Michael Weiss is a WGA screenwriter with an extensive career writing for Hollywood studios. He has over a dozen produced films to his credit, including Journey to the Center of the Earth starring Brendan Fraser and sequels to franchises like The Scorpion King, Jarhead and The Butterfly Effect. A long-time instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, he is the recipient of the Distinguished Instructor award and a contributing writer to the UCLA screenwriting guide Cut to the Chase. He currently teaches writing at Chapman University Dodge College of Film & Media Arts.
Beyond the Hero: Relationship-Driven Screenwriting and the Secret to Hollywood's Greatest Scripts
A how-to screenwriting guide that breaks free from the conventional “Hero’s Journey” approach to storytelling and reveals that great movie scripts—across all genres and styles—are actually driven by a core relationship of two central characters.
Because two heroes are better than one!
"Michael Weiss is a highly experienced writer, a terrific teacher, and a wonderful guide to what makes a good script great. Freeing his readers of the too-familiar 'hero's journey, ' he challenges them to center their films on real, complex, immersive relationships--on the central bond that binds or breaks two people--just like life itself."
--Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts; former Hollywood Reporter executive editor
