Michael Arndt is an American screenwriter. He is best known as the writer of the films ''
Little Miss Sunshine
''Little Miss Sunshine'' is a 2006 American tragicomedy road film and the feature film directorial debut of the husband–wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The screenplay was written by first-time writer Michael Arndt. The film sta ...
'' (2006), ''
Toy Story 3
''Toy Story 3'' is a 2010 American computer-animated comedy-drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the third installment in the ''Toy Story'' series and the sequel to ''Toy Story 2'' (1999). It was d ...
'' (2010), and ''
Star Wars: The Force Awakens'' (2015).
Arndt won the
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Awards, Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Be ...
for ''Little Miss Sunshine'' and was nominated for
Best Adapted Screenplay for ''Toy Story 3''. This made Arndt the first screenwriter ever to be nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay for his first two screenplays.
He has also been credited under the pseudonyms Michael deBruyn and Rick Kerb, which are mainly used for script revisions.
Early life
Arndt was born in
McLean, Virginia
McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proxim ...
. Arndt's father was a member of the
Foreign Service
Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel obtains diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to o ...
, and as a result he lived in various countries, including
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
and India; he also lived in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
for a time.
Arndt graduated from
Langley High School in McLean, and also attended
The Potomac School. He graduated from the
Tisch School of the Arts
The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University.
Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the a ...
at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
.
Arndt was a
script reader for some time, and was a personal assistant to actor
Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick (born March 21, 1962) is an American actor. His roles include the Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of the title character in ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' (1986), the voice of adult Simba in Disney's ''The Lion King'' (1994), ...
until late 1999,
when he chose to begin
writing screenplays full-time.
Screenwriting career
Arndt wrote the first draft of ''Little Miss Sunshine'' in three days between May 23–26, 2000.
From that initial draft, he made approximately 100 revisions over the course of a year, requesting input from friends and family.
Arndt considered directing the film himself "as a
no-budget,
DV feature" due to his concern of the story being "just too small and "
indie
Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Gaming
*Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies
*Indie game, any game (board ...
" to get any real attention from
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
".
After the
Endeavor Talent Agency
The Endeavor Talent Agency was a Beverly Hills-based talent agency founded by Ari Emanuel, Rick Rosen, Tom Strickler, and David Greenblatt. It was launched in March 1995 and went on to represent a wide variety of acclaimed film and television sta ...
read the script in July 2001, however, producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa subsequently gave the script to commercial and music video directors
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Jonathan Dayton (born July 7, 1957) and Valerie Faris (born October 20, 1958) are a team of American film and music video directors who received critical acclaim for their feature film directorial debut, ''Little Miss Sunshine'' (2006). Later the ...
, who were immediately attracted to the project.
Dayton and Faris were signed on by producer Marc Turtletaub, who purchased the script from Arndt for $250,000, on December 21, 2001.
The project was set up at
Focus Features
Focus Features LLC is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast as part of Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in th ...
, where it was in various stages of
pre-production
Pre-production is the process of planning some of the elements involved in a film, television show, play, or other performance, as distinct from production and post-production. Pre-production ends when the planning ends and the content starts ...
for approximately three years. During that time, Arndt was fired when he objected to centralizing the story on Richard Hoover (played by
Greg Kinnear
Gregory Buck Kinnear (born June 17, 1963) is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in ''As Good as It Gets'' (1997).
Kinnear has appeared in many popular films, including ''Sabrina'' (199 ...
in the film), only to be re-hired within a month after the new writer hired by Focus left the project.
Arndt resumed work on the script, which continued through
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stati ...
and into
post-production
Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments.
The ...
: "The final scene of the movie
..was written and shot about eight weeks before
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