Neil Marshall

Neil Marshall (born 25 May 1970) is an English film and television director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. He directed the horror films Dog Soldiers and The Descent (2005), the science fiction action film Doomsday (2008), the historical war film Centurion (2010), the superhero horror film Hellboy (2019), and the adventure horror film The Reckoning (2020).

Marshall has also directed numerous television series, including two episodes of the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones: "Blackwater" and "The Watchers on the Wall", the latter of which earned him a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.

Early life Marshall was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He was inspired to become a film director when he saw Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) at the age of eleven. He began making home movies using Super 8 mm film, and in 1989, he attended film school at Newcastle Polytechnic. In the next eight years, he worked as a freelance film editor.

Career In 1995, he was hired to co-write and edit for director Bharat Nalluri's first film, Killing Time. Marshall continued to write and develop his own projects, directing his first film in 2002, Dog Soldiers, a horror film that became a cult film in the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005, he followed up with a second horror film, The Descent. With his direction of The Descent, he was identified as a member of the Splat Pack. Marshall won the British Independent Film Award for Best Director,

His next film, Doomsday, is a 2008 science fiction action film he wrote and directed. The film takes place in the future in Scotland, which has been quarantined because of a deadly virus. When the virus is found in London, political leaders send a team led by Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) to Scotland to find a possible cure. Sinclair's team runs into two types of survivors: marauders and medieval knights. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 51, based on 14 reviews.

Marshall went on to write and direct the 2010 historical war film Centurion, starring Michael Fassbender and Dominic West. He also wrote and directed a segment, titled "Bad Seed", of the anthology horror film Tales of Halloween, which had its world premiere on 24 July 2015 at the Fantasia International Film Festival.

Marshall directed episodes of several television series, including Black Sails, Constantine, Hannibal, Westworld, Timeless, and Lost in Space, the lattermost two of which he also executive produced. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for his work on the Game of Thrones episode "The Watchers on the Wall". In February 2015, Marshall and his agent Marc Helwig founded the television production company Applebox Entertainment and signed with this company, a two-year deal with Legendary TV.

In 2017, Marshall signed on to direct a reboot of Hellboy, released in April 2019. Marshall has since disowned the film, criticizing the script and calling the job "the worst professional experience of my life." Marshall only accepted the film due to not making a feature film in nine years and also being initially intrigued by the horror pitch.

He then wrote and directed the horror film The Reckoning, which was released in 2020. He created a production company, Scarlett Productions, with actress Charlotte Kirk.

Marshall signed with Verve, an agency, in November 2019. In late August 2020, Verve dropped Marshall without comment. , Marshall is still signed with Artists First, a management firm.

Personal life

Marshall was married to the Belgian film director Axelle Carolyn from 2007 to 2016; both acted in Centurion. , he was engaged to the British actress Charlotte Kirk.

Filmography Film Year Title Director Writer ExecutiveProducer Editor Notes 1998 Killing Time 2002 Dog Soldiers 2005 The Descent 2008 Doomsday 2010 Centurion 2015 Tales of Halloween Segment: "Bad Seed" 2019 Hellboy 2020 The Reckoning 2022 The Lair 2024 Duchess Compulsion

Executive producer only The Descent Part 2 (2009) Soulmate (2013) Dark Signal (2016)

Television Year Title Director ExecutiveProducer Notes 2012, 2014 Game of Thrones Episodes "Blackwater" and "The Watchers on the Wall" 2014 Black Sails Episodes "I." and "III." Constantine Episodes "Non Est Asylum" and "Rage of Caliban" 2015 Hannibal Episode "The Great Red Dragon" 2016 Poor Richard's Almanack Episode "Pilot" Timeless Episodes "Pilot" and "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln" Westworld Episode "The Stray" 2018 Lost in Space Episodes "Impact" and "Diamonds in the Sky"

Writer Dog Soldiers: Legacy (2011) (Pilot episode)

Awards and nominations Year Association Category Work Result 2006 British Independent Film Awards Best Director The Descent Saturn Awards Best Horror Film 2013 Hugo Awards Best Dramatic Presentation, Short FormGame of Thrones 2014 Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series 2020 Golden Raspberry Awards Worst Director Hellboy