewrote Steven Moffat's script for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, co-starring Simon Pegg, for Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.^[5] In November 2013, Cornish was tipped to be J.J. Abrams' lead choice for director of the upcoming Star Trek Beyond.^[6] However, Roberto Orci was ultimately chosen to direct, before leaving the project in late 2014.^[7]

References

External links

• Joe Cornish at the Internet Movie Database
• The Tall Guy: The Joe Cornish Interview – Channel 4
• Adam and Joe: How We Met – The Independent
• Joe, Adam and the Ant-man – The Independent
• Some Groovy Attack the Block Updates – Shaun of the Dead With Aliens?