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Tab Murphy

American screenwriter

Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Tab Murphy is an American screenwriter, film producer, and film director.

01Biography

Murphy's theatrical debut, Gorillas in the Mist, was nominated for an Academy Award for his writing. In 1995, Murphy made his directorial debut with Last of the Dogmen and wrote the feature. Afterwards, Murphy has spent nearly ten years with The Walt Disney Company writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996, Tarzan in 1999, Atlantis: The Lost Empire in 2001, and Brother Bear in 2003. During his time with Disney, he was hired by TriStar Pictures to write a treatment to a planned sequel to the 1998 film Godzilla. But due to negative reviews from critics and audiences alike, the planned sequel was cancelled. After working with Disney for a few years, he then left the company in 2006 and went to work at Warner Bros. Animation for a couple years. His work includes Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and Batman: Year One, and he wrote several episodes for the 2011 Thundercats reboot, Teen Titans Go! and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!. While at Warner Bros., Murphy wrote the direct-to-video 3D thriller film Dark Country for Sony Pictures and Stage 6 Films, based on a short story written by Murphy, and directed by Thomas Jane. He was attached to write an animated feature directed by Kirk Wise called Galaxy Gas, and a TV pilot that was sold to Legendary Pictures. Towards the end of the 2010s, Murphy became involved as a writer of two crowdsourced short films: The Haunted Swordsman and The Passengers, based on the Stephen King short story Rest Stop. In June 2020, Murphy became attached to write a reimagining of the 1980 horror film The Changeling.

02Filmography

Title Year Role
My Best Friend Is a Vampire 1987 Screenwriter, associate producer
Gorillas in the Mist 1988 Story
Last of the Dogmen 1995 Director, screenwriter
The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1996 Screenwriter, animation story
Tarzan 1999 Screenwriter
Atlantis: The Lost Empire 2001 Screenwriter, story
The Making of Atlantis: The Lost Empire 2002 Himself, special thanks
Brother Bear 2003 Screenwriter
Dark Country 2009
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse 2010
Batman: Year One 2011
Thundercats 2011-2012 Teleplay (7 episodes)
Teen Titans Go! 2013 Writer: story, teleplay (2 episodes)
Road to Slipstream 2014 Special thanks
Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! 2016, 2017 Writer: story, teleplay (2 episode)
The Haunted Swordsman 2019 Short film; writer
The Passenger 2020
Bobbleheads The Movie Story
Kangaroo Valley 2022 Documentary; screenwriter
The Changeling TBA Screenwriter

Unproduced Features

03Collaborators

  • The Walt Disney Company: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Brother Bear (writer)
  • Warner Bros.: Gorillas in The Mist, Batman: Year One, Batman/Superman: Apocalypse, Thundercats, Teen Titans Go, Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! (writer)

04Award nominations

Watch videos about Tab MurphyExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Tab Murphy, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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