John Orloff | |
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| Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Screenwriter |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Notable works | |
John Orloff is an American screenwriter, television creator, and producer.
John Orloff | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Screenwriter |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Notable works | |
John Orloff is an American screenwriter, television creator, and producer.
Orloff was born in Los Angeles, California, where he was raised in a "Hollywood" family. His father, also named John Orloff, was a TV commercial director. His grandmother was B-movie actress Peggy Knudsen, and his great-grandparents were the real-life married couple of Fibber McGee and Molly, stars of TV and radio.
Orloff studied screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles Film School, and on graduation went to work in the advertising business.
After ten years working on TV commercials in various positions, he met a TV movie development executive, now his wife, from the HBO television network. When she continually brought home what he felt were "awful" screenplays, he decided to write his own, a 16th-century English melodrama based on the Shakespeare authorship question, which ended up being sent to Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
They were not interested in producing his project, but Hanks asked Orloff, a keen "World War II buff", to write for the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers . Orloff wrote episode 2, "Day of Days" and episode 9, "Why We Fight". His work earned him a Christopher Award, [1] and an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special. [2] It is the single highest grossing and best-selling TV DVD of all time, and one of the highest grossing DVDs of any kind. [3]
Orloff adapted Mariane Pearl's memoir A Mighty Heart , for a film producer Brad Pitt. [4] New York Times film reviewer Manohla Dargis declared the finished film "a surprising, insistently political work of commercial art". Orloff's script for the film earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay. [5] In a 2011 interview with 60 Minutes' Bob Simon, the film's star, Angelina Jolie, mentioned that A Mighty Heart is her favorite film starring herself. [6]
Changing genres, Orloff next adapted the children's fantasy book series Legend of the Guardians , based on the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series of books written by Kathryn Lasky. The animated 3-D film was directed by Zack Snyder, and was released in 2010. [7]
Orloff's script based on the Shakespeare authorship question was made into a film, Anonymous , released in 2011, and starring Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave to a controversial reception.
Orloff created, wrote, and co-executive produced AppleTV+'s Masters of the Air , a follow-up to Band of Brothers, also produced by Hanks and Spielberg. It premiered on January 26, 2024, and was the most watched AppleTV+ premiere in the streamer's history.
| Year | Title | Credited as | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Writer | Producer | |||
| 2007 | A Mighty Heart | Yes | No | |
| 2008 | 10,000 BC | Yes | No | Uncredited rewrite |
| 2010 | Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole | Yes | No | |
| 2011 | Anonymous | Yes | Executive | |
| 2019 | The Last Vermeer | Yes | No | Used pseudonym of James McGee |
| Year | Title | Credited as | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Writer | Co-Executive Producer | |||
| 2001 | Band of Brothers | Yes | No | 2 episodes |
| 2024 | Masters of the Air | Yes | Yes | Co-creator |
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Hanks's films have grossed more than $4.9 billion in North America and more than $9.96 billion worldwide, making him the fourth-highest-grossing actor in North America. He has received numerous honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2014, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor both in 2016, as well as the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2020.
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Gloria Rose "Barbara" Turner was an American screenwriter and actress. The actress Jennifer Jason Leigh is her daughter.
Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American filmmaker. He first came to public attention as the director of the action-adventure romantic comedy Romancing the Stone (1984), the science-fiction comedy Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990), and the live-action/animated comedy Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). He subsequently directed the satirical black comedy Death Becomes Her (1992) and then diversified into more dramatic fare, including the Best Picture winning film, Forrest Gump (1994), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director.
Danny Strong is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. As an actor, Strong is best known for his roles as Jonathan Levinson in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doyle McMaster in Gilmore Girls and Danny Siegel in Mad Men. He also wrote the screenplays for Recount, the HBO adaptation Game Change, Lee Daniels' The Butler, and co-wrote the two-part finale of The Hunger Games film trilogy, Mockingjay – Part 1 and Mockingjay – Part 2. Strong also is a co-creator, executive producer, director, and writer for the Fox series Empire and created, wrote and directed the award-winning Hulu miniseries Dopesick.
Taking Lives is a 2004 American psychological thriller film directed by D. J. Caruso and starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke, with supporting roles by Kiefer Sutherland, Olivier Martinez, Tchéky Karyo, Jean-Hugues Anglade, and Gena Rowlands. Loosely adapted from the novel of the same name by Michael Pye, the film centers on an enigmatic serial killer who takes on the identities of his victims.
Graham John Yost is a Canadian film and television screenwriter. His best-known works are the films Speed, Broken Arrow, and Hard Rain and the TV series Justified and Silo.
Erik Jendresen is an American author, playwright, screenwriter and producer of plays, television, and film. Previous projects include the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, Killing Lincoln, co-produced with Tony and Ridley Scott for the National Geographic Channel; a series based on the Francis Ford Coppola film, The Conversation ; The Pony Express ; an eight-hour adaptation of Gregory Maguire's novel, Wicked (ABC); an eight-hour miniseries Majestic-12; and The Command - a series set in the world of the Joint Special Operations Command (FIC).
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters is an English actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards. In 2016 he was included in the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2017 he was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth II.
Daniel Paul Futterman is an American actor, screenwriter, and producer.
Angelina Jolie is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award and three Golden Globe Awards, she has been named Hollywood's highest-paid actress multiple times.
A Mighty Heart is a 2007 American drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom from a screenplay by John Orloff. It is based on the 2003 memoir of the same name by Mariane Pearl.
Wanted is a 2008 action thriller film directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Chris Morgan, loosely based on the comic book miniseries by Mark Millar and J. G. Jones. The film stars James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann, Common and Chris Pratt.
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Anonymous is a 2011 period drama film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by John Orloff. The film is a fictionalized version of the life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, an Elizabethan courtier, playwright, poet and patron of the arts, and suggests he was the actual author of William Shakespeare's plays. It stars Rhys Ifans as de Vere and Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth I of England.
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Donald L. Miller is an American biographer and historian. He is the John Henry MacCracken Professor of History emeritus at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. He is also a New York Times bestselling author of seven books. He is a frequent consultant and adviser to historical productions, including those for PBS and HBO.
Elizabeth Hannah is an American screenwriter and film producer. She is best known for her work on Steven Spielberg's 2017 journalism drama The Post for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay.
Masters of the Air is a 2024 American war drama miniseries created by John Shiban and John Orloff for Apple TV+. It is based on the 2007 book of the same name by Donald L. Miller and follows the actions of the 100th Bomb Group, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber unit in the Eighth Air Force in eastern England during World War II. The series serves as a companion to Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010). It is the first series to be produced by Apple Studios in cooperation with Playtone and Amblin Television and stars Austin Butler, Callum Turner and Anthony Boyle as part of an ensemble cast. The series consists of nine episodes.
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