James Cameron, at the premiere of SOLARIS
© 2002 Sue Schneider
The (Super) Power 100
By: THE EDITORS OF CINESCAPEDate: Tuesday, August 05, 2003
In this month's Cinescape (on newsstands now), we offer up the (Super) Power 100. You got the full skinny on Numbers 1-50, but only a casual listing of who made the remaining 100. Now, only available through Cinescape.com, we proudly present the guts, the glory, the grandeur of those who ended up on our second annual (Super) Power 100 list.
Richard Taylor
Power Rank: 51
Last Year's Rank: 75
Secret Identity: Visual Effects Designer and Supervisor/Costume Designer
Superpower: The most magical design sensibility in Middle-earth.
Current Adventure: Peter Jackson relied on Taylor and his New Zealand-based WETA Workshop to realize his vision for The Lord of the Rings, and the Oscar-winning results have made Taylor one of the hottest craftsmen in the biz.
Future Echoes: He's currently at work on the special effects for Shrek director Andrew Adamson's upcoming feature adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Michael Crichton
Power Rank: 52
Last Year's Rank: 38
Secret Identity: Author
Superpower: Ability to reuse plots in the blink of an eye.
Current Adventure: With ratings down on ER and the latest novel Prey seeming so familiar, things have taken a turn for the worse for the Jurassic Park scribe.
Future Echoes: The release of the Timeline film fast approaches. Will Richard Donner do for Crichton's time travel book what Steven Spielberg did for his dinosaur book?
Jerry Goldsmith
Power Rank: 53
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Composer
Superpower: Formidable Elder Statesman of film music continues to fuse bristling action with heartfelt melodies.
Current Adventure: In his 70s, Goldsmith continues to enliven films like Star Trek: Nemesis and The Sum of All Fears with powerful scores. Despite his dismissal from Timeline, he remains a powerful player and the composer most newcomers strive to emulate.
Future Echoes: Scoring the Looney Tunes: Back in Action movie opens a new facet of his musical prowess.
James Cameron
Power Rank: 54
Last Year's Rank: 13
Secret Identity: Director/Writer/Producer
Superpower: Bigger than the Titanic, more aggressive than the Terminator he's the King of the World!
Current Adventure: While he's been taking an extended hiatus from genre filmmaking since his Oscar-sweeping Titanic, the director who rewrote the book on action cinema with Terminator and Aliens can't stay away from his primary calling forever. Our guess: He'll be back.
Future Echoes: If you hear anything, let us know but he promises his next film with be in 3-D.
Steve Geppi
Power Rank: 55
Last Year's Rank: 47
Secret Identity: Diamond Comic Distributors CEO
Superpower: Can supply comic fans around the world with the merchandise they cherish.
Current Adventure: Geppi forged an empire from the simple idea of supplying comics to people who want them. Now that he's secured the license to publish Disney comics through Gemstone Publishing, he's realized another lifelong dream.
Future Echoes: Four-color ducks are on their way, along with plenty of new collectibles through Diamond Select Toys.
Peter Chung
Power Rank: 56
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Anime Designer/Director
Superpower: Ability to illustrate elongated human bodies that look simultaneously grotesque and cool.
Current Adventure: Animation fans have loved Chung since his days as the creator of the hip Aeon Flux. Recently he stunned audiences with the jaw-dropping short "Matriculated" from the Animatrix DVD. His character design work can be seen on the Cartoon Network's Reign.
Future Echoes: He's currently in Korea, prepping his next hush-hush project.
Laurent Bouzereau
Power Rank: 57
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: DVD Producer
Superpower: Keeping Steven Spielberg and his fans happy with the DVD versions of the director's films.
Current Adventure: After resisting the format, Spielberg finally embraced DVD wholeheartedly and took producer Bouzereau along with him. With complete access to the sets and personnel of Spielberg's films, Bouzereau has become the primary documenter of Stevie's work.
Future Echoes: Crack that whip! The Indiana Jones films are coming to DVD next month.
Kathleen Kennedy & Frank Marshall
Power Rank: 58
Last Year's Rank: 21
Secret Identities: Producers
Superpower: Providing super support for some of the most talented mainstream filmmakers in the business.
Current Adventure: After covering Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis' backs on a historic string of blockbusters, this dynamic duo struck a new vein of gold with M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense and Signs.
Future Echoes: Marshall is listed as an executive producer for Indiana Jones 4, and somebody somewhere is working on a Jurassic Park IV script.
M. Night Shyamalan
Power Rank: 59
Last Year's Rank: 43
Secret Identity: Director/Writer/Producer
Superpower: Master of the long, moody build-up to the head-spinning twist.
Current Adventure: The blockbuster crop circle thriller Signs seemed to confirm that Shyamalan can turn just about any concept into crowd-pleasing pop cinema. The jury's still out on whether or not he's actually the new Spielberg as advertised, but it's certainly a pleasure to see a filmmaker take such a serious, personal approach to the sort of material usually reserved for silly genre B-movies.
Future Echoes: Shyamalan's next effort, The Woods, will hit screens next year.
Monkey Punch
Power Rank: 60
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Manga Creator
Superpower: Ability to make thievery look fun.
Current Adventure: In 1967, Monkey Punch created the most popular character in the history of Japan: Lupin the third. But Lupin never cracked the U.S... until now. DVDs, merchandizing and a Cartoon Network show herald his arrival.
Future Echoes: Look for more DVDs and a PlayStation 2 game. With a catalogue of five TV shows, there's plenty of Lupin coming.
David Goyer
Power Rank: 61
Last Year's Rank: 50
Secret Identity: Writer/Producer/Director
Superpower: Can bring a vampire hunter to the silver screen and still write comics.
Current Adventure: He gave Marvel Comics its first real Hollywood success with Blade, and he's been trusted to shepherd that franchise through two more installments. Goyer is an indispensable Marvel moviemaker, and he still writes JSA for DC on top of it!
Future Echoes: He'll serve as writer and director for Blade 3, as well as writer for the next Batman feature.
Stan Winston
Power Rank: 62
Last Year's Rank: 63
Secret Identity: SFX Whiz/Producer/Director
Superpower: Wizard-like ability to make all sorts of magical creations spring to life from nothing.
Current Adventure: From special makeup effects to Jurassic Park's animatronic dinosaurs and more recent lines of toy figures, Winston has had his hand in nearly every aspect of genre filmmaking at one time or another. Nobody has a better feel for what it takes to make fantasies real.
Future Echoes: Upcoming projects are said to include producing Me and My Monster and effects work on the slow-developing Jurassic Park IV.
Gareb Shamus
Power Rank: 63
Last Year's Rank: 94
Secret Identity: Wizard Magazine Publisher
Superpower: Can cover the entire comic and toy world in magazine form.
Current Adventure: Shamus' comic fanzine quickly grew into the Entertainment Weekly of the comic book industry. It also spawned spin-off mags on toys and animé, and a comic book imprint, Black Bull.
Future Echoes: Doubtless more comics from Black Bull and more of the same from Wizard.
Maggie Thompson
Power Rank: 64
Last Year's Rank: 53
Secret Identity: Comics Buyer's Guide Editor
Superpower: Offers pricing and comic book coverage every week without breaking a sweat.
Current Adventure: Thompson heads up the comic book hobby's weekly newspaper, an industry mainstay that not only covers everything in the world of comic publishing and collecting but offers pricing as well. It's simply a must-read for both comics professionals and aficionados.
Future Echoes: Staying the course, growing their price guide it's all good.
Don Davis
Power Rank: 65
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Composer
Superpower: Cinematic maestro whose synthesis of post-modern and traditional elements has taken film music to new intensities.
Current Adventure: Davis plugged himself into The Matrix in 1999 and film scoring hasn't been the same since. He's reflected techno against tradition and merged symphs with synths to create an inventive fusion of both worlds.
Future Echoes: He'll complete the Matrix cycle with Revolutions, then take his pick of projects.
Lemony Snicket
Power Rank: 66
Last Year's Rank: None
Secret Identity: Children's Author
Superpower: Ability to weave bitter irony into the happiest of tales.
Current Adventure: Snicket warns readers "not to buy" his books... but they do. The latest in the Series of Unfortunate Events is called Carnivorous Carnival.
Future Echoes: Jim Carrey is attached to the film version of Unfortunate Events. And there are four more books coming (to top off at an unlucky 13).
Robert Zemeckis
Power Rank: 67
Last Year's Rank: 35
Secret Identity: Director/Producer
Superpower: Able to morph his sensibilities to deliver notable films in an amazing variety of genres (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future, Contact, Forrest Gump, Cast Away, What Lies Beneath).
Current Adventure: One of the most vital forces working in mainstream film, Zemeckis rarely makes a wrong step. An ongoing collaboration with Tom Hanks doesn't hurt his box-office clout either.
Future Echoes: Zemeckis hopes to once again revolutionize movie effects with the CGI kid's story Polar Express, with Hanks aboard as the voice of the conductor.
J. Michael Straczynski
Power Rank: 68
Last Year's Rank: 61
Secret Identity: Writer/Producer
Superpower: Can craft epic sagas with beginnings, middles and ends with just the power of his mind.
Current Adventure: The Babylon 5 creator has become one of the hottest writers in comics with a sterling run on Amazing Spider-Man and some superb creations of his own, like Rising Stars, Midnight Nation and Delicate Creatures.
Future Echoes: Supreme Power, for Marvel's MAX line, should be another fascinating take on the superhero set.
Donald R. Beck
Power Rank: 69
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Toolbox Productions President and CEO
Superpower: Warping through the final frontier of DVD.
Current Adventure: Founded in 1995 by Beck, Toolbox began as an on-air promotion facility for the UPN network. Since then, Beck has guided the company into becoming a full-service postproduction company that is also responsible for the likes of the beloved recent Star Trek: The Next Generation DVD box sets.
Future Echoes: Voyager, Enterprise... and maybe even The Animated Series DVDs?
Betsey Mitchell
Power Rank: 70
Last Year's Rank: 55
Secret Identity: Del Rey Books Editor-in-chief
Superpower: Super-editorial vision allows Mitchell to spot blockbuster authors through huge slush piles.
Current Adventure: After years editing classic novels like Dan Simmons' Hyperion and William Gibson's Virtual Light, Mitchell ascended to the throne of the influential Del Rey imprint.
Future Echoes: Mitchell has brought many of the authors that she discovered over the years to Del Rey, further building an already-strong SF stable.
Jeph Loeb
Power Rank: 71
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Writer/Producer
Superpower: Leaps tall buildings in a single bound... OK, not really.
Current Adventure: Not only has he written definitive Superman and Batman stories for DC, he's created (with artist Tim Sale) some brilliant retro Marvel stories, and now he's helped to guide the WB's Smallville into must-see territory. Loeb has become the surrogate Superman of comics!
Future Echoes: Smallville keeps getting better, and the forthcoming Incredible Hulk: Gray miniseries should spark super-sales.
Alex Ross
Power Rank: 72
Last Year's Rank: 90
Secret Identity: Artist
Superpower: Can show us what the heroes and villains of Marvel and DC really look like.
Current Adventure: Does this guy take snapshots in another reality? Ross' photorealistic renderings of the greatest superheroes have earned him mainstream acclaim, and now his creations are becoming life-size busts for Dynamic Forces.
Future Echoes: A tabloid-size Justice League adventure (with frequent writing partner, Paul Dini), and more 3-D replicas will keep fans reaching for their wallets.
Reed Hastings
Power Rank: 73
Last Year's Rank: 86
Secret Identity: Netflix Founder and CEO
Superpower: Allows viewers to rent DVDs in a single bound without leaving their house!
Current Adventure: Sick of getting hit with late fees from Blockbuster, Hastings opened his own rent-by-mail DVD service. Netflix is now the alternative for those tired of Big Blue.
Future Echoes: The recent opening of an East Coast warehouse means quicker turnover times for renters and possibly an even bigger boost to revenues.
Ed Fries
Power Rank: 74
Last Year's Rank: 12
Secret Identity: Microsoft Games Division Vice President
Superpower: Ability to bring almost any video game company under the control of Microsoft. Also has an army of over 700 artists, programmers and designers at his command.
Current Adventure: Greenlighted most of the hits on the Xbox.
Future Echoes: Sing his praises when Halo 2 arrives next year, since he secured the exclusive rights for it to be on the Xbox.
Michael Horn
Power Rank: 75
Last Year's Rank: 64
Secret Identity: Palisades Toys President and CEO
Superpower: The ability to take your childhood toys and reproduce them for you, spot-on!
Current Adventure: Thriving in recent years with the acquisition of major licenses like The Muppets, G.I. Joe and, of course, The Micronauts, Horn and Palisades have very quickly become one of the major players in the industry.
Future Echoes: Pigs in Space! And every other Muppet you can think of, too.
Roland Emmerich
Power Rank: 76
Last Year's Rank: 42
Secret Identity: Director/Producer
Superpower: Controls fire-breathing giant lizards, White House-disintegrating flying saucers and interstellar stargates.
Current Adventure: Nobody makes genre action spectacle bigger or more flamboyant than the director of Independence Day and Godzilla. The more thematically ambitious Revolutionary War epic The Patriot was a commercial setback, but watch out when Emmerich returns to his more typical stomping grounds in...
Future Echoes: ... the world-weather-gone-haywire disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow, due out next year.
Clive Barker
Last Year's Rank: 46
Secret Identity: Author/Artist/Filmmaker
Superpower: Ability to creep people out with a single glance.
Current Adventure: Last year's success of the stunning children's novel Abarat was tempered by the decidedly lukewarm reception to his Sci Fi Channel TV movie Saint Sinner.
Future Echoes: Clive Barker is never down for long. With movie deals at Universal and Fox, and another at the Sci Fi Channel, we'll be seeing much more of him.
Hans Zimmer
Power Rank: 78
Last Year's Rank: 68
Secret Identity: Composer
Superpower: Able to knock out one powerful, distinct action movie score after another.
Current Adventure: Zimmer can make the most bombastic moments cry with intimacy. His rhythmic-based action music is potent yet poignant, adaptive to a myriad of styles. His Media Ventures lab has launched the careers of a dozen protégés.
Future Echoes: He's sharpening his sword for The Last Samurai.
Brian Michael Bendis
Power Rank: 79
Last Year's Rank: 84
Secret Identity: Writer
Superpower: Can write about half of the comic industry's output with style to spare.
Current Adventure: Bendis has defined Marvel's MAX and Ultimate lines with his work on Alias and Ultimate Spider-Man, Powers, Daredevil, Ultimate X-Men, Fortune and Glory the list goes on an on.
Future Echoes: We can't decide if we're more excited about his work on the Ultimate titles or his contribution to the long-awaited MTV Spidey CGI cartoon.
Steve Niles
Power Rank: 80
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Comic Book Writer/Author/Screenwriter
Superpower: Ability to create sloppy horror fun.
Current Adventure: Niles character Cal McDonald (a hard-boiled monster hunter) is selling like hotcakes in his newest adventure, Criminal Macrabe.
Future Echoes: Not only is Sam Raimi currently prepping a film of Niles' graphic novel 30 Days of Night, but MGM is developing a Cal McDonald movie. Niles is also involved in a new Spawn film.
Todd McFarlane
Power Rank: 81
Last Year's Rank: 54
Secret Identity: Writer/Image Comics Co-founder/Todd McFarlane Productions and McFarlane Toys CEO
Superpower: Can build a toy empire from a career in comics.
Current Adventure: McFarlane started by drawing Spider-Man and his own creation, Spawn, and now his toy company makes some of the coolest horror and movie action figures in the world. He's living the dream, and the publisher he helped found Image Comics is still going strong 10 years later.
Future Echoes: More Spawn and more Movie Maniacs figures.
Dean Devlin
Power Rank: 82
Last Year's Rank: 42
Secret Identity: Producer
Superpower: Ability to bring old B-movie genres back to life as today's special effects-laden popcorn pictures.
Current Adventure: Roland Emmerich's frequent producing partner's sincere love for genre material influenced their collaborations from Universal Soldier and Stargate on. Last year's Eight Legged Freaks didn't catch on as well as was hoped, but the savvy Devlin made the thing so cheaply that there was no way to lose money.
Future Echoes: He and Emmerich have been tossing around ideas for an Independence Day 2, he'll be producing Cellular for New Line and he and X-Men director Bryan Singer are prepping a big Sci Fi Channel mystery Triangle (about the Bermuda Triangle of course).
Greg Anzalone
Power Rank: 83
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Sideshow Toy President
Superpower: Puts classic monsters, secret agents and Middle-earth denizens on your desktop.
Current Adventure: Sideshow Toy has been wowing fanboys for years with their excellent toy versions of a variety of high-profile licenses, but their recent teaming with Peter Jackson's Weta f/x house to produce Lord of the Rings prop collectibles has proven to be Anzalone's crowning achievement. So far.
Future Echoes: Return of the King product, not to mention more Universal Monsters, modern slashers like Freddy Krueger, and Star Trek busts.
Hideo Kojima
Power Rank: 84
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Videogame Designer
Superpower: His touch can make any videogame more like a movie (though he sometimes goes a bit overboard).
Current Adventure: The creator of Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders is going back into the past to tell the story of Big Boss in Snake Eater. He also has a Game Boy Advance title that requires sunlight, Boktai.
Future Echoes: There's no doubt the Metal Gear story will continue, as well as a possible Zone of the Enders sequel.
Steve Borock
Power Rank: 85
Last Year's Rank: 95
Secret Identity: CGC (Comics Guaranty, LLC) Head Grader
Superpower: Can tell you what condition your comic is in without looking it up.
Current Adventure: As the public face of the third-party comic book certification service, Borock is an affable personality in the contentious realm of comic grading. Very Fine or Near Mint? Just ask Steve.
Future Echoes: The Hardest Working Man in Grading will be slaving away in sunny Florida when not on the road at countless cons.
Alan Moore
Power Rank: 86
Last Year's Rank: 52
Secret Identity: Comic Book Writer
Superpower: Can publish one comic masterpiece after another and hide from the world of Men.
Current Adventure: What do you do when you've already written some of the world's most celebrated graphic novels? Create your own imprint with ABC Comics and churn out gems like Tom Strong and Promethea.
Future Echoes: We wouldn't want to be trapped in an elevator with him he scares us but we can't wait for his next opus.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Power Rank: 87
Last Year's Rank: 36
Secret Identity: Actor/Producer
Superpower: What can't he do? He's the definitive action hero.
Current Adventure: He's been off the radar for a while thanks to a string of lackluster projects End of Days, The 6th Day, Collateral Damage but Terminator 3 put him back in our sights.
Future Echoes: T3 didn't do the business T2 did, but it was well-reviewed and everyone loved Arnold. If we're not careful, we may not hear the words "I'll be back" on the big screen for a long time if Schwarzenegger ends up running for Governor of California.
Harrison Ford
Power Rank: 88
Last Year's Rank: 25
Secret Identity: Actor
Superpower: He's charming on film and crotchety on talk shows
Current Adventure: Like Schwarzenegger, some bad project choices have turned this childhood icon and surefire box-office star into a shadow of his former self K-19: The Widowmaker and Hollywood Homicide, anyone? but he's finally going to do the fourth Indiana Jones movie! He may be over 60, but he can still kick ass!
Future Echoes: What else? Indy 4! Nothing else matters!
John Carpenter & Sandy King
Power Rank: 89
Last Year's Rank: 70
Secret Identity: Director/Producer & Producer
Superpower: Can strike terror into the hearts of moviegoers, and they love him for it
Current Adventure: He was once the premiere horror director, and now he might conquer comics with a series based on Escape From New York's Snake Plissken. Will the Carpenter name once more become synonymous with fear... and beaucoup bucks?
Future Echoes: The Plissken franchise of comics and cartoons will head back to the big screen as an Anime film.
Howard Shore
Power Rank: 90
Last Year's Rank: 57
Secret Identity: Composer
Superpower: Ability to breathe life into hidden worlds with multiple layers of musical modes and textures.
Current Adventure: The Lord of the Rings gave Shore's Cronenbergian sensibilities a dynamic depth, and he crafted a musical world as intricate and interlaced as anything Tolkein imagined. Yet artistically he can also be eclectically modernistic and utterly inimitable.
Future Echoes: Shore emerges from Middle-earth to journey to Skull Island with Peter Jackson's King Kong.
Digger
Power Rank: 91
Last Year's Rank: 82
Secret Identity: Art Asylum President and Founder
Superpower: Makes way-cool toys and is way-cool himself too! No geeks in this particular toy world.
Current Adventure: A sculptor-made-good, Digger founded Art Asylum after producing some truly memorable toys for other companies (remember the Silent Screamers?). The acquisition of major licenses like Star Trek has brought him mainstream, but the quality of Digger's toys just keeps getting better.
Future Echoes: Classic Trek props? Set phasers on stun!
Yuji Naka
Power Rank: 92
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Sonic Videogame Team Director
Superpower: Super speeds and spin dashes. Well, not really, but he makes video games where you can do those things.
Current Adventure: Has overseen the release of Phantasy Star Online on both the GameCube and Xbox.
Future Echoes: With the third episode of Phantasy Star Online on the way and numerous Sonic games on the horizon, Naka's schedule looks as busy as Sonic's feet.
Van Ling
Power Rank: 93
Last Year's Rank: 81
Secret Identity: DVD Producer
Superpower: Can turn fanboy home video fantasies into reality.
Current Adventure: One of the leaders of his field, Ling has taken pictures like Terminator 2, The Abyss, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones and turned them into must-have DVDs even in cases when the original movie itself was only mediocre.
Future Echoes: Original trilogy Star Wars DVDs have got to happen sooner or later.
Jon Levin
Power Rank: 94
Last Year's Rank: --
Secret Identity: The Professor (the thinking man's agent)
Superpower: Can package a high concept fantasy franchise without breaking a sweat.
Current Adventure: His instincts are right on target and currently is championing Neil Gaiman's comic Sandman, putting together a brand new take on Tarzan, and remaking Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage and Neil LaBute. Did we mention Lone Wolf and Cub and Gaiman's American Gods are also in the works?
Future Echoes: His own personal philosophy is to make converts out of all the atheists and agnostics in the world of fantasy.
Jim Lee
Power Rank: 95
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Comic Book Artist
Superpower: Can draw the Dark Knight like no one else on Earth.
Current Adventure: He left drawing comics for a while to focus on the business end of his studio, WildStorm (now an imprint of DC), but with Jeph Loeb scripting, he's revitalized Batman in a story arc that has everyone going bats.
Future Echoes: More Batman is on the way, never fear, so put that Batarang away, please.
Garth Ennis
Power Rank: 96
Last Year's Rank:
Secret Identity: Comic Book Writer
Superpower: Can tear into the guts of a premise and wring every last drop of excitement out of it.
Current Adventure: Why would any studio want to produce a new Punisher movie after that Dolph Lundgren dreck? Simple they must have read Ennis' Punisher, the most over-the-top, action-packed guns-and-gore saga in comics. This is the creator of Preacher, OK?
Future Echoes: There are still Preacher movie rumblings, but don't hold your breath.