Chris Miller

Filmmaker

• Born: September 23, 1975
• Place of Birth: Everett, Washington

Contribution: Chris Miller is a screenwriter, director, and producer best known for collaborating with Phil Lord on films such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), 21 Jump Street (2012), and The Lego Movie (2014). In 2019, he won an Oscar for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an animated film he co-produced.

Background

Christopher Robert Miller was born on September 23, 1975, in Everett, Washington. He attended high school at Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington, and then went on to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he studied animation. While a freshman at Dartmouth, Miller became friends with Phil Lord, who would later be his frequent creative partner. He also met his future wife, Robyn Murgio, while attending Dartmouth.

Miller graduated from college in 1997. Soon after, he landed a development deal with the Walt Disney Company and began writing for various television shows in Los Angeles. His early writing credits included Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane (1999–2000) and How I Met Your Mother (2005–14).

Career

In 2000, Miller and Lord pitched a cartoon show idea to Touchstone Television, a partner company of Disney. The show, Clone High (2002–3), was about a high school where the only students are clones of major historical figures.

Clone High was picked up and first aired in Canada on the specialty network Teletoon. The series was later broadcast in the United States on MTV. Miller acted as an executive producer, writer, and voice actor on the series, which lasted thirteen episodes. Its short run on television did not allow for a strong fan base to develop at first, but following its cancellation, Clone High achieved a cult following.

Around the time that Clone High was canceled, Miller and Lord pitched a film idea to Sony Pictures, which had recently formed their animation studio, Sony Pictures Animation. Sony had the film rights to one of Miller's favorite children's books, Judi Barrett's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (1978), and the two were interested in directing it. After the studio's initial choice for director dropped out, Miller and Lord were brought onto the project in 2006.

Before production began on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Miller wrote a sketch for the anthology comedy film Extreme Movie (2008). The film features several sketches about the sexual relationships of teenagers. It was given a limited theatrical release and was generally panned by critics.

Miller and Lord spent years working on the script for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which focuses on an inventor who creates a mechanism that transforms water into food. The filmmakers noted that their aim was to parody the disaster-film genre, replacing a natural disaster such as an earthquake or tornado with food falling from the sky. The film was released in 2009 to positive reviews, with many critics applauding it for its intelligence and wit. It also performed well at the box office, taking in over $240 million. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe Award for best animated feature film. For their direction, Miller and Lord were nominated for an Annie Award, which honors animated films.

For his next film, Miller once again teamed up with Lord to direct 21 Jump Street (2012), a film version of the television series that aired from 1987 to 1991. While the original series was more dramatic, the film takes a much more humorous approach. In the film, two police officers with youthful looks, played by Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, are hired as part of a task force to go undercover in a high school. Miller has said that one of the main influences on the film was his own personal and professional relationship with Lord.

21 Jump Street was a hit with audiences, earning a total worldwide gross of over $200 million. The film was nominated for several Teen Choice, Critic's Choice, and MTV Movie Awards in 2012. It won the Teen Choice Award for best comedy, and star Tatum also won a Teen Choice Award for best actor in a comedy, defeating co-star Jonah Hill.

With two hit films under their belts, Miller and Lord were widely seen as significant up-and-coming hitmakers. They next served as executive producers on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013), which was again successful though not quite as acclaimed as its predecessor. Another sequel, 22 Jump Street (2014), had the pair as both directors and executive producers. Once again featuring Channing and Hill, the film was another critical and commercial success, with many reviewers considering it as good or better than 21 Jump Street.

Miller and Lord also wrote and directed another film released in 2014, the animated blockbuster The Lego Movie. Based on the popular Lego brand of construction toys, the film uses a few live-action scenes to bookend a plot set in the world of Legos in which an average citizen (voiced by Chris Pratt) gets caught up in an adventure to stop the evil tyrant Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferrell). The voice cast also includes stars such as Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Liam Neeson, and Morgan Freeman, as well as Tatum and Hill. The film proved a major hit with audiences of all ages, and critics praised its humor, visual effects, and feel-good message. It took in nearly $470 million at the box office and won numerous awards, including the Critics Choice Movie Award, the Saturn Award, and the BAFTA Award for best animated film (it was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for best animated feature film and the Academy Award for best original song).

The Lego Movie spawned an entire franchise of Lego-based films, and Miller and Lord remained involved with several of these. They served as producers for The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie, both released in 2017, and were credited as both writers and producers of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019). They also held producer roles on a variety of other projects, ranging from animated children's films such as Storks (2016) and Smallfoot (2018) to the comedy-drama film Brigsby Bear (2017) to the comedy series The Last Man on Earth (2015–18). The latter earned four Emmy Award nominations in 2015, including outstanding directing for a comedy series for Miller and Lord.

Notably, Miller and Lord also received executive producer credits on the highly anticipated Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)—a prequel about the famous Star Wars character Han Solo—after originally being hired to direct the film. Relatively late in the production of that film they, were replaced by director Ron Howard due to creative differences with Lucasfilm, the Disney-owned studio behind the Star Wars franchise. Miller and Lord then solidified their reputation for being involved in some of the most successful animated films of the day when they served as executive producers on the critically acclaimed superhero movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). The film won the Academy Award in 2019 for Best Animated Feature Film. They also produced and co-wrote the film’s sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which was released to critical and audience praise in 2023. In addition, Miller and Lord co-wrote 2019’s The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.

Impact

Miller stated that he and Lord worked well together as directors because they had similar sensibilities with regard to comedy and storytelling. Their collaborations have led to highly lucrative, critically acclaimed, and award-nominated films. Miller proved himself able to direct both animated and live-action films and became a prominent figure in the entertainment industry.

Personal Life

Miller married Robyn Murgio in July 2009. The couple lived in Los Angeles and had two children, Graham and Cora.

Bibliography

Chitwood, Adam. "Phil Lord and Chris Miller Confirm They're Directing 22 Jump Street, Talk about Cracking the Story, Explain the Sequel's Title, and More." Collider, 29 July 2013, collider.com/21-jump-street-2-sequel-news-phil-lord-chris-miller/.

"Christopher Miller." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0588087/. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

Miller, Chris, and Phil Lord. "Chris Miller and Phil Lord Interview: 21 Jump Street, Cloudy 2, Lego, Cameos and More." Interview by Simon Brew. Den of Geek, 10 July 2012, www.denofgeek.com/movies/chris-miller-and-phil-lord-interview-21-jump-street-cloudy-2-lego-cameos-and-more/. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.

Miller, Chris, and Phil Lord. "GeekDad Talks Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs with Directors Chris Miller & Phil Lord." Interview by Curtis Silver. Wired, 6 Aug. 2009, www.wired.com/2009/08/geekdad-talks-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs-with-directors-chris-miller-phil-lord/. Accessed 19 Sept. 2024.