Michael Lehmann: Biography

Filmmaker Michael Lehmann best known for his quirky, jet-black comedies. He began his career after making his now notorious thesis film Beaver Gets a Boner, a dark comedy that somehow inverts the formulaic elements of George Lucas' films, for the University of Southern California. This film attracted Hollywood interest and he soon found himself represented by the prestigious William Morris Agency. Before becoming a filmmaker, Lehmann studied painting at New York's School of Visual Arts. He then studied philosophy at Columbia University, and after graduating began studying in West Germany to be an academic. He then changed direction and became project manager for the video department at Zoetrope studios. Just as that company crumbled, he found himself accepted to USC. In addition to his thesis, he also wrote a very strange screenplay that became his 1989 hit Heathers, the tale of two high-school outsiders who begin killing popular girls and make the deaths look like suicides. His 1990 film Meet the Applegates, which features actors dressed as giant beetles living in a suburban American home like any other family, has become a cult favorite. His next film, the mega-budget Bruce Willis vehicle Hudson Hawk (1991) was a box-office bomb. He was to direct the controversial film The Good Son (1993), but he refused to work with child superstar Macaulay Culkin and was dismissed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide