Alexander B. H. Cox (born 15 December 1954)[2][3] is an English film director, screenwriter, actor, non-fiction author and broadcaster.

Since the release and commercial failure of Walker (1987), his career has moved towards independent films, including Highway Patrolman (1991) and Three Businessmen (1998), and microbudget features such as Searchers 2.0 (2007) and Repo Chick (2009).

[4] Cox secured a Fulbright Scholarship, allowing him to study at the University of California, Los Angeles, United States, where he graduated from the School of Theater, Film and Television with an MFA.

After graduation, Cox formed Edge City Productions with two friends with the intention of producing low-budget feature films.

Michael Nesmith agreed to produce Repo Man, and convinced Universal Studios to back the project with a budget of over a million dollars.

After the success of the soundtrack album (notable for featuring many popular LA punk bands), there was enough interest in the film to earn a re-release in a single cinema in New York City, but only after becoming available on video and cable.

He asked Rudy Wurlitzer to pen the screenplay, which followed the life of William Walker, set against a backdrop of anachronisms that drew parallels between the story and modern American intervention in the area.

When Walker failed to perform at the box office, it ended the director's involvement with Hollywood studios, and led to a period of several years in which Cox would not direct a single film.

Cox had scouted locations in Mexico during the pre-production of Walker and decided he wanted to shoot a film there, with a local cast and crew, in Spanish.

In 1996, producer Stephen Nemeth employed Alex Cox to write and direct an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Cox had long been interested in the Jacobean play, The Revenger's Tragedy, and upon moving back to Britain, decided to pursue adapting it to a film.

This adaptation, titled Revengers Tragedy, consisted primarily of the original play's dialogue, with some additional bits written in a more modern tone.

The 30-minute film satirised reality television as well as the high volume of petty crime in Liverpool which, according to Cox, is largely recreational.

A road movie and a revenge story, it tells of two actors, loosely based on and played by Del Zamora and Ed Pansullo, who travel from Los Angeles to a desert film screening in Monument Valley in the hopes of avenging abuse inflicted on them by a cruel screenwriter, Fritz Frobisher (Sy Richardson).

It was scored by longtime collaborator Dan Wool aka Pray for Rain (Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, Death & the Compass, The Winner, Three Businessmen, Repo Chick among others).

[7] Alex Cox had attempted to get a Repo Man sequel, titled Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday, produced in the mid-'90s, but the project fell apart, with the script adapted into a graphic novel of the same name.

[8][9] For his next micro-feature, he wrote a fresh attempt at a Repo follow-up, although it contained no recurring characters, so as to preserve Universal's rights to the original.

Repo Chick was filmed entirely against a green screen, with backgrounds of digital composites, live action shots, and miniatures matted in afterwards, to produce an artificial look.

[citation needed] As of July 2012[update], Cox was teaching film production and screenwriting at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

He was originally set to direct Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but was replaced by Terry Gilliam due to creative differences with Hunter S.

[21] His previous film, Searchers 2.0, was not released theatrically, and only appears on DVD in Japan and North America after a televised screening in the UK on the BBC.