Mike Stern

Michael Eric Stern was born in Southfield, Michigan just outside of Detroit and graduated from West Bloomfield High School. Stern attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he earned a BA in Film and Screenwriting. Stern was the winner of the Hopwood Literary Award, Alice Webber Glover Playwriting Grant, the Trueblood Writing Fellowship, the Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Award, and the UTA College Screenwriting Award. He sold his first short film Final Cut to Lorne Michaels' Burly Bear Network. Prior to founding Astral Plane, Stern was Tom Cruise's stand-in on Jack Reacher. Stern produced, wrote the screenplay, and starred in Mid-Century, a supernatural thriller concerning a haunted mid-century modern house. The film was shot in Stern's private residence during the height of the Covid pandemic. Mid-Century won Best Picture at the 2022 IFS Los Angeles Film Festival and was released by Lionsgate.