George Heller is a manager-producer at Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Brillstein is the oldest and one of the most storied film and TV companies of its kind. Brillstein was founded in 1969 and was a driving force behind the careers of Lorne Michaels, Jim Henson, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and many other iconic performers, filmmakers, and artists. This year Brillstein was acquired by the sports and music company Wasserman.

Most recently, Heller was an Executive Producer on “Mighty Ducks: Gamechangers” for Disney+. The half hour series is based on the film franchise of the same name from the 1990s. In features, he Executive Produced “Role Play” for Amazon Studios starring Kaley Cuoco, David Oyelowo, and Bill Nighy. The film is based on his own original idea and is set for release over MLK weekend 2024. Previously Heller executive produced “Morgan” starring Paul Giamatti, Kate Mara, and Anya Taylor-Joy for 20^th Century Fox alongside Ridley Scott.

Upcoming feature projects include “Antarctica” for Searchlight Pictures to be directed by Academy winner Danny Boyle, “Untitled Jimmy Stewart Biopic” with Adam McKay starring Nicholas Braun for AGBO, and “The Last Days of John Allen Chau” for director Justin Lin. In TV, he is developing “American Assassin” at Peacock and “Hiking with Kevin” at TBS.

Heller represents a diverse list of writers, filmmakers, and TV creators who work across a wide spectrum of mediums and genres with an emphasis on elevating female and other underrepresented voices. He graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television with a BFA in Filmic Writing in 2001.

Daniel Kunka grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago and currently lives in Sherman Oaks, CA.  He most recently sold his original spec feature film LIFT to Netflix in a competitive situation.  The film will be released in 2024 and is produced by Simon Kinberg and Matt Reeves.  It stars Kevin Hart and was directed by F. Gary Gray.

Dan is currently adapting the book ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY written by AJ Baime.  He previously wrote the Black List script YELLOWSTONE FALLS with Dave Yarovesky to direct and CRIME OF THE CENTURY for Universal/Chris Morgan producing with Dan Trachtenberg attached to direct.  He also created the film franchise 12 ROUNDS that originally starred John Cena for FOX/WWE Films.

How did the two of you know each other at USC? Did you work on any projects together as students?

Daniel: George and I were both classmates in Filmic Writing. I think that’s called something else now, Screenwriting or Writing for Film and TV, but George and I both started there in the fall of 97, right George? 

George: Yes.

Daniel: Fall of ‘97, and it was a very small program. I think only 22 kids were admitted and we had four years of classes together.  We had three or four classes a semester and either all 22 of us were in the class or half of us were in the class, so George and I met through that and did four years together.

George: Our first class, I think, was Vincent Robert’s ‘Intro to Screenwriting’. We did, I don't know if you remember this, it was probably the first week of school, a retreat that was over the weekend. It was a crash course, a 10,000 ft view on screenwriting. And I remember, not to go down a rabbit hole, but he gave us these squares. He was like, “Tell me a story in eight frames.” It was all about telling information economically and not having more squares than you need to. It was all about distilling storytelling in its simplest form. Yeah, that’s probably where we first met was at that retreat.

Daniel: I totally remember that and we missed the first football game of the season. It was a Saturday/Sunday and, instead of going to the football game of our first weekend of freshman year, we were sitting in Vincent Robert’s class. As if four years of screenwriting wasn't enough, we had to get that first weekend in to really jumpstart our careers.

Is there a particular message or lesson that really stuck with you from your classes, even to this day?

Daniel: I’ve got one. I remember John Furia was the chair of the department and he would always say you have to write every day. In school I always thought that was sort of corny, but, I have to say, when people ask now I always cite that piece of advice. Whether you’re actually doing the writing or thinking about writing or preparing yourself for the writing you have to do tomorrow, it’s this idea that it’s a 24/7 job.  You have to be prepared and you have to prepare yourself to do the writing. So, I definitely still use that.

George: Well put, I agree with that one. I remember Paul Wolff used to always say, “Get on the horse.” I don't totally know what that means, but that was always his mantra. We had great teachers at USC. That’s how I remember the school – the teachers and the classes.

Daniel: Definitely. I still remember Pam Douglas taught a drama tv class. You remember the particular professors you had. We were even lucky enough to have the Abe Polanski class. 

Daniel, what brought you to the world of writing? What interested you about USC's Filmic Writing?

Daniel: I was not a cinema person growing up. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't really know what kind of writer I wanted to be. But then USC sent around a college brochure and it was the size of Variety.  And when it came in the mail, I was like “well, this is bigger than all the other brochures.” I looked through it and there was a little blurb about Filmic Writing. “Do you want to write movies and tv?” And for some reason I was like “sure I’ll do that.” And my parents let me apply. I remember you had to send in a portfolio and USC liked to say it was harder to get into than Harvard in terms of acceptance rate. So when I got in it felt like you were chosen to be part of this select group. So I went and I just fell in love with screenwriting at USC.

George, you were a writer by degree. When did you make the switch into more of a producing role? Was there a specific moment or a gradual change in this direction?

George: I think I enjoyed being creative vicariously through other people. I liked being around other writers, but I think writing, and credit to Dan, is a very solitary, independent endeavor. What I like about producing and being a manager is that it’s very collaborative, not that screenwriting is not collaborative. What makes USC special is you're surrounded by people who want to do exactly the same thing that you want to do. Usually, us film people, we’re the outcasts, and everyone else is doing sports, so  to be with other people who have the exact same interests as you, and to feed off that energy, is very contagious. So, that’s what I really like about producing. What I get to do now is be surrounded by very creative people and I get to be creative through them and through their skills and their talents.

Daniel: George went to the writing school, and always loved writing and writers, but I don't know if he actually loved to do the work. I don’t want to put words in your mouth-

George: Yes. Yes.

Daniel: And it’s not a negative. But George's skill was always talking out story or posing an interesting question. So even from the get go, and definitely by the time we were graduating, I think you could tell that George had a real skill for that side of the craft. You could see it early on.

George: I like the inspiration, not the perspiration. 

Tell us a bit about the projects you both have premiering on January 12, 2024.  

George: The movie I’m a producer on is called Role Play. Amazon is releasing it. It’s with Kaley Cuoco and David Oyelowo. I had been reading about a lot of people who were married and would go and meet as strangers at bars and pretend to pick the other up to draw some spice into their relationship and I just thought that was such an interesting starting off point for a movie. Getting back into the inspiration and perspiration, I had the idea, but not even a story. I just had the nugget of a starting point. I told that idea to our client, Seth Owen. He is the one who expanded on it, sort of did the heavy lifting, figured out what the story was, and then ultimately wrote the script and sold it. I was very intrigued by these couples. In our movie Kaley and David play a couple that have lost the spice in their relationship and they go to this bar and pretend to be strangers. David tries to pick Kaley up and then chaos ensues. It started as an idea bubble. Part of why I like working with writers is that they figure out how to flesh it out and do the rest of the heavy lifting.

Daniel: My story is very similar. Lift started almost a decade ago. There was an article about how banks transfer large amounts of solid gold on commercial airplanes. You wouldn’t know it, but on your commercial flight from London to Zurich there could be gold just sitting in a crate right below your feet.  And I was like “that’s a great setup for a heist movie  – let’s have somebody try to steal it”. I tried to pitch it a few times but I was still at the point of my career where no one was going to buy a complicated heist movie from a writer of my stature.  So the idea just sat there on my to-do list for almost ten years. But then during the pandemic I wrote a script that I ended up not really liking and was looking for something new.  So I got out the old outline and surprisingly it all still worked. I wound up writing the script on spec very quickly then sold it as a spec to Netflix with Simon Kinberg and Matt Reeves attached to produce. And I’ve sold spec scripts in the past and it's always “let's go make this a movie!” but then it never does.  But this one picked up momentum and it was in the right place at the right time. We got Kevin Hart attached to star and F. Gary Gray to direct and we were shooting the movie just over a year from when I sold the spec. 

Was the joint premiere date a happy coincidence or purposeful? At what point in the process did you realize you were both premiering on the same day?

Daniel: Like two weeks ago? 

George: Our other classmate, Frank E. Flowers, wrote the Bob Marley movie, which I think comes out on Valentine’s Day. So Frank’s like a month after us, as well. Who is also the class of 2001.

Daniel: That's crazy. I didn't know that was so close. That’s amazing. Look at us! That’s so cool.

Do you have any plans to work together on a future project? If so, what topic would you be most interested in pursuing?

George: We should. I would love that.

Daniel: I know. We never have. George says that he’s read some of my scripts before in the past. I don't know if I believe him, but I think he has.

George: I read a script about the wolves with no dialogue. I thought was awesome.

Daniel: Yellowstone Falls.  That one’s still got a little bit of life in it. Hopefully we will be hearing more about that one soon. 

George: And I remember your thesis script was a military movie.

Daniel: It was a military movie. This is the best part about Hollywood. I love when you get to a certain point in your career, which I think George and I are both at, and you run into people you knew in the past either from school or from early days of working and it’s just “hey we’re still around. Isn't this amazing? We get to do this.”  That was the dream we all had going to USC film school and trying to do this. The path is never linear and you never know where you’ll cross. The odds that George and I would both have a movie coming out on the same day is frankly ridiculous. It’s just a crazy awesome coincidence that says “we're both still here and both still doing this”, at least, for another couple years, anyway.

George: And that’s what makes USC so special. It’s unlike NYU, or even UCLA, or AFI. There’s connective tissue in the film business. When you meet someone else who went to USC, whether you knew them at USC like I knew Dan or people I meet after the fact, there's just a real network and a real familiarity. Doors open for you. I think that's a real thing. That’s one of the benefits of having gone to USC.

Have both of you worked with streamers before in this capacity? And what has it been like working directly with them? 

Daniel: I have not. I have sold scripts to studios before, but this was my first streaming experience. It was interesting. It's the same, but it’s a little bit different. It's great because they were able to move very quickly. They had identified they wanted to make a movie with Kevin and once he signed on we were all systems go. Of course it’s different not having a theatrical experience, but then there’s the other side of it where our two movies are going to be seen around the world on the same day. To have that kind of scope is really impressive. I think it's exciting.

George: You don't have the validation of box office return, but, in reality, ten times more people will see your movie on Netflix or Amazon than traditional means. The fact that it's around the world is pretty gratifying.

Daniel: Yeah, you’ll reach a lot more people and the barriers to watch are lower for everyone, so it’s exciting.

What have been both of your biggest inspirations throughout your careers?

Daniel: I'm inspired by other screenwriters. I can remember, our senior year, the big inspiration was  Jamie Vanderbilt, who was a year after us in the Filmic Writing program.  He had sold a script the day before graduation his senior year. And it was like, “holy shit. If Jamie can do it, I can do it.”     Josh Schwartz was in the program and obviously he was a huge success. I remember when George was a rep and, we were a few years out of school and most of us weren’t doing much, George was able to sell this big spec. I'm constantly motivated by other writers finding success. If our movies weren't coming out on the same day, I would be like, “George got his movie on Amazon? I want a movie on Amazon. I'm going to write my movie today.” To me, that's always been my biggest motivating factor. 

George: “High tide raises all ships” is what I think you’re getting at. One person's success leads to other people's success. Going back to the Jamie anecdote, when we were students, Jamie, Josh Schwartz, Jon Chu, Joe Nussbaum, all these guys, while we were still students, were getting plucked to go make movies or sell tv shows. It was such an empowering place to be. It really encourages you to up your game. USC definitely got you excited about being in the movie business, and making films and tv shows.

Daniel: It makes it real. You see the people from your class or who you knew in school and you’re like, “if that person can run 12 seasons of TV, I can do it too.’” 

George: Our teaching assistant, our sophomore year, in Richard Olis’ photography class was Mike Ireland, who is now the president of Paramount. It’s crazy. It’s so exciting to see these people that you went to school with who are now major decision makers. Mike’s success is our success. It's exciting to see all these people thrive.

Daniel: We’ve all succeeded in our own ways. It’s crazy to see that. 

What advice would you have for students and alumni starting in the industry today?

George: I think people are always very wrapped up in, “my uncle knows this guy whose dad was president and he’s going to set me up” and trying to be connected to this person to get to that person. Again, what's great about USC is that you are surrounded by all these people who are super talented and want to do the exactly the same thing you want to do. I would encourage people to grab onto their classmates and figure out who the two smartest people are in one of their film studies classes and become those two people’s best friends. Those people are going to run the movie business. When I was at USC, I started working with Michael Lasker, Jeremy Bell and Jonathan Abrams. We all started this company together, at the time. Michael is now a hugely successful manager at Mosaic. Jeremy is a producer at Gotham. And John just wrote the new Clint Eastwood movie. Forget what your connections are, what your setup is, or who is going to introduce you. You’ve already figured it out. You’re already at SC and it's just a very empowering place. Just go figure out who the two best writers or the two best producers or two best directors are and then just start working with those people.

Daniel: You had pretty good foresight with that one, George. I think that's great advice. On the writing side of things, if you want to be a writer who writes TV shows or movies the first thing you have to do is actually do the writing.  You have to start.  You might not be good at first, but the only way you'll ever know is if you do the work. Going back to John Furia, if you want to be a writer, write every day and make it your business and take your best shot. There's a lot of luck involved but you can't sell a script until you write a script. So, write your best script then have your friend George sell it for you. 

George: And Dan rewrite it.
 

Daniel: There you go.

Christina Denning