Morgan Spurlock

Morgan Valentine Spurlock was born on November 7, 1970, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, but was raised in Beckley, West Virginia. His parents, Ben and Phyllis Spurlock, raised him as a Methodist. He has said he is of Scots-Irish and English descent.

Spurlock was educated at Woodrow Wilson High School, a public high school in the city of Beckley, West Virginia. He graduated with a BFA in film from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1993. He is a member of the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta.

Before making the 2004 Academy Award-nominated Super Size Me, Spurlock was a playwright, winning awards for his play The Phoenix at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000.

The film depicts an experiment he conducted in 2003, in which he ate three McDonald's meals a day every day (and nothing else) for 30 days. The film's title derives from one of the rules of Spurlock's experiment: he would not refuse the "super-size" option whenever it was offered to him but would never ask for it himself. The result, according to Spurlock, was a diet with twice the calories recommended by the USDA. Further, Spurlock attempted to curtail his physical activity to better match the exercise habits of the average American (he previously walked about 3 miles a day, whereas the average American walks 1.5 miles).

Spurlock's docudrama Super Size Me was released in the U.S. on May 7, 2004. This production was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and Spurlock won the first Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay. He conceived the idea for the film when he was at his parents' house for Thanksgiving, and while watching TV saw a news story about a lawsuit brought against McDonald's by two teenage girls who blamed the fast food chain for their obesity.

In each episode, a person (sometimes Spurlock himself) or a group of people spend 30 days immersing themselves in a mode of life markedly different from their norm (being in prison, a devout Christian living in a Muslim family, a homophobe staying with a homosexual person, etc.), while Spurlock discusses the relevant social issues involved. FX began airing the show on June 15, 2005. In the premiere episode of the first season, "Minimum Wage", Spurlock and his fiancée lived for 30 days in the Bottoms neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, earning minimum wage, with no access to outside funds.

Spurlock has two sons. The older, Laken James Spurlock, was born on December 9, 2006. His birth is depicted in Spurlock's documentary Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?, which Spurlock dedicated to Laken. The younger, Kallen Marcus Spurlock, was born on May 22, 2016.

Spurlock's second feature documentary, Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2008. In the film, and in interviews, Spurlock explores the fight against terrorism and views the argument from both sides, in which he tries to find Osama Bin Laden.

The third season of 30 Days premiered on June 3, 2008. The first episode of the third season, titled "Working in a Coal Mine", was filmed in Bolt, West Virginia, which is located roughly 18 miles from the city of Beckley, West Virginia, where Spurlock was raised before leaving for New York.

In late 2008, FX announced it would not renew the 30 Days series, making the third season the last.

Freakonomics is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, which premiered in April 2010. Spurlock was at the helm of this project alongside five directors (Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady, Alex Gibney, Seth Gordon and Eugene Jarecki).

The one-hour documentary Committed: The Toronto International Film Festival premiered on AMC on 12 October 2010.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a 2011 documentary film about product placement, marketing and advertising which was reportedly itself financed through product placement. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. It was released in the US in April 2011. It screened in the New Zealand Film Festival in August 2011 together with an appearance by Spurlock to talk about the movie.

In mid-2010, Spurlock worked with Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles, and comic book creator Stan Lee to create the documentary Comic-Con Episode Four: A Fan's Hope, to cover the stories of convention fans. Whedon, Lee, and Knowles served as executive producers. Legendary Pictures' Thomas Tull, who independently financed the documentary, told Variety, "We look forward to capturing the spirit, energy and people that Comic-Con has infused into legions of fans, bringing these audiences and projects out of the halls and onto a world stage." On April 6, 2012, Spurlock released the film to selected theaters in the United States, as well as video on demand outlets.

Although he was raised Methodist, Spurlock stated in an interview with TV Guide in 2014 that he is now agnostic.

Spurlock teamed up with Hodgee Films again on the 2015 series Consider the Source, in association with Disney's Maker Studios.

In 2017, Spurlock stepped down from his production company after admitting to having committed sexual misconduct in his past, including cheating on his past wives and girlfriends as well as settling a sexual harassment allegation.

Spurlock released a sequel film, Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!, in 2017, to be distributed by YouTube Red, but was dropped since Spurlock's admission of sexual misconduct. Samuel Goldwyn Films distributed the film, instead, in September 2019.

In December 2017, Spurlock wrote a blog post admitting to a history of sexual misconduct. After publishing his blog post, he stepped down from his position with Warrior Poets, a company he had founded in 2004.