[4] The debut of this partnership was for Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves (1984), the charcoal illustrations of the sets caught the attention of Stanley Kubrick and a young Tim Burton.
Kubrick hired Furst's company to create convincing Vietnam War settings, without leaving England, for Full Metal Jacket (1987).
In 1990, Jon Peters convinced Furst to sign an exclusive contract with Columbia Pictures, promising him work as a director.
Furst's directorial debut was to be MidKnight, a medieval musical fantasy starring Michael Jackson, but after extensive design work and planning the film never materialised.
He had separated from his wife and begun taking Halcion, a sleeping drug that had been banned in Britain due to its possible side effects of amnesia, paranoia, and depression.