Filmmaker · Writer · Educator

Micheal Flaherty

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

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About

Some stories are too good
to leave untold.

In 1999, Micheal Flaherty co-founded Walden Media with a single conviction: that great stories — faithfully told — change what people believe is possible. Over fifteen years, Walden produced more than thirty films grossing $3.5 billion worldwide, from Holes and Charlotte's Web to The Chronicles of Narnia and Amazing Grace.

Before Hollywood, he designed curriculum for children in Boston's most underserved schools. After Walden, he became Filmmaker in Residence at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford. The through-line is the same: stories as the most reliable engine for forming the people we hope the next generation will become.

30+
Films Produced
$3.5B
Worldwide Box Office
4×
Wall Street Journal Op-Eds
1
World Reading Record
Illustration by Christian J. Flaherty, 2023 Illustration by Christian J. Flaherty

What I Do

Three decades. One through-line.

Films that reached hundreds of millions of people. Campaigns that broke world records and moved parliaments. Writing that changed laws and started conversations. The work spans forms — the conviction behind it does not.

01

Filmography

Films

From Holes to The Chronicles of Narnia to I Can Only Imagine — thirty films, one company, one standard of storytelling.

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02

Campaign Strategy

Marketing

547,826 readers. 250 MPs in Ottawa. A church campaign that hit 5,000 schools. The stories behind the campaigns that made the films matter.

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03

Published Work

Writing

The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Hillsdale College, Deseret News. Stories about power, culture, education, and the films that change them.

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04

Lectures & Addresses

Speaking

BYU's Marriott Center. Hillsdale College. Oxford's TORCH programme. Harvard. Notre Dame. The rooms where the conversations that shape culture begin.

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05

Wycliffe Hall, Oxford

The New
Renaissance Project

Filmmaker in Residence at the University of Oxford — building the next generation of storytellers who understand that beauty, truth, and goodness are not in competition.

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06

Audio Journalism

Podcasting

Raven 23 as proof-of-concept. The Poisoned Chalice in development — the story of the Rushdie fatwa and its geopolitical consequences, told episode by episode.

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Campaign Story No. 1

The day 547,826 people read the same sentence.

December 13, 2006. At noon Eastern, across 2,451 locations in 50 states and 28 countries, more than half a million readers — most of them children — opened to the same page of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web and read the scene where Wilbur the pig first meets Charlotte.

The previous Guinness world record for simultaneous reading was 155,528 people reading a Wordsworth poem in the U.K. Walden Media shattered it by more than three times — two days before the film's theatrical opening.

Full campaign story →

547,826
Simultaneous Readers
  • 2,451 locations across 50 states
  • 28 countries participating
  • Previous record: 155,528 — broken by 3.5×
  • Passage chosen by Micheal Flaherty personally
  • Real-time state-by-state registration website
  • Campaign ran 2 days before theatrical opening

Campaign Story No. 2

250 Members of Parliament. One screening.

The Amazing Grace campaign for the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade was the most strategically sophisticated in Walden's history. Before the film opened in the U.S., there were pre-release screenings in Ottawa attended by more than 250 Canadian MPs and their staffers — followed the next day by a screening for 150 pastors and church leaders.

Asbury College produced a promotional DVD that was distributed to faith leaders across the United States and Europe. The World Evangelical Alliance launched a dedicated resource website. 5,000 churches organized screenings on opening weekend.

Full campaign story →

250+
MPs at Ottawa Screening
  • World Evangelical Alliance official partner
  • Asbury College produced church distribution DVD
  • Released on 200th anniversary of abolition vote
  • Amazing Change campaign for modern anti-slavery
  • H.Res.158 introduced in U.S. Congress to honor Wilberforce
  • $32M worldwide gross — more than The Last King of Scotland

As Others Have Said

"That success, coupled with an ability to consistently march to a different beat, makes Micheal Flaherty one of the most compelling figures in Hollywood."
— Deseret News, 2011
View All Press →

Get In Touch

Every great project starts with
a conversation.

For film and marketing projects, speaking inquiries, or writing commissions.

[email protected]