Todd Durham

Durham studied comedy writing at USC under brothers Danny Simon, mentor of Woody Allen, and Neil Simon.

Based on a half-hour 35mm film that he wrote and directed, a North Carolina movie studio signed Durham to a three-picture feature deal. According to an article in GQ magazine, the studio “takes chances on budding writers, like Todd Durham” who wrote and directed the micro-budget sci-fi comedy feature, Hyperspace (a.k.a. Gremloids) starring Chris Elliott and Paula Poundstone. Later James Cameron cast Elliott in The Abyss, part of which was shot at the same N.C. studio; Ray Bradbury would become an occasional advisor over the next two decades. The movie gained a cult following and received worldwide media attention when fans in England formed the Gremloids Party, pitting Lord Buckethead, one of Durham’s characters from the movie, against Margaret Thatcher in her bid for reelection as Prime Minister. See video of Buckethead and Thatcher from BBC News and NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw. Pursued by CAA, ICM, and WMA, Durham signed with Rick Jaffa, then wunderkind agent at William Morris, and worked as an uncredited script doctor on comedy projects at major studios. He wrote screenplays for comedy actors, directors, and producers; the National Lampoon movie franchise; and many Saturday Night Live alumni. Durham ghosted celebrity autobiographies, and authored his first novel Mr. Smith Goes To Hell and its screenplay, from which The Los Angeles Times quoted excerpts and described as having “some of the funniest depictions of Hades” alongside Gary Larson’s The Far Side.

During his years as studio script doctor, Durham created the Hotel Transylvania movie franchise in which he outlined in a bible a series of seven animated feature films and its characters, a television series, video games, merchandising, hotel chain, and theme park. After authoring the book Hotel Transylvania, he took the package unsolicited to Columbia Pictures and set it up at Sony Pictures Animation where he became the first of several screenwriters on the project. In 2012 Hotel Transylvania, starring Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, and Jon Lovitz, broke two box office records, received a Golden Globe nomination, and became one of animation’s highest-grossing movies. In an early draft Durham created an ancient vampire character for Mel Brooks, but there was not a place for the grumpy, 600-year-old Count in the first movie, so he became Dracula’s father in the sequel. After its release in 2015 Hotel Transylvania 2, featuring Brooks, broke box office records set by the original and became Sandler’s biggest debut weekend. With theatrical markets (worldwide box office) and ancillary markets (home media, cable, merchandising, books, video games, TV series, theme parks, etc.), franchise revenues surpassed ten figures.