Michael Wildshill

Michael Jonathan Wildshill (born April 5, 1954) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, animator, voice actor, artist, and the current CEO of Universal Animation Studios and head of animation of Illumination.

Early life
Wildshill was born in Gibsonton, Florida, the oldest of four children to lawyer Alexander Michael Wildshill (1930-2018) and school teacher Scarlett Cynthia Wildshill (Jones) (1937-2007). His family moved to Los Angeles when he was 10 years old.

Disney years
Wildshill gained an interest in animation at a young age from viewing old Disney movies at a local theatre. After graduating high school in 1972, he attended the California Institute of the Arts (often abbreviated as 'CalArts'), majoring in art. Following the success of his short films Landing and Spot, Wildshill immediately obtained a job as an animator at Walt Disney Productions, where he worked on Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, The Rescuers, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Small One, and The Fox and the Hound.

Post-Disney
After these projects, Wildshill left Disney in 1978 to start his own independent animation studio in North Hollywood, California, Michael Wildshill Productions, alongside a small group of fellow Disney animators and CalArts graduates. There, Wildshill produced short films A Tiny Bite and Stan & Sam, commercials and other work. The studio's first feature-length film was The Master of Colors (1981). It was during production that Wildshill met fellow CalArts graduate Geo G. where he would have a long lasting friendship with him while also becoming business partners with him. Though only a moderate success in the box office, the movie received critical acclaim. Later, with the home video release and cable showings, it became a cult classic.

His next film would have been an animated version of the Hans Christian Andersen story The Little Mermaid, but was never made when the financial resources were drawn back. Instead, his next film would be Gools (1984), which only had moderate theatrical success. He then worked on later films, such as Biancabella and the Snake (1986) and The Workers (1987), which both were critical and box office failures.

Besides feature films, Wildshill worked on the TV special Bright Christmas (1982), followed by the television series Muzy, The Spacebots, and Animal Tales. He also produced the direct-to-video series Sammy and the Sing-Along Gang in 1985 which later spawned a television series a year later.

Multimedia
In 1988, Multimedia purchased Wildshill's animation studio, splitting into two divisions: Multimedia Animation for feature animation and Gingo Animation for television animation with Wildshill promoted as head of animation for Multimedia. Under his management, the feature animation unit continued producing the following films: Liche's Wish (1990), East of the Sun and West of the Moon (1992), The Three Princes and Their Beasts (1993), Romeo and Juliet (1994) and Ghost Vision (1995), with the latter three being commercial successes. Meanwhile, the television animation department eventually began creating some of the most successful animated series for its own channel, Gingo. These series include The Toon Hour, Gabriel Garza, Ray Eilo, BJ and Wally, Metro Cone, and The Whackems.

Universal Pictures
Later in 1993, Wildshill joined Universal Pictures to set up a new feature animation division in Universal City, California. After Multimedia merged with Universal's then-parent company MCA in early 1996, Wildshill was named the CEO of Gingo (now under Universal Television Animation) and Universal Feature Animation, as well as controlling the entire Universal animation group. Wildshill oversaw nearly all of Universal's animated films and associated projects as executive producer. In 1997, Universal Feature Animation produced its first film, Ama and the Mysterious Crystal (1997), which became a critical and box office success, grossing $324 million worldwide. In addition to Ama, Wildshill also personally directed Mistress Masham's Repose (2000) and Woo La La (2009) for the Universal animation studio.

In 2007, Wildshill was given control of Illumination Entertainment, a newly-formed production company founded by former 20th Century Fox Animation president Chris Meledandri. He oversaw all of Illumination's films and associated projects as executive producer. As CEO and head of animation, Wildshill has supervised three separate animation studios for Universal, each with its own production pipeline: Gingo, Universal Animation, and Illumination. Accordingly, he appointed a general manager for each studio to manage day-to-day business affairs, then established a routine of spending at least two days per week (usually Tuesdays and Wednesdays) in Southern California.

Wildshill and Steve Samono conceived Universal Animation's Paradoria (2015) and directed the film until May 2014, when it was announced that the former had been dismissed from the project due to creative difficulties, even though he was still credited as co-director. After leaving Paradoria, Wildshill began developing an original project for Illumination, which ultimately became Esqua (2020).

On April 28, 2016, NBCUniversal announced its intent to acquire competing studio DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion. It was announced that Wildshill would be a consultant at DreamWorks following the completion of the merger.

In November 2019, Universal announced that Wildshill would be directing and writing an animated Woody Woodpecker film.

Personal life
Wildshill is married to Ashley Julia "Star" Wildshill-Shertick (b. September 11, 1969), a chef and cooking instructor. They have three children: Jonathan Edward (b. November 22, 2001), Skye Hannah (b. October 2, 2006) and Genesis Scarlett (b. April 6, 2007). Jonathan provided the voice of young Amai Yamada in Woo La La.

Wildshill is a fan of manga and anime and Team Ico games, most notably Ico and Shadow of the Colossus; he cited Ico as his main inspiration for Paradoria. He is also a fan of the work done by Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios as well.

He resides in Santa Monica, California, a few of blocks north of the Illumination headquarters.

On May 1, 2020, Wildshill along with his younger sister Cynthia Marion tested positive for COVID-19 which he later recovered from, however, Marion later passed away from complications of the virus.

He is a member of the Democratic Party although he stated that he voted for Republican George H.W. Bush in the 1988 United States election but later regretted it. On September 1, 2020, he endorsed Joe Biden for the 2020 United States presidential election. He was also a speaker at various Democratic Conventions as well.

Documentaries
To be added

Other credits
To be added

Reception
Critical, public and commercial reception to films Wildshill has directed as of August 29, 2020.

Award and nominations
Coming soon!