Craig Brewer
Birthdate: Dec 6, 1971
Birthplace: Newport News, Virginia
Craig Brewer (birthname: Craig Houston Brewer) is an acclaimed American independent filmmaker whose feature debut as director/writer/producer/cinematographer/editor of the indie drama, The Poor & Hungry (2000), with Eric Tate, Lake Latimer, and Lindsey Roberts, and shot in Memphis, Tennessee, for $20,000 and released by BR2 Productions.
Brewer was director/writer of his breakthrough feature, Hustle & Flow (2005), starring Terrence Howard, Anthony Anderson, Taryn Manning, Taraji P. Henson, DJ Qualls and Ludacris, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival (where it won the audience award for a movie in the U.S. Dramatic Competition) and garnering strong reviews, one Oscar (for Best Song) and a highly profitable $23.5 million box office for Paramount Classics/MTV Films.
Brewer directed and wrote the comedy-drama, Black Snake Moan (2006), again produced by Stephanie Allain and John Singleton and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake, and S. Epatha Merkerson, but which lost money for distributor Paramount Vantage. Brewer returned to commercial success as director/writer with the remake, Footloose (2011), co-written by Brewer with the creator of the original movie, Dean Pitchford, and co-starring Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Andie MacDowell, and Dennis Quaid, with MTV Films as primary producer and Paramount Pictures as distributor, with a $63.5 million global gross.
Craig Brewer took a break from the director’s chair to be a producer (with Katy Perry, Brian Grazer and Steven Jensen) of the Imagine Entertainment/MTV Films/Insurge Pictures/AEG Live/EMI Music-produced concert movie, Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012), featuring the pop star and becoming the second highest grossing concert movie featuring a woman pop artist with a $32.7 million return for distributor Paramount Pictures.
Brewer was co-screenwriter/co-story writer of Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures’ The Legend of Tarzan (2016), backed by lead producer Jerry Weintraub, starring Alexander Skarsgard, Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie, Djimon Hounsou, and Christoph Waltz, and delivering a robust $356.7 million gross.
Brewer was director only for this first time in his feature filmmaking career with two back-to-back Eddie Murphy-starring movies released on streaming: Dolemite Is My Name (2019), produced by Murphy, with Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Titus Burgess and Wesley Snipes and streamed on Netflix; and then the Paramount Pictures-produced sequel to the 1988 movie, Coming 2 America (2021), co-starring Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, KiKi Layne, Teyana Taylor, Wesley Snipes and James Earl Jones, and streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
Brewer was director/writer/producer for the first time in 25 years with the music drama, Song Sung Blue (2025), starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as the two halves of a Neil Diamond tribute group and based on the titular Greg Kohs’s 2008 documentary about the group, with Ella Anderson, King Princess, Hudson Hensley, Michael Imperioli, Mustafa Shakir, Fisher Stevens and Jim Belushi, and released wide by Focus Features.
Personal life
Craig Brewer was born and raised in Newport News, Virginia, in Memphis, Tennessee, and then in California in Vallejo, Orange County, and Pleasant Hill by parents, Walter (director of corporate development) and Gail (English and Drama teacher). Brewer has a younger sister, Amanda. Brewer studied drama and graduated from College Park High School in Pleasant Hill. Brewer has been married to Jodi Brewer since 1994; the couple has two children.
Known For
Craig Brewer Movies
director
Previous (3)
- 2025 |
Song Sung Blue
Lightning and Thunder, a Milwaukee husband and wife Neil Diamond tribute act, experience soaring success and devastating heartbreak in their musical journey together.
- 2021 |
Coming 2 America
The African monarch Akeem learns he has a long-lost son in the United States and must return to America to meet this unexpected heir and build a relationship with his son.
- 1984 |
writer
Previous (2)
- 2024 |
- 2016 |
The Legend of Tarzan
Tarzan, having acclimated to life in London, is called back to his former home in the jungle to investigate the activities at a mining encampment.
actor
Previous (8)
Facts About Craig Brewer
Baseball Heritage: Craig Brewer’s maternal grandfather is former New York Mets power hitter, “Marvelous” Marv Throneberry, a member of the memorably losing New York Mets club of 1962.
Favorite Movies: Brewer has named his favorite movies as John Sayles’s Matewan (1987), David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration (1998), The Blues Brothers (1980), and Purple Rain (1984).
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