Will Speck (born August 7, 1970) and Josh Gordon are an American filmmaker duo who generally work in the comedy genre. They have directed six feature films together. Their accolades include an Academy Award nomination.
Speck and Gordon met while attending the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Their short film Culture (1997) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. They directed their first feature film, Blades of Glory, in 2007. Their works include the movies The Switch (2010), The Power Inside (2013), Office Christmas Party (2016), Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022), and Long Distance (2024), and the television shows Cavemen (2007) and Hit-Monkey (2021).
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Career
Will Speck and Josh Gordon met when they were paired for a group assignment at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. They became friends and wrote screenplays together in Los Angeles in 1994. Gordon joined the writing staff of the sitcom Mad About You and Speck worked with Fox 2000 Pictures as a creative executive. They wrote and directed the short films Angry Boys and Culture in 1997. Culture starred Philip Seymour Hoffman and earned Best Narrative Short Film at the Chicago International Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. Gordon said the two shorts were "the first times we expressed our sensibility on film."
Speck and Gordon made their feature directorial debut in 2007 with the comedy Blades of Glory, starring Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett, and Amy Poehler. It was both a critical and commercial success, earning over $145 million at the box office. Also in 2007, they worked on the sitcom Cavemen as writers, directors, and executive producers. The distributor ABC struggled to promote the series, and it received mixed reviews; the Chicago Tribune called it one of the worst television shows ever made. In 2010, Speck and Gordon directed Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman in the romantic comedy film The Switch; it was met with mixed reviews, particularly for its screenplay. In 2013, they directed the interactive social film The Power Inside, which was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding New Approaches in a Drama Series.