Daniel Waters (screenwriter)

Daniel Waters
File:Dan Waters.jpg Waters at the 2008 Screenwriting Expo
Born	(1962-11-10) November 10, 1962 Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Occupation	Screenwriter, film director
Relatives	Mark Waters (brother)

Daniel Waters (born November 10, 1962 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American screenwriter and film director.

He is the older brother of director Mark Waters.

Early life

Waters was born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in South Bend, Indiana. In high school, Waters wrote a popular column titled "Troubled Waters" for his high school newspaper, where he wrote fictitious stories about his real-life classmates—not unlike the writing that appeared in his screenplay for Heathers. He then wrote, directed and starred alongside Larry Karaszewski in a local sketch comedy titled Beyond Our Control in the early 1980s. Waters moved to Montreal where he graduated from McGill University. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles, and was the manager of a video store.

Screenwriting credits

Waters came to prominence in 1988 for writing the black comedy Heathers, for which he received a 1990 Edgar Award. Heathers was an attempt for him to write of the true nature of teenagers and high-school society. Heathers was not a box-office hit for Waters when it was released, but the movie has become a cult classic.

Over the next four years, Waters served as co-writer on the comedy The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, wrote the sequel Batman Returns, and then wrote the films Hudson Hawk (for which he re-teamed with Heathers director Michael Lehmann) and Demolition Man. He received the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay for both Hudson Hawk and Ford Fairlane. In 1995, he authored the first draft of the Catwoman solo movie. The story about Selina moving to a Vegas-like city called 'Oasisberg' and fighting parodies of male superheroes failed to resonate with Tim Burton or anyone at Warner.

Turn as a director

In 2001, Waters made his directorial debut with Happy Campers, another teen comedy in a black vein that, after a long delay, was released straight to DVD. His follow-up, Sex and Death 101, a hybrid of science fiction, dark comedy, and romantic thriller, won the Golden Space Needle Award for Best Director at the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival. It was released theatrically on April 4, 2008 in New York and Los Angeles. The film re-teamed Waters with Heathers star Winona Ryder.

Filmography

• Heathers (1988)
• The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (with James Cappe and David Arnott) (1990)
• Hudson Hawk (with Steven E. de Souza) (1991)
• Batman Returns (with Wesley Strick) (1992)
• Demolition Man (with Robert Reneau and Peter M. Lenkov) (1993)
• Happy Campers (2001) (also director)
• Sex and Death 101 (2007) (also director)
• Vampire Academy (2014)

External links

• Daniel Waters at the Internet Movie Database
• Daniel Waters at American Film Institute

Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay
1980–2000	Can't Stop the Music – Bronte Woodard and Allan Carr (1980) • Mommie Dearest – Frank Yablans, Frank Perry, Tracy Hotchner and Robert Getchell (1981) • Inchon – Robin Moore and Laird Koenig (1982) • The Lonely Lady – John Kershaw, Shawn Randall and Ellen Shephard (1983) • Bolero – John Derek (1984) • Rambo: First Blood Part II – Sylvester Stallone, James Cameron and Kevin Jarre (1985) • Howard the Duck – Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (1986) • Leonard Part 6 – Jonathan Reynolds and Bill Cosby (1987) • Cocktail – Heywood Gould (1988) • Harlem Nights – Eddie Murphy (1989) • The Adventures of Ford Fairlane – Daniel Waters, James Cappe & David Arnott (1990) • Hudson Hawk – Steven E. de Souza, Daniel Waters, Bruce Willis and Robert Kraft (1991) • Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot – Blake Snyder, William Osborne and William Davies – (1992) • Indecent Proposal – Amy Holden Jones (1993) • The Flintstones – Jim Jennewein, Steven E. de Souza, Tom S. Parker and various others (1994) • Showgirls – Joe Eszterhas (1995) • Striptease – Andrew Bergman (1996) • The Postman – Eric Roth and Brian Helgeland (1997) • An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn – Joe Eszterhas (1998) • Wild Wild West – Jim Thomas, John Thomas, S. S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman (1999) • Battlefield Earth – Corey Mandell and J. David Shapiro (2000)
2001–present	Freddy Got Fingered – Tom Green & Derek Harvie (2001) • Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones – George Lucas and Jonathan Hales (2002) • Gigli – Martin Brest (2003) • Catwoman – Theresa Rebeck, John Brancato, Michael Ferris and John Rogers (2004) • Dirty Love – Jenny McCarthy (2005) • Basic Instinct 2 – Leora Barish and Henry Bean (2006) • I Know Who Killed Me – Jeffrey Hammond (2007) • The Love Guru – Mike Myers & Graham Gordy (2008) • Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Ehren Kruger, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (2009) • The Last Airbender – M. Night Shyamalan (2010) • Jack and Jill – Steve Koren and Adam Sandler, story by Ben Zook (2011) • That's My Boy - David Caspe (2012) • Movie 43 - Steve Baker, Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bob Odenkirk, Bill O'Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken and Jonas Wittenmark (2013) • Saving Christmas - Darren Doane and Cheston Hervey (2014) • Fifty Shades of Grey - Kelly Marcel (2015) • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer (2016) • The Emoji Movie – Tony Leondis, Eric Siegel and Mike White (2017) • Fifty Shades Freed – Niall Leonard (2018) • Cats – Lee Hall and Tom Hooper (2019)