Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Philip Anderson Lord (born July 12, 1975) and Christopher Robert Miller (born September 23, 1975) are American filmmakers. They are the creators and co-stars of the adult animated sitcom Clone High (2002–2003, 2023–present), and the writers and directors of the animated films Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and The Lego Movie (2014), as well as the directors of the live-action comedy film 21 Jump Street (2012) and its sequel, 22 Jump Street (2014).
This article is about the filmmaking and voice acting duo. For the American animator born in 1968, see Chris Miller (animator).
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
- Christopher Robert Miller
- September 23, 1975[2]
- Everett, Washington, U.S.
- September 23, 1975[2]
1998–present
Robyn Murgio (Miller)
2 (Miller)
Lord and Miller are best known for working on The Lego Movie and Spider-Verse film series, which won them the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and a nomination for the aforementioned award for producing the sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). They have also worked on the television series The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018) for Fox, Unikitty! (2017–2020) for Cartoon Network, and most recently The Afterparty (2022–2023) for Apple TV+.
Early life[edit]
Lord is from Miami; his mother is a Cuban-born psychologist, and his father retired from the aviation business and before that directed a dance company, Fusion, for 10 years. Miller is from the Seattle area, where his father runs a lumber mill.[3]
Lord and Miller both grew up making short films with an affinity for animation. They both attended Dartmouth College, where they first met, and had separate comics in the school newspaper, The Dartmouth. Lord was a member of Amarna, a co-ed undergraduate society while Miller was a brother at Alpha Chi Alpha. During his time in college, Miller met his girlfriend, now wife.
During their time at Dartmouth, the school paper published a profile on Miller, which caught the attention of Michael Eisner, then chairman of Disney. According to Lord, Eisner brought the profile to the attention of his fellow Disney executives who offered to set up a meeting with Miller. Miller agreed to the meeting as long as he could bring Lord. After three months, the two moved to Los Angeles and after one meeting were offered a two-year development deal at Walt Disney Television Animation.[4]
Career[edit]
2000s[edit]
Though nothing they pitched made it to air, they produced the pilot to Clone High, which was subsequently dropped by Fox. After they wrote and produced on a series of sitcoms, MTV informed the duo that they were interested in purchasing a 13-episode season of Clone High. Although the show was met with acclaim, MTV canceled the series after hunger strike protests occurred in India over the show's portrayal of Gandhi as a motor-mouthed partier.[5]
In 2003, the two were tapped to write a screenplay for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, their first feature film. After a year working on the script, they were fired for story issues and replaced with new writers, who after a year were fired themselves. Lord and Miller were re-hired in 2006. The two completely redid the script, this time with the creative input of their crew. The new draft had the protagonist as a failed inventor who wanted to prove himself to his town. The two were almost fired again after Amy Pascal, the head of Sony Pictures at the time, criticized the film for a lack of story. Although the film succeeded on the comedic front in the animatic stage, Pascal cited the lack of an anchoring relationship in the film as a failure in the story telling. Unable to create new characters and environments to suit the new story demands, the two elevated the character of the tackle shop extra to be the protagonist's father, thereby creating the relationship Pascal had requested.[6]
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was released in 2009 to positive reviews.