Todd Phillips, born 1970, is 43 today. He’s a director, producer, sometimes actor and writer, whose comedies you’ve probably heard of, and many of which you’ve seen. Some were good, some were bad, but the guy has had perhaps the most indelible mark on the comedy landscape aside from Adam McKay in the last few years.
Believe it or not, Phillips actually got his start making documentaries. He dropped out of NYU film school after a couple of years and worked on Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies, about the controversial rocker GG Allin, whose Wiki page is terrifying to say the least. He followed that up with Frat House, an expose about fraternities that won the Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. His other documentary was Bittersweet Motel, about the 1997/1998 tours of the jam band Phish. The tour is where he met the producer/director Ivan Reitman, and for some reason, the guy who had directed documentaries about fringe groups and frats was just the person to make R-rated comedies in Reitman’s eyes, which led to Phillip’s film career.
Road Trip was his first film, the only memorable part of which is Tom Green in mid-career peak, and he followed that up with Old School, which helped launch the film career of Will Ferrell and gave us the sight of his naked body streaking through the quad to the gymnasium. 2004 brought Starsky and Hutch, which also featured a memorably weird Ferrell performance as a prisoner with creepy sexual predilections. After another pit stop in forgettable comedy land (2006’s School for Scoundrels), Phillips had the biggest coup of his career with the Hangover franchise. For the original films, the studio balked at the idea of having three then-unestablished stars in the lead roles, so Phillips took a pay cut and negotiated a percentage of the film’s gross in lieu of a salary, in addition to a lower budget of $35 million. The gamble paid off, as The Hangover was the second highest grossing R-rated comedy ever made, and netted Phillips a much, much larger payday and the opportunity for two sequels.
Phillips makes small cameos in all his films, none of which can be reprinted here. with the exception of the joke in the headline.
Also born today:
Jonah Hill (30)
Joe Cornish (45)
Kim Ki-duk (53)
Dick Wolf (67)
John Spencer (1946-2005)
