Thomas H. Schulman (born October 20, 1950 in Nashville) is an American screenwriter best known for his semi-autobiographical screenplay for Dead Poets Society. The film won the 1989 Best Screenplay Academy Award for 1989, and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director (Peter Weir).Schulman earned a BA in philosophy from his hometown university, Vanderbilt.Though Schulman had already written a number of telemovies, Dead Poets Society was his first movie script to reach the screen. He was hired to rewrite the hit movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids shortly before the film was due to begin shooting; Schulman had just seven days to turn it from a drama into a comedy.Other scripts written or co-written by Schulman include comedies Welcome to Mooseport, What About Bob?, Second Sight (which Schulman sold the same day as Dead Poets Society) and Holy Man, which stars Eddie Murphy. The Sean Connery drama Medicine Man, originally entitled The Stand, proved a critical failure, although likely not a financial one.Schulman's only film as director to date is 1997 black comedy 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, which stars Joe Pesci as a gangster attempting to transport a bag of severed heads across the United States.In 2009 Schulman was elected vice president of the Writers Guild of America, West.Tom Schulman lives in Los Angeles, with his wife Miriam and children Peter and Dolf.
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