David Levien | |
---|---|
Born | Great Neck, New York, United States | December 9, 1967
Occupation | Screenwriter, novelist, director, producer |
Education | B.A. University of Michigan |
Genre | Fiction, suspense |
Notable works | Billions, Rounders, Solitary Man |
Spouse | Melissa Sandler Levien |
Children | Joseph James Robbie |
David Levien (born December 9, 1967) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and novelist. He is co-creator, executive producer, and showrunner of Showtime's Billions , along with Brian Koppelman. [1] [2] Over the past two decades Levien has created an influential and diverse body of work in both film and television. Some of his most noteworthy credits include Ocean's Thirteen, Rounders , [3] [4] Solitary Man , The Illusionist , Runaway Jury , Tilt , and ESPN's 30 for 30 (This Is What They Want) for which he won a sports Emmy.
Levien is also the author of six novels, including four in the celebrated Frank Behr series. [5] [6] [7] Some of his earlier works were published under D.J. Levien.
Levien was born in Great Neck, New York. [8] He met his lifelong writing partner and friend, Brian Koppelman, on a summer bus trip for teens when Levien was 14 years old. [9] Levien is Jewish. [10] He is a graduate of the University of Michigan. [10] After school he moved to Los Angeles where he worked as a story editor for various agencies and production companies. [10] Finding that editing the stories of the others impacted his writing, he quit and moved to Paris and then Argentina where he trained horses before returning to New York City where he reunited with Koppelman. [10]
In 1997, Levien wrote the original screenplay for Rounders with his writing partner, Brian Koppelman. In 2001, Levien and Koppelman wrote, produced, and directed the film Knockaround Guys , which film critic Roger Ebert gave 3 out of 4 stars. Levien and Koppelman also co-wrote the 2003 film Runaway Jury, which was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Screenplay. In 2009, Levien and Koppelman co-directed Solitary Man starring Michael Douglas. The film was included in both A.O. Scott's The New York Times "Year End Best" list and Roger Ebert's "Year End Best" list. Other film credits include the third installment in the Ocean's franchise, 2007's Ocean's Thirteen, directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Levien has published six novels, including the literary novels Wormwood, Swagbelly, and the popular Frank Behr crime series, set in the midwest and chronicling the fictional private investigator. The series includes City of the Sun , Where the Dead Lay, 13 Million Dollar Pop, and Signature Kill. The Behr books were nominated for the Hammett, Barry and Shamus awards. Sons of Spade named 13 Million Dollar Pop the best P.I. novel of 2011.
In 2015, Levien published the short story "Knock Out Whist," which was nominated by Best American Mystery Stories 2016 as an honorable mention. His story "Einstein's Sabbath" was published in The Darkling Halls of Ivy anthology in 2020.
Showtime's drama series, Billions, created by David Levien, Brian Koppelman, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, and starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis, premiered to strong reviews in 2016. The show is now in its fifth season and was renewed for a sixth in 2020.
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1998 | Rounders | No | Yes | No | Co-written with Brian Koppelman |
2001 | Knockaround Guys | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-directed with Brian Koppelman |
2003 | Runaway Jury | No | Yes | No | Co-written with Brian Koppelman |
2004 | Walking Tall | No | Yes | No | |
2007 | Ocean's Thirteen | No | Yes | No | |
2009 | Solitary Man | Yes | No | No | Co-directed with Brian Koppelman |
The Girlfriend Experience | No | Yes | No | ||
2013 | Runner Runner | No | Yes | Yes | |
Producer only
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2003 | The Street Lawyer | No | Yes | Yes | TV pilot |
2005 | Tilt | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-creator |
2016 | Billions | No | Yes | Executive | |
2022 | Super Pumped | No | Yes | Executive | |
The Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay adapted from previously established material. The most frequently adapted media are novels, but other adapted narrative formats include stage plays, musicals, short stories, TV series, and other films and film characters. All sequels are also considered adaptations by this standard, being based on the story and characters of the original film.
William Joseph Martin, formerly Poppy Z. Brite, is an American author. He initially achieved fame in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s by publishing a string of successful novels and short story collections. He is best known for his novels Lost Souls (1992), Drawing Blood (1993), and Exquisite Corpse (1996). His later work moved into the genre of dark comedy, with many stories set in the New Orleans restaurant world. Martin's novels are typically standalone books but may feature recurring characters from previous novels and short stories. Much of his work features openly bisexual and gay characters.
Brian Thomas Helgeland is an American screenwriter, film producer, and director. He is best known for writing the screenplays for the films L.A. Confidential and Mystic River. He also wrote and directed the films 42, a biopic of Jackie Robinson, and Legend, about the rise and fall of the infamous London gangsters the Kray twins. His work on L.A. Confidential earned him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Rick Cleveland is an American television writer, playwright, and monologist, best known for writing on the HBO original series Six Feet Under and NBC's The West Wing. His 2011 play The Rail Splitter premiered at Carthage College as the third production of Carthage's annual New Play Initiative. The production also traveled to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in 2012.
Ira Steven Behr is an American screenwriter and television producer, best known for his work on Star Trek, especially Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, on which he served as showrunner and executive producer. He was the executive producer and showrunner on Crash, executive producer on Syfy's Alphas and a writer and co-executive producer on Outlander.
Charles Koppelman was an American musician, music producer, and businessman. He held executive positions at EMI and Steve Madden, and he was Chairman of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. At the time of his death, he was the CEO of CAK Entertainment.
Charles Hamilton Eglee is an American film and television screenwriter and producer. He worked extensively for Steven Bochco productions throughout the 1990s. For Bochco productions he co-created Byrds of Paradise with frequent collaborator Channing Gibson and co-created Murder One with Gibson and Bochco. Eglee co-created the series Dark Angel with James Cameron.
Esta Alice Spalding is an American author, screenwriter and poet who won the Pat Lowther Award in 2004 for Lost August.
Ocean's Thirteen is a 2007 American heist comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien. It is the final installment in the Ocean's film trilogy and the sequel to Ocean's Twelve (2004). The film features an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy García, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Ellen Barkin, Al Pacino, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin, Carl Reiner, and Elliott Gould.
Neil Norman Burger is an American filmmaker. He is known for the fake-documentary Interview with the Assassin (2002), the period drama The Illusionist (2006), Limitless (2011), and the sci-fi action film Divergent (2014).
The Winter of Frankie Machine is a 2006 thriller novel by American writer Don Winslow.
Sonya Levien was a Russian-born American screenwriter. She became one of the highest earning female screenwriters in Hollywood in the 1930s and would help a number of directors and film stars transition from silent films to talkies. In 1955 she received an Academy Award for her screenplay Interrupted Melody.
Alex Gansa is a screenwriter and producer. He co-developed the Showtime series Homeland with Howard Gordon and Gideon Raff. He was also one of the series' executive producers and showrunners.
Peter Eric Zizzo is an American songwriter, music producer, musician and writer. Zizzo is also a stage and television actor, having appeared in the Showtime series Billions in 2021. Zizzo has written hits for artists such as Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Jennifer Lopez, Marit Larsen, O.A.R, Jason Mraz, Donna Summer, Diana Ross, M2M, Cliff Richard, Clay Aiken, Howie Day, Kate Voegele, Jackie Evancho, Pixie Lott, Vanessa Carlton, and many others. He has been considered instrumental in developing the careers of artists Avril Lavigne, Vanessa Carlton in the US, and Pixie Lott in the UK. Recordings of his songs have collectively sold in excess of 100 million copies worldwide.
Stephen Schiff is an American screenwriter, producer, and journalist. He is best known for his work at The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, his screenplays for Lolita, True Crime, and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and his work as a writer and producer on the FX television series The Americans.
Brian William Koppelman is an American television and film writer, producer and director. Koppelman is the co-writer of Ocean's Thirteen and Rounders, a producer of films including The Illusionist and The Lucky Ones, the director of films including Solitary Man and the documentary This Is What They Want for ESPN's 30 for 30 series, and the co-creator, showrunner, and executive producer of Showtime's Billions and Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.
Max Borenstein is an American screenwriter. He is best known as the creator of the MonsterVerse film series featuring classic Kaiju of Toho's Godzilla mythos, including writing Godzilla, Godzilla: Awakening and Kong: Skull Island (2017), and contributing to the story of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). In 2022, he co-created the sports drama series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty on HBO.
Karl Gajdusek is an American screenwriter, producer, and playwright. He was the showrunner for the first season of the Netflix series Stranger Things and the co-creator of the TV series Last Resort with Shawn Ryan. They were both also executive producers for the series. Gajdusek also wrote for the series Dead Like Me and wrote the film Trespass (2011). He co-wrote the screenplay for the 2013 Tom Cruise movie, Oblivion, and The November Man, which was released in 2014.
Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber is a 2019 book by New York Times journalist Mike Isaac. The book covers the events between the founding of Uber and its initial public offering in 2019.
Super Pumped is an American anthology drama television series created by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, named for the 2019 nonfiction book of the same name by Mike Isaac. The first installment, subtitled The Battle For Uber, is based on Isaac's book and centers on the rise and fall of former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Also starring Kyle Chandler, Uma Thurman, and Elisabeth Shue, it premiered on Showtime on February 27, 2022. Ahead of the series premiere, the series was renewed for a second season, based on a separate forthcoming book by Mike Isaac about Facebook.