Michael Arndt (screenwriter)

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Michael Arndt (2007)

Michael D. Arndt is an American screenwriter .

biography

Michael Arndt, son of members of the US State Department , spent his childhood in India , Sri Lanka and the US state Virginia, among others . He attended New York University Film School in the early 1990s and then slowly found his way into the film business as a salaried and freelance screenwriter editor. Arndt later worked as the personal assistant to the well-known US film actor Matthew Broderick , whom he supported in the film projects In Matters Love (1997) and Godzilla (1998). According to Inspector Gadget (1999), Arndt resigned from his position at Broderick. Ten years membership in the movie business had the Americans 25,000 dollars placed on financial reserves. He retired to his apartment in New York district of Brooklyn back to itself to act as a screenwriter. Arndt worked out six stories, but only the seventh script - with what he said was the simplest plot - should bring him the hoped-for success.

The story of a bizarre American family from the South who is leaving for a beauty contest in California with their six-year-old daughter has been revised several times by Arndt. He then presented it to the two independent film producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger , who were involved in projects such as Unterwegs nach Cold Mountain (2003) or Little Children (2006). The script circulated for some time in Hollywood before the directing duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris took on the material in 2001 , which the two interpreted after the first reading as a mixture of American Beauty and Billy Elliot . It wasn't until 2006 that the two music video and advertising directors succeeded in bringing Arndt's tragic comedy with Greg Kinnear , Alan Arkin , Steve Carell , Toni Collette and Abigail Breslin to the screen under the title Little Miss Sunshine .

The $ 8 million independent film was a hit with critics and audiences alike. Little Miss Sunshine grossed more than seven times its production costs at the US box office alone and was nominated in four categories at the 2007 Academy Awards, including best film of the year. In addition to the staging of the two film directors and the performance of the acting ensemble, Michael Arndt's script came into the focus of criticism. His first work was highlighted by the New York Times because of the numerous cleverly used and funny one-liners and situations, some of which are aimed at mere absurdity, and won him the Oscar, British Academy Film Award (BAFTA Award) and the Independent Spirit Award , as well as the prizes of Writers Guild of America and the Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles Film Critics' Associations . In Germany , too , where it was recognized by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for its biting irony and understood as a “caricature of the American promise of happiness” , the film was a success at the box office.

Michael Arndt lives in New York. Thanks to the success of Little Miss Sunshine , he was signed by the renowned Endeavor Talent Agency, which represents well-known filmmakers such as Paul Thomas Anderson , David E. Kelley , Michael Moore and Martin Scorsese . The American, who has a penchant for films by Preston Sturges , Billy Wilder and Woody Allen , most recently worked at Pixar Animation Studios on the film script for Lee Unkrich's Toy Story 3 . The follow-up to the animated films Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 2 (1999) was released in 2010 and, together with John Lasseter , Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, earned it again nominations for the British BAFTA and the Oscar .

For assignments in which Arndt writes new versions of scripts by other authors, he uses the pseudonym "Michael deBruyn", as in 2013 for Oblivion and The Hunger Games - Catching Fire . He was also involved in the script for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Oscar

  • 2007 : Best Original Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine
  • 2011 : nominated in the category Best Adapted Screenplay for Toy Story 3

British Academy Film Award

  • 2007 : Best Original Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine
  • 2011 : nominated in the category Best Adapted Screenplay for Toy Story 3

Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards

  • 2007: Best Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine

Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

  • 2006: Nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine

Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards

  • 2006: Best Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine

Independent Spirit Award

  • 2007: Best First Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

  • 2006: New Generation Award for Little Miss Sunshine

Online Film Critics Society Award

  • 2007: Nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine

Palm Springs International Film Festival

  • 2007: Vanguard Award for Little Miss Sunshine

Satellite Award

  • 2010 : nominated in the category Best Original Screenplay for Toy Story 3

Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards

  • 2006: Best Original Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine

Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards

  • 2006: Best Original Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine
  • 2010: nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Toy Story 3

Writers Guild of America

  • 2007: Best Original Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ cf. Hap Erstein: The parents of 'Little Miss Sunshine'. Cox News Serviced, August 16, 2006
  2. ↑ cf. Manohla Dargis: You're Either on the Family Bus, or You're Off. In: New York Times , July 26, 2006
  3. ↑ cf. Paul Ingendaay: Winning and Losing in America: 'Little Miss Sunshine'. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 30, 2006
  4. ↑ cf. Ben Fritz: Mouse Makes Moves. In: Daily Variety , February 9, 2007, News, p. 5
  5. ↑ Michael Arndt in Talks to Re-Write 'Hunger Games' Sequel 'Catching Fire' (Exclusive)
personal data
SURNAME Arndt, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES DeBruyn, Michael (pseudonym); Curb, Rick (pseudonym); Arndt, Michael D.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH United States