Gore Verbinski

Gregor Justin "Gore" Verbinski (born March 16, 1964) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and musician. He is best known for directing Mouse Hunt, The Ring (2002), the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, Rango (2011), and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025).

For Rango, Verbinski won both the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film.

Early life Verbinski was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the fourth of five children of Laurette Ann (née McGovern) and Victor Vincent Verbinski, a nuclear physicist. His siblings are Janine, Claire, Diane, and Steven. His father was of Polish descent, and worked as a nuclear physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In 1967, the Verbinski family moved to Southern California, where a young Gregor grew up in the town of La Jolla. Gregor was an active Boy Scout and surfed regularly. He went to Torrey Pines Elementary, Muirlands Junior High, and La Jolla High School (Class of 1982 ), before attending UCLA Film School. Verbinski graduated with his BFA in Film in 1987. In his youth, Verbinski was passionate about music and played in several punk rock bands, which influenced his creative approach. where he directed music videos for bands like Vicious Rumors, Bad Religion, NOFX, 24-7 Spyz and Monster Magnet. Verbinski moved from music videos to commercials, where he worked for many brand names including Nike, Coca-Cola, Canon, Skittles and United Airlines. One of his most famous commercials was for Budweiser, featuring frogs who croak the brand name. For his efforts in commercials, Verbinski won four Clio Awards and one Cannes Advertising Silver Lion.

After completing a short film, The Ritual (which he both wrote and directed), Verbinski made his feature film directing debut in 1997 with Mouse Hunt, which became a global hit. Following that film's success, Verbinski planned and developed several aborted projects; The Sky Is Falling, The Lighthouse, Mission to Mars, How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball, Where the Wild Things Are, The Big Ticket, The Light Princess, Catch Me If You Can, Project 3, and a remake of Ten Seconds to Hell.

Verbinski returned in 2001 with the action/comedy The Mexican, starring Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. The film received mixed reviews, and performed modestly at the box-office, earning $68 million domestically which was quite meager considering its star power (it was technically successful due to its moderately low $38 million budget). Verbinski followed it up with the horror film remake The Ring (2002), which struck gold globally, grossing well over $200 million worldwide. Verbinski also had a directorial hand in The Time Machine that year, temporarily taking over for an exhausted Simon Wells. Verbinski directed some of the underground Morlock sequences and is given a "Thanks to" credit in the film.

He then directed the very successful Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl which earned over $600 million at the international box office. This was his first collaboration with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, whom he has since collaborated with on several other movies. His next film was The Weather Man, which starred Nicolas Cage. The film received mixed to positive reviews but was a box office failure. In March 2005, he started filming the sequels Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The former then became his biggest success so far, becoming the third film ever to gross over $1 billion at the international box office. In 2008, Verbinski's Blind Wink production company signed a deal with Universal. Verbinski was also set to direct a film for Universal based on the video game BioShock. However, budgetary and creative disputes stemming from Verbinski's wish to incorporate a functioning underwater rail transport system, driven by his noted fascination with trains, derailed development. Verbinski was then replaced by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo as director and the film was subsequently cancelled.

In 2011 and 2013, Verbinski would delve into the Western genre, with decidedly different results: Rango was well received, critically and commercially, and earned the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. However, his adaptation of the 1930s radio hero, The Lone Ranger for Disney, was not, the project having been stuck in development hell for several years, undergone rewrites and budget cuts, and gained controversy for the casting of Johnny Depp as the Native American Tonto. The film grossed $260 million against a $215–225 million budget, plus an estimated $150–160 million marketing campaign. That same year, he was also the executive producer of the Ben Stiller adaptation of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, after having initially been attached in 2010 to direct the film himself.

In 2012, Verbinski announced three films in development at Blind Wink; the Western Bitterroot, the sci-fi film Spaceless, and a live action film based on the board game Clue. At various points, he was attached to direct all three films, before eventually opting to produce instead.

In 2016, Verbinski's horror film A Cure for Wellness starring Dane DeHaan and Mia Goth premiered at the Alamo Drafthouse before receiving a wide release in 2017. It received mediocre reviews from critics and was a financial bomb, grossing $26.6 million against a $40 million budget. Verbinski was set to next direct a film centering around the character Gambit, within the X-Men film universe, before dropping out of the project in January 2018.

In the 2020s, he was seeking financial backing for Cattywumpus, an animated feature about cats in outer space, after being in the works at Netflix. He was also working with writer Dennis Kelly on a feature version of the story "Sandkings" by George R. R. Martin. Both were set to be animated films, with Roger Deakins committed as cinematographer.

After a nearly 10-year-long hiatus, Verbinski returned with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025) which premiered at the 2025 Fantastic Fest and was released in the United States on February 13, 2026, by Briarcliff Entertainment. The film had its international premiere out of competition at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival.

Video game Verbinski was involved with Matter, an original futuristic video game that was being developed for the Xbox 360 using Kinect. It would have used the Kinect peripheral. It was originally announced at E3 2012; the game was set in a universe similar to that of Tron, with futuristic, industrial graphics, and featured small, metallic balls as the main characters.

The game was announced to be cancelled about a year later. While reasons for the cancellation are unknown, a poster on the NeoGAF forums hinted at mismanagement and the studio's unfamiliarity with game development as the main problem.

Filmography

Film

Executive producer The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Music videos Year Title Artist 1989 "S&M Airlines" NOFX 1990 "Don't Wait for Me" Vicious Rumors 1990 "Fast and Frightening" L7 1991 "Children"Vicious Rumors 1992 "Stuntman" 24-7 Spyz "Atomic Garden" Bad Religion 1993 "American Jesus" 1994 "21st Century (Digital Boy)" "Stranger than Fiction" 1995 "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" Monster Magnet 2004 "Born Too Slow" The Crystal Method

Awards and nominations Award Year Category Nominated work Result Academy Awards 2012 Best Animated Feature Rango Amanda Awards 2004 Best Foreign Feature Film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Annie Awards 2012 Outstanding Directing Rango Outstanding Writing BAFTA Awards Best Animated Film Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Awards 1995 Silver Lion Budweiser: "Frogs" Golden Globe Awards 2012 Best Animated Feature Film Rango Golden Raspberry Awards 2014 Worst Director The Lone Ranger Hollywood Film Awards 2003 Movie of the Year Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl 2011 Animation of the Year Rango Hugo Awards 2004 Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Producers Guild of America Awards 2012 Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures Rango Saturn Awards 2004 Best Director Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl