Rawson Thurber, Writer/Director of Dodgeball

A 30 million dollar opening weekend is a fantastic start for any movie, let alone one made by a first time writer and director. Yet, that's the success that recent Union grad Rawson Thurber ('97) is now enjoying. With an all-star cast and clever script Dodgeball was the highest grossing movie in the country last weekend. 

Dodgeball is Rawson's second comedic success, his first, a commercial series for Reebok, Terry Tate, Office Linebacker, received the Cannes Film Festival Gold Lion, and was voted the most popular Super Bowl ad in 2003 in a Wall Street Journal poll. Recently, Morgan Gmelch had a chance to catch up with Rawson.

MG: Can you describe what you’ve done since graduation from Union?
RT: I graduated in 1997 and went right into the Peter Stark Producing program at USC. I graduated from that in ‘99 with a masters of fine arts in producing. Right after I graduated I started working as an assistant for a screen writer named John August, he has distributed Go, Charlies Angels, Big Fish, and Minority Report. I was essentially his apprentice and assistant for two and a half years wherein I wrote and directed Terry Tate and the script for Dodgeball. I wrote that script in April of 2001 and got an agent because of it and ended up selling it to Dreamworks in the fall. I wrote the villain role for Ben Stiller and the hero role for Vince Vaughn. I am a big fan of both of them and it was amazing to get them both in the movie. I hope you like it, it’s a movie that’s really stupid and I think pretty funny and occasionally clever. Its funny buy it also has a good heart, very tongue in cheek. I have been very lucky since graduation in a lot of ways. Certainly my education at Union was instrumental in teaching me how to think and analyze.