Biography
Scottish-born Michael Caton-Jones enjoyed an early reputation as a competent director of Hollywood movies, although lasting critical and commercial success would prove elusive. Having garnered attention with his feature film debut, the British political drama "Scandal" (1989), the neophyte director mounted his first major studio film, the WWII docudrama "Memphis Belle" (1990). Follow-ups like the Michael J. Fox comedy "Doc Hollywood" (1991) and the Robert De Niro-Leonardo DiCaprio biographical drama "This Boy's Life" (1993) also provided modest success for the Scottish transplant. For better or worse, Caton-Jones traded the critical acclaim he received for the historical epic "Rob Roy" (1995) for the financial rewards of the unremarkable thriller "The Jackal" (1997). After a period of relative inactivity, the director returned with admirable, albeit overlooked, projects like the De Niro crime drama "City by the Sea" (2002) and the Rwandan genocide tragedy "Beyond the Gates" (2005). As under-seen as the previous films had been, far more damaging to his professional track record was his directorial credit on the reviled box office disaster "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction" (2006), an ill-advised sequel to the iconic 1992 smash hit. Entering the new decade, the director found work directing the lushly-produced historical miniseries "World Without End" (Reelz, 2012), based on the novel by Ken Follett. While never having secured a critical consensus for his body of work, Caton-Jones nevertheless remained a respected and active craftsman, competent in a wide variety of cinematic genres.
