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Dustin Lance Black to Pen New "Earthquake" Feature for Universal
Oscar-Winning "Milk" Alum Dustin Lance Black '96 has been called on to script Universal's "Earthquake." This large scale disaster movie is being produced by JJ Abrams and Bryan Burk under their "Bad Robot" name, and has yet to announce any casting information. Though Universal was also behind the 1974 "Earthquake" that starred Charlton Heston, Deadline Hollywood reports that this film will not be a remake, and will only share title and subject matter with the older movie.
We were lucky enough to have Dustin as one of our special guests at the Screenwriters Showcase at our TFT Film Festival this year. Click here to see some pictures and read an overview of the night!
An honors graduate of UCLA´s School of Film and Television, Black began his professional career as an art director and quickly transitioned to directing documentaries, television series, commercials and music videos. Black´s documentaries "On The Bus" (2001) and "My Life With Count Dracula" (2003) debuted to acclaim and lead to a successful stint producing and directing TLC´s and BBC´s hit program "Faking It," which received notices for its unflinching sociological commentaries.
Recently, Black completed his feature directorial debut "Virginia" starring Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris and has teamed up with director Clint Eastwood, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Imagine Entertainment to scribe "J.Edger," the story of famed FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
Beyond his film work, Black is also a civil rights activist. He is a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), which is leading the Federal Case against Prop 8 in CA with lawyers David Boise and Ted Olson, and is on the Board of the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ teen suicide hotline providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth.
Since winning the Oscar in 2009, Black has been on a equal rights speaking tour across the country, and was one of a handful of organizers of the LGBTQ March on Washington in October 2009 where he spoke to an audience of over 150,000 demonstrators in front of the Nation´s Capital.
Black has had two books published, has written for every major screenwriting magazine, contributes to The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post, topped the list of OUT Magazine´s 40 under 40, and has repeatedly been named one of the 50 most powerful LGBTQ people in America today by that same publication.
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