The mysterious declining (?) career of John Badham

John BadhamEveryone watch Heroes on Monday? Okay, I thought, with some nice touches, but not as good as previous eps. What did you think?

One thing did catch my attention though: it was directed by John Badham. Why should that have drawn my attention? Well, do you remember any of these films:

  • Saturday Night Fever
  • Blue Thunder
  • WarGames
  • Short Circuit?

Yes, he directed all of them. Not bad, hey? But now he’s directing Heroes. It’s a bit of a comedown, isn’t it? I’m not saying anything bad about the show itself here, but you don’t see Martin Scorsese directing episodes of Lost, and if you did, ABC would be making a bit of a song and dance about it, you can bet. But no mention of Badham’s presence anywhere in the NBC publicity for the episode. Bad NBC.

I had a brief look at Badham’s recent resumé on IMDB. It’s a bit upsetting. Episodes of:

  • Crossing Jordan
  • Standoff
  • Just Legal and
  • Blind Justice

Standoff? What went wrong?

There’s nothing on the trivia list that might explain his fall from grace. Is he just spending his time teaching film at Chapman University in Orange, California, as his trivia section suggests, picking up the extra bit of cash and keeping his hand in from time to time? Is it merely his age that’s caused him to stick to smaller projects (he’s 67, but then so’s my Dad and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down)? Is it because he’s from Luton, and bad things happen to people from Luton?

Can anyone enlighten me?

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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