Michael Lucker is a professional screenwriter and professor of screenwriting with thirty years of experience writing for major studios and fifteen years of experience lecturing at major universities. He began his career writing and directing cable commercials while earning his undergraduate degree in broadcasting and film at Boston University’s College of Communication. Soon after he landed in Los Angeles working in production for ABC, NBC, CBS and HBO before taking a job as assistant to Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment on the feature films Always, Arachnophobia, Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade and Jurassic Park. He went on to serve in creative affairs on feature films Crimson Tide, Terminal Velocity, and Taking Care of Business at Hollywood Pictures before embarking on a career as a screenwriter for Paramount,
Disney, DreamWorks, Fox, and Universal on such movies as Vampire in Brooklyn, Home on The Range, Mulan II, and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2002 as best animated feature.
A renowned instructor in screenwriting, Michael serves as senior lecturer at the University of North Georgia, mentor in Reinhardt University’s Creative Writing MFA program, and founder of Screenwriter School www.screenwriterschool.com where he teaches yearly online workshops. In 2018 the Georgia Film Academy hired him to create a high school screenwriting curriculum which has since been taught to more than 15,000 students in the state. His book on screenwriting, Crash! Boom! Bang! How to Write Action Movies, was published by www.mwp.com in 2017. His debut novel, the crime-thriller Rule One, will be released by www.wordeee.com the summer of 2025 wherever books are sold. Listen to our interview here. Below is a shortened version of our chat.
Dave Watson: Congratulations on your book! What’s it about?
Michael Lucker: Thank you! It’s a twisty-turvy, mystery thriller called RULE ONE.
It’s about an FBI agent hunting a serial killer hunting doctors across America.
DW: You wrote a book about action in action movies. Do you have action in mind
when you start writing or do you start with characters and story?
ML: Character comes first, always. The story should serve the hero’s journey
toward transformation. And the action should serve the story. That’s what I teach
in my screenwriting courses and what I wrote in “Crash! Boom! Bang! How to
Write Action Movies.” Trying to figure out how to craft character or story to fit
action is a sure way to write yourself into a corner.
DW: Do you mix genres in your new book?
ML: In books or movies, I think we have a responsibility to deliver on the
promises of the genre so not to let our audience down. Trying to squeeze too
many genres into any form of content can quickly water it down. That said, some
genres mix like a fine cocktail. I tend to be irreverent in wit, and try as I might,
that seems to bleed onto nearly every page of anything I write.
DW: What’s next?
ML: I had so much fun writing RULE ONE, and it’s receiving such high praise,
that I’ve already hit the ground running writing RULE TWO. As far as
screenwriting goes, I just wrapped rewriting five episodes of a new television
series I can’t disclose yet, but that everyone will hear of come Christmas.
DW: What’s your favorite cinematic moment?
ML: Great question! Today, it must be in the original Gladiator, when Maximus
Decimus Meridius turns to the evil Commodus in the Colosseum, surrounded by
half of Rome, and swears... “I will have my vengeance -- in this life or the next!”
Disney, DreamWorks, Fox, and Universal on such movies as Vampire in Brooklyn, Home on The Range, Mulan II, and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2002 as best animated feature.
A renowned instructor in screenwriting, Michael serves as senior lecturer at the University of North Georgia, mentor in Reinhardt University’s Creative Writing MFA program, and founder of Screenwriter School www.screenwriterschool.com where he teaches yearly online workshops. In 2018 the Georgia Film Academy hired him to create a high school screenwriting curriculum which has since been taught to more than 15,000 students in the state. His book on screenwriting, Crash! Boom! Bang! How to Write Action Movies, was published by www.mwp.com in 2017. His debut novel, the crime-thriller Rule One, will be released by www.wordeee.com the summer of 2025 wherever books are sold. Listen to our interview here. Below is a shortened version of our chat.
Dave Watson: Congratulations on your book! What’s it about?
Michael Lucker: Thank you! It’s a twisty-turvy, mystery thriller called RULE ONE.
It’s about an FBI agent hunting a serial killer hunting doctors across America.
DW: You wrote a book about action in action movies. Do you have action in mind
when you start writing or do you start with characters and story?
ML: Character comes first, always. The story should serve the hero’s journey
toward transformation. And the action should serve the story. That’s what I teach
in my screenwriting courses and what I wrote in “Crash! Boom! Bang! How to
Write Action Movies.” Trying to figure out how to craft character or story to fit
action is a sure way to write yourself into a corner.
DW: Do you mix genres in your new book?
ML: In books or movies, I think we have a responsibility to deliver on the
promises of the genre so not to let our audience down. Trying to squeeze too
many genres into any form of content can quickly water it down. That said, some
genres mix like a fine cocktail. I tend to be irreverent in wit, and try as I might,
that seems to bleed onto nearly every page of anything I write.
DW: What’s next?
ML: I had so much fun writing RULE ONE, and it’s receiving such high praise,
that I’ve already hit the ground running writing RULE TWO. As far as
screenwriting goes, I just wrapped rewriting five episodes of a new television
series I can’t disclose yet, but that everyone will hear of come Christmas.
DW: What’s your favorite cinematic moment?
ML: Great question! Today, it must be in the original Gladiator, when Maximus
Decimus Meridius turns to the evil Commodus in the Colosseum, surrounded by
half of Rome, and swears... “I will have my vengeance -- in this life or the next!”
