J. Todd Anderson, ‘The Nice Guys’ and ‘The Big Lebowski’ Storyboard Artist, Dies at 67

J. Todd Anderson, who worked as a storyboard artist on dozens of films from The Nice Guys and The Tragedy of Macbeth to Hail, Caesar! and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, died Oct. 1. He was 67. Anderson died at a hospital in Orange County, California, after a years-long battle with cancer, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Born John Todd Anderson in Springfield, Ohio, he started working in Hollywood in the late 1980s. The first film he storyboarded, 1987’s Raising Arizona, launched a long-running collaboration with filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, aka the Coen Brothers. Since then, he storyboarded every one of their movies, including 1990’s Miller’s Crossing, 1996’s Fargo, 1998’s The Big Lebowski, 2004’s The Ladykillers, 2010’s True Grit, 2016’s Hail, Caesar! and 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. He also worked on Ethan’s Drive-Away Dolls (2024) and Honey Don’t! (2025), as well as Joel’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). Throughout his career, Anderson worked with several other auteurs and A-list stars on projects, such as George Clooney’s 2008 Leatherheads; Drew Barrymore’s 2009 Whip It; David Lowery’s 2018 The Old Man & the Gun; 2012’s The Dictator, starring and co-written by Sacha Baron Cohen; and three Shane Black pics, including 2016’s The Nice Guys, starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, 2018’s The Predator and 2025’s Play Dirty, starring Mark Wahlberg and LaKeith Stanfield. His other storyboard credits include 1989’s Twister, 1991’s The Addams Family, 1994’s Nadja, 2002’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, 2010’s The Big Bang, 2016’s Warcraft and 2023’s Fool’s Paradise. Anderson also directed two films: 1999’s The Naked Man, which he wrote with Ethan, and 2008’s My Mummy. In addition to his work behind the camera, he also made a few on-screen appearances in the films Fargo, Leatherheads, The Nice Guys and American Violence (2017), among others. Anderson is survived by his mother, Donna Lou (Beaver) Anderson; his sister, Kimberly Patterson; and his niece, Haley Christ Patterson.