Photo: Carlo Allegri/Getty

PARK CITY, UT - JANUARY 20: Director Mike Hodges of the film “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” poses for portraits during the 2004 Sundance Film Festival January 20, 2004 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Getty Images)

British director Mike Hodges, known for films likeFlash GordonandCroupier, has died. He was 90.

A representative for Hodges did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Hodges' longstanding career dates back to the 1950s.

Before getting a start in film, he spent two years in mandatory national service on a royal navy minesweeper, which he credits as the inspiration for his first film,Get Carter.

“Twenty years later, when I was asked to adapt Ted Lewis’s great book, I recognized that world and attached my own experiences to it,” he added.

His second film,Pulp, came only a year afterGet Carter’s1971 release, with Hodges' directorial talent rising to prominence with 1980’sFlash Gordon.

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Queen Elizabeth Flash Gordon Sam Jones

The space film gained an instant cult following,referenced throughout pop cultureeven 40 years after its debut. Although based on the 1930s comic strip of the same name, Hodges told the BBC in 2020 that he “honestly thought that itwould never see the lightof a projector.”

Although Hodges' career expanded across multiple crime dramas, his work also shined on television, directing 1984’sSquaring The Circleand 1994’sDandelion Dead, whichearneda 1995 BAFTA.

His last project came in the form of a fiction novel titledWatching the Wheels Come Offin 2010.

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“Mike Hodges, director of FLASH GORDON, has passed. Finally saw this movie during the pandemic and it brought me such joy. Have watched it a bunch of times since. Nothing else like it. Rest in Peace, sir,” he wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.

source: people.com