Jeff Vintar
Encyclopedia
Jeff Vintar is an American
screenwriter
. He is best known for his original screenplay, Hardwired, which became the basis for I, Robot
. He attended the University of Iowa
's Writers' Workshop where he completed his thesis of short stories, including The Big Oops, Opportunity Community Goes to the Zoo, and The Johnny Jumps. He published a series of bizarre cartoons in several issues of Random House
's The Quarterly before leaving to pursue a career in Hollywood.
Carving out a living during those early years as a factory worker, cabinet-maker, English teacher, and transit bus driver, Vintar broke into the business when he sold three original screenplays in the span of five months. The first, "The Long Hello and Short Goodbye," was made into a German-language film by Warner Bros. in 1999, starring Nicolette Krebitz
and Katja Riemann
. The cutting-edge structure of the story created concern for the producers, who re-edited the neo-noir into a more simple linear film, a move which polarized critics and audiences alike. An English-language version of Vintar's original Long Hello script struggled to reach the screen for many years under "Moebius" director Gustavo Mosquera and "Face/Off" director-producer John Woo
. It is currently in development at Circle of Confusion.
The second screenplay, Spaceless, has remained in active development for a decade, first at specialty division Fox 2000, then Fox Animation, and finally at the main live-action division of Twentieth Century Fox. The script is a long-time favorite of Gore Verbinski
, who directed The Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean. Vintar reacquired the rights to Spaceless through the little-known WGA contract "reacquisition" clause in the spring of 2009, and the project has moved to Universal with Verbinski producing through his Blind Wink Productions. "Jane Eyre
" director Cary Fukunaga is set to direct as his next film.
The third spec sale, Hardwired, survived development hell at Walt Disney Pictures under director Bryan Singer
, only to be picked up by Twentieth Century Fox for Alex Proyas
. The resulting film, eventually re-named by the studio I, Robot after the Isaac Asimov
short story collection, made $350 million worldwide and boosted the career of star Will Smith
after a series of disappointing releases, proving that he could carry a big-budget film on his own, without a big-name co-star. The original "Hardwired" screenplay was a cerebral murder mystery that read like a stage play, and representatives of the Asimov estate considered the script "more Asimov than Asimov." Vintar spent several years transforming the script into a big-budget studio film, also moving the story into the "I, Robot" universe. When Will Smith signed on to star, studio-mandated changes made the film more of a traditional summer blockbuster, a move that angered Asimov purists, although many critics and noted sci-fi authors such as Orson Scott Card
considered the final product to have brains as well as brawn.
Vintar has carved out a niche for himself writing edgy adaptations of sci-fi literary classics, including Frederik Pohl
's Gateway, Asimov's Foundation, Cordwainer Smith
's Scanners Live in Vain, and Greg Bear
's Blood Music, all of which remain in active development. Other Vintar screenplays include early drafts of the comic book properties Iron Man
(co-written with Stan Lee
) back in August 1997 and Y - the Last Man, as well as the three-week rewrite of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within that landed the film its high-profile voice cast, including Alec Baldwin
, James Woods
, and Steve Buscemi
.
His latest project is an Agatha Christie
-style murder mystery set on board the International Space Station, based on the Boom! Studios comic book Station, for producer Laurence Mark
and CBS Films
. Ericson Core will direct. Vintar regularly blogs on several internet sites in which he supports young writers, instructing them to "Keep the faith and keep on writing!"
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
. He is best known for his original screenplay, Hardwired, which became the basis for I, Robot
I, Robot (film)
I, Robot is a 2004 science-fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay was written by Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman and Hillary Seitz, and is very loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short-story collection of the same name. Will Smith stars in the lead role of the film as Detective Del...
. He attended the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
's Writers' Workshop where he completed his thesis of short stories, including The Big Oops, Opportunity Community Goes to the Zoo, and The Johnny Jumps. He published a series of bizarre cartoons in several issues of Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
's The Quarterly before leaving to pursue a career in Hollywood.
Carving out a living during those early years as a factory worker, cabinet-maker, English teacher, and transit bus driver, Vintar broke into the business when he sold three original screenplays in the span of five months. The first, "The Long Hello and Short Goodbye," was made into a German-language film by Warner Bros. in 1999, starring Nicolette Krebitz
Nicolette Krebitz
Nicolette Krebitz is a director, actress, model and singer. She is often credited as "Coco" in her creative works.-Life and work:Nicolette Krebitz made her film debut at age eleven...
and Katja Riemann
Katja Riemann
Katja Hannchen Leni Riemann is a German actress.- Life and work :Born as the daughter of two teachers, Katja Riemann spent her childhood in Weyhe, near Bremen. After high school she went to Hamburg to study music and theater...
. The cutting-edge structure of the story created concern for the producers, who re-edited the neo-noir into a more simple linear film, a move which polarized critics and audiences alike. An English-language version of Vintar's original Long Hello script struggled to reach the screen for many years under "Moebius" director Gustavo Mosquera and "Face/Off" director-producer John Woo
John Woo
John Woo Yu-Sen SBS is a Hong Kong-based film director and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion, Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard...
. It is currently in development at Circle of Confusion.
The second screenplay, Spaceless, has remained in active development for a decade, first at specialty division Fox 2000, then Fox Animation, and finally at the main live-action division of Twentieth Century Fox. The script is a long-time favorite of Gore Verbinski
Gore Verbinski
Gregor "Gore" Verbinski is an American film director, writer and musician. He is best known for directing the films The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Rango.-Early life:...
, who directed The Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean. Vintar reacquired the rights to Spaceless through the little-known WGA contract "reacquisition" clause in the spring of 2009, and the project has moved to Universal with Verbinski producing through his Blind Wink Productions. "Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre (2011 film)
Jane Eyre is a 2011 British romantic drama film directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. The screenplay is written by Moira Buffini based on the 1847 novel of the same name by Charlotte Brontë...
" director Cary Fukunaga is set to direct as his next film.
The third spec sale, Hardwired, survived development hell at Walt Disney Pictures under director Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...
, only to be picked up by Twentieth Century Fox for Alex Proyas
Alex Proyas
Alexander "Alex" Proyas is a Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for directing such films as The Crow, Dark City, I, Robot and Knowing. He is known for employing a stylish photographic techniques in his films, with dark overtones usually in a post-apocalyptic...
. The resulting film, eventually re-named by the studio I, Robot after the Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
short story collection, made $350 million worldwide and boosted the career of star Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
after a series of disappointing releases, proving that he could carry a big-budget film on his own, without a big-name co-star. The original "Hardwired" screenplay was a cerebral murder mystery that read like a stage play, and representatives of the Asimov estate considered the script "more Asimov than Asimov." Vintar spent several years transforming the script into a big-budget studio film, also moving the story into the "I, Robot" universe. When Will Smith signed on to star, studio-mandated changes made the film more of a traditional summer blockbuster, a move that angered Asimov purists, although many critics and noted sci-fi authors such as Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
considered the final product to have brains as well as brawn.
Vintar has carved out a niche for himself writing edgy adaptations of sci-fi literary classics, including Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
's Gateway, Asimov's Foundation, Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith – pronounced CORDwainer – was the pseudonym used by American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger for his science fiction works. Linebarger was a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare...
's Scanners Live in Vain, and Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
's Blood Music, all of which remain in active development. Other Vintar screenplays include early drafts of the comic book properties Iron Man
Iron Man (film)
Iron Man is a 2008 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, an industrialist and master engineer who builds a powered exoskeleton and becomes the technologically advanced superhero, Iron...
(co-written with Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
) back in August 1997 and Y - the Last Man, as well as the three-week rewrite of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within that landed the film its high-profile voice cast, including Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
, James Woods
James Woods
James Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
, and Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi
Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
.
His latest project is an Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
-style murder mystery set on board the International Space Station, based on the Boom! Studios comic book Station, for producer Laurence Mark
Laurence Mark
Laurence Mark is a film producer and educated at Eaglebrook School, Hotchkiss School and Wesleyan University from which he graduated in 1971. He also has a Master of Arts degree in Film from New York University...
and CBS Films
CBS Films
CBS Films is an American film production company founded in 2007, a feature film division of CBS Corporation. CBS Films is located on Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles.-Company history:...
. Ericson Core will direct. Vintar regularly blogs on several internet sites in which he supports young writers, instructing them to "Keep the faith and keep on writing!"
Family
He is married to Michele McCain, a well-respected teacher of the blind and visually impaired, who has spent the last several years raising their daughter, and working as script and story editor.Filmography
- I, RobotI, Robot (film)I, Robot is a 2004 science-fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay was written by Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman and Hillary Seitz, and is very loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short-story collection of the same name. Will Smith stars in the lead role of the film as Detective Del...
(2004) - Final Fantasy: The Spirits WithinFinal Fantasy: The Spirits WithinFinal Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most...
(released as "Fainaru Fantaji" in Japan) (2001) - Long Hello and Short GoodbyeLong Hello and Short GoodbyeLong Hello and Short Goodbye is a 1999 German crime film produced by Studio Hamburg Letterbox Filmproduktion and co-authored by Jeff Vintar and Martin Rauhaus....
(1999)