Matt Stone

Matt Stone is a Movie Actor, and he was born on 26 May - 1971(52 years old) in Texas. Matt Stone zodiac sign is Gemini. More detailed information about Matt Stone given below.

Matt Stone Timeline

• 1971
  

  Matthew Richard Stone was born on May 26, 1971 in Houston, Texas, to economics professor Gerald Whitney Stone and Sheila Lois (Belasco). He is of Irish-American heritage from his fatheru0027s side and Jewish heritage from his motheru0027s side. The South Park characters Gerald and Sheila Broflovski were named after them. Stone and his younger sister Rachel were raised in Littleton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, Colorado, where the both of them attended Heritage High School. He attended the University of Colorado Boulder. His father was worried he would "become a musician and a bum", so he insisted that his son major in something "practical." They compromised on Matt majoring in both mathematics and film. Stone graduated with a double-major Bachelor of Arts degree in 1993.

• 1992
  

  In 1992, Stone, Parker, McHugh, and Ian Hardin founded a production company named the Avenging Conscience. The company was named after the D.W. Griffith film by the same name (which was actively disliked by the group.) Parker employed the cutout paper technique on Avenging Conscienceu0027s first production, Jesus vs. Frosty (1992), an animated short pitting the religious figure against Frosty the Snowman.

• 1993
  

  Alferd Packer: The Musical premiered in Boulder in October 1993; "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 theateru0027s entrance." The group submitted the movie to the Sundance Film Festival, who did not respond. Parker told McHugh he had a "vision" they needed to be at the festival, which resulted in the group renting out a conference room in a nearby hotel and putting on their own screenings. MTV did a short news segment on The Big Picture regarding the film, and they made industry connections through the festival. They intended to sell video rights to the film for $1 million and spend the remaining $900,000 to create another film. The film was instead sold to Troma Entertainment in 1996 where it was retitled Cannibal! The Musical, and upon the duou0027s later success, it became their biggest-selling title. It has since been labeled a "cult classic" and adapted into a stage play by community theater groups and even high schools nationwide.

• 1997
  

  South Park premiered in August 1997 and immediately became one of the most popular shows on cable television, averaging consistently between 3.5 and 5.5 million viewers. The show transformed the then-fledgling Comedy Central into "a cable industry power almost overnight". At the time, the cable network had a low distribution of just 21 million subscribers. Comedy Central marketed the show aggressively before its launch, billing it as "why they created the V-chip." The resulting buzz led to the network earning an estimated $30 million in T-shirts sales alone before the first episode was even aired. Due to the success of the seriesu0027 first six episodes, Comedy Central requested an additional seven; the series completed its first season in February 1998. An affiliate of the MTV Network until then, Comedy Central decided, in part due to the success of South Park, to have its own independent sales department. By the end of 1998, Comedy Central had sold more than $150 million worth of merchandise for the show, including T-shirts and dolls. Over the next few years, Comedy Centralu0027s viewership spiked largely due to South Park, adding 3 million new subscribers in the first half of 1998 alone and allowed the network to sign international deals with networks in several countries.

• 1998
  

  Parker and Stone signed a deal with Comedy Central in April 1998 that contracted the duo to producing South Park episodes until 1999, gave them a slice of the lucrative spinoff merchandising the show generated within its first year, as well as an unspecified seven-figure cash bonus to bring the show to the big screen, in theaters. During the time, the team was also busy writing the second and third seasons of the series, the former of which Parker and Stone later described as "disastrous". As such, they figured the phenomenon would be over soon, and they decided to write a personal, fully committed musical. Parker and Stone fought with the MPAA to keep the film R-rated; for months the ratings board insisted on the more prohibitive NC-17. The film was only certified an R rating two weeks prior to its release, following contentious conversations between Parker/Stone, Rudin, and Paramount Pictures. Parker felt very overwhelmed and overworked during the production process of the film, especially between April and the movieu0027s opening in late June. He admitted that press coverage, which proclaimed the end of South Park was near, bothered him. The film opened in cinemas in June 1999 and received critical acclaim while grossing $83 million at the box office.South Park has expanded to music and video games. Comedy Central released various albums, including Chef Aid: The South Park Album and Mr. Hankeyu0027s Christmas Classics, in the late 1990s. The song "Chocolate Salty Balls" (as sung by the character Chef) was released as a single in the UK in 1998 to support the Chef Aid: The South Park Album and became a number one hit. Parker and Stone had little to do with the development of video games based on the series that were released at this time, but took full creative control of South Park: The Stick of Truth, a 2014 video game based on the series that received positive reviews and for which they won the 2014 Writing in a Comedy award and Stone (as Various) was nominated for Performance in a Comedy, Supporting by National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR). Broadcast syndication rights to South Park were sold in 2003, and all episodes are available for free full-length on-demand legal streaming on the official South Park Studios website. In 2007, the duo, with the help of their lawyer, Kevin Morris, cut a 50-50 joint venture with Comedy Central on all revenue not related to television; this includes digital rights to South Park, as well as movies, soundtracks, T-shirts and other merchandise, in a deal worth $75 million.

• 2000
  

  In 2000, Parker and Stone began plotting a television sitcom starring the winner of the 2000 Presidential election. The duo were "95 percent sure" that Democratic candidate Al Gore would win, and tentatively titled the show Everybody Loves Al (a pun on the show Everybody Loves Raymond). The main goal was to parody sitcom tropes, such as a lovable main character, the sassy maid, and the wacky neighbor, in the context of the White House household. Parker said the producers did not want to make fun of politics, but instead lampoon sitcoms. They threw a party the night of the election with the writers, with intentions to begin writing the following Monday and shooting the show in January 2001 with the inauguration. With the confusion of who the President would be, the showu0027s production was pushed back. The show was filmed at Sony Pictures Studios, and was the first time Parker and Stone shot a show on a production lot.

• 2001
  

  Although Thatu0027s My Bush!, which ran between Aprilu2013May 2001, received a fair amount of publicity and critical notice, according to Stone and Parker, the cost per episode was too high at "about $1 million an episode". Comedy Central officially cancelled the series in August 2001 as a cost-cutting move; Stone was quoted as saying "A super-expensive show on a small cable network ... the economics of it were just not going to work." Comedy Central continued the show in reruns, considering it a creative and critical success. Parker believed the show would not have survived after the September 11 attacks anyway, and Stone agreed, saying the show would not "play well". During this time, the duo also signed a deal with Macromedia Shockwave to produce 39 animated online shorts in which they would retain full artistic control; the result, Princess, was rejected after only two episodes.In 2001, Stone met Angela Howard, a Comedy Central executive. They began a relationship, married in 2008, and have two children. The family live in Venice, Los Angeles.Politically, Stone describes himself as libertarian. In 2001, Stone summed up his views with the comment, "I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals."

• 2002
  

  In 2002, the duo began working on Team America: World Police, a satire of big-budget action films and their associated clichu00e9s and stereotypes, with particular humorous emphasis on the global implications of the politics of the United States. Team America was produced using a crew of about 200 people; sometimes required four people at a time were needed to manipulate a marionette. Although the filmmakers hired three dozen highly skilled marionette operators, execution of some very simple acts by the marionettes proved to be very difficult, with a simple shot such as a character drinking taking a half-day to complete successfully. The deadline for the filmu0027s completion took a toll on both filmmakers, as did various difficulties in working with puppets, with Stone, who described the film as "the worst time of [his] life", resorting to coffee to work 20-hour days and sleeping pills to enable him to rest. The film was barely completed in time for its October release date, but reviews were positive and the film made a modest sum at the box office.

• 2006
  

  Parker and Stone, alongside writer-composer Robert Lopez, began working on a musical centering on Mormonism during the production of Team America. Lopez, a fan of South Park and creator of the puppet musical Avenue Q, met with the duo after a performance of the musical, where they conceived the idea. The musical, titled The Book of Mormon: The Musical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was worked on over a period of various years; working around their South Park schedule, they flew between New York City and Los Angeles often, first writing songs for the musical in 2006. Developmental workshops began in 2008, and the crew embarked on the first of a half-dozen workshops that would take place during the next four years. Originally, producer Scott Rudin planned to stage The Book of Mormon off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop in Summer 2010, but opted to premiere it directly on Broadway, "[s]ince the guys [Parker and Stone] work best when the stakes are highest."

• 2011
  

  After a frantic series of rewrites, rehearsals, and previews, The Book of Mormon premiered on Broadway at the Eugene Ou0027Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011. The Book of Mormon received broad critical praise for the plot, score, actorsu0027 performances, direction and choreography. A cast recording of the original Broadway production became the highest-charting Broadway cast album in over four decades. The musical received nine Tony Awards, one for Best Musical, and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. The production has since expanded to two national tours, a Chicago production, and a UK production, and Parker and Stone have confirmed a film adaption is in pre-production.

• 2012
  

  Parker and Stone continue to write, direct, and voice most characters on South Park. Over time, the show has adopted a unique production process, in which an entire episode is written, animated and broadcast in one week. Parker and Stone state that subjecting themselves to a one-week deadline creates more spontaneity amongst themselves in the creative process, which they feel results in a funnier show. Although initial reviews for the show were negative in reference to its crass humor, the series has received numerous accolades, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, one Peabody Award, and numerous inclusions in various publicationsu0027 lists of greatest television shows. Though its viewership is lower than it was at the height of its popularity in its earliest seasons, South Park remains one of the highest-rated series on Comedy Central. In 2012, South Park cut back from producing 14 episodes per year (seven in the spring and seven in the fall) to a single run of 10 episodes in the fall, to allow the duo to explore other projects the rest of the year. The show is currently renewed through 2022, when it will reach its twenty-sixth season.

• 2013
  

  On January 14, 2013, Stone and Parker announced that they would be starting a film production company called Important Studios. Inspired by the production work of Lucasfilm and DreamWorks, Stone and Parker considered founding the studio for approximately two years before committing. The initial financial assets of the studio are valued at $300 million, with the majority of the money originating from South Park, The Book of Mormon, while $60 million is from an investment from Joseph Ravitch of the Raine Group, giving him a 20 percent minority stock.