There's a couple of stories (possibly apocryphal) about how Cannon's career was launched, one story is that respected film Director Alan Parker, saw a short film he made on a BBC amateur film-making programme and, impressed with what he saw, immediately phoned the BBC so he could get in touch with Cannon - which he apparently did, Parker then supposedly recommended him to a prestigious film school...
The other story is that Danny Cannon's father is a top studio executive and that nepotism was the way he started.
Either way, Cannon's debut film was an interesting little movie with big aspirations - at the time British films tended to be almost always socio-political, so-called worthy films, usually about the social underclass - remember this was 1993 and just before Richard Curtis invented the Britsh Rom-Com...
What the film lacks in terms of story (Cannon was Co-Writer) it makes up for in sheer film-making skill - The Young Americans is a beautiful-looking movie.
It's a film that belies it's VERY low-budget, and looks like a much more expensive piece.
Danny Cannon displays an almost Ridley Scott like style in the care he takes with the look of the film, and the careful, unhurried pacing, he is aided in his efforts by excellent Anamorphic 2.35:1 photography from D.P. Vernon Layton - giving The Young Americans a rich, almost sumptuous look, for what, on the surface, is a gritty urban crime thriller.
A special mention should be made for Composer David Arnold and his beautiful, almost tragic Music Score - of course he went on to bigger things: Stargate, Independence Day, the Bond movies - Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, plus Zoolander, Changing Lanes, The Stepford Wives and the upcoming Ghost Rider, and another Bond - Casino Royale.
Personally, I thought Danny Cannon's career might have amounted to something more substantial that just 3 feature films.
These films include the badly mis-judged(!) Stallone vehicle Judge Dredd and the horror sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer - not sure how the latter film fared at the box-office (though I suspect not good!)
I DO know that Judge Dredd was a BIG financial and critical failure - Cannon got the film right after The Young Americans, tiny budget to mega budget - could this be a case of Cannon running before he could walk?
Of course Danny Cannon has found considerable success as an Executive/Supervising Producer, occasional Writer and sometimes Director on the 3 hit CSI TV series from Jerry Bruckhiemer - this in itself is no mean feat, but I do feel Cannon's potential as a Director of Feature Films has gone largely untapped and that he could have made a more substantial career if he'd stayed in Movies.
Hear he's got a Soccer movie in the works, let's hopes that this is a return to features for an underrated and talented Director.
Lata.
