However, the many successful outings of Hungarian cinema in recent years didn’t just come out of the blue; Hungarian-born greats long ago made a name for themselves in the citadel of moviemaking.
Hungarian filmmakers who were forced into emigration in the 20th century were actually already present when Hollywood was born. Many of the great studios that are operating today were led by Eastern Europeans. It isn’t commonly known that William Fox and Adolph Zukor were born Vilmos Fried and Adolf Cukor, respectively. Michel Curtiz (Mihály Kertész) introduced then out-of-the-box visionary thinking and achieved directorial success in essentially all genres of film. Sir Alexander Korda (Sándor László Kellner) was a pathfinder in direction. His memory is kept alive today by the massive Korda Studio near Budapest, where blockbusters like “Hellboy 2” and “The Martian” were filmed, and is one of the principal reasons why the biggest Hollywood stars often pop up in Budapest.