Random Influential Movies You Didn't Know Were Based on Short Films (16 items)

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  (#7) 12 Monkeys

  • Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Christopher Plummer, Madeleine Stowe, Christopher Meloni, David Morse, Frank Gorshin, Jon Seda, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Annie Golden, Chuck Jeffreys, Matt Ross, Simon Jones, Aaron Michael Lacey, Bill Raymond, Richard Stanley, Phillip V. Caruso, Irma St. Paule, Michael Chance, Stephen Bridgewater, Rick Warner, Vernon Campbell, Sal Mazzotta, Roger Pratt, Joey Perillo, Charles Techman, Thomas Roy, Joseph McKenna, Felix Pire, Joe Gerety, Drucie McDaniel, Ernest Abuba, Nell Johnson, Frederick Strother, Allelon Ruggiero, Carol Florence, Raymond Mamrak, Johnnie Hobbs Jr., Janet Zappala, Julie Mabry, Adam Hatley, Stan Kang, Charley Scalies, Korchenko, Bruce Kirkpatrick, C.J. Byrnes, Kevin Thigpen, Bonnie Loev, Robert O'Neill, Tiffany Baldwin, Rozwill Young, Faith Potts, Jann Ellis, Jeff Tanner, John Hagy, Lee Golden, Louis Lippa, Lenny Daniels, Joilet Harris, Lisa Talerico, Ray Huffman, Karl Warren, John Blaisse, Thang, Pat Dias, Joseph Melito, Jodi Dawson, Larry Daly, Barry Price, John Panzarella, Carolyn Walker, H. Michael Walls, Paul Meshejian, Bob Adrian, Wilfred Williams, Herbert C. Hauls Jr., Arthur Fennell, Harry O'Toole, Laura Glas, Michael Ryan Segal, Tom Detrik, Anthony 'Chip' Brienza, Jack Dougherty

  Short Film It's Based On: La Jetée (1962)

  French New Wave director Chris Marker's 28-minute, black and white short, which consists of still shots and voice over, is a film school staple. La Jetée takes place in post-apocalyptic Paris following WWIII, where everyone is forced to live underground. A POW is selected to travel back in time in order to try to prevent the war.

  Director Terry Gilliam has admitted his 1995 sci-fi feature Twelve Monkeys, starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt, was heavily influenced by Marker's short. You could less kindly say it's a blatant rip off. In Gilliam's film, the protagonist must stop a deadly virus unleashed by terrorist organization The Army of the Twelve Monkeys, not World War III, in order to save the world. Otherwise, it's more or less exactly the same. 
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  (#1) Saw

  • Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Shawnee Smith, Dina Meyer, Michael Emerson, Cary Elwes, Tobin Bell, Ken Leung, Leigh Whannell, Makenzie Vega, Benito Martinez, Mike Butters, Paul Gutrecht

  Short Film It's Based On: Saw (2003)

  Australian filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell couldn't get funding for their horror film, Saw, Down Under, so they flew to Los Angeles to make a nine-and-a-half-minute proof-of-concept short centered around the horrific jaw trap. Lionsgate liked the script and short enough to give the pair $1.2 million to make the feature, which basically takes place in a single location with just two actors. The gamble paid off: Saw (2004) made more than $100 million at the box office and spawned six sequels (and counting.)
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  (#11) Frankenweenie

  • Winona Ryder, Elle Fanning, Christopher Lee, Michael Keaton, Jeffrey Jones, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Landau, Frank Welker, Tom Kenny, Conchata Ferrell, Dee Bradley Baker, Jeff Bennett, Glenn Shadix, Atticus Shaffer, Robert Capron, Charlie Tahan, James Hiroyuki Liao, Melissa Stribling

  Short Film It's Based On: Frankenweenie (1984)

  While working at Disney, before he made his first feature, Tim Burton made a $1 million, 30 minute live action short about a boy who uses science to bring his beloved dog back from the dead. His reward? The company fired him for spending too much money on a kid's movie that was too scary for kids.

  Of course, Burton turned out to be the visionary director behind box office and cult hits like Edward Scissorhands, Batman, and Beetlejuice. In 2012, he turned his short into a stop-motion feature also called Frankenweenie. It has the same story, and pays homage to Burton's love of horror and science fi. Frankenweenie, which, ironically, was produced by Disney, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.
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  (#10) THX 1138

  • Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Sid Haig, Ian Wolfe, Don Pedro Colley, Irene Forrest, Marshall Efron, Jack Walsh, John Pearce, Robert Feero, Mark Lawhead, Maggie McOmie, Eugene I. Stillman, John Seaton, Gary Alan Marsh

  Short Film It's Based On: Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967)

  George Lucas was a film student at the University of Southern California when he made a 15-minute short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, about an underground city in a dystopian future. The US Navy funded the short. In return, Lucas taught a film class for Navy students. The short won first prize at the National Student Film Festival in New York City, and caught the eye of Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola.

  Lucas turned his short into THX 1138 (1971), produced by Coppola and starring Robert Duvall. And while most people probably haven't heard of THX 1138, it gave Lucas the cred neededto make American Graffiti (1973). The success of that film ultimately paved the way for him to make a double trilogy of movies about a galaxy far, far away.
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  (#6) Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

  • Sting, Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, Jason Flemyng, Rob Brydon, Steve Collins, Matthew Vaughn, Alan Ford, Nick Moran, Danny John-Jules, Dexter Fletcher, Steven Mackintosh, Stephen Marcus, Andrew Tiernan, Nicholas Rowe, Frank Harper, Victor McGuire, Vas Blackwood, Lenny McLean, P. H. Moriarty, Huggy Leaver, Jimmy Flint, Steve Sweeney, Vera Day, Elwin Chopper David, Richard Vanstone, Tim Maurice-Jones, Mark Mooney, Ronnie Fox, David Reid, Sid Golder, Jake Abraham, Peter McNicholl, Nick Marcq, Bal Jusar, James Tarbuck, Derek Howard, Suzy Ratner, Stephen Callender-Ferrier, Charles Forbes, Graham Stevens, Alex Hall, John Houchin, Tony McMahon

  Short Film It's Based On: The Hard Case (1995)

  Londoner Guy Ritchie earned money directing music promos and commercials in order to fund his 20-minute short The Hard Case, which he wrote and directed. Lucky for Ritchie, Trudie Styler, Sting's wife, saw the short and decided to finance Ritchie's feature adaptation Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Sting took a small role in the film which made Statham an international star, paved the way Snatch, and helped usher in a new wave of post-modern, post-Tarantino crime films. 
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  (#12) Whiplash

  • J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Miles Teller, Paul Reiser, Chris Mulkey, Jayson Blair, Damon Gupton, Michael Cohen, Austin Stowell, Kofi Siriboe, Tarik Lowe, Suanne Spoke, Marcus Henderson, Kavita Patil, Adrian Burks, Dakota Lupo, C.J. Vana, Tian Wang, Keenan Henson

  Short Film It's Based On: Whiplash (2013)

  Sometimes going through hell is worth the trip. Writer/director Damien Chazelle describes what it was like to be a drummer for an oppressive conductor at a very competitive jazz band in high school. 

  "I remembered being very terrified. That was my overall emotion during those years. Just dread. And not being able to eat meals before rehearsals and losing sleep and sweating my ass off. I wanted to pour that into the movie."

  Chazelle was able to channel the dread in a screenplay based his experiences. From there, he secured financing to make an 18-minute short based on 15 pages of his script. The short, like the feature, starred J.K. Simmons as the authoritarian conductor, and screened at the 2013 Slamdance Film Festival, where it drew interest from investors. The feature version, Whiplash (2014), earned three Academy Awards, including a Best Supporting Actor trophy for Simmons.

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