EXCLUSIVE: Michael Learner, a rising executive, writer and producer, has inked with both WME and Untitled for representation.
Learner was signed off buzz around his thriller script Seeker, which as we announced last month, will be directed by Dinner in America‘s Adam Carter Rehmeier. The film revolves around Grant, a man haunted by the unexplained disappearance of his fiancée five years earlier. Now an Uber driver, his life is upended when he picks up a passenger he becomes convinced was responsible for her disappearance.
A longtime writer, Learner penned a volume of scripts over the course of a decade before gaining traction on Seeker — a modestly budgeted genre picture representative of the stories he’s passionate about telling.
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An executive at Alex Lebovici’s Hammerstone Studios, which is shepherding his film, Learner has been with the production company for three and a half years, rising swiftly from intern to Head of Development, where he focuses on identifying and developing original, entertaining stories with broad audience appeal. He’s an executive producer on Hammerstone’s upcoming films Little One and Slime and a co-producer on both Gabriel Basso’s upcoming Iconoclast and By Any Means, the recent true-life crime thriller starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Wahlberg for Paramount. Learner was closely involved in developing each of these projects, with extensive on-location work alongside Lebovici, who has been supportive of his work as a creative self-generator.
He’s now producing Seeker alongside Lebovici, as well as Adam McKay and Todd Schulman of HyperObject Industries, Noah Centineo, and Enzo Marc of Arkhum Production.
Learner told us, “I’d always heard vague stories about a situation where someone works for a producer, builds trust and a relationship, and then one day shares the script with the producer who decides to make it… but I’ve rarely heard about this ever actually happening. I could not be more grateful for Alex and the entire Hammerstone team for making my dream become a reality. It’s a testament to Alex’s ability to actually execute on a vision. This is his superpower. I can’t tell you the amount of filmmakers I’ve seen come up to Alex literally in tears thanking him for making their dreams come true when no one else could.”
Originally from Chicago, Learner graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Cognitive Science. He won the Red & Blue List screenwriting competition during his time there and earned his MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute Conservatory.