Thomas Lee Wright

Thomas Lee Wright is an American writer, screenwriter and filmmaker who is known for his documentary films.

A Minnesota native, Wright attended Harvard University, writing and directing plays and earning a degree in English Literature with honors. He then studied Irish Theater at Trinity College Dublin, while playing point guard for its national championship basketball team.

Moving to Los Angeles, Wright became a story editor at The Walt Disney Company and Columbia Pictures. He then worked as a creative executive at Paramount Pictures, where he helped develop the films 48 Hrs., Trading Places, and Flashdance '. Wright's ventured into screenwriting with his treatment of the film The Godfather Part III. This led to writing projects for Peter Guber, Dino De Laurentiis, Mike Medavoy, and Daniel Melnick. Wright also wrote the original screenplay for the Warner Brothers film New Jack City. which the New York Times called "an urban classic" on the 25th anniversary of its premiere.

Wright is best known for his documentaries:

• Edith+Eddie; (producer) which won the IDA (International Documentary Association) Best Short award and an Oscar Awards nomination
• Eight-Tray Gangster (director) for the Discovery Channel about the 1992 Los Angeles riots from a gang member's perspective
• "Trade Off" (producer) about the 1999 Seattle WTO protests for Human Rights Watch.

Three of Wright's films deal with war veterans:

• The Long Ride Home (director)
• To Them That's Gone (executive producer)
• Last Flag Flying (executive producer) Wright developed this as a feature film for director Richard Linklater.

Wright co-wrote two books about filmmaking:

• Working in Hollywood traces the making of a motion picture through tasks performed by 64 different workers behind the scenes
• American Screenwriters' is a collection of interviews with top writers discussing the craft and business of screenwriting.