Daniel Gerson, screenwriter for Big Hero 6 and the Monsters, Inc. films, died on Saturday, February 6, at age 49 in his Los Angeles home after battling brain cancer. His family announced the news in a New York Times obituary.
Gerson and Andrew Stanton wrote the script for the 2001 Pixar film Monsters, Inc., which earned over $562 million worldwide and picked up four Oscar nominations, including Best Animated Feature.
Gerson and frequent writing partner Robert L. Baird later teamed up for the film’s 2013 prequel, Monsters University. They also cowrote 2014’s Big Hero 6, which nabbed the animated feature Oscar.
The pair worked on an array of other animated films, including Chicken Little (2005), Cars (2006), Up (2009) and Inside Out (2015).
Gerson, who grew up on the Upper West Side in New York City before attending Cornell University and later NYU film school, started his career as a writer on such TV series as the NBC sitcom Something So Right and Fox Family’s The New Addams Family.
He is survived by his wife of 20 years, Beau Stacom; children Claire and Asher; parents Charles and Mary-Joan; and sister Jessica. A memorial service will take place in Los Angeles.
