Rawson Thurber

Born in San Francisco and raised in the East Bay (Orinda, California), Rawson Marshall Thurber graduated Cum Laude with Departmental Honors from Union College (Schenectady, New York) with a BA in English and Theater Arts. He went on to earn an MFA in producing from the Peter Stark Program at the University of Southern California.

Shortly after graduation, he wrote and directed the short film, TERRY TATE, OFFICE LINEBACKER, which was accepted to the Sundance Film Festival in 2001 and soon became a much-heralded Super Bowl commercial — also written and directed by Thurber — that won advertising's highest honor: the Golden Lion award at Cannes. The groundbreaking sixty-second spot is continually ranked as one of the top three Super Bowl commercials of all time.

Thurber then directed his first feature screenplay, the 2004 comedy DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY (Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn), for 20th Century Fox, which opened as the #1 film in America.

Following such success, Thurber approached Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon (Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) about adapting the author's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. Chabon agreed and Thurber set about writing the screenplay that he would eventually direct. Thurber's film, THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH (Peter Sarsgaard, Sienna Miller, Nick Nolte, Mena Suvari, Jon Foster) was selected as one of sixteen films (out of over 3,600 submissions) for narrative competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the prestigious Grand Jury Prize.

Thurber’s third feature film, the raucous comedy WE’RE THE MILLERS, starring Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis and Ed Helms has grossed over a quarter of a billion dollars ($262M), making it the #1 domestic comedy of 2013 and the #2 grossing comedy of the year worldwide.

Presently, Thurber is at work on a slew of follow-up feature films (including Gerard Way’s acclaimed graphic novel THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY at Universal), while developing a genre-bending television series for the STARZ Network and a half-hour comedy for CBS.

Thurber lives in Los Angeles.