Paul Stupin is an American film and television executive.

Biography

After graduating from

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...

Williamstown, Massachusetts Williamstown is a town in the northern part of Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolit ...

, Stupin went to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

to work for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

in series development. In 1986 he became a vice president for production at

Tri-Star Pictures TriStar Pictures, Inc. (spelled as Tri-Star until 1991) is an American film studio and production company that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, part of the multinational conglomerate Sony. It is a corporate sibling of Sony ...

, overseeing such films as ''

Steel Magnolias ''Steel Magnolias'' is a 1989 American comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross and starring Academy Award winner Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis and Julia Roberts. The picture is a film adaptation ...

,'' and ''

Short Circuit A short circuit (sometimes abbreviated to short or s/c) is an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path with no or very low electrical impedance. This results in an excessive current flowing through the circuit ...

''. From there, he was recruited to the fledgling

Fox Network The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...

as executive vice president of series programming serving there from 1989 to 1992. Stupin's greatest legacy was bringing a twenty-nine-year-old screenwriter,

Darren Star Darren Star (born July 25, 1961) is an American writer, director and producer of film and television. He is best known for creating the television series ''Beverly Hills, 90210'' (1990–2000), ''Melrose Place'' (1992–1999), ''Sex and the City' ...

, to producer

Aaron Spelling Aaron Spelling (April 22, 1923 June 23, 2006) was an American film and television producer and occasional actor. His productions included the TV series ''Family'' (1976–1980), '' Charlie's Angels'' (1976–1981), ''The Love Boat'' (1977–1986 ...

. Star had ideas of a high school drama and Spelling, for the first time since the 1960s, had not one show on the air. The result of their partnership was ''

Beverly Hills, 90210 ''Beverly Hills, 90210'' (often referred to by its short title, ''90210'') is an American teen drama television series created by Darren Star and produced by Aaron Spelling under his production company Spelling Television. The series ran fo ...

'', an immediate hit with the first episode scoring a phenomenal forty share among the 12-17 demographic. Stupin left Fox to become an executive at

Reeves Entertainment Alan Landsburg Productions (ALP) was an independent television production company founded by Alan Landsburg in 1971. The company had produced '' In Search of...'' and ''That's Incredible!'', two early examples of reality television decades befor ...

and then joined

Columbia TriStar Television Columbia TriStar Television, Inc. (abbreviated as CTT) was an American television production and distribution company that was active from 1994 to 2002. It was operated as the third name of the early television studio Screen Gems and the fourth ...

. In 1995, he read the script for a horror movie that had precipitated a bidding war between producers. The script was for ''

Scream Scream may refer to: *Screaming, a loud vocalization Amusement rides * Scream (Heide Park), a gyro drop tower in Soltau, Germany * Scream! (ride), a tower ride at Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Six Flags New England * Scream! (roller coaster), at ...

'' and the author was Kevin Williamson. Stupin thought Williamson would be ideal to create another high school drama. Williamson's script, to become ''

Dawson's Creek ''Dawson's Creek'' is an American teen drama television series about the lives of a close-knit group of friends in the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts, beginning in high school and continuing into college that ran from 1998 to 2003. T ...

'' was first offered to Stupin's old network, but Fox turned it down.

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...

leapt at it to fill their new night of programming, Tuesdays, with ''

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' is an American supernatural fiction, supernatural drama television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon. It is based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film), 1992 film of the same name, also written by W ...

.'' ''

''; the show became an instant hit and a defining show for The WB. Stupin, while remaining an executive at Columbia, was one of ''Dawson's Creek's'' executive producers. He will work as executive producer for the movie adaption of the novel ''Betwixt'', the storybook for the adaption is written by Elisabeth Chandler. The teen horror film is an

WBTV WBTV (channel 3) is a television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Gray Television. The station's studios are located off Morehead Street, just west of Uptown Charlotte, and its transmitter is ...

and

CBS Studios CBS Studios, Inc. is an American television production company which is a subsidiary of CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. It was formed on January 17, 2006, by CBS Corporation as CBS Paramount Television, as a renaming of the o ...

production.TV: The CW Call on Changelings to Save Humanity
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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stupin, Paul American television executives American television producers American film producers Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Williams College alumni