"Michael Frost Beckner is the rarest of spy novelists, a beautiful and compelling writer who also has a mastery of tradecraft and a deep understanding of how espionage really works." Joe Weisberg, former CIA Officer and Emmy winning creator of The Americans
After a degree in Novel Writing from University of Southern California under PEN/Faulkner winner T.C. Boyle, Michael Frost Beckner began a Hollywood career as writing assistant to Academy Award winner Barry Levinson on "Good Morning, Vietnam" and "Rain Man".
In 1989, Michael Frost Beckner's script for "Sniper" launched a military-thriller franchise now in production on its eleventh sequel. He followed this with the spec script "Texas Lead & Gold" to break the record for the highest selling screenplay to that time. He beat his own record a year later with "Cutthroat Island" (MGM), and again a year after that with "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (Disney).
At the same time, Beckner wrote originals, assignments, and book adaptions for major directors (John Hughes, Paul Verhoeven, Wolfgang Petersen), actors (Eddie Murphy, Geena Davis, Harrison Ford, Dennis Quaid), Academy Award producers (Mark Johnson, Doug Wick, Gale Anne Hurd), and novelists (John Le Carre, Tom Clancy, Ken Follett).
In 1997, Beckner returned to the spec script market with "Spy Game." Directed by Tony Scott and teaming Robert Redford with Brad Pitt, it was an international success and is renowned as a classic in the espionage genre. That same year, Sydney Pollack approached Beckner to adapt John Le Carre’s spy thriller "The Night Manager." This began a film and television collaboration between the writer and the Academy Award-winning producer and director that would last until Mr. Pollack’s death.
Branching into television Beckner created, wrote, and executive produced the CIA-based drama "The Agency" for CBS. Beckner's pilot predicted Osama bin Laden's terror attack and the War on Terror four months before 9/11. With "The Agency", Beckner would go on to predict three more international terror events.
Beckner has written/produced episodes ranging from "CSI: Las Vegas" to Discovery Channel docudramas, TNT MOWs, and is developing a streaming series based on his "Kaleidoscope" Spy Game novels with former Marvel Studios President, Michael Helfant's Amasia Entertainment.
Beckner works extensively in Europe, while in the Middle East, Genomedia (UAE) soon begins production on his international espionage series, "Torus."
Having penned close to 100 original screenplays, adaptations, and teleplays in the employ of every major film studio, television network, and cable outlet, he is a Hollywood institution.
In 2001, intrigued by the idea of writing a two-man play focused on the four meetings between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee over their lifetimes, Beckner embarked on a twenty-year research odyssey, advised by more than a dozen of the top Civil War historians in America. His intimate theater piece blossomed into the most comprehensive Civil War mini-series ever written. Variously known as "To Appomattox" and "Battle Hymn," and now entitled "A Nation Divided," for the first time, Beckner’s full 12-hour scripts are being released to the public in three volumes.
As a commentator on American espionage, Beckner has appeared on CNN, Fox News, CBS News, TF1 in France, and as a featured guest of Bill Maher on HBO. Now, in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of his film "Spy Game," Beckner re-teams with Beacon Pictures and with film director Ridley Scott to produce a "Spy Game" sequel based on Beckner's novel "Bishop's Endgame."
He makes his home with his family in the Red Rock foothills of Las Vegas, Nevada.
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