Los Angeles [US], May 12 : Roger Corman, the Oscar-winning 'King of the Bs' who helped turn out such low-budget classics as 'Little Shop of Horrors' and 'Attack of the Crab Monsters', has passed away. He was 98.
Corman breathed his last on May 9 at his home in Santa Monica, California, surrounded by family members, as per Variety.
In a statement, his family expressed grief saying, "His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, 'I was a filmmaker, just that.'"
Corman's empire, which existed in several incarnations, including New World Pictures, and Concorde/New Horizons, was as active as any major studio and, he boasted, always profitable. He specialized in fast-paced, low-budget genre movies horror, action, science fiction, even some family fare and his company became a work-in-training ground for a wide variety of major talents, from actors like Nicholson ("Little Shop of Horrors") and De Niro ("Boxcar Bertha") to directors like Francis Ford Coppola ("Dementia 13") and Scorsese ("Boxcar Bertha").
Quentin Tarantino toasted him with "the movie lovers of planet Earth thank you." Jonathan Demme praised his acting, saying Corman gave "tremendous value at a really affordable price."
According to Variety, Corman also found a new outlets for his pics on Showtime and the Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy). CNH produced a "Roger Corman Presents" series of science fiction, horror and fantasy films for the pay cabler. The 2001 Sci Fi Channel "Black Scorpion" series was based on two of his more popular straight-to-vid films. Telepics for Syfy included "Dinoshark," "Dinocroc vs. Supergator" and "Sharktopus."
In 2005 Concorde signed a 12-year deal with Buena Vista Home Entertainment giving the latter distribution rights to the more than 400 Corman-produced pics, then in 2010 Corman signed a deal with Shout Factory giving the latter exclusive North American homevid rights to 50 Corman-produced films.
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