Douglas J. Eboch’s first success in Hollywood was the kind every writer dreams of: a college assignment turned into a script that became his first sale and was made into the hit movie Sweet Home Alabama starring Reese Witherspoon. It still holds the record for biggest September opening ever and ended up grossing $128 million domestically.
Doug has not limited his writing to feature films, however. His children’s Christmas play Sleepover at the Stables has been performed by hundreds of schools, churches and children’s theaters nationwide. And since August, 2007, he has been publishing a humorous short story every week on his blog at http://littlechurchstories.blogspot.com.
Doug was born near Chicago, but at the age of five his family moved to Saudi Arabia. He spent his childhood traveling the world and visited twenty-one countries before his thirteenth birthday. The family returned to the United States as Doug was entering seventh grade and he graduated from high school in Juneau, Alaska.
Early in his career, Doug co-wrote and directed the independent feature film Party at Sam’s which Variety called a “pleasant comedy” with “funny dialogue and a good pace.” More recently, he’s written and directed the short films, The 24 Year-Old Virgin (an in-competition selection at Palm Springs Short Film Festival), Date Night, Brotherhood of Evil Studio Executives and Inflatable Alien. He has also written and directed for the stage sketch comedy group Prank Monkeys and was featured in the Heroes of the Writers Strike short film.
Doug received the Carl Sautter Memorial Screenwriting Award for Best New Voice in Feature Films from Scriptwriters Network. He has a BA in Film Production and an MFA in Screenwriting from the University of Southern California. He currently teaches screenwriting and pitching at Art Center College of Design. He is valued as a public speaker, having lectured on writing at USC, UCLA, Chapman University, Singapore's MediaCorp and the Scriptwriters' Network.