Morgan Valentine Spurlock (November 7, 1970 – May 23, 2024) was an American documentary filmmaker, writer and television producer. He directed 23 films and was the producer of nearly 70 films throughout his career. Spurlock received acclaim for directing the documentary Super Size Me (2004), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. He produced What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) and directed Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (2008), POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011), Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (2011), and One Direction: This Is Us (2013).
Spurlock was executive producer and star of the reality television series 30 Days (2005–2008). In June 2013, he became the producer and host of the CNN show Morgan Spurlock Inside Man (2013–2016). Spurlock was also the co-founder of the short-film content marketing company Cinelan, which produced the Focus Forward campaign for GE.
The documentary Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! was set to be released in 2017, until Spurlock wrote a social media post saying that he had a history of sexual misconduct and referring to himself as "part of the problem", leading to a distribution drop and his resignation from the production company. The film was instead distributed in 2019 by Samuel Goldwyn Films. In 2024, Spurlock died at age 53 due to complications related to cancer.
Morgan Valentine Spurlock was born to Benjamin and Phyllis Spurlock on November 7, 1970, in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Benjamin owned an auto repair shop, and Phyllis was an English teacher and guidance counselor.
Spurlock and his two older brothers, Craig and Barry, were all raised in Beckley, West Virginia. Ben and Phyllis raised their sons as Methodist, and all three boys attended ballet dance lessons.
Spurlock graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley, then attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1993 with a BFA in film. He was a member of the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta.
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. In 2004, Spurlock co-founded the production studio Warrior Poets which would be the production studio for the films he directed and produced for the rest of his career.
The list of documentary films that inspired Spurlock includes Brother's Keeper, Hoop Dreams, The Thin Blue Line, Roger and Me, Harlan County, USA, and The Last Waltz. He considered Brother's Keeper the greatest documentary of all time.
Spurlock's documentary Super Size Me was released in the United States on May 7, 2004. He conceived the idea for the film when he was at his parents' house for Thanksgiving, and while watching television saw a news story about a lawsuit brought against McDonald's by two teenage girls who blamed the fast food chain for their obesity. The film was produced for $65,000 and made $22 million in return.
The film depicts an experiment Spurlock conducted in 2003, in which he claimed he ate three McDonald's meals every day, and nothing else, for 30 days, although he later disclosed he also drank copious amounts of alcohol. 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. Spurlock attempted to curtail his physical activity to better match the exercise habits of the average American. He previously walked about 3 miles (4.8 km) a day, whereas the average American walks 1.5 miles (2.4 km).
Over the course of filming, Spurlock gained 25 pounds (11 kg), became quite puffy, and suffered liver dysfunction and depression by the end. His supervising physicians noted the effects caused by his high-calorie diet—once even comparing it to a case of severe binge alcoholism. Following Spurlock's December 2017 assertion that he had not been "sober for more than a week" in three decades, the claims of his liver dysfunction being caused by eating McDonald's food solely for 30 days have been called into question. Spurlock also did not publicly release a diet log documenting his diet while filming the documentary.
After completing the project, it took Spurlock 14 months to return to his normal weight of 185 pounds (84 kg). His then-girlfriend, and later wife, Alexandra Jamieson, took charge of his recovery with her "detox diet", which became the basis for her book, The Great American Detox Diet. Super Size Me 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. In 2005, Spurlock wrote a book as a follow-up to Super Size Me titled Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America.
This series ran on FX between 2005 and 2008. In each episode, a person, sometimes Spurlock himself, or a group of people spent a month immersing themselves in a mode of life markedly different from their norm. For example, a devout Christian living in a Muslim family, or a homophobe staying with a homosexual person. The intent was to give the subject a new perspective, while Spurlock discussed the relevant social issues involved. In the second-season finale, Spurlock spent 25 days locked in jail in Henrico County, Virginia, a county outside of Richmond, to experience life as an inmate.
The third season of 30 Days premiered in June 2008. The first episode of the third season, titled "Working in a Coal Mine", was filmed in Bolt, West Virginia. Bolt is located roughly 18 miles (29 km) from Beckley, West Virginia, where Spurlock was raised.
In 2008, Spurlock signed a deal to develop similar programming with Fox Television Studios.
Spurlock also created I Bet You Will for MTV. I Bet You Will began as a popular Internet webcast of five-minute episodes featuring ordinary people doing stunts in exchange for money. Examples of the scenarios which transpired include eating a full jar of mayonnaise (US$235), eating a "worm burrito" (US$265), and taking shots of corn oil, Pepto-Bismol, lemon juice, hot sauce, cold chicken broth, and cod liver oil (US$450.00 for all nine shots). MTV later bought the show and aired it, which Spurlock hosted.
In January 2008, Spurlock's second feature documentary, Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In the film and during interviews, Spurlock explored the fight against terrorism and views the argument from both sides, in which he tries to find Osama bin Laden.
Spurlock directed The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!.