Matt Stone

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Matthew Richard Stone (born May 26, 1971) is an American actor, animator, writer, producer, and composer.

He is best known for co-creating South Park (1997-2011) and co-developing the Tony Award-winning musical The Book of Mormon (2011) with his creative partner Trey Parker.

As an infant and in high school, Stone was keen on film and music, and he attended the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he met Parker.

The two actors appeared in Cannibal's feature-length film, and they worked on several short films together. The Musical (1993) Stone and Parker migrated to Los Angeles and produced their second film, Ormo (1997).

South Park premiered on Comedy Central in August 1997, just shy of the film's premiere.

The pair have full creative control of the show and have created music and video games based on it.

Both critics and followers have praised a film based on South Park, South Park, (1999).

Stone continued to write, produce, and act in Team America: World Police (2004), a satirical action film that won raves, and The Book of Mormon premiered on Broadway to soaring success.

Stone and Parker formed Important Studios in 2013. Stone has been the recipient of numerous accolades over his career, including five Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on South Park, three Tony Awards, and one Grammy Award for The Book of Mormon.

Early life

Stone was born in Houston, Texas, on May 26, 1971, to economics professor Gerald Whitney Stone and Sheila Lois (Belasco). He has a strong Irish-American heritage from his father's side as well as Jewish roots from his mother's side. Gerald and Sheila Broflovski, the South Park characters, were named after they were born. Stone and his younger sister Rachel were born in Littleton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, where they attended Heritage High School. He attended the University of Colorado Boulder. His father was worried that he would "become a bum" and that he would be "serious," so he insisted that his son major in something "practical." Matt's majoring in both mathematics and film was compromised for the time being. In 1993, Stone earned a double-major Bachelor of Arts degree.

Personal life

In 2001, Stone met Angela Howard, a Comedy Central executive, and they began a friendship shortly after. They married in 2008 and have two children together. Stone and his family live in Venice, Los Angeles.

Stone has referred to himself as a Jew, since his mother is Jewish. He is an atheist.

"I dislike conservatives, but I fuck hate liberals," Stone said in 2001 about his political views. Stone referred to himself as a libertarian in 2006.

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Career

Stone, Parker, McHugh, and Ian Hardin established the Avenging Conscience company in 1992. The company was named after a D. W. Griffith film of the same name (which was apparently disliked by the company). On Avenging Conscience's first film, Jesus vs. Frosty (1992), an animated short pitting the religious figure against Frosty the Snowman, Parker employed the cutout paper technique.

The quartet created a three-minute trailer for Alferd Packer: The Musical, a fictional film. The theory was based on a fascination Parker had with Alferd Packer, a nineteenth-century prospector accused of cannibalism. Parker had been engaged to long-time girlfriend Liane Adamo at the time, but their relationship fell apart soon after the trailer was delivered. Parker "horribly ill," she injected into the scheme, naming Packer's "beloved but disloyal" horse after her. The trailer became a hit among students at the university, with Virgil Grillo, the university's film department's chairman, urging the quartet to extend it to a full film. Parker wrote the film's script, resulting in a Oklahoma!-style musical with ten original show tunes. The group collected $125,000 from family and friends and started shooting the video. As winter was winding, the crew survived the freezing weather on Loveland Pass. Parker, who went by the name Juan Schwartz, was the film's actor, producer, and co-producer.

"They rented a limousine that circled to ferry every member of the cast and crew from the back side of the block to the red carpet at the theater's entrance," Alferd Packer said in October 1993. The group submitted the film to the Sundance Film Festival but it did not respond. Parker told McHugh that they had a "vision" to attend the festival, which resulted in the company renting out a conference room in a nearby hotel and performing their own screenings. MTV did a short news segment on The Big Picture focusing on the film, and they had business connections through the festival. They intended to sell video rights to the film for $1 million and then spend the remaining $900,000 to produce another film. In 1996, the film was retitled Cannibal, but it was instead sold to Troma Entertainment. The Musical, and following the duo's later success, it became the duo's most popular title. It has since been dubbed a "cult masterpiece" and turned into a stage play by community theater companies and even high schools around the country.

Following the success of the film, the team, without Hardin, travelled to Los Angeles. On arrival, they met with a William Morris Agency prosecutor who introduced them with producer Scott Rudin. As a result, the pair obtained a lawyer, an agent, and a script contract. Despite initially believing they were on the verge of success, the pair struggled for many years. Stone slept on soiled laundry for up to a year because he couldn't afford to buy one. They're unsuccessfully marketed Time Warped to Fox Kids, a children's program that would have included fictionalized accounts of people in history. Despite the network's acceptance of Fox Broadcasting Company development executive Pam Brady, the three pilots were unable to operate separately, and the Fox Kids division was disbanded.

David Zucker, a Cannibal fan, contacted Seagram to produce a 15-minute short film for the company's premiere at Universal Studios. Parker and Stone improvised a large portion of the film an hour before it was shot, resulting in a spoof 1950s instructional videos. Various celebrities, including Sylvester Stallone, Demi Moore, and Steven Spielberg, are among the many highlights in Your Studio and You. Parker later observed, "You might possibly make a feature film out of the experience of making the film because it was just two dudes from college who were suddenly directing Steven Spielberg."

Parker wrote the script for a film called Orgazmo, which later appeared in production. Kuki, a Japanese porn company, wanted to highlight its stars in mainstream Western media, so half of the budget for the photograph was funded. After the film's screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, independent distributor October Films bought the rights to it for one million dollars. The Motion Picture Association of America gave the film an NC-17 rating, which resulted in the film's poor box office results. Parker and Stone began to discuss which items to remove from the final print, but the MPAA refused to give concrete information. The pair later regretted that the company was less concerned because it was a sole distributor with no employees, which would cost it much less.

Brian Graden, a Fox executive, gave Parker and Stone a personal check of a few thousand dollars to produce a video greeting card he could give to friends; the film will be a sequel to their earlier short Jesus vs. Frosty. Graden sent the film on a VHS to several executives in Hollywood; in the meantime, someone digitized the clip and put it up on the internet, where it became one of the first viral videos. Parker and Stone decided to convert the short film into a television series later named South Park, which Fox also bought the film to Fox due to the popularity of Jesus vs. Santa. Although Fox executives were enthusiastic about the idea, they did not want to air a show that featured Mr. Hankey, talking poo characters, and decided against it after the pair refused to remove the character several times. Parker and Stone then began discussions with both MTV and Comedy Central. Parker requested that the program be produced by Comedy Central, fearing that MTV would make it into a children's show. Doug Herzog, the show's chief, ordered that it be made into a series when he saw it on television.

During the summer of 1996, the pilot episode of South Park was produced on a budget of $300,000 and took between three and three and a half months to complete, while animation was created in a tiny room at Celluloid Studios, Denver, Colorado. The original pilot was purely animated using traditional cut paper stop motion animation techniques, similar to Parker and Stone's Christmas shorts. The suggestion for South Park's town came from the actual Colorado basin of the same name, where, according to the designers, a substantial number of folklore and news stories concerning "cattle mutilations and bigfoot sightings" were derived from the real Colorado basin where, according to the designers, a large number of folklore and news reports originated from "cattle mutilations and UFO and bigfoot sightings.

South Park premiered in August 1997 and became one of cable television's most popular programs, with viewers regularly fluctuating between 3.5 and 5.5 million viewers. The show converted the then-fledgling Comedy Central into "a cable industry power almost overnight." Just 21 million subscribers at the time, at a low rate. Several months before the show's debut, Comedy Central marketed it as "why they invented the V-chip." The network's resulting commotion resulted in a net $30 million in T-shirt sales alone before the first episode was even broadcast. Comedy Central requested an additional seven episodes following the series's success in the first six episodes; the series's first season concluded in February 1998. Comedy Central decided, in part, that due to South Park's popularity, the MTV Network affiliate had its own independent sales team. Comedy Central had sold more than $100 million worth of merchandise for the show, including T-shirts and dolls, by the end of 1998. Comedy Central's viewership soared over the next two years, with South Park's debut of 3 million new subscribers in the first half of 1998 alone, allowing the network to sign international agreements with networks in many nations.

Parker and Stone became well-known as a result of the program's success; Parker said that South Park's success enabled him to pursue, for a while, a lifestyle that required partying with women and "out-of-control binges" in Las Vegas. They became well-known in films, albums, and outside script deals thanks to their philosophy of taking every offer (which had arisen as a result of their lack of confidence in the early success of South Park). BASEketball, a 1998 comedy film that became a critical and commercial flop, was one of those.

Parker and Stone, who contracted Comedy Central in April 1998 to produce South Park episodes until 1999, earned them a cut of the show's lucrative spinoff merchandising income in theaters, as well as an unspecified seven-figure cash bonus to bring the show to the big screen. During this period, the team was also writing the second and third seasons of the series, the former of which Parker and Stone later described as "disastrous." As such, they knew the situation would be over soon and decided to write a personal, fully committed musical. Parker and Stone fought for the MPAA to keep the film R-rated; the ratings board pressed on the more restrictive NC-17 for months. Following tense discussions between Parker/Stone, Rudin, and Paramount Pictures, the film was only issued an R rating two weeks before its release. During the film's development process, Parker became extremely ill and overworked, particularly between April and the movie's opening in late June. He confessed that press coverage, which declared the demise of South Park, bothered him. The film debuted in cinemas in June 1999 and gained critical acclaim while the box office's grossing $83 million.

On South Park, Parker and Stone continue to write, direct, and portray the majority of characters. Over time, the show has developed a unique production process, in which an entire episode is written, animated, and broadcast in a single week. The fact that Parker and Stone state were subjected to a one-week deadline brings more spontaneity amongst themselves in the creative process, which they admire in a funnier display. Although initial reports for the show were critical in terms of its crass humor, the show has received numerous accolades, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, one Peabody Award, and several others on various publications' lists of top television shows. South Park's viewership was lower than at the start of its existence in the early seasons, but it was still one of the most coveted shows on Comedy Central in 2011. South Park stopped releasing 14 episodes per year (seven in the spring and seven in the fall) to a single run of ten episodes in the fall, allowing the pair to concentrate on other projects the remainder of the year. The show is currently renewed through 2022, when it will reach its twentieth-sixth season.

South Park has branched out to music and video games. In the late 1990s, Comedy Central released various albums, including Chef Aid: The South Park Album and Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics. In 1998, the song "Chocolate Salty Balls" (as sung by the character Chef) was released as a single in the United Kingdom to promote the Chef Aid: The South Park Album, and it became a number one hit. Parker and Stone had nothing to do with the creation of video games based on the series that had received rave reviews and for which they were honoured for their 2014 Writing in a Comedy award, and Stone (as Various) was nominated for Performance in a Comedy by the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers. On the official South Park Studios website, broadcast syndication rights to South Park were sold in 2003, and all episodes are available for free on demand legal streaming on the official South Park Studios website. The pair formed a 50-50 joint venture with Comedy Central on all revenue not connected to television in 2007, which included digital rights to South Park, movies, soundtracks, T-shirts, and other items in a deal worth $75 million.

Parker and Stone began planning a television sitcom starring the winner of the 2000 presidential election. Al Gore was "95 percent positive" that he'd win, and tentatively named the show Everybody Loves Al (a play on the show Everybody Loves Raymond). In the context of the White House household, the primary aim was to parody sitcom tropes such as a lovable main character, the sassy maid, and the odd neighbor. Parker said that the producers did not want to celebrate politics but rather mocked sitcoms. The writers threw a party on the night of the election, with the intention of writing the following Monday and shooting the show in January 2001. The show's execution was postponed due to the confusion of who the President would be. Parker and Stone shot a show on a production lot for the first time, according to the program.

Despite the fact that That's My Bush!, which ran from April-May 2001, received a fair amount of buzz and critical notice, according to Stone and Parker, the cost per episode was still too high at "about $1 million per episode." As a cost-cutting measure, Comedy Central officially ended the series in August 2001; Stone was quoted as saying, "A super-expensive show on a tiny cable network... the economics of it were just not going to work." In reruns, comedy Central continued the show, considering it a creative and critical success. Parker expected that the show would not have survived after the September 11 attacks, but Stone admitted that it would not have "play well." The pair also signed an agreement with Shockwave.com to produce 39 animated online shorts, in which they would keep full artistic control; the end, Princess, was rejected after just two episodes.

The pair began working on Team America: World Police, a satire of big-budget action films and their associated myths and stereotypes, with a particular focus on the United States' political implications. Team America was assembled from a crew of about 200 people; to manipulate a marionette, sometimes four people at a time were needed. Although the filmmakers had recruited three dozen highly experienced marionette operators, execution of some very straightforward marionette stunts was extremely difficult, with a simple shot such as a character drinking taking half a day to complete. Both filmmakers suffered with prolonged delays in finishing the film, as did several difficulties with puppetry, with Stone, who described the film as "the worst time of [his] life," resorting to coffee to work 20-hour days and sleeping tablets to enable him to rest. The film was only finished on time for its October debut date, but reviews were encouraging and the film earned a small sum at the box office.

During Team America's production of Mormonism, Parker and Stone, as writer-composer Robert Lopez, began working on a musical centering on Mormonism. Lopez, a South Park resident and the creator of the puppet musical Avenue Q, met with the pair after a performance of the musical, where they first imagined the idea. The book of Mormon: The Story of Mormonis Christ of Latter-day Saints, by Stephen Carter, was produced over a period of several years; they traveled between New York City and Los Angeles frequently, first writing songs for the musical in 2006. The team began in 2008, and the crew embarked on the first of a half-dozen workshops that would be held during the next four years. Originally, producer Scott Rudin intended to stage The Book of Mormon off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in Summer 2010, but decided against it on Broadway, "because the guys [Parker and Stone] work best when the stakes are highest."

The Book of Mormon premiered on Broadway on March 24, 2011, after a frantic string of rewrites, casts, and previews. The Book of Mormon was praised for its plot, score, actors' appearances, direction, and choreography. The original Broadway revival's cast recording became the top-charting Broadway cast album in over four decades. Nine Tony Awards were given, one for Best Musical and another for Best Musical Theater Album, and the other for Best Musical Theater Album. Since being expanded to two national tours, a Chicago production, and a UK film, Parker and Stone have confirmed that a film adaptation is in pre-production.

Stone and Parker revealed on January 14, 2013 that they would begin a film production company called Important Studios. Stone and Parker considered starting the company for about two years before committing, inspired by Lucasfilm and DreamWorks' production work. The studio's initial financial assets have been valued at $300 million, with the bulk of the funds coming from South Park, The Book of Mormon, while the Raine Group's investment, Joseph Ravitch, has earned him a 20 percent minority stake.

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