American film director
Richard L. Moore[1] (born May 10, 1963)[2] is an American film and television animation director, screenwriter and voice actor. He is best known for serving as a director on primetime animated television series such as The Simpsons, The Critic and Futurama as well as directing the films Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Zootopia (2016) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) for Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner, a three-time Annie Award winner and an Academy Award winner.
Early life
Moore was born and raised in Oxnard, California.[2][3] He studied film and video at the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1987.[4] While there, he narrated Jim Reardon's 1986 student film Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown.[4] Included in his CalArts class were famous filmmakers such as Andrew Stanton, Brenda Chapman, and Jim Reardon.
Career
Television
After graduating from CalArts, Moore worked for Ralph Bakshi on CBS's Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, co-writing all 13 season 1 episodes in 1987.[5][6] Moore was one of the original three directors of The Simpsons, directing 17 episodes in the first 5 seasons from 1990 to 1993,[7] including the episodes: "Flaming Moe's", "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie", and "Marge vs. the Monorail".[8][9] He won a 1991 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program for The Simpsons: Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment,[10] and later return as one of the sequence directors on The Simpsons Movie in 2007.[11]
In 1994, Moore became a producer and supervising director for the animated series The Critic.[7] He then oversaw the creative development and production of Futurama as the show's supervising director. He also directed several episodes of the animated series from 1999 to 2001, including the classic "Roswell That Ends Well",[7][8] for which he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.[12]
Moore's other television animation directing credits include Comedy Central's Drawn Together and "Spy vs. Spy" for MADtv.[7] He served as supervising director on the 2009 animated Fox television series Sit Down, Shut Up.[13]
Film
In 2004, Moore directed the Warner Bros. animated short film Duck Dodgers in Attack of the Drones.[7] In 2008, he was invited by John Lasseter to join Walt Disney Animation Studios as a director, with the suggestion that he develop a story set in the world of video games.[14] This would become the 2012 animated feature Wreck-It Ralph, Moore's feature directing debut, and a box office and critical success.[7][8] Moore also supplied the voices for the film's characters Sour Bill and Zangief.[15] Wreck-It Ralph won five Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature and a Best Director award for Moore,[16] and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.[17]
Moore's next animated feature film was Disney's Zootopia, which he directed alongside Byron Howard and co-director Jared Bush. The film, released on March 4, 2016, became the second highest-grossing animated feature film of 2016 with a worldwide box office gross of over $1.023 billion.[18] The film also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.[19]
After Zootopia, Moore returned to direct Ralph Breaks the Internet, the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, with fellow filmmaker Phil Johnston.[20] The film was a financial success, outgrossing the original film with over $529.3 million worldwide.[21] It was also nominated for multiple awards in the Best Animated Feature category, including the Academy Awards,[22] Annie Awards,[23] and Golden Globe Awards.[24]
On April 8, 2019, Moore revealed that he had left Disney to join Sony Pictures Animation, where he would direct and produce original animated films for the studio, and ultimately produced the film Vivo.[25]
On March 16, 2022, Moore revealed that he has entered into an exclusive, multi-year overall deal with Skydance Animation.[26] On October 18, 2023, it was revealed that Moore is directing an untitled Jack and the Beanstalk project at Skydance.[27]
