Editing Alex Cox (section)

==Film career==
=== Study and independent {{anchor|Study and independent}} ===
Cox began reading law as an undergraduate at [[University of Oxford|Oxford University]], but left to study radio, film and TV at [[University of Bristol|Bristol University]], graduating in 1977. Seeing difficulties in the British film scene at the time, he first went to Los Angeles to attend film school at [[UCLA]] in 1977. There he produced his first film, ''Edge City'' (also known as ''Sleep Is for Sissies''), a 40-minute surreal short about an artist struggling against society. After graduation, Cox formed Edge City Productions with two friends with the intention of producing low-budget feature films. He wrote a screenplay for ''[[Repo Man (film)|Repo Man]]'', which he hoped to produce for a budget of $70,000, and began seeking funding.

===Hollywood and major studio period (1978–1987)===
[[Michael Nesmith]] agreed to produce ''Repo Man'', and convinced [[Universal Pictures|Universal Studios]] to back the project with a budget of over a million dollars. During the course of the film's production, the studio's management changed, and the new management had far less faith in the project. The initial cinema release was limited to Chicago, followed by Los Angeles, and was short-lived.

After the success of the soundtrack album (notable for featuring many popular [[LA punk band]]s), there was enough interest in the film to earn a re-release in a single cinema in New York City, but only after becoming available on video and cable. Nevertheless, it ran for 18 months, and eventually earned $4,000,000.

Continuing his fascination with [[punk music]], Cox's next film was an independent feature shot in London and Los Angeles, following the career and death of bassist [[Sid Vicious]] and his girlfriend [[Nancy Spungen]], initially titled ''Love Kills'' and later renamed ''[[Sid and Nancy]]''. It was met warmly by critics and fans, though heavily criticised by some, including Pistols' frontman [[John Lydon]], for its inaccuracies. The production of this film also sparked a relationship with [[Joe Strummer]] of [[the Clash]], who would continue to collaborate with the director on his next two films.

Cox had long been interested in [[Nicaragua]] and the [[Sandinistas]] (both ''Repo Man'' and ''Edge City'' made references to Nicaragua and/or Latin American revolution), and visited in 1984. The following year, he hoped to shoot a concert film there featuring [[the Clash]], [[the Pogues]] and [[Elvis Costello]]. When he could not get backing, he decided instead to write a film that they would all act in. The film became ''[[Straight to Hell (film)|Straight to Hell]]''. Collaborating with [[Dick Rude]] (who also co-starred beside Strummer, [[Sy Richardson]] and [[Courtney Love]]), he imagined the film as a spoof of the [[Spaghetti Western]] genre, filmed in [[Almería]], Spain, where many classic Italian westerns were shot. ''[[Straight to Hell (film)|Straight to Hell]]'' was widely panned critically, but successful in Japan and retains a cult following. On 1 June 2012, Cox wrote an article in ''[[The New York Times]]'' about his long-standing interest in spaghetti westerns.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/movies/a-spaghetti-western-roundup-at-film-forum.html?hpw | work=The New York Times | first=Alex | last=Cox | title=A Spaghetti Western Roundup at Film Forum | date=1 June 2012}}</ref>

Continuing his interest in Nicaragua, Cox took on a more overtly political project, with the intention of filming it there. He asked [[Rudy Wurlitzer]] to pen the screenplay, which followed the life of [[William Walker (filibuster)|William Walker]], set against a backdrop of anachronisms that drew parallels between the story and modern [[Sandinistas#Sandinistas vs. Contras|American intervention in the area]]. The $6,000,000 production was backed by [[Universal Pictures|Universal]], but the completed film was too political and too violent for the studio's tastes, and the film went without promotion. When ''[[Walker (film)|Walker]]'' failed to perform at the box office, it ended the director's involvement with [[Hollywood (film industry)|Hollywood]] studios, and led to a period of several years in which Cox would not direct a single film. Despite this, Cox and some critics maintain that it is his best film.

===Mexican period (1988–1996)===
In 1988, The Writers Guild of America West barred Cox from any future membership because he had worked on scripts during the writers’ strike. Effectively [[blacklist]]ed, Alex Cox struggled to find feature work. He finally got financial backing for a feature from investors in Japan, where his films had been successful on video. Cox had scouted locations in Mexico during the pre-production of ''Walker'' and decided he wanted to shoot a film there, with a local cast and crew, in Spanish. Producer [[Lorenzo O'Brien]] penned the script. Inspired by the style of Mexican directors including [[Arturo Ripstein]], he shot most of the film in ''[[long take|plano secuencia]]''; long, continuous takes shot with a hand-held camera. ''[[El Patrullero]]'' was completed and released in 1991, but struggled to find its way into cinemas.

Shortly after this, Cox was invited to adapt a [[Jorge Luis Borges]] story of his choice for the BBC. He chose ''[[Death and the Compass]]''. Despite being a British production and an English language film, he convinced his producers to let him shoot in [[Mexico City]]. [[Death and the Compass (film)|This film]], like his previous Mexican production, made extensive use of long-takes. The completed 55-minute film aired on the BBC in 1992.

Cox had hoped to expand this into a feature-length film, but the BBC was uninterested. Japanese investors gave him $100,000 to expand the film in 1993, but the production ran over-budget, allowing no funds for post-production. To secure funds, Cox directed a "work for hire" project called ''[[The Winner (1996 film)|The Winner]]''. The film was edited extensively without Cox's knowledge, and he tried to have his name removed from the credits as a result but was denied, but the money was enough for Cox to fund the completion of ''Death and the Compass''. The finished, 82-minute feature received a limited cinema release in the US, where the TV version had not aired, in 1996.

[[Damián Alcázar]], who had a small role in ''[[El Patrullero]],'' went onto to collaborate on muiltiple occasions with Mexican director [[Luis Estrada (director)|Luis Estrada]], and in 2 films, [[Herod's Law|Herod's law (1999)]] and [[Un mundo maravilloso|A Wonderful world (2006)]] Cox appears. However in A Wonderful world, Coxs role is reduced to a Cameo at the end of the film.

===Liverpool period (1997–2006)===
In 1996, producer Stephen Nemeth employed Alex Cox to write and direct an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's ''[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas]]''. After creative disagreements with the producer and Thompson, he was sacked from the project, and his script rewritten when [[Terry Gilliam]] took over the film. (Cox later sued successfully for a writing credit, as it was ruled that there were enough similarities between the drafts to suggest that Gilliam's was derivative of Cox's. Gilliam countered that the screenplays were based on the source book and similarities between them were a consequence of this.)

In 1997, Alex Cox made a deal with Dutch producer Wim Kayzer to produce another dual TV/feature production. ''[[Three Businessmen]]''. Initially, Cox had hoped to shoot in Mexico but later decided to set his story in [[Liverpool]], [[Rotterdam]], Tokyo and [[Almería]]. The story follows businessmen in Liverpool who leave their hotel in search of food and slowly drift further from their starting point, all the while believing they are still in Liverpool. The film was completed for a small budget of $250,000. Following this, Cox moved back to Liverpool and became interested in creating films there.

Cox had long been interested in the [[Literature in English#Jacobean literature|Jacobean]] play, ''[[The Revenger's Tragedy]]'', and upon moving back to [[UK|Britain]], decided to pursue adapting it to a film. Collaborating with fellow Liverpudlian screenwriter [[Frank Cottrell Boyce]], the story was recast in the near future, following an unseen war. This adaptation, titled ''[[Revengers Tragedy]]'', consisted primarily of the original play's dialogue, with some additional bits written in a more modern tone. The film is also notable for its soundtrack, composed by [[Chumbawamba]].

Following this, Cox directed a short film set in Liverpool for the BBC titled ''[[I'm a Juvenile Delinquent – Jail Me!]]'' (2004). The 30-minute film satirised reality television as well as the high volume of petty crime in Liverpool which, according to Cox, is largely recreational.

===Microfeature period (2007–present)===
In 2006, Alex Cox tried to get funding for a series of eight [[Low-budget film#Micro budget|very low budget]] features set in Liverpool and produced by locals. The project was not completed, but the director grew interested in pursuing the idea of a film made for less than £100,000. He had originally hoped to shoot ''Repo Man'' on a comparable budget, and hoped that the lower overhead would mean greater creative freedom.{{cn|date=December 2023}}

''[[Searchers 2.0]]'', named after but based on ''[[The Searchers (film)|The Searchers]]'', became Cox's first film for which he has sole writing credit since ''Repo Man'', and marked his return to the comedy genre. A [[road movie]] and a revenge story, it tells of two actors, loosely based on and played by [[Del Zamora]] and Ed Pansullo, who travel from Los Angeles to a desert film screening in [[Monument Valley]] in the hopes of avenging abuse inflicted on them by a cruel screenwriter, Fritz Frobisher ([[Sy Richardson]]). It was scored by longtime collaborator [[Dan Wool]] aka [[Pray for Rain (band)|Pray for Rain]] (''Sid & Nancy'', ''Straight to Hell'', ''Death & the Compass'', ''The Winner'', ''Three Businessmen'', ''Repo Chick'' among others). Although the film was unable to achieve a cinema release in America or Europe, Cox claimed the experience of making a film with a smaller crew and less restrictions was energising. It is available on DVD in Japan, and was released in October 2010 in North America.<ref>{{cite web|title=Searchers 2.0 on IMDB|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0943982/|website=imdb.com|access-date=18 September 2017}}</ref>

Alex Cox had attempted to get a ''Repo Man'' sequel, titled ''[[Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday]]'', produced in the mid-'90s, but the project fell apart, with the script adapted into a [[graphic novel]] of the same name.<ref>{{cite news |first=Zack |last=Smith |url=http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=148302 |title=Alex Cox: The Comic Book Sequel To Repo Mam |work=[[Newsarama]] |date=27 February 2008 |access-date=5 November 2008 }}{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>[http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20177132,00.html First Look: Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090421215714/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20177132,00.html |date=21 April 2009 }}, ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]''</ref> For his next micro-feature, he wrote a fresh attempt at a ''Repo'' follow-up, although it contained no recurring characters, so as to preserve Universal's rights to the original. ''[[Repo Chick]]'' was filmed entirely against a green screen, with backgrounds of digital composites, live action shots, and miniatures matted in afterwards, to produce an artificial look. It premiered at the [[Venice Film Festival]] on 9 September 2009.{{cn|date=December 2023}}

{{as of|July 2012}}, Cox was teaching film production and screenwriting at the [[University of Colorado at Boulder]].<ref name=CoxNYT>{{cite news|last=Cox|first=Alex|title=The Fretful Birth of the New Western|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/movies/kirk-douglass-film-lonely-are-the-brave.html?pagewanted=all|access-date=29 July 2012|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=29 July 2012}}</ref><ref name=hoylake/>

In 2013 Cox directed ''[[Bill, the Galactic Hero (film)|Bill, the Galactic Hero]]'', developed from a science fiction book by [[Harry Harrison (writer)|Harry Harrison]]. It was funded by a successful [[Kickstarter]] funding campaign, raising $114,957 of the original $100,000 goal.<ref name="Kickstarter">{{cite web|last1=Cox|first1=Alex|title=Alex Cox directs BILL THE GALACTIC HERO|url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alexcoxfilms/alex-cox-directs-bill-the-galactic-hero|website=kickstarter.com|access-date=18 September 2017}}</ref> The film was to be made, created and acted by his film students in monochrome with supervision from professional film makers who would be giving their time on the film for free.<ref name="Kickstarter" />

Cox's 2013 book ''The President and the Provocateur'' examines events in the lives of [[John F. Kennedy]] and [[Lee Harvey Oswald]] leading up to Kennedy's assassination, with reference to [[John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories|the various conspiracy theories]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Marcus |first=Richard |date=29 June 2013 |title=Book Review: 'The President And The Provocateur' by Alex Cox |url=https://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Book-Review-The-President-And-The-Provocateur-4638358.php |access-date=2022-05-07 |newspaper=Seattle Post-Intelligencer |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 2017 Cox directed another crowdfunded film, ''[[Tombstone Rashomon]]'', which tells the tale of the [[Gunfight at the O.K. Corral]] from multiple perspectives in the style of [[Akira Kurosawa]]'s 1950 film ''[[Rashomon]]''.{{citation needed|date=July 2018}}

In September 2019, Cox started the podcast ‘Conversations with Cox and Kjølseth’ with his friend and colleague Pablo Kjølseth. In October 2022, Cox announced the end of the podcast, citing its small audience and the comparative success of podcasts by [[Joe Dante]], [[Quentin Tarantino]] and Cox's one-time collaborator [[Roger Deakins]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cox & Kjølseth: EP112: Cox & Kjolseth gallop off into the sunset on Apple Podcasts |url=https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ep112-cox-kjolseth-gallop-off-into-the-sunset/id1490027179?i=1000581733104 |access-date=2022-10-14 |website=Apple Podcasts |language=en-GB |archive-date=14 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221014150957/https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ep112-cox-kjolseth-gallop-off-into-the-sunset/id1490027179?i=1000581733104 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In June 2024 Cox began crowdfunding a film adaptation of [[Nikolai Gogol]]'s novel ''[[Dead Souls]]'', which he says will be his last film.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/24458370.wirral-film-maker-alex-cox-looking-funding-last-movie/ | title=Wirral film maker Alex Cox looking for funding for his 'last movie' | date=17 July 2024 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/the-hard-road-alex-cox-on-crowdfunding-success-and-a-life-in-independent-filmmaking#:~:text=Cox%27s%20latest%20is%20a%20crowdfunded,super%20low%2Dbudget%20film.%E2%80%9D | title=The Hard Road: Alex Cox on Crowdfunding, Success, and a Life in Independent Filmmaking &#124; MZS &#124; Roger Ebert | date=28 July 2024 }}</ref>