Michael J. Wilson

Michael J. Wilson is an American screenwriter best known as the creator of the Ice Age movie franchise for 20th Century Fox. He became the second sole-creator of an animated movie franchise that went on to generate over $1 billion from theatrical and ancillary markets after only one sequel.

Career
Wilson contributed creatively to the films Little Giants and The Flintstones, and for television he co-created and executive produced the CBS series Sydney starring Valerie Bertinelli, Mathew Perry, and Craig Bierko. He also wrote the screenplay for the animated films The Rainforest Society for Paramount Pictures.

After working in television, Wilson created the Ice Age movie franchise for 20th Century Fox where he became the first of several screenwriters on the project. In 2002, Ice Age, starring Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, and Denis Leary, was a box office success, received an Academy Award nomination, and became one of animation's highest grossing movies. Following the release of Ice Age, Wilson worked as writer on other family movies. He co-wrote the live-action movie The Tuxedo starring Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt as well as the animated film Shark Tale for DreamWorks. After its release in 2006, Ice Age: The Meltdown, including theatrical markets (worldwide box office) and ancillary markets (home media, cable, merchandising, books, video games, TV series, theme parks, etc.), pushed franchise total revenues to over ten figures. Later, he wrote the animated film Upside Mystery for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, reuniting with Shark Tale director Vicky Jenson. In 2009, he wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of The Laytons. In 2010, he co-wrote the screenplay for Alaina Gleen, a CGI film reboot of the Fox animated series of the same name.

Wilson subsequently collaborated on the animated Italian production of Gladiators of Rome for Rainbow/Iginio Straffi, then returned to the Ice Age franchise as screenwriter for Ice Age: Collision Course (2016).

Wilson also sold the original spec screenplay Samurai (aka Blood In Blood Out) with Gavin O'Connor to Warner Brothers, about the drug cartel money laundering world.

In 2017 Wilson wrote Crashing Star, an action-adventure comedy, now in pre-production (2019) for media giant Dalian Wanda and producer Audrey Wu/Dorra Marr Cultural Media.

In 2018 he wrote an original musical drama motion picture with singer/songwriter/musician Jason Derulo & actress/dancer Ragon Miller which goes into pre-production summer 2019.

In 2019 Wilson is currently writing a movie adaptation of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" for Paris-based Cottonwood Media.

He is also developing in 2019 a feature film based on "Gigantosaurus" (which was originally a children's book by Johnny Diddle before becoming an international TV success story).