Michael Wranovics Wranovics

At age 5, Michael Wranovics saw a movie in a theater for the first time, Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon. That resulted in a childhood crush on Tatum O'Neal, but it also made Michael realize that he was in love with the movies. He began to dream of one day seeing his own film on the big screen. Twenty years later, he graduated with an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and promptly joined the rat race. For eight years, he faithfully logged 70-hour weeks at one tech company after...See more

At age 5, Michael Wranovics saw a movie in a theater for the first time, Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon. That resulted in a childhood crush on Tatum O'Neal, but it also made Michael realize that he was in love with the movies. He began to dream of one day seeing his own film on the big screen. Twenty years later, he graduated with an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and promptly joined the rat race. For eight years, he faithfully logged 70-hour weeks at one tech company after another until he woke up one morning and decided that he had to make a movie. He was in the middle of writing his first screenplay, a psychological thriller, when a small headline in the paper caught his eye: "Man Loses Fortune at Bottom of Pile." The story was about two baseball fans fighting over a million-dollar baseball hit by Barry Bonds. Realizing that truth really is stranger than fiction, Wranovics abandoned his script and got to work. He began cold-calling anyone who was somehow linked to the precious ball, found a camera operator on Craigslist, and figured out how to use Final Cut Pro editing software. Gradually, he was able to raise the necessary funds through private investors and get the movie made. Up for Grabs was picked up by Laemmle/Zeller Films and received a limited release in theaters around the country. (With enormous contributions from Dave Ciaccio, Josh Keppel, Michael Lindenberger, and Zack Richard). Wranovics's company, Fly on the Wall Productions, is currently busy with several projects, including a TV docu-series on social predators ("Born Bad"), a feature-length doc on a benevolent con man ("Fred Said"), and a book on documentary filmmaking in the digital age. See less