Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio

Paul was named after Cinco de Mayo, a celebration held on his birthday.[1] After graduating from Yale University, Paul served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tokyo.[4] Shortly after returning from his mission he married his girlfriend whom he had met at Yale and to whom he was engaged just before leaving on his mission.[4] He then won a short film competition and received a fellowship at the USC School of Cinematic Arts,[1] where he graduated in 1993 from the Graduate Screenwriting Program.[5] The following year, he sold his first screenplay to Columbia Pictures.[4]

Daurio started making films with a Super 8 camera at age 9. After high school, he began directing music videos and directed more than 100 videos.[6]

Paul and Daurio have been collaborating since 1999.[5] They met when Paul wrote a musical for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' 150-year celebration of the pioneers' arrival in Utah, in which Daurio had one of the leads.[1]

Hitting it off, having similar senses of humor, they formed a band called the Otter Pops, playing at local outdoor malls.[5] Within a year they sold their first script, and a year later their second script, Bubble Boy, was made into a film,[6] which was a critical and commercial failure.[4] To get noticed, they used to sing story pitches to film producers. Although not always successful, this strategy resulted in several produced films, including Bubble Boy and College Road Trip (2008).[6]

They were personally chosen by Audrey Geisel, the widow of Dr. Seuss, to write a computer-animated feature film adaptation of Horton Hears a Who! for Blue Sky Studios via 20th Century Fox Animation, led by Chris Meledandri.[6] In 2007, when Meledandri founded a film production company named Illumination Entertainment, Paul and Daurio followed him.[1]

At Illumination, they wrote screenplays for the highly-successful animated film Despicable Me[1] and its sequel, Despicable Me 2. They also wrote for Illumination's other films, the live action/animated Easter-themed Hop and adapted another Dr. Seuss book into a computer-animated film, The Lorax.[7] Although Paul and Daurio are screenwriting partners, they prefer to work independently. They divide up scenes and read pages to each other, trying to make each other laugh.[6]

Paul, having an education in screenwriting, generally works on scenes that contain emotion and require the three-act structure, while Daurio, being a more visually oriented person, usually does scenes with action, sight gags and physical comedy.[5] Both being members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,[1] their beliefs have had significant impact on their careers. They prefer "to write movies that are uplifting, optimistic and for everybody," while avoiding being "preachy."[1]

The pair adapted Bubble Boy into a stage musical featuring original songs, for which an original cast recording was released on Sh-K-Boom Records in 2017 produced by Paul, Justin Goldner & Kurt Deutsch.[8] Paul is also developing an original musical, A.D. 16, with playwright Bekah Brunstetter centered on the relationship between teenage Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.[9] On January 29, 2018, Paul and Daurio were hired to a film adaptation of Birthright for Universal Pictures and Skybound Entertainment.[10]

Paul will be making his feature directorial debut with the live-action animation film Winter Wonderland and will also write original songs for the project.[11]