Born and raised in Manhattan, a graduate of Brown University, Michael comes from a long line of filmmakers. His grandfather, Oscar-winning screenwriter Sidney Buchman, ran Columbia Pictures under Harry Cohn throughout the 1930s and 1940s and wrote and produced such films as Mr. Smith au sénat (1939), Le défunt récalcitrant (1941), La justice des hommes (1942), Cette sacrée vérité (1937) Sahara (1943), La chanson du souvenir (1945), Vacances (1938), Les horizons perdus (1937), Le roman d'Al Jolson (1946), Cléopâtre (1934), Théodora devient folle (1936) and more than 20 others. He was blacklisted in 1951 but continued to write from Cannes until his death in 1975.
Michael's sister, Amanda Silver, wrote La main sur le berceau (1992) and she and her husband, Rick Jaffa, wrote and produced Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, among others. They are currently writing Avatar 2, due 2016.
