Darren Lemke

Last updated
Darren Lemke
Born1969or1970(age 53–54)
Alma mater School of Visual Arts
Occupation
Years active1997–present

Darren Lemke (born 1969or1970) is an American screenwriter who has been active in the film industry since the late 1990s. His first major screenwriting credit was for Shrek Forever After (2010), which he wrote with Josh Klausner. Lemke directed the thriller film Lost (2004), which he also wrote. [1]

Contents

Background

Lemke was born in 1969or1970. Raised in Carlstadt, New Jersey, he went to Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus, New Jersey. After high school, he attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, New York to study screenwriting. [2] In 1997, he sold two pitches to Touchstone Pictures for Tony Scott to direct; [3] one of the pitches became Gemini Man , which was released in 2019. [4] In 2005, Lemke pitched the idea of adapting the English fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" with computer-generated imagery. By 2013, Jack the Giant Slayer was directed by Bryan Singer. [5]

Lemke is one of six executive producers for the 2021 TV series The Wheel of Time . [6]

Credits

Lemke's credits
YearTitleMediumNotes
2004 Lost FilmWrote, also directed
2010 Shrek Forever After FilmWriting credit with Josh Klausner
2013 Jack the Giant Slayer FilmStory credit with David Dobkin; screenplay credit with Christopher McQuarrie and Dan Studney
2013 Turbo FilmScreenplay credit with Robert D. Siegel and David Soren; story credit for Soren
2015 Goosebumps FilmScreenplay credit; story credits for Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
2018 Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween FilmStory credit with Rob Lieber; screenplay credit for Lieber
2019 The Parts You Lose FilmWriting credit
2019 Shazam! FilmStory credit with Henry Gayden; screenplay credit for Gayden
2019 Gemini Man FilmStory credit with David Benioff; screenplay credit with Benioff and Billy Ray [nb 1]
2021 The Wheel of Time TelevisionExecutive producer; 8 episodes
2024 Kung Fu Panda 4 FilmWriting credit with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger [7]

Notes

  1. Despite Lemke's credits, he was not involved with the film directed by Ang Lee. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher McQuarrie</span> American filmmaker (born 1968)

Christopher McQuarrie is an American filmmaker. He received the BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the neo-noir mystery film The Usual Suspects (1995).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brad Bird</span> American filmmaker (born 1957)

Phillip Bradley Bird is an American writer, director and producer. He has had a career spanning forty years in both animation and live-action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karey Kirkpatrick</span> American screenwriter, director, and producer

Karey Kirkpatrick is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. His films include Chicken Run, The Rescuers Down Under, James and the Giant Peach,Over the Hedge, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Charlotte's Web, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He has also directed the films Over the Hedge,Imagine That starring Eddie Murphy as well as Smallfoot. Kirkpatrick wrote the English-language screenplays for the U.S. releases of the Studio Ghibli films The Secret World of Arrietty in 2012 and From Up on Poppy Hill in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Sanders</span> American filmmaker and animator (born 1962)

Christopher Michael Sanders is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. His credits include Lilo & Stitch (2002) and How to Train Your Dragon (2010), both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with Dean DeBlois, The Croods (2013) with Kirk DeMicco, and The Call of the Wild (2020). He is also known for creating the story behind Lilo & Stitch and for creating and voicing its latter title character in the film and its franchise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryan Singer</span> American filmmaker (born 1965)

Bryan Jay Singer is an American filmmaker. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced almost all of the films he has directed.

Paramus Catholic High School is a co-educational Roman Catholic high school located in Paramus in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The school, founded in 1965, under Archbishop Thomas A. Boland, and Superintendent of Schools, Monsignor Joseph P. Tuite, Paramus Catholic operated as a co-institutional school until 1995. Paramus Catholic was staffed by the Brothers of Christian Schools under the leadership of Bro. James P. Kelly, FSC, Principal, and Paramus Catholic Girls' High School by the Sisters of Charity of Convent Station, New Jersey, under the leadership of Sr. Helen Demetria, SC, Principal. There was a sharing of the plant and facility, however, the two schools operated as separate academic institutions. Paramus Catholic was the last secondary school established by the Archdiocese of Newark in Bergen County. The two schools were unified into one by the Archdiocese of Newark beginning in the 1995–1996 school year. When the school was unified to one academic institution, the Christian Brothers withdrew from involvement, and the Sisters of Charity took over leadership, until their withdrawal from the school in the early 2000s. Paramus Catholic High School is one of several high schools in the Archdiocese of Newark. It has the largest enrollment of any Roman Catholic high school in the state of New Jersey.

<i>Kung Fu Panda</i> (film) 2008 DreamWorks Animation film

Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 American animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The first installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise, it was directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, from a screenplay and story respectively written by the writing teams of Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, and Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris. The film stars the voices of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim, James Hong, Dan Fogler, Michael Clarke Duncan and Jackie Chan. The film, set in a version of ancient China populated by anthropomorphic animals, centers on a bumbling panda bear named Po (Black), a kung-fu enthusiast living in the Valley of Peace. When the savage snow leopard Tai Lung (McShane) is foretold to escape imprisonment and attack the Valley, Po is unwittingly named the "Dragon Warrior", a prophesied hero worthy of reading a scroll that has been intended to grant its reader limitless power.

Mark Tapio Kines is an American film director, writer, producer and owner of Los Angeles–based Cassava Films. Kines is perhaps best known for being the first filmmaker to employ crowdfunding to partially finance a film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drew Goddard</span> American screenwriter and director

Andrew Brion Hogan Goddard is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. He began his career writing episodes for the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, and Lost. After moving into screenwriting in film, he wrote Cloverfield (2008), World War Z (2013), and The Martian (2015), the latter earning him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2011, he made his directorial debut with The Cabin in the Woods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Andrews (filmmaker)</span> American filmmaker (born 1968)

Mark Elliott Andrews is an American filmmaker, animator, and storyboard artist. He is best known for directing the 2012 Pixar feature film Brave. He was the story supervisor for The Incredibles, directed the short film One Man Band and co-wrote the short films Jack-Jack Attack and One Man Band.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Ramsey</span> American illustrator, storyboard artist, and filmmaker

Peter A. Ramsey is an American illustrator, storyboard artist, and filmmaker. He is best known for directing DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians (2012), becoming the first African American to direct a major American animated film, and co-directing Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). For Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, he became the first African American to be nominated for and win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

<i>Goosebumps</i> (film) 2015 American film by Rob Letterman

Goosebumps is a 2015 American horror comedy film directed by Rob Letterman and written by Darren Lemke, based on R. L. Stine's children's horror book series of the same name. The film stars Jack Black as a fictionalized version of Stine, who teams up with his neighbor and his teenage daughter, to save their hometown after all the monsters from the Goosebumps franchise escape from his works, wreaking havoc in the real world. It also stars Amy Ryan, Ryan Lee, and Jillian Bell in supporting roles.

<i>Kung Fu Panda 2</i> 2011 DreamWorks Animation film

Kung Fu Panda 2 is a 2011 American animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and written by the writing team of Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, the film is the sequel to Kung Fu Panda (2008), and the second installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise. It stars Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, James Hong and Jackie Chan reprising their roles from the first film, with Gary Oldman, Michelle Yeoh, Danny McBride, Dennis Haysbert, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Victor Garber voicing new characters. In the film, Po and his Furious Five allies travel to Gongmen City to stop the evil peacock Lord Shen from conquering China, while also rediscovering Po's forgotten past.

<i>Jack the Giant Slayer</i> 2013 film by Bryan Singer

Jack the Giant Slayer is a 2013 American fantasy adventure film directed by Bryan Singer and written by Darren Lemke, Christopher McQuarrie and Dan Studney, from a story by Lemke and David Dobkin. The film, based on the British fairy tales "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Jack and the Beanstalk", stars Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, Eddie Marsan and Ewan McGregor. The film tells the story of Jack, a young farmhand who must rescue a princess from a race of giants after inadvertently opening a gateway to their land in the sky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colin Trevorrow</span> American filmmaker

Colin Trevorrow is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He made his feature directorial debut with the science fiction comedy Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) to critical and commercial success. Trevorrow achieved mainstream recognition for his work on the Jurassic World entries of the Jurassic Park franchise, which began when he co-wrote and directed the eponymous first installment in 2015. After the film grossed over $1 billion, Trevorrow co-wrote the 2018 sequel Fallen Kingdom and co-wrote and directed the third installment Dominion (2022). He was also the co-writer and director of Star Wars: Duel of the Fates until his departure in 2017, although he retained story credit when the project was re-envisioned as The Rise of Skywalker (2019). On many of his projects, Trevorrow collaborates with fellow screenwriter Derek Connolly.

<i>Kung Fu Panda 3</i> 2016 DreamWorks Animation film

Kung Fu Panda 3 is a 2016 animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation, China Film Group Corporation, Oriental DreamWorks and Zhong Ming You Ying Film, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the third installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise and the sequel to Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011). The film was directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni and written by the writing team of Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger.

<i>Gemini Man</i> (film) 2019 American science fiction action thriller film by Ang Lee

Gemini Man is a 2019 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Ang Lee. It stars Will Smith in the main dual role, alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen and Benedict Wong. The film follows a retiring Force Recon Marine scout sniper who is targeted by a much younger clone of himself while on the run from a corrupt private military company.

<i>The Parts You Lose</i> 2019 film directed by Chris Cantwell

The Parts You Lose is a 2019 American thriller film starring Aaron Paul and Danny Murphy as a fugitive criminal and a deaf boy who befriend one another. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Scoot McNairy also star as the boy's parents. The film is directed by Christopher Cantwell based on a screenplay by Darren Lemke. The H Collective financed Gran Via's production of the film. Filming took place in Winnipeg, Canada. The Parts You Lose had its world premiere on March 14, 2019 at the 2019 Sun Valley Film Festival in Sun Valley, Idaho. Samuel Goldwyn Films released the film commercially in the United States on October 4, 2019.

Henry Gayden is an American screenwriter, best known for writing the films Earth to Echo (2014), Shazam! (2019) and There's Someone Inside Your House (2021).

<i>Kung Fu Panda 4</i> 2024 DreamWorks Animation film

Kung Fu Panda 4 is a 2024 American animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is the fourth installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise and the sequel to Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016). The film was directed by Mike Mitchell, co-directed by Stephanie Ma Stine, written by Darren Lemke and the writing team of Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, and produced by Rebecca Huntley. It features Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, Bryan Cranston, and Ian McShane reprising their roles from the previous films, with Awkwafina, Ke Huy Quan, Ronny Chieng, Lori Tan Chinn, and Viola Davis joining the cast as new characters. In the film, Po (Black), who must find and train his successor as the new Dragon Warrior, teams up with fox bandit Zhen (Awkwafina) to defeat the evil sorceress, the Chameleon (Davis), before she steals the kung-fu abilities of all masters in China.

References

  1. 1 2 Kit, Borys (October 11, 2019). "Meet the Writer of 'Gemini Man' (Who Didn't Actually Write 'Gemini Man')". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved October 11, 2019.
  2. Siemaszko, Corky (July 12, 1997). "Cart of the deal screenplay lets him bag job in store". New York Daily News . Retrieved January 23, 2018.
  3. Busch, Anita M. (June 6, 1997). "Lemke hits H'w'd with 2-pic pitch". Variety . Retrieved January 23, 2018.
  4. McNary, Dave (February 27, 2018). "Film News Roundup: Production Starts on Will Smith's Thriller 'Gemini Man'". Variety . Retrieved March 1, 2018.
  5. Sperling, Nicole (February 27, 2013). "'Jack the Giant Slayer' director faced some towering challenges". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved January 23, 2018.
  6. Pedersen, Erik (August 14, 2019). "'The Wheel Of Time': Amazon Adds Five To Cast Of Series Based On Fantasy Books". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved March 14, 2021.
  7. "Find Your Inner Peace with Po: DreamWorks Animation Unveils 'Be Calm and Po' Custom Animation Livestream for 'Kung Fu Panda 4'". PR Newswire. February 16, 2024. Retrieved February 25, 2024.