John Mattson is an American screenwriter and author. His screenplay for the film Milk Money sold to Paramount Pictures for an outright purchase of $1.1 million [1] after Paramount topped a $1 million bid from Dino De Laurentiis Communications. [2] He is the co-writer of Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (for which he won the 1996 Environmental Media Award) and Free Willy 3: The Rescue. His story "Figure and Ground" won the 2018 R. N. Kinder Prize for Realistic Fiction, [3] and was published by Pleiades in 2019. His story "Eric Clapton's Girlfriend" won the 2019 Los Angeles Review Literary Award for Flash Fiction. [4]
The Goonies is a 1985 American adventure comedy film co-produced and directed by Richard Donner from a screenplay by Chris Columbus, based on a story by Steven Spielberg. In the film, kids who live in the "Goon Docks" neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon, attempt to save their homes from foreclosure and, in doing so, they discover an old treasure map that takes them on an adventure to unearth the long-lost fortune of One-Eyed Willy, a legendary 17th-century pirate. During the adventure, they are chased by a family of criminals who want the treasure for themselves.
Michael Chabon is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist and short story writer. Born in Washington, DC, he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.
Michael Joseph Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. Connelly is the bestselling author of 31 novels and one work of non-fiction, with over 74 million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into 40 languages. His first novel, The Black Echo, won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly's 1997 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer starred Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.
Charles Richard Johnson is a scholar and the author of novels, short stories, screen-and-teleplays, and essays, most often with a philosophical orientation. Johnson has directly addressed the issues of black life in America in novels such as Dreamer and Middle Passage. Johnson was born in 1948 in Evanston, Illinois, and spent most of his career at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Free Willy is a 1993 American family drama film, directed by Simon Wincer, produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Jennie Lew Tugend, written by Keith A. Walker and Corey Blechman from a story by Walker and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures under their Family Entertainment imprint. The film stars Jason James Richter in his first feature film debut, Lori Petty, Jayne Atkinson, August Schellenberg, and Michael Madsen with the eponymous character, Willy, played by Keiko. The film tells the story of an orphaned boy who befriended a captive orca named at an ailing amusement park where he was ordered to clean up graffiti as part of his probation after vandalizing the observation area until a dark secret reveals the greedy owner's plan to kill the whale for money.
Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home is a 1995 American family adventure drama film and the sequel to the 1993 film Free Willy as well as the second installment in the Free Willy film series distributed by Warner Bros. under their Warner Bros. Family Entertainment label. It is directed by Dwight Little from a screenplay by Karen Janszen, Corey Blechman and John Mattson. Jason James Richter, Jayne Atkinson, August Schellenberg, Mykelti Williamson and Michael Madsen reprise their roles from the first film. New cast members include Jon Tenney and Elizabeth Peña. Unlike the previous film where Keiko played Willy, a robotic double created by Edge Innovations was used to play the eponymous whale while the Free Willy Keiko Foundation devised a plan to bring Keiko to the Oregon Coast Aquarium where he would be rehabilitated from poor health.
Studiocanal SAS is a French film production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world. The company is a unit of the Canal+ Group, owned by Vivendi.
Jane Smiley is an American novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel A Thousand Acres (1991).
Hero is a 1992 American comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears. It was written by David Webb Peoples from a story written by Peoples, Laura Ziskin and Alvin Sargent and stars Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, Andy García, Joan Cusack and Chevy Chase (uncredited). Following the critically acclaimed The Grifters (1990), it was the second American feature film by British filmmaker Frears.
Timothy Harold Parks is a British novelist, translator, author and professor of literature.
Andrew O'Hagan is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize for Fiction and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
Minimum salaries for union screenwriters are set by the Writers Guild of America. Non-union screenwriters may write for free; an established screenwriter may write for millions of dollars.
Milk Money is a 1994 American romantic comedy film directed by Richard Benjamin and starring Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris. The film is about three suburban 11-year-old boys who find themselves behind in "the battle of the sexes," believing they would regain the upper hand if they could just see a real, live naked lady.
Free Willy 3: The Rescue is a 1997 American family film directed by Sam Pillsbury and written by John Mattson. Released by Warner Bros. under their Warner Bros. Family Entertainment banner, it is the third film in the Free Willy franchise, and the final installment of the original storyline as well as the final one to be released theatrically. Jason James Richter and August Schellenberg reprised their roles from the previous films and they are joined by new cast members Annie Corley, Vincent Berry and Patrick Kilpatrick.
Ronald Francis Clements is an American animator, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He often collaborates with fellow director John Musker and is best known for writing and directing the Disney films The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997), Treasure Planet (2002), The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Moana (2016).
Benjamin S. Lerner is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Howard Foundation Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a MacArthur Fellow, among other honors. In 2011 he won the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie", the first American to receive the honor. Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College, where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016.
The Phantom is a 1996 superhero film directed by Simon Wincer. Based on Lee Falk's comic strip The Phantom by King Features, the film stars Billy Zane as a seemingly immortal crimefighter and his battle against all forms of evil. The Phantom also stars Treat Williams, Kristy Swanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Remar and Patrick McGoohan. The film's screenplay by Jeffrey Boam is loosely inspired by three of The Phantom stories, "The Singh Brotherhood", "The Sky Band" and "The Belt", but adds supernatural elements and several new characters.
Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. After earning her Licence de lettres degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom (UK), where she earned an MA in linguistics.
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, better known as L. Ron Hubbard, was an American pulp fiction author. He wrote in a wide variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, adventure fiction, aviation, travel, mystery, western, and romance. His United States publisher and distributor is Galaxy Press. He is perhaps best known for his self-help book, the #1 New York Times bestseller Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and as the founder of the Church of Scientology.
Viet Thanh Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American professor and novelist. He is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.