For screenwriter Michael Arndt, the journey from relative obscurity to Academy Award winner was uncertain, much like his transient lifestyle growing up as a U.S. State Department brat, living in India, Sri Lanka and the suburbs of Virginia. Arndt attended New York University to study directing, but realized early on that all the great directors he admired – from Billy Wilder to Woody Allen – started as writers. After graduating from NYU, he worked as an assistant for producer Deborah Schindler, learning over the course of 18 months, the true meaning of development hell. Arndt next landed a job as Matthew Broderick’s assistant, working with the actor on “Addicted to Love” (1997), “Godzilla” (1998) and “Inspector Gadget” (1999), before leaving to become a freelance script reader, where he experienced a whole new world of pain, thanks to countless god-awful screenplays he was forced to endure.
With $25,000 saved in his bank account, Arndt left the working world for good in order to pursue screenwriting. Locked away in his tiny Brooklyn apartment, he hammered out six worthless screenplays, before striking gold with his seventh – a dark road trip comedy with heart called “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006). Determined not to unleash yet another bad script upon the world, Arndt rewrote the script over and over again – one hundred drafts all told – until he was confident enough to put it into buyers’ hands. Independent producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger championed the script around town and convinced Marc Turtletaub at Deep River Productions to buy it. Music video directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who were looking to make their first feature, connected immediately with the material. But financing was hard to get a hold of – two unproven directors and an unknown screenwriter were considered liabilities. Arndt was subsequently fired, but when Turtletaub raised the money himself, the writer was hired back on.
After a four year struggle, “Sunshine” was made on a small budget of $8 million and starred Greg Kinnear as the ne’er-do-well patriarch of a dysfunctional family that embarks on a three-day road trip in order to bring their youngest, Olive (Abigail Breslin), to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant for prepubescent girls. Rounding out the ensemble cast was Steve Carell as a gay Proust scholar, fresh from the hospital after a failed suicide attempt; Alan Arkin as the foul-mouthed, heroin-snorting grandpa; Paul Dano as the anger-fueled, Nietzsche-reading teen taking a vow of silence; and Toni Collette as the neurotic mother trying to hold everything together. After its buzz-generating debut at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, “Little Miss Sunshine” was bought by Fox Searchlight for $10 million and released that summer, becoming a runaway hit with critics and audiences. Come year’s end, a bevy of awards and nominations were bestowed on the Little Movie That Could, including an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Arndt.