The Crazies

Michael “Breck” Eisner (born December 24, 1970) is an American television and film director.

Eisner was born Michael Eisner in California, the son of Jane Breckenridge, a business advisor and computer programmer, and Michael Eisner, the former Walt Disney Company chief executive. Eisner attended Harvard High School (now Harvard Westlake), Georgetown University, and the University of Southern California’s film school.

Directing career

For a directing project at Georgetown, he filmed a contemporary riff on Alice in Wonderland, shooting scenes in the vast empty attic of Healy Hall on the campus, as well as in an abandoned circular trolley-car tunnel under Dupont Circle in the District of Columbia. At USC, he directed his MFA thesis film, Recon, which starred Peter Gabriel. He also directed a Shakespeare play on the campus.

Eisner had used some of Digital Domain’s processors to render images for his film, and the company suggested he meet with some commercial production houses. Thus began his career as a director of commercials, and after only a year-and-a-half, Eisner had directed 14 high-profile spots. His first commercial was Budweiser’s Powersurge, which aired during the 1997 Super Bowl. He also took the helm for Rold Gold Pretzels’ Comrades starring Jason Alexander, which featured Pretzel Boy on a rescue mission to Mir Space station. Eisner’s two anti-smoking spots for the California Department of Health Services, Gala Event and Funeral, were selected as Best Spots in back-to-back issues of Adweek. In addition, Eisner’s Mad Dog for Coors’s Zima aired during the Seinfeld finale and was chosen by USA Today’s “Ad Meter” as the #1 spot. He has also done commercials for Sony, Sega and Coca-Cola.

Eisner’s success in the commercial world opened the door for him to direct the TV movie The Invisible Man for The Sci Fi Channel. That led to an episode of DreamWorks Television’s mini-series Taken (2002), executive-produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Dakota Fanning.

His film debut was the crime drama Thoughtcrimes (2003), which went straight to DVD/Video. He then directed Sahara (2005), starring Matthew McConaughey, Penélope Cruz and William H. Macy. The movie is considered one of the biggest financial failures in Hollywood history.

Eisner currently works as a director of film and television. In October 2005, it was announced that Eisner would direct a remake of the classic monster movie Creature from the Black Lagoon which was dropped in 2009 for unnamed reasons, and in February 2008 it was announced that he would direct The Crazies, a remake of the film of the same name, released in 2010. In December 2009, it was announced he will direct the remakes of Flash Gordon and The Brood, though he later backed out of the latter. He is rumored to direct the remake of Escape from New York. Eisner is set to direct the film adaptation of the Mark Wheatley comic book Blood of the Innocent. He is in talk to direct movie adaption of the Hasbro board game Ouija. —Wikipedia