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Warren Skaaren (March 9, 1946 – December 28, 1990) was an American screenwriter and film producer. [1] Career. Skaaren was appointed by Governor Preston Smith as executive director of the newly formed Texas Film Commission on December 9, 1970. [2] . His first success was getting the film The Getaway (1972) shot in Texas.
Warren Skaaren was born on 9 March 1946 in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Batman (1989), Beetlejuice (1988) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). He was married to Helen H. Griffin. He died on 28 December 1990 in Austin, Texas, USA.
- Writer, Additional Crew, Producer
- March 9, 1946
- Warren Skaaren
- December 28, 1990
- He Sold Hollywood on Texas.
- He Masterminded The Coat and Tie Rebellion at Rice University.
- He Introduced Leatherface to The Mob.
- He Saved Top Gun.
- He Unleashed Beetlejuice.
- He Also Wrote Beetlejuice 2.
- He Could Have Been A Part-Time Mogul.
- He Helped The Joker Go Wild.
- He Fueled Tom Cruise’s Need For Speed.
- He Wrote Romancing The Stone III with Michael Douglas.
Twenty-five-year-old Skaaren, working in the Governor of Texas’s office, drafted a proposal for the state’s film commission. Governor Preston Smith appointed him as the first executive director of the Texas Film Commission in May 1971. Under Skaaren’s four-year tenure, he brought Hollywood films like The Getaway, The Sugarland Express, and Lovin’ M...
As student body president at Rice, Skaaren kept a campus-wide protest from turning ugly when he led students and faculty in a peaceful protest against the hiring of a controversial new university president. Nicknamed the Coat and Tie Rebellion because of its formally attired participants, this protest—and Skaaren’s efforts—resulted in the resignati...
While still head of the Texas Film Commission, Skaaren worked behind the scenes to land a distributor for an independent horror movie called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. All of the major film companies passed, but a fledgling distributor named Bryanston Pictures showed interest. Run by Louis “Butchie” Peraino and his uncle Joseph, a “made” man in ...
A young Tom Cruise, hot off the success of Risky Business, was ready to bail on a film about hotshot fighter pilots at an elite training academy. Producing partners Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson hired Skaaren over the phone after he wowed them with his treatment, which humanized Cruise’s character, Maverick, and ditched Maverick’s bimbo gymnast...
Twenty-five-year-old Tim Burton was looking for his next picture after the surprise success of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Introduced to Skaaren by agent Mike Simpson, who represented them both, Burton flew to Austin, where the two spent a weekend seeing local sights and discussing their mutual interest in the afterlife. Skaaren mined Native American ...
Thrilled by Beetlejuice‘s financial success, producer David Geffen and Tim Burton approached Skaaren about writing a follow-up in the fall of 1989. Ironically, after Skaaren’s untimely death in 1990, Michael McDowell took over the screenplay. The project never got made although drafts of Skaaren’s script for Beetlejuicein Lovereside in his archive ...
Executives at Warner Bros. were so impressed with his unique ability to communicate with the suits as well as creatives like Tim Burton that they offered him a part-time executive position at the studio. He turned it down.
Hired to rewrite Sam Hamm’s screenplay for Batman, Skaaren finally connected with the initially distant star Jack Nicholson (The Joker) when he wrote dialogue inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche, one of Nicholson’s favorite philosophers. Batman’s blockbuster success would catapult Skaaren into an elite group of million-dollar script doctors.
Over a 1988 dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, Tom Cruise asked Skaaren to write the script for a race car movie Cruise was eager to make. Skaaren spent two years on the project, learning how to race at Rockingham Speedway and eventually writing 10 drafts of a screenplay for what would become Days of Thunder.
Douglas hired Skaaren to script the third film in the Romancing the Stone trilogy after the two hit it off at a meeting at Skaaren’s West Austin home. Skaaren traveled to Hong Kong to research the illegal exotic animal trade and scout locations for a screenplay titled Crimson Eagle. Kathleen Turner’s pregnancy delayed the project, and then Douglas’...
Warren Skaaren was born on March 9, 1946 in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Batman (1989), Beetlejuice (1988) and Top Gun (1986). He was married to Helen H. Griffin. He died on December 28, 1990 in Austin, Texas, USA.
- March 9, 1946
- December 28, 1990
3 days ago · Born in 1950, Michael McDowell was an accomplished student, earning a B.A. and an M.A. from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in English from Brandeis University. He pursued his passion for writing and ...
Dec 28, 1990 · Warren Skaaren (March 9, 1946 in Rochester, Minnesota – December 28, 1990 in Austin, Texas from cancer) was an American screenwriter and film producer. His notable writing includes: Batman (1989), Beetlejuice (1988), Beverly Hills Cop 2 (1987) and Fire with Fire (1986).
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Jan 3, 1991 · Warren Skaaren, who rewrote troubled screenplays into such box office blockbusters as “Top Gun” and “Batman,” has died at his home in Austin, Tex. He was 44.
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