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Butch Maier is a writer, director and producer who is developing a solid reputation for crafting unique scripts and assembling stellar ensemble casts for his Sumbadhat Productions motion pictures.
Butch grew up in Charleston, W.Va., where he handed a rose to future Daytime Emmy-winning actress Lesli Kay ("As the World Turns" and "The Bold and the Beautiful") during a "Wizard of Oz" ballet production, portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in a private school production of "A Christmas Carol," performed a "Thriller" video re-enactment with future World's Strongest Man Phil Pfister and future movie assistant Cas Schwabe ("Rudy" and "Beautiful Girls"), and attended George Washington High School with future Golden Globe-winning actress Jennifer Garner ("Alias"). To top it off, the speaker at his high school graduation was Ann Magnuson, an actress then known for "Tequila Sunrise" who went on to appear in "Panic Room."
Despite all those movie and television influences, college took Butch in a different direction. He combined his love of sports and writing to become sports editor of the Guilford College student newspaper in Greensboro, N.C., where he would write about schoolmate and Pittsburgh Pirates draft pick Tony Womack, a future World Series hero for the Arizona Diamondbacks. It was the beginning of a long newspaper career that would include stops in Pittsburgh, Akron, Cleveland, St. Petersburg, Norfolk and one of the mountaintops of journalism, The Boston Globe. While in New England, he conceptualized an enterprise package about shark-fishing and "Jaws" actors still on Martha's Vineyard, where his favorite movie was filmed. During his reporting for the story, he discovered a surprising twist: Lee Fierro, the actress who portrayed Mrs. Kintner -- the mother who put up a bounty for the killing of the shark who ate her son, Alex Kintner (actor Jeffrey Voorhees) -- was staunchly against shark-fishing. Sumbadhat Productions was named after a line from "Jaws," delivered by Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody: "That's some bad hat, Harry."
When not working for newspapers, Butch watched movies, read screenwriting books and wrote screenplays. He talked with the agents for several famous actresses about the script which would become "The Bride and the Grooms" and eventually decided to scrape together enough money to make the romantic comedy movie himself. His feature debut, starring Jacilyn Ledford as a too-nice-for-her-own-good woman who accidentally gets engaged to four men at the same time, was shot in three states over 13 days and played in theaters in 12 states. Butch was the writer, director, producer, casting director, location scout, production designer, assistant cinematographer and editor for "The Bride and the Grooms." "Five Gold Rings," his Christmastime adaptation of "The Bride and the Grooms," was optioned by one of the production companies behind "John Wick."
Butch's second feature, the family comedy "Mother of a Day," opened as the No. 1 movie with a Black lead in the U.S., per theater. "Mother of a Day," starring Lamont Ferguson as a man who forgets Mother's Day, landed a distribution deal with Maverick Entertainment.
His third feature, the horror-thriller "Kill Devil Hills," stars Sarah Kate Allsup as a single mother who inherits a mysterious gold coin.
Butch has attached several Hollywood actors and actresses to his mystery drama "Old Girl" and his crime drama "Chagrin," both of which are in development.
