Warren Skaaren, 44, Screenwriter

AUSTIN, Texas - Warren Skaaren, a screenwriter who worked on such blockbusters as ``Batman'' and ``Top Gun,'' has died of bone cancer. He was 44.

Mr. Skaaren died at home Friday night. He learned how severe his condition was early this summer, shortly after completing his last screenplay, ``Beetlejuice 2,'' said W. Amon Burton, his attorney and friend.

During the 1980s, Mr. Skaaren gained a reputation as one of the country's top script doctors - a screenwriter who could take over a troubled script and rewrite it.

The four films he was best known for rewriting - ``Batman,'' ``Top Gun,'' ``Beverly Hills Cop 2'' and ``Beetlejuice'' - together grossed more than $1 billion.

``He understood what the audience needed to have in a story,'' said Mike Simpson, Mr. Skaaren's agent and senior vice president of the William Morris Agency's motion picture department.

``He could see the big picture. He had an almost scientific ability to analyze characters and what their motivation was, and what the audience wanted and what it expected from those characters,'' Simpson said.

A native of Rochester, Minn., Mr. Skaaren graduated from Rice University in Houston with an art degree in 1969.

Although he rose quickly through the ranks of Hollywood screenwriters, he chose to live in Austin rather than Southern California. He founded the Texas Film Commission and became its first director in 1971 while working for then-Gov. Preston Smith.

In the mid-1970s, Mr. Skaaren helped form FPS Inc., a television and film productions services company in Dallas. The company has handled location shooting for the television series ``Dallas,'' and worked on the film ``Tender Mercies,'' which was shot in Waxahachie.

Mr. Skaaren is survived by his wife, Helen, and his parents, Morris and Pearl Skaaren of Rochester, Minn.