Michael Tollin
Birth : 1955-10-06, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
History
Michael "Mike" Tollin (born June 10, 1955) is an American film director and film/television producer. His career highlights included Radio, Coach Carter, and Varsity Blues. He frequently collaborates with Brian Robbins in which they own a production company together called Tollin/Robbins Productions. They created and produced such shows like All That, The Amanda Show, Kenan & Kel, One Tree Hill, Smallville, What I Like About You, The Bronx is Burning and a few others. Tollin was the producer of the weekly highlights show for the United States Football League, the springtime football league which played from 1983 through 1985. In 2009, he served as executive producer for the hour-long documentary Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? for ESPN's 30 for 30 series. He was also part of a number of the series films, as one of the production members. Tollin is originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Director
Bill Bradley has experienced many lives and has worn many hats throughout his lifetime. After becoming an accomplished college and professional basketball player, he made a major move into Democratic politics and advocacy. This might sound like an unexpected career change, but to Bradley it was the next logical step. The same can be said for how he worked on an oral history of his life and career for three years, excruciatingly committing it to memory, before premiering it in New York City in December 2021. Rolling Along is the live theatrical recording of this monumental performance. Interspersing archival footage with Bradley’s performance, the film honors a uniquely American life, paying tribute to the act of storytelling in a way that hasn’t been done in a very long time. In our times of division and uncertainty, perhaps we can all learn something from Bradley’s stories about perseverance, acceptance, and unity.
Executive Producer
Raw and unflinching examination of the courageous life of basketball star and social justice activist Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Born Chris Jackson, he overcame tremendous adversity to reach the NBA and found his true calling when he converted to Islam. His decision not to stand for the national anthem, however, turned him from prodigy to pariah. Told candidly by Abdul-Rauf himself more than 20 years later it’s the remarkable story of one man who kept the faith and paved the way for a social justice movement.
Executive Producer
Using unprecedented Olympic footage and behind-the-scenes material, The Redeem Team tells the story of the US Olympic Men's Basketball Team’s quest for gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing following the previous team’s shocking performance four years earlier in Athens.
Thanks
ARCTIC SUMMER is a poetic meditation on Tuktoyaktuk, an Indigenous community in the Arctic. The film captures Tuk during one of the last summers before climate change forced Tuk's coastal population to relocate to more habitable land.
Producer
For 30 years, Lynn Davis has photographed the magnificent icebergs of Greenland. Davis returned recently with climate change expert Tony Leiserowitz, where they take in the meltdown, and explore the implications for the planet.
Executive Producer
Crazy sums up the final night of the baseball season, when the Tampa Bay Rays and St. Louis Cardinals overcame improbably long odds and huge September deficits to waltz into the post-season as wild cards. As part of the Walk-Off Stories series, this film takes a deep look at September 28, 2011 – the dramatic final day of the 2011 Major League Baseball season with playoff berths on the line.
Director
An entertaining and fresh retrospective of Gibson's historic walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
Director
In 1992, a young filmmaker named Mike Tollin chronicled one season in the lives of the Morningside High basketball team in Inglewood, California. They were the defending state champions, and all five starters were returning for their senior year. They seemed a shoo-in to win a second straight state title, and the five guys all thought they were on a path to become “the next Jordan.” However, the season didn’t go quite as planned. But the film, produced with Brian Robbins, was an award-winner and a hit on the film festival circuit. Tollin would go on to direct and produce feature films (Varsity Blues, Radio, Coach Carter) and popular TV series such as Smallville, One Tree Hill and Arli$$. He never forgot, though, the magic of the Morningside 5 In fact, he returned a decade later to see how they were doing and made a follow-up film on their various exploits.
Producer
A drama inspired by the life of heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner.
Executive Producer
The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.
Producer
Since 1912, baseball has been a game obsessed with statistics and speed. Thrown at upwards of 100 miles per hour, a fastball moves too quickly for human cognition and accelerates into the realm of intuition. Fastball is a look at how the game at its highest levels of achievement transcends logic and even skill, becoming the primal struggle for man to control the uncontrollable.
Executive Producer
A behind-the-scenes documentary pieced together from over 100 hours of footage showing not just the preparation that went into Katy Perry's Super Bowl performance but the nerve it took to pull off such a massive, career-defining performance.
Director
The late Leonard Tose was a genius and a fool, a saint and a sinner, but most of all the former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles was the man who took his team from the depths of the NFL all the way to the Super Bowl.
Himself
In 1983 the upstart United States Football League (USFL) had the audacity to challenge the almighty NFL. The new league did the unthinkable by playing in the spring and plucked three straight Heisman Trophy winners away from the NFL. The 12-team USFL played before crowds that averaged 25,000, and started off with respectable TV ratings. But with success came expansion and new owners, including a certain high profile and impatient real estate baron whose vision was at odds with the league’s founders. Soon, the USFL was reduced to waging a desperate anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL, which yielded an ironic verdict that effectively forced the league out of business. Now, almost a quarter of a century later, Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning director Mike Tollin, himself once a chronicler of the league, will showcase the remarkable influence of those three years on football history and attempt to answer the question, “Who Killed the USFL?”
Writer
In 1983 the upstart United States Football League (USFL) had the audacity to challenge the almighty NFL. The new league did the unthinkable by playing in the spring and plucked three straight Heisman Trophy winners away from the NFL. The 12-team USFL played before crowds that averaged 25,000, and started off with respectable TV ratings. But with success came expansion and new owners, including a certain high profile and impatient real estate baron whose vision was at odds with the league’s founders. Soon, the USFL was reduced to waging a desperate anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL, which yielded an ironic verdict that effectively forced the league out of business. Now, almost a quarter of a century later, Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning director Mike Tollin, himself once a chronicler of the league, will showcase the remarkable influence of those three years on football history and attempt to answer the question, “Who Killed the USFL?”
Director
In 1983 the upstart United States Football League (USFL) had the audacity to challenge the almighty NFL. The new league did the unthinkable by playing in the spring and plucked three straight Heisman Trophy winners away from the NFL. The 12-team USFL played before crowds that averaged 25,000, and started off with respectable TV ratings. But with success came expansion and new owners, including a certain high profile and impatient real estate baron whose vision was at odds with the league’s founders. Soon, the USFL was reduced to waging a desperate anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL, which yielded an ironic verdict that effectively forced the league out of business. Now, almost a quarter of a century later, Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning director Mike Tollin, himself once a chronicler of the league, will showcase the remarkable influence of those three years on football history and attempt to answer the question, “Who Killed the USFL?”
Director
Unstrung exposes the dramas of the juniors tennis world, hitting the road with a handful of teenage competitors as they head for the national championship.
Producer
Restless and ready for an adventure, four suburban bikers leave the safety of their subdivision and head out on the open road. But complications ensue when they cross paths with an intimidating band of New Mexico bikers known as the Del Fuegos.
Producer
Based on a true story, in which Richmond High School head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.
Producer
Six high school seniors decide to break into the Princeton Testing Center so they can steal the answers to their upcoming SAT tests and all get perfect scores.
Director
High school football coach, Harold Jones befriends Radio, a mentally-challenged man who becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, South Carolina. Their friendship extends over several decades, where Radio transforms from a shy, tormented man into an inspiration to his community.
Producer
After one of his class papers is stolen and turned into a movie, a young student and his best friend exact a hilarious, slapstick revenge on the Hollywood hot shot who has taken credit!
Producer
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Director
Local boy Ryan Dunne, now a pitcher for Boston College, meets Tenley Parrish, the daughter of a wealthy couple who summer on the Cape. Ryan and Tenley fall in love, much to the chagrin of their families, while Ryan clings to one last hope of being discovered and signed to a pro baseball contract.
Executive Producer
Two slacker wrestling fans are devastated by the ousting of their favorite character by an unscrupulous promoter.
Producer
In small-town Texas, high school football is a religion, 17-year-old schoolboys carry the hopes of an entire community onto the gridiron every Friday night. When star quarterback Lance Harbor suffers an injury, the Coyotes are forced to regroup under the questionable leadership of John Moxon, a second-string quarterback with a slightly irreverent approach to the game.
Producer
Two hapless youths lead their burger joint in a fight against the giant fast-food chain across the street.
Director
1995 American documentary film follows baseball slugger Hank Aaron's pursuit of Babe Ruth's all time record for homeruns.
Director
a 1990 California high school basketball team who aspire to repeat their state championship while dealing with their many issues.
Director
A documentary on the career of Tampa Bay Bandits' football team owner, John Bassett.
Producer
The improbable tale of how Rorian Gracie, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist, and Art Davie, once a used car salesman, teamed with Bob Meyrowitz’s pay-per-view company SEG to mount UFC 1 – the first fight in UFC history – in Denver and launch a sports phenomenon.
