Roger Roberts Avary (born August 23, 1965) is a Canadian-American film, television director, screenwriter and producer. He worked with Quentin Tarantino on Pulp Fiction, for which they won Best Original Screenplay at the 67th Academy Awards. Avary directed Killing Zoe, The Rules of Attraction, Lucky Day, and wrote the screenplays for Silent Hill and Beowulf. After Pulp Fiction, Avary had a falling-out with Tarantino that lasted nearly twenty years. In 2022, Avary reunited with Tarantino to launch a podcast called The Video Archives Podcast. The first episode premiered on July 19, 2022.

Early life

Roger Roberts Avary was born in Flin Flon, Manitoba in Canada on August 23, 1965 to a Brazillian-raised father who worked as a mining engineer, and a German mother who worked as a physical therapist. They later moved to Oracle, Arizona, and later Torrance, California before settling in Manhattan Beach.

Career

Mr. Stitch

In 1995 Avary wrote and directed the science fiction Mr. Stitch a film for the Syfy. Loosely a modern take on Frankenstein, the film features Wil Wheaton, Rutger Hauer, Nia Peeples, and Ron Perlman.

Phantasm 1999

After winning an Oscar for Pulp Fiction, Avary reached out to Don Coscarelli and expressed an interest in writing a Phantasm sequel. Entitled Phantasm 1999, the film would have taken place in an apocalyptic future United States divided into three zones: Los Angeles, California; New York, New York; and the Plague Zone. The Plague Zone would be controlled by the Tall Man where he infects people with his "bag plague". Reggie must lead a secret government operation, called the "S Squad", into the Plague Zone to defeat the Tall Man. Avary and Coscarelli spent years trying to get the film made and even had financing in place in 1997 before that company changed hands and the deal evaporated. Eventually, Coscarelli made Phantasm IV without Avary, although as of 2022 Coscarelli still had interest in filming Avary's script, now entitled Phantasm’s End as 1999 has come and gone.

Glitterati

The film Glitterati was finished in 2004 and stars Kip Pardue. It can never be released because of legal and ethical concerns.

The Video Archives Podcast (2022–present)

In 2021, Quentin Tarantino announced that he and Roger Avary would launch a podcast titled The Video Archives Podcast. The point of the podcast is to discuss films from the actual Video Archives collection that they would recommend to customers when they worked there. The set is surrounded by actual VHS copies of films from Video Archives that Tarantino bought after the store went out of business. They are joined by podcast announcer, Gala Avary, Roger Avary's daughter. The first episode premiered on July 19, 2022. The duo discussed John Carpenter's Dark Star (1974) and Ulli Lommel's Cocaine Cowboys (1979).

Manslaughter Conviction

On January 13, 2008, Avary was arrested under suspicion of manslaughter and DUI, following a car crash in Ojai, California, in which a passenger, Andreas Zini, was killed. The Ventura County Sheriff's department responded to the crash after midnight Sunday morning on the 1900 block of East Ojai Avenue. Avary was released from jail on $50,000 bail. In December 2008, he was charged with, and pleaded not guilty to, gross vehicular manslaughter and two felony counts of causing bodily injury while intoxicated. He changed his plea to guilty on August 18, 2009. On September 29, 2009, he was sentenced to one year in work furlough (allowing him to go to his job during the day and then report back to the furlough facility at night) and five years of probation. However, after making several tweets about the conditions of his stay on Twitter, Avary was sent to Ventura County Jail to serve out the remainder of his term.

Filmography

Short film

Feature film

Executive producer only

Television

Other credits