December 2011 Contest

Scott Aversano is an independent producer who most recently worked as an executive producer on Safe House starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds for Universal Pictures. Previously, he produced Killers starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl with Robert Luketic directing at Lionsgate, and executive produced The Last Airbender with M. Night Shyamalan at Paramount Pictures. He recently served as executive producer on Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging for Paramount Pictures International and Nickelodeon Movies. In television, Aversano produced Ghosts/Aliens, a pilot for Comedy Central.

As President of MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies, Aversano was responsible for overseeing the label’s annual slate of films including the acquisition of literary properties, development, and production of motion pictures. Before that, he spent seven years working with independent producer Scott Rudin, most recently as President of Production. While with Rudin, Aversano worked on a variety of films including Failure to Launch, Team America, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Manchurian Candidate, The School of Rock, Changing Lanes, and Orange County.

Prior to joining Rudin, Aversano was Director of Development at Paramount Pictures from 1997 through 1999, where he served as an executive on twelve films, including Wonder Boys, South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, Bringing Out The Dead, and Runaway Bride.

Aversano started his career in the entertainment industry at Sid Ganis’ Out of the Blue Entertainment in 1996.

Aversano graduated from Brown University and has a M.A. in English Literature from University of Michigan.

Michael Colleary has been a professional screenwriter for more than 25 years. Feature film credits include Face/Off (written with Mike Werb), which starred John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, and which The New York Times named one of the “Best 1000 Movies Ever Made”. He co-wrote and produced the family film Firehouse Dog which won multiple awards from family advocacy groups.

Most recently he worked as a Supervising Producer on Unnatural History for the Cartoon Network. Currently, he and Mike Werb are writing and executive producing The Divide, an historical epic about the Chinese experience building the Central Pacific Railroad to be directed by John Woo and to star Chow Yun Fat.

Fun fact: a former governor of California once called Michael ""a ****ing schmuck"" for not getting a pre-nup. Nevertheless, Michael is happily married to screenwriter and bloggess Shannon Bradley.