Writer/director Cherien Dabis on MAY IN THE SUMMER

Growing up in America with Palestinian roots gave filmmaker Cherien Dabis a unique view of life. She traveled to Jordan each summer with her family and soon learned that in both places she felt at home but at times also felt like an outsider. Dabis took that struggle of national identity and turned it into

Ever since his $3.2 million sale of the screenplay for Snow White and the Huntsman, screenwriter Evan Daugherty is making a name for himself in the world of young adult films. In less than four years, he’s also written Divergent and now Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. ScreenwritingU sat down with Daugherty to discuss how got

  Screenwriter Jeff Howard is making quite a name for himself in the world of animation. He’s written two Tinker Bell movies, as well as The Pirate Fairy, the first Planes and Pixie Hollow Games. But he wasn’t always part of the “story trust,” as it’s called at Disney, now that they’ve adopted the Pixar

Roger Ebert was one of the most beloved film critics of all time. He served the public with his eloquent film reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times for more than four decades. He was co-host of popular TV show At the Movies. He wrote more than 20 books. He won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, and

Why do audiences groan when they hear the word sequel, but still everyone turns out in droves to see the film? Because people love characters. And if the first film was a success – much like the animated movie How to Train Your Dragon was –audiences want more of what they fell in love with

The new Seth Rogen and Zac Efron comedy Neighbors is a simple concept that took a lot of work to get right. Writing partners Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O’Brien said they pitched several projects to Rogen before he finally decided this was the one he liked. After that, they developed a pitch. Why not

Writing and producing a documentary about the lemurs of Madagascar is no easy task. Transportation is difficult, roads can be in place one week and suddenly gone the next and some lemur habitats on the island are a little more than inaccessible. But that didn’t stop writer/producer Drew Fellman from achieving his dream of bringing

A-list screenwriter Nick Stoller of Yes Man, Get Him to the Greek and The Five-Year Engagement fame is back for Muppets Most Wanted and this time, Kermit is on a rampage. Well, it looks like Kermit is on a rampage, but actually it is Kermit’s doppelganger, the evil Constantine, who is out to do no

How do you take a novel beloved by young adults all over the world and make it into a feature length film while keeping the fans happy? Very faithfully says screenwriter Evan Daugherty about his new movie Divergent.  Daugherty says he spent more than a year adapting the young adult book by Veronica Roth into

“The script that we shot was almost the same as the script that we set up,” says Geoff Moore, co-writer and director, of his new indie comedy Better Living Through Chemistry. Shooting the script you wrote is a rarity in Hollywood. Things have a tendency to change once more people get involved in the story