John Carpenter net worth is $35 Million. Also know about John Carpenter bio, salary, height, age weight, relationship and more …

John Carpenter Wiki Biography

John Howard Carpenter, shortly knows as John Carpenter having plenty of nicknames such as John Howard Carpenter, Carpenter, John, Rip Haight, John T. Chance, Martin Quatermass, Johnny Carpenter, James T. Chance, JC, Frank Armitage is an American film director, screenwriter and producer, film score composer, actor, voice actor and also film editor born in 1948. How rich is the multi – tasking personality? It is announced that John Carpenter net worth is estimated to be 35 million dollars. John Carpenter is one of the most authoritative movie makers who has tried himself in different film genres but is mostly known for science fiction and horror films which he started making being a school child.

Films released between 1970 and 1980 such as “Dark Star“ , „The Fog“, Starman“ , “Escape from New York”, The Thing“, “Christine”,” Someone’s Watching Me”, „Big Trouble in Little China“ and „They Live“ are considered now to be cult classics, and they have made Carpenter an influential and successful filmmaker with an impressive net worth.

John Carpenter went to USC Film School. During the second term at school he was working as co-writer, composer and editor with producer John Longenecker for film “The Resurrection of Broncho Billy“. The film won the Oscar in the category Best Live Action Short Film. Carpenter left early the school to produce his first film „Dar Star“ which was released in 1974. John Carpenter net worth started increasing as he got plenty of suggestions from Hollywood studios. Is it said, that some of his movies have modificated the horror genre and are still acknowledged as the best horror movies. The next film “Assault on Precinct 13” was beloved in Europe but it needed more time to catch the attention of American audience. The turning point in the early career was the third film, independent slasher horror film “Halloween” which gained him appreciation. The film has earned 65 million dollars. Even though John Carpenter did not escape critics and had some negative receptions his film “The Fog” was a huge impulse to Carpenter’s net worth. It has earned 21,000,000 dollars in United States whereas to make it the budget was 1,000,000 dollars. In 1990 – 2000 Carpenter experienced some failures but in 2005 he reached success with the direction of an episode of series “Showtime’s Masters of Horror” where he was working with other twelve filmmakers. The episode „Cigarette Burns“ directed by John Carpenter was valued as positive as well as another episode for the second season called “Pro-Life”, about a raped girl who was raped by demon and is expecting a baby.

John Carpenter last release was “Ghost of Mars” in 2001 and the film “The Ward”, which was presented at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010. Carpenter is also occupied as a voice actor, his voice is to hear on a video game F.E.A.R.3. John Carpenter work was noticed widely and in 2010 he was honored with the Lifetime Award from the Freak Show Horror Film Festival. There is no doubt that John Carpenter net worth of 35 million is earned with his sincere life time work.

IMDB Wikipedia $35 Million 1948 6 ft (1.83 m) Actor Adrienne Barbeau Adrienne Barbeau (m. 1979–1984) Bernard Quatermass Big Trouble in Little China Carpenter Carthage Cinema of the United States Cody Carpenter Directors Escape from New York F.E.A.R. 3 Film Film director Film Editor Film producer Film Score Composer Films Frank Armitage Freak Show Horror Film Festival Ghosts of Mars Halloween James T. Chance January 16 JC John John Carpenter John Carpenter Net Worth John Howard Carpenter John Longenecker John T. Chance Johnny Carpenter Martin Quatermass New York Rip Haight Sandy King Sandy King (m. 1990) Screenwriter Slasher films Someone’s Watching Me! Starman The Fog The Thing They Live Toronto International Film Festival United States United States of America USC School of Cinematic Arts Voice Actor

John Carpenter Quick Info

John Carpenter Trademarks

1. Films often take place in single confined locations
2. Often references the works of Alfred Hitchcock
3. Graphic visual effects and body transformations
4. Underlying sense of paranoia in horror stories
5. Includes at least one scene inside an automobile in nearly all his films. Likes to include helicopters in his films, many times doing a cameo as a pilot.
6. Frequently makes references to classic Westerns
7. [Video Screen] His films often feature important visuals shown from a video screen (The end-of-the-world transmission from the future in Prince of Darkness (1987), the Norwegian recordings of the expedition to uncover the aliens in The Thing (1982), various TV sets and the general anti-TV motif in They Live (1988), etc.).
8. [Names] Likes to name characters after real life people: directors, etc. Also reuses character names from classic movies. For example, John T. Chance, Carpenter’s pseudonym in for editing Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), is John Wayne’s character in Rio Bravo (1959); Donald Pleasence’s character name in Halloween (1978), Sam Loomis, is also the name of Janet Leigh’s boyfriend in Psycho (1960). Frequently uses the character names “Tramer” and “Baxter” in different films as well.
9. Is known for an unofficial “Carpenter’s Repertory Group” of actors who he enjoys working with, including Kurt Russell, Sam Neill, Peter Jason, George ‘Buck’ Flower, and various crew members. Also frequently casts musicians (Ice Cube, Isaac Hayes, Alice Cooper, Jon Bon Jovi).
10. [Cinematography] Uses minimalist cinematography and lighting. Tries to make empty spaces look full, and full spaces look empty. Shoots all of his movies in Panavision (2.35:1 ratio with anamorphic lenses). The exceptions are Dark Star (1974) and all of his TV work.
11. His lead male characters are anti-heroes (e.g., Snake Plissken in the “Escape” films and Napoleon Wilson in Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)) whereas the bad guys in his films are usually depicted as zombie-like, mindless, and lacking a personality or emotion. Though many people die in his films, with few exceptions, he usually avoids showing gore.
12. [Apocalypse] Apocalyptic overtones run throughout Carpenter’s films, most prominently in his unofficial but aptly titled Apocalypse Trilogy (The Thing (1982), Prince of Darkness (1987), In the Mouth of Madness (1994)) and more subtly in films like Halloween (1978), They Live (1988) and Escape from New York (1981).
13. [Cheap Scare] Many of Carpenter’s films include what he calls a “cheap scare”, where something comes into view very fast and leaves just as quickly, intensified by musical cues. Carpenter makes open compositions that allow the villain/monster (or sometimes just an object) to pop into frame from the background, the immediate foreground or from either side of the frame. It has since become a horror cliché after using “cheap scares” so effectively in Halloween (1978).
14. Uses synthesizer-based soundtracks that he composes himself (Most famous for the theme song to Halloween (1978), obviously).
15. [Attribution] The words “John Carpenter’s” appear before almost all of his film and TV titles (e.g., John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978)).
16. [Horror] Although Carpenter has directed films in numerous other genres (dark comedy, sci-fi, romance), he is known primarily for making horror films (Halloween (1978) and the subsequent sequels not directed by him, The Fog (1980), The Thing (1982), etc.). He is also known as the “Master of Horror” or the “Prince of Darkness” (after one of his films).

John Carpenter Quotes

• I take every failure hard. The one I took the hardest was The Thing (1982). My career would have been different if that had been a big hit… The movie was hated. Even by science-fiction fans. They thought that I had betrayed some kind of trust, and the piling on was insane. Even the original movie’s director, Christian Nyby, was dissing me.
• I’ve never had any illusions about my musical abilities. I’ve got very basic musical chops, that’s okay – I’ve proudly stretched them as far as I possibly could.
• At the beginning, I was doing the music out of necessity, because we had no money. At some point, I realized that the scores became another voice, another way I could further what I was doing as a filmmaker. It became an extension of directing. Composing was a lot of extra work, but I kept going as long as I could stand it. Kind of like directing.
• I got to work within the studio system, and make all those movies the way I wanted them, and I’m very proud of that. It was a fight, though, because the studios don’t ever want to give control to the filmmakers. It’s all changed now. A lot of directors today don’t even care about the final cut to begin with. Hell, they just want a job.
• The biggest lesson that I learned from film school was to try to get and maintain, if possible, final cut. Creative control is the essence of having the ability to make your own movie, and not someone else’s.
• Well, before I write my scripts, I know how much thy’ll have to cost, so I write them to fit our small budget. Idea first, then the budget, then the script. We do it backwards. My only criteria when working a deal is that I get control of the film – creative control. For a certain amount of money, you see, at this point in my career, they will give me control if it’s done cheaply enough. For a $10 million project they would’t give me that control. Not now. So, it’s an open-and-shut contractual thing. Will you give me cast approval and final cut and budget approval. And if you ask those questions and they say no, well, then you go elsewhere. [“Films in Review” interview, 1980]
• The Blair Witch Project (1999) is a movie that I really don’t think ever had a director. It’s one of the few movies I’ve ever seen that didn’t have one.
• [responding to Debra Hill’s remark in The Fog (1980) DVD commentary] I recycle all of Howard Hawks’ films, Debra.
• With the kinds of movies being made by studios today, there are very few low-budget films, and those are entrusted to young geniuses, not old guys like myself.
• [on Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)] We found that the audience didn’t want different stories. What they wanted was just the same old thing over and over again. [The producers] got mad because they thought I’d destroyed their franchise. They took it out of my hands and I was done with Halloween.
• If I had three wishes, one of them would be “Send me back to the ’40s and the studio system and let me direct movies.” Because I would have been happiest there. I feel I am a little bit out of time. I have much more of a kinship for older-style films, and very few films that are made now interest me at all. I get up and walk out on them.
• The trick with shooting a low-budget film is to shoot as little footage as possible and extend the scenes for as long as one can.
• [on making Halloween (1978). When we needed kids walking down the street, anyone who had a family rounded up their kids. Everyone helped out – it was just the joy of making movies.
• I arrived in L.A. the most naive human being on the face of the earth. When I got off the plane at LAX, I got a map of Los Angeles, looked up USC, and decided to walk. It only looked like it was a couple of blocks away. After about 15 blocks of carting my luggage down some endless street, I looked at the map again. It took me a while to figure out the scope of Los Angeles. If I’d continued walking that day, I would still be walking. I was a real country boy.
• I can remember at USC in the late Sixties when everybody was making socially relevant films. Good God, they’d have given anything if you made a film about Vietnam, about American injustices. That’s the kind of thing they wanted. They looked down on you and felt you were naive if you cared about Hollywood films. But I wasn’t caught up in that. I went back to my roots.
• Everyone who ever made a low-budget film was influenced by Night of the Living Dead (1968).
• They Live (1988) was made as response to the horror of the Reagan years.
• [on how they created the Michael Myers mask] We didn’t have enough money to make it. Production designer, Tommy Lee Wallace brought a clown mask, which was one idea. Then he brought a Star Trek (1966) Captain Kirk mask, It was a really terrible likeness of William Shatner, I mean terrible looking. We cut the eye holes a little bit bigger, spray painted it…..and that was it, it looked really creepy.
• I can play just about any keyboard but I can’t read or write a note.
• Jeff Bridges is the greatest, as an actor and a person. He’s the best actor of his generation, bar none.
• Monsters in movies are us, always us, one way or the other. They’re us with hats on. The zombies in George A. Romero’s movies are us. They’re hungry. Monsters are us, the dangerous parts of us. The part that wants to destroy. The part of us with the reptile brain. The part of us that’s vicious and cruel. We express these in our stories as these monsters out there.
• I don’t want to be in the mainstream. I don’t want to be a part of the demographics. I want to be an individual. I wear each of my films as a badge of pride. That’s why I cherish all my bad reviews. If the critics start liking my movies, then I’m in deep trouble.
• Film buffs who don’t live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it’s like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamor associated with them. But the truth is, it’s not like that. It’s very different. It’s hard work. If you were suddenly catapulted into that situation – without any training – you would say after it was over: “Oh, God! You’re kidding! You mean, this is what it’s like? This is what they put you through?” Yes, as a matter of fact, it is like this – and it’s often worse. People have tried to describe the film business, but it’s impossible to describe because it’s so crazy. You must know your craft inside out and then pick up the rules as you go along.
• When somebody who makes movies for a living — either as an actor, writer, producer or director — lives to be a certain age, you have to admire them. It is an act of courage to make a film — a courage for which you are not prepared in the rest of life. It is very hard and very destructive. But we do it because we love it. Regardless of how bitter I was a few years ago because of my experiences at the studios, I’m still making films.
• I’m pretty happy with who I am. I like myself and what I’m doing. I don’t need to be the world’s greatest director or the most famous — or the richest. I don’t need to make a whole lot of great films. I can do my job and I can do it pretty well. This is the realization I’ve come to, later in life. It’s called growing up.
• When you’ve been in the movie business for as long as I have your priorities change. The reasons I got into it in the beginning were very pure. I was driven by a creative urge to be a part of Hollywood and to make my mark in the movies. As I’ve gone through it practically — in real life — I’ve realized that ambition is immature. Luck and the randomness of fate play such a big part in whether I’m a success or a failure. After a while, I told myself, “The only thing I can do is the best I can do.” That’s what being a professional is all about. It’s how I conduct myself. I try to live with dignity and honor. But I can’t ever depend on reaching my goals, because there’s too much that I can’t control in my way. I’ve learned that I either have to be happy with who I am — or not.
• I’m flattered if someone comes to me with the idea of remaking one of my films. Remake or original, making a movie still comes down to old-fashioned hard work. If it’s based on another film, well, so be it. Remakes have been part of cinema since its earliest days – think of A Star Is Born (1937), which was remade numerous times. And they’re especially big right now because it’s become increasingly difficult to lure audiences into theaters. Advertising a remade title that may be familiar to audiences can hopefully cut through the clutter of titles and products that one sees.
• Working for the studios is no piece of cake. But it’s a trade-off situation, whomever you work for. You have much less creative freedom working for big studios, but they really release your film. By comparison, you have enormous creative freedom working for independent companies like New World. But when it comes time to sell your film and show it to the public, they don’t have the same clout as big studios. The independents have to fight to get your film in theaters in which to show your film and they have to fight to keep your film in those theaters. Everybody in the business faces one truth all the time — if your movie doesn’t perform immediately, the exhibitors want to get rid of it. The exhibitors only want product in their theaters which makes money. Quality has nothing to do with it.
• Hollywood is a weird place. The film industry has changed. Business is bad. Directors are treated like bums now. This is a bad time for creative people. Hollywood is a mean place to work. [1986]
• I have always had different aspects to my personality. I think I’m a long-term pessimist and a short-term optimist. I do feel a great darkness about humanity. But – simultaneously and contradictorily – I also feel that life can be pretty fabulous. I should also express some of that in my work; I don’t want to limit myself as a filmmaker. I want to be true to the parameters of all films. They should create a mood and tingle you emotionally. That is what I’m after. I want the audience to experience some feeling. I want them to know they’re alive.
• Movies are pieces of film stuck together in a certain rhythm, an absolute beat, like a musical composition. The rhythm you create affects the audience.
• Another trend is a lot of women are going to see horror films. That’s a really welcome development for horror… It actually has a broadened audience. I think most studios recognize that there is a real potential in horror, if you can find something new and unique. For a while it was a lot of remaking of Japanese horror films that have a whole different way of approaching a story – some of which translates quite well in this country. It is fascinating to watch for a guy who worked in the horror trenches.
• I don’t deny that commercial success means a lot to me, the best reviews you can get are at the box office.
• [on why he passed on Fatal Attraction (1987)] There wasn’t a grain of originality in it – it was Play Misty for Me (1971) with Michael Douglas filling in for Clint Eastwood. Also, the original version, the script I read, had Glenn Close winning in the end by killing herself and thereby getting the moral upper hand. I knew the audience was never going to buy that. The audience was always gonna want to see the wife shoot the bitch. Sure enough, they shot the original script, previewed it, got booed off screen and went back and shot the ending you see today. That was a journey I couldn’t be bothered to go on.
• Things haven’t been going great lately. For a while now people haven’t really been getting my movies. Certainly the box office hasn’t been up to speed. Sure, some of my recent stuff hasn’t been perfect, but neither has it been the shit that many have said. Critically, it’s all become a bit of a crapshoot. The critics thought I was a bum when I started out and they think I’m a bum now.
• We’re a violent country. We always have been. We embrace our individuality and our violence.
• In France, I’m an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain; a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum.

John Carpenter Important Facts

• $10,000
• Fans of John Carpenter’s work include for example the directors Bertrand Bonello, Tom Tykwer, Joon-ho Bong, Jeff Nichols, Olivier Assayas, Alice Winocour, Gaspar Noé and Jeremy Saulnier, who all named him as an influence on some of their own work. The composer Hans Zimmer was an early fan and said Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) has his favorite movie theme of all time. Another fan is Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who is especially fond of They Live (1988).
• He was offered the chance to direct The Exorcist III (1990).
• He said in an interview that he almost directed Tombstone (1993).
• Based his most famous character, the iconic Michael Myers from Halloween (1978), on a thirteen year old boy he saw at a mental institution on a school trip.
• Claims that his son, Cody Carpenter got him hooked on playing video games. When Cody was growing up, the two spent time playing together, with early games such as Sonic the Hedgehog (1991). As an avid gamer, he continues playing video games both with his son and independently. As of 2013, his recent favorites included: Dishonored (2012), Assassin’s Creed III (2012), and the God of War (2005) Collection. He can frequently be seen at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) with his son. (Source: Magazine: gameinformer (Volume XXIII, Number 6, Issue 242)).
• He has always claimed that the Western is his favorite genre but he’s never made a full-length film within the genre.
• Named his six favorite films as Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Rio Bravo (1959), Citizen Kane (1941), Vertigo (1958), Black Christmas (1974), Blow-Up (1966). Black Christmas is the film that inspired Halloween (1978).
• He directed child actress Kim Richards in his second feature film, Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), and directed Kim’s sister Kyle Richards in his next film, Halloween (1978).
• Shares the low score of 3 in Empire’s ‘My Movie Mastermind’ with Michael Keaton and Steve Guttenberg.
• Lives in West Hollywood, California.
• In an interview, he stated that he takes much of the failure of his movies pretty hard. However, out of all the movies that he had done, he claimed that The Thing (1982) was the failure he took the hardest.
• In the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (edited by Steven Jay Schneider), 2 of his films are listed: Halloween (1978) and The Thing (1982).
• Turned down the chance to direct Zombieland (2009).
• Close friend of actor Jeff Bridges.
• Was approached to score Planet Terror (2007) for Robert Rodriguez, but was busy finishing up post-production on Masters of Horror (2005).
• Is an avid fan of the Godzilla films. He considers the first Godzilla movie (Gojira (1954)) to be an inspiration for him.
• Was offered the chance to direct Armed and Dangerous (1986) but turned it down. The job went to Mark L. Lester who also directed Firestarter (1984), which was offered to Carpenter.
• Turned down the chance to direct Fatal Attraction (1987).
• Turned down the chance to direct Top Gun (1986).
• Was offered a chance to direct the Eddie Murphy film The Golden Child (1986), but turned it down.
• Was given the chance to direct Mutant Chronicles (2008).
• Said in a 1982 interview that he thought the R rating for Halloween (1978) was justifiable, but The Fog (1980) should’ve been rated PG.
• Was originally supposed to direct Firestarter (1984), and even had a screenplay written by Bill Lancaster. Both were replaced when The Thing (1982), a film on which they both collaborated, did poorly at the box office.
• He is a big fan of The Beach Boys and Howard Hawks.
• Praised longtime friend and frequent collaborator Kurt Russell for being a hard-working, professional actor who isn’t afraid to take on roles that might hurt his image or make him look like a fool.
• Biography in the following: John Wakeman, editor. World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945- 1985. pp. 184-189. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.
• With the exception of Escape from L.A. (1996), he has rarely made a sequel to any of his films. Has said that he got forced into writing Halloween II (1981), but refused to direct it because he “didn’t want to direct the same movie again”.
• Carpenter’s character Snake Plissken (of Escape from New York (1981) and Escape from L.A. (1996)) is about to become a comic book. Published by theCrossGen imprint Code 6 Comics, the book will be known as “John Carpenter’s The Snake Plissken Chronicles”. It is set for publication beginning in 2003.
• Is a great fan of Sergio Leone and cast Lee Van Cleef in Escape from New York (1981) because of his work with Leone.
• He has a son, Cody Carpenter, with Adrienne Barbeau.
• Is a major NBA fan and has a satellite dish installed on his location trailer to keep up with the games. Always has a portable basketball hoop on location.
• Loves Elvis Presley and old Cadillacs.
• Considers it bad luck to wear the hat of the show he’s working on. Will not wear a crew cap until the film is over.
• Appears in his own films under the name Rip Haight, appearing in in The Fog (1980), Starman (1984), Body Bags (1993), and Village of the Damned (1995).
• Is a fan of the Quartermass movies (The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), Five Million Years to Earth (1967)), wrote Prince of Darkness (1987) under the pseudonym of Martin Quatermass, and the village in In the Mouth of Madness (1994) is named after a rail station in “Quatermass and the Pit”.
• In the movie Change of Habit (1969) Elvis Presley plays a character named John Carpenter. In 1979 Carpenter directed the TV movie Elvis (1979) starring his good friend Kurt Russell.

John Carpenter Filmography

John Carpenter Awards