Smokin' Aces

Background:

American independent film director and writer Joe Carnahan made a huge impact at film festivals and with critics with his first feature length film, “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane” (1998). Although it was only released in seven theaters with total earnings of approximately $15,000, the project successfully put the filmmaker on the map. He gained more recognition and fame with the follow-up “Narc” (2002), a thriller starring Ray Liotta and Jason Patric. For his bright effort, Carnahan was awarded the Cognac Festival du Film Policier, as well as a Sundance Film Festival nomination and an Independent Spirit nomination.

Following a setback in his career, Carnahan bounced back in early 2007 with the box office hit “Smokin' Aces” (2007). The action/comedy brought the writer/director two Cognac Festival du Film Policier Awards. Carnahan will write and direct the upcoming “Bunny Lake Is Missing” (2009), “White Jazz” (2009) and “Killing Pablo” (2009). He also co-scripted “Pride and Glory” (2009), helmed by Gavin O'Connor.

Carnahan is a fan of the renowned English soccer team Manchester United (also known as “The Red Devils”).

Father of 2

Childhood and Family:

Joseph Aaron Carnahan, professionally known as Joe Carnahan, was born on May 9, 1969, in Algonac, Michigan. He was raised in the Detroit suburb before his family eventually settled in Sacramento, California, when he was young. After graduating from Fairfield High School in Fairfield, California, in 1987, he attended San Francisco State University. He later attended California State University in Sacramento, in which he studied film. His brother, Matthew Michael Carnahan, is a screenwriter.

Currently, Joe resides in Sacramento, California, with his wife and their two children.

Narc

Career:

After completing his film studies, Joe Carnahan was involved in the production department at UPN 31 in Sacramento and won the Producer of the Year award at the Promax Television Convention. Concurrently, he began co-writing short films in the mid-1990s.

Carnahan created his first feature film, “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane,” a comic noir thriller about two used car salesmen (played by Carnahan himself and Dan Leis), which premiered at the New York's Independent Feature Film Market in September 1997 and later at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and emerged as a new talent to be reckoned with. After producing the 1998 short “Taco Heaven,” the director-writer released his sophomore effort, “Narc,” in 2002. A Detroit set thriller that originated as a short film he made when he was a

student, the movie starred Ray Liotta as a volatile detective searching for the murderer of his partner. The film received strong reviews and a Special Prize of the Police Award from the Cognac Festival du Film Policier and a Grand Jury Prize-Dramatic nomination at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. For his direction, Carnahan picked up a Best Director Independent Spirit nomination.

He next directed Harrison Ford in the crime/thriller movie, “A Walk among Tombstones” and was recruited by Tom Cruise to direct the blockbuster “Mission: Impossible III,” but left the production because of creative differences.

Following several years hiatus, Carnahan finally made his comeback in early 2007 with “Smokin' Aces” (produced in 2006), which went on to become his most flourishing film to date in terms of box office success. Despite its success with audiences, the hyper-violent caper comedy, which starred Jeremy Piven as a Las Vegas performer-turned-snitch, Alicia Keys and Taraji P. Henson as sexy, but deadly vixens, Ben Affleck, Peter Berg and Martin Henderson as dimwitted hoodlums, and Chris Pine and Kevin Durand as the notorious Tremor Brothers, the film received mixed reviews. “Smokin' Aces” took home two Cognac Festival du Film Policier awards for International Critics' Prize and Special Jury Prize.

“You know, I write so that you’re enjoying it while you’re reading it, and it’s engaging. I think screenplays too often are just this kind of bastard form of literature and you just toss it off and who gives a damn, you know? But I didn’t approach it that way and that’s what ultimately hooked a lot of the actors who didn’t do it for a lot of money. I think that they were doing it at some point for like a case of beer. That was what they were being paid, and Doritos. No, I mean, they came to this thing because of the script and also the ability to, like I told Jeremy (Piven), ‘This is like a shot for you to really go deep and to completely do a 180 on Ari Gold and the stuff that you’ve done in the past.’ I told Ryan (Reynolds), who is a brilliantly funny guy, both of them are, ‘I’m going to strip you of your ability to be that guy, to be the comic relief,’ and really hinge it on him dramatically.” Joe Carnahan (on assembling the Cast of “Smokin' Aces)

Carnahan has completed writing the screenplay of “Pride and Glory,” along with the film director Gavin O'Connor. The crime/drama, starring Edward Norton and Colin Farrell, is set to be released in March 2008. He is currently directing “Bunny Lake Is Missing” (2009), a remake of Otto Preminger's 1965 psychological thriller about a woman whose young daughter disappears. Carnahan will team up with his brother, screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan, for the script of his upcoming film, “White Jazz” (2009), an adaptation of James Ellroy's novel of the same name, with George Clooney starring and producing. He is also set to helm the action/drama “Killing Pablo” (2009), based on the Mark Bowden book “Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw.”

Awards:

• Cognac Festival du Film Policier: Critics Award, International Critics' Prize, “Smokin' Aces,” 2007

• Cognac Festival du Film Policier: Special Jury Prize, “Smokin' Aces,” 2007

• Cognac Festival du Film Policier: Special Prize of the Police, “Narc,” 2002