1. Morgan Valentine Spurlock was an American documentary filmmaker, writer, and television producer.
27 Facts About Morgan Spurlock
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Morgan Spurlock directed 23 films and was the producer of nearly 70 films throughout his career.
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Morgan Spurlock was executive producer and star of the reality television series 30 Days.
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Morgan Spurlock was the co-founder of the short-film content marketing company Cinelan, which produced the Focus Forward campaign for GE.
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In 2024, Morgan Spurlock died at age 53 due to complications related to cancer.
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Morgan Valentine Spurlock was born on November 7,1970, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and was raised in Beckley, West Virginia.
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Morgan Spurlock graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley, West Virginia, then attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a BFA in film in 1993.
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Morgan Spurlock was a member of the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta.
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Morgan Spurlock was a playwright, winning awards for his play The Phoenix at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000.
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In 2004, Morgan Spurlock co-founded the production studio Warrior Poets which would be the production studio for the films he directed and produced for the rest of his career.
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The list of documentary films that inspired Morgan Spurlock includes Brother's Keeper, Hoop Dreams, The Thin Blue Line, Roger and Me, Harlan County, USA, and The Last Waltz.
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Morgan Spurlock considered Brother's Keeper the greatest documentary of all time.
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Morgan Spurlock conceived the idea for the film when he was at his parents' house for Thanksgiving, and while watching TV saw a news story about a lawsuit brought against McDonald's by two teenage girls who blamed the fast food chain for their obesity.
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The film depicts an experiment Morgan Spurlock conducted in 2003, in which he claimed he ate three McDonald's meals every day for 30 days, although he later disclosed he drank copious amounts of alcohol.
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The result, according to Morgan Spurlock, was a diet with twice the calories recommended by the USDA.
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Further, Morgan Spurlock attempted to curtail his physical activity to better match the exercise habits of the average American; he previously walked about 3 miles a day, whereas the average American walks 1.5 miles.
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Morgan Spurlock did not publicly release a diet log documenting his diet while filming the documentary.
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Super Size Me was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and Morgan Spurlock won the first Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay.
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Morgan Spurlock wrote a book in 2005 as a follow-up to Super Size Me entitled Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America.
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The first episode of the third season, titled "Working in a Coal Mine", was filmed in Bolt, West Virginia, which is located roughly 18 miles from the city of Beckley, West Virginia, where Morgan Spurlock was raised before leaving for New York.
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Morgan Spurlock was at the helm of this project alongside five directors.
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In mid-2010, Morgan Spurlock worked with Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles, and comic book creator Stan Lee to create the documentary Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope, to cover the stories of convention fans.
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Morgan Spurlock helped distribute A Brony Tale, a documentary directed by Brent Hodge on the brony phenomenon and on the musician and voice acting career of Ashleigh Ball.
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Morgan Spurlock teamed up with Hodgee Films again on the 2015 web series Consider the Source, in association with Disney's Maker Studios.
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In October 2022, The Washington Post reported that Morgan Spurlock had "suffered career death" as a result of his misconduct.
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Morgan Spurlock stated in an interview with TV Guide in 2014 that he was agnostic.
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On May 23,2024, Morgan Spurlock died from complications of cancer at the age of 53 in upstate New York.