Akiva Goldsman

Akiva Goldsman
Goldsman at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles, May 2011
Born	July 7, 1962 New York City
Occupation	Director, producer, writer
Years active	1994–present
Spouse(s)	Rebecca Spikings (?–2010; her death)

Akiva J. Goldsman (born July 7, 1962) is an American film and television writer, director, and producer.

He received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind, which also won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Goldsman's filmography as a screenwriter includes Batman Forever and its sequel Batman & Robin, I Am Legend, Cinderella Man, and numerous rewrites both credited and uncredited. In 2006 Goldsman re-teamed with A Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard to adapt Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code for Howard's film version, receiving mixed reviews for his work.

Early life

Akiva Goldsman was born on July 7, 1962 in New York City, the son of Tev Goldsman, a therapist, and Mira Rothenberg, a child psychologist.^[1] His family is Jewish. Both of his parents ran a group home for emotionally disturbed children. Goldsman's parents were occupied with their work, and Goldsman said, "By the time I was 10 or 12, I realized they had taken my parents away from me. I wanted nothing more to do with that world. I wanted to be a writer. I had a fantasy that someday I'd see my name on a book." In 1983, Goldsman attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.^[2] After graduation, Goldsman studied creative writing at New York University and began writing screenplays.

Career

In 1994, he wrote the screenplay that would become the film Silent Fall.^[1] Afterward, director Joel Schumacher hired Goldsman to write The Client.^[2] In the late 1990s, Akiva Goldsman wrote screenplays for A Time to Kill and Batman & Robin, which were considered subpar quality and got him nominated for the Golden Raspberry Awards. Goldsman came to the realization, "I sort of got lost. I was writing away from what I knew. It's a little like a cat chasing its tail. Once you start making movies that are less than satisfying, you start to lose your opportunity to make the satisfying ones. People are not serving them up to you, saying, 'You're the guy we want for this.'" Goldsman appealed to producer Brian Grazer to write the screenplay for A Beautiful Mind and ultimately won an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay. The star of A Beautiful Mind, Russell Crowe, later invited Goldsman and director Ron Howard to film Cinderella Man, and Goldsman wrote the film's screenplay.^[3]

Goldsman has a production company at Warner Bros. called Weed Road Pictures. On April 6, 2010, it was announced that he will produce a PG-13 remake of the Troma cult film The Toxic Avenger.^[4] On September 8, 2010, it was announced that he would write the first season of the television series based on the novels of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. The project is currently in "development hell".^[5]

Goldsman produced the Universal Pictures feature Lone Survivor, from writer/director Peter Berg, based on the book, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, by Marcus Luttrell. It tells the story of Luttrell's Navy SEAL team in 2005 Afghanistan, on a mission to kill a terrorist leader. The movie starred Mark Wahlberg, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Taylor Kitsch, and was released in 2013.^[6]

Goldsman made his feature film directing debut with Winter's Tale, a film adaption of the Mark Helprin novel. Goldsman worked for seven years on developing the project with Warner Bros. Pictures, finally getting a green light on the script (which he wrote). The principal cast consisted of Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jennifer Connelly, Will Smith and William Hurt.^[7] The film was released on February 14, 2014. In 2015, he directed the horror thriller film Stephanie,^[8] with Frank Grillo in the leading role.^[9] Goldsman co-wrote and produced the film adaption of Dark Tower, which is set for a release on 13 January 2017.^[10]

In June 2015, Paramount Pictures announced that Goldsman would be heading a team of writers and filmmakers to create a multifilm cinematic universe branching out from Hasbro's Transformers franchise.

Fringe

In 2008, Goldsman joined the first season crew of the FOX horror/mystery series Fringe as writer, director, and consulting producer. The first episode Goldsman directed and wrote was "Bad Dreams".^[11][12] In its fifth season, Goldsman remained a consulting producer. Episodes he contributed to included:

• "Bad Dreams" (01.17)
• "The Road Not Taken" (01.19) (executive producer Jeff Pinkner and supervising producer J.R. Orci co-wrote a teleplay based on a story by Goldsman)
• "There's More Than One of Everything" (01.20) (co-executive producer J.H. Wyman and Pinkner co-wrote a teleplay based on a story by Goldsman and executive producer Bryan Burk)
• "A New Day in the Old Town" (02.01) (co-written by co-creator J.J. Abrams)
• "Peter" (02.16) (co-showrunners Jeff Pinkner, J.H. Wyman, and supervising producer Josh Singer co-wrote a teleplay based on a story by Pinkner, Goldsman, Singer, and Wyman)
• "Brown Betty" (02.20) (co-written by Wyman and Pinkner)
• "Over There (Part 1)" (02.22) (co-written with Pinkner and Wyman)
• "Over There (Part 2)" (02.23) (co-written by Pinkner and Wyman)
• "Subject 13" (03.15) (co-written with Wyman and Pinkner)
• "Stowaway" (03.17) (Danielle Dispaltro wrote a teleplay based on a story Pinkner, Goldsman, and Wyman)
• "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide" (03.19) (Wyman and Pinkner co-wrote a teleplay based on a story by Wyman, Goldsman, and Pinkner)
• "The Day We Died" (03.22) (Pinkner and Wyman co-wrote a teleplay based on a story Goldsman, Pinkner, and Wyman)
• "Neither Here Nor There" (04.01) (Wyman and Pinkner co-wrote a teleplay based on a story Wyman, Goldsman, and Pinkner)
• "Subject 9" (04.04) (co-written by Wyman and Pinkner)
• "Making Angels" (04.11) (co-written with Wyman and Pinkner)
• "Nothing as It Seems" (04.16) (co-written with Pinkner)
• "Letters of Transit" (04.19) (co-written by Wyman and Pinkner)
• "Brave New World (Part 1)" (04.21) (co-written by Wyman and Pinkner)
• "Brave New World (Part 2)" (04.22) (co-written with Wyman and Pinkner)

Personal life

Goldsman's second wife, film producer Rebecca Spikings-Goldsman, died of a heart attack on July 6, 2010, at the age of 42.^[13] Rebecca was the daughter of producer Barry Spikings.

Filmography

Year	Film	Credit	Notes
1994	The Client	writer	co-wrote with Robert Getchell
	Silent Fall	writer
1995	Batman Forever	writer	co-wrote with Lee Batchler and Janet Scott Batchler
1996	A Time to Kill	writer
1997	Batman & Robin	writer
1998	Lost in Space	writer, producer
	Practical Magic	writer	co-wrote with Robin Swicord and Adam Brooks
1999	Deep Blue Sea	producer
2001	A Beautiful Mind	writer	Won Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
2004	Starsky & Hutch	producer
	Mindhunters	producer
	I, Robot	writer	co-wrote with Jeff Vintar
2005	Constantine	producer
	Cinderella Man	writer	co-wrote with Cliff Hollingsworth
	Mr. & Mrs. Smith	producer
2006	I'm Reed Fish	executive producer
	Poseidon	producer
	The Da Vinci Code	writer
2007	Brooklyn Rules	executive producer
	I Am Legend	writer, producer	co-wrote with Mark Protosevich
2008	Hancock	producer
2009	Angels & Demons	writer	co-wrote with David Koepp
2010	The Losers	producer
	Fair Game	producer
	Jonah Hex	producer
	Paranormal Activity 2	executive producer
2011	Paranormal Activity 3	executive producer
2012	Paranormal Activity 4	executive producer
2013	Lone Survivor	producer
2014	Winter's Tale	director, writer, producer	directorial debut
2015	The Divergent Series: Insurgent	writer	co-wrote with Brian Duffield and Mark Bomback
2016	The 5th Wave	writer	co-wrote with Susannah Grant and Jeff Pinkner
	Rings	writer	co-wrote with David Loucka and Jacob Aaron Estes
	Stephanie	director
2017	The Dark Tower	writer, producer	co-wrote with Nikolaj Arcel, Anders Thomas Jensen and Jeff Pinkner
	King Arthur: Legend of the Sword	producer
TBA	Untitled Transformers spin-off	writer, producer
	Untitled I Am Legend reboot	producer

References

1. "Goldsman, Akiva". Current Biography. 65 (9): 36–40. September 2004.
2. Levine, Bettijane (March 31, 2002). "A book signing, a big moment". The Record.
3. Covert, Colin (June 5, 2005). "Cinderella scribe". Star Tribune.
4. "The Toxic Avenger Mops Up in Redo Deal". Deadline.
5. Rice, Lynette (September 8, 2010). "Universal to produce three films and TV series based on Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 9, 2010.
6. Kroll, Justin (August 13, 2012). "Eric Bana circling 'Lone Survivor': Thesp in talks to join case of Peter Berg-helmed SEAL drama". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved August 14, 2012.
7. Fleming, Mike (August 1, 2012). "William Hurt Joins Akiva Goldsman's 'Winter's Tale'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved August 8, 2012.
8. Fleming, Mike (January 27, 2015). "Frank Grillo to Star in Akiva Goldsman's Horror-Thriller 'Stephanie'". The Wrap. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
9. Fleming, Mike (January 27, 2015). "Frank Grillo to Court Stephanie". Dread Central. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
10. "Sony Sets a Date For Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower'". Bloody Disgusting. January 27, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
11. "IMDB Filmography of Akiva Goldsman".
12. "Fringe: The Definitive and Exhaustive Chat with John Noble". The Los Angeles Times. September 2009.
13. "Producer Spikings-Goldsman dies of heart attack". Variety Magazine. July 7, 2010. Archived from the original on July 15, 2010. Retrieved August 1, 2010.

Further reading

• Thane, Christopher (November 1999). "Swimming with sharks". Fade In. Fade in Publishing Group Inc. 5 (3): 17.
• Divine, Christian (January 2002). "Peace of mind". Creative Screenwriting. Inside Information Group, Ltd. 9 (1): 69, 71–74.
• Fleming, Michael (June 2006). "Good as Goldsman". Fade In. Fade in Publishing Group Inc. 9 (2): [50]–52.

External links

• Akiva Goldsman at the Internet Movie Database