Ken Wheat (born 1950) and Jim Wheat (born 1952) are an American screenwriting, producing, and directing duo. [1] Mainly known for their horror films, the brothers co-wrote the slasher film The Silent Scream (1979), as well as A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) and The Fly II (1989). In 1989, they wrote, directed, and produced the anthology horror film After Midnight . They later devised the story and co-wrote the screenplay of the science fiction horror film Pitch Black (2000).
Year | Title | Directors | Writers | Producers | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1978 | American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince | No | No | Executives | Documentary film |
1979 | Silent Scream | No | Yes | Yes | |
1980 | The Return | No | Yes | No | |
1983 | Lies | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
1985 | Ewoks: The Battle for Endor | Yes | Yes | No | Television film |
1988 | A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master | No | Yes | No | |
1989 | The Fly II | No | Yes | No | |
After Midnight | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
1994 | The Birds II: Land's End | No | Yes | No | Television films |
Trick of the Eye | No | Yes | No | ||
1996 | It Came from Outer Space II | No | Yes | No | |
Rattled | No | Yes | No | ||
The Stepford Husbands | No | Yes | No | ||
1999 | Free Fall | No | Yes | No | |
2000 | Pitch Black | No | Yes | No |
Also credited as "Based on characters created by" in The Chronicles of Riddick franchise (second and third films, television special, animation short, motion comics, video games and books).
Pitch Black is a 2000 American science fiction horror film directed by David Twohy and co-written by Twohy and brothers Ken and Jim Wheat from a story conceived by the latter. The film stars Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, and Keith David. Dangerous criminal Riddick (Diesel) is being transported to prison in a spacecraft, and escapes when the spaceship is damaged by comet debris and crash lands on an empty desert planet. When predatory creatures begin attacking the survivors, Riddick joins forces with them to escape the planet.
Shawn Mathis Wayans is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He made his debut on the comedy television series In Living Color (1990–1993). He went on to work with his brother Marlon Wayans on The WB sitcom The Wayans Bros.(1995–1999), and in the comedy films Don't Be a Menace (1996), Scary Movie (2000), Scary Movie 2 (2001), White Chicks (2004), Little Man (2006), and Dance Flick (2009).
Stanley Lloyd Kaufman Jr., known professionally as Lloyd Kaufman is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. Alongside producer Michael Herz, he is the co-founder of Troma Entertainment film studio, and the director of many of their feature films, such as The Toxic Avenger (1984) and Tromeo and Juliet (1996). Many of the strategies employed by him at Troma have been credited with making the film industry significantly more accessible and decentralized.
Don Coscarelli Jr. is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born to Italian settlers in Libya, he is best known for his work in horror films. His directing credits include the first four films in the Phantasm franchise, as well as The Beastmaster (1982) and Bubba Ho-Tep (2002).
David Samuel Goyer is an American filmmaker, novelist and comic book writer. He is best known for writing the screenplays for several superhero films, including Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998), the Blade trilogy (1998–2004), Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (2005–2012), Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). He has also directed four films: Zig Zag (2002), Blade: Trinity (2004), The Invisible (2007) and The Unborn (2009). He is the creator of the science fiction television series Foundation which is loosely based upon the Foundation series written by Isaac Asimov.
Kenneth Joseph Marino is an American actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. He was a cast member on MTV's The State and has starred in shows such as Party Down, Marry Me, Burning Love, and Childrens Hospital. He played the Lehman brothers on the Showtime series Black Monday. He also stars as Victor in the cult-classic comedy film Wet Hot American Summer, as well as its spin-offs.
Paul Bartel was an American actor, writer and director. He was perhaps most known for his 1982 hit black comedy Eating Raoul, which he co-wrote, starred in and directed.
James Francis Gunn Jr. is an American filmmaker and studio executive. He began his career as a screenwriter in the mid-1990s, starting at Troma Entertainment with Tromeo and Juliet (1997). He then began working as a director, starting with the horror-comedy film Slither (2006), and moving to the superhero genre with Super (2010), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), The Suicide Squad (2021), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery hired Gunn and Peter Safran to become co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios. Under DC Studios, Gunn will co-produce and executive produce every film and television series under the upcoming DC Universe (DCU) media franchise alongside Safran, which will act as a soft-reboot of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). He will also continue to write and direct various projects set in the DCU, including the upcoming film Superman (2025).
Lawrence George Cohen was an American filmmaker. He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem, before becoming known as an author of horror and science fiction films — often containing police procedural and satirical elements — during the 1970s and 1980s. His directorial works include It's Alive (1974) and its sequels, God Told Me To (1976), The Stuff (1985) and A Return to Salem's Lot (1987).
Scott Derrickson is an American filmmaker. He is best known for his work in the horror genre, directing films such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), Sinister (2012) and The Black Phone (2021). He is also known for the superhero film Doctor Strange (2016), based on the Marvel Comics character.
James Wong is an American television and film director, screenwriter and producer. He is known for co-writing episodes of the Fox science fiction supernatural drama series The X-Files with his writing partner, Glen Morgan. Morgan and Wong are founders of the Hard Eight Pictures and co-created Space: Above and Beyond. Wong also directed the films Final Destination (2000) and Final Destination 3 (2006) in the Final Destination film series, The One (2001), starring Jet Li, and Dragonball Evolution (2009).
Neil Marshall is an English film and television director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. He directed the horror films Dog Soldiers (2002) and The Descent (2005), the science fiction action film Doomsday (2008), the historical war film Centurion (2010), the superhero action film Hellboy (2019), and the adventure horror film The Reckoning (2020).
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money is an American direct-to-video Western horror film released on March 16, 1999. It is the second film in the From Dusk till Dawn series and is a sequel to From Dusk till Dawn. The film was an early test release by Dimension Films for the direct-to-video market. It was co-written and directed by Scott Spiegel. Michael S. Murphey, Gianni Nunnari, and Meir Teper produced. Quentin Tarantino and Lawrence Bender executive produced, and Elizabeth Avellan co-produced. The film was filmed on location in South Africa and features cameos by Bruce Campbell and Tiffani Thiessen. It won a Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for the "Best Home Video Release" of 1999.
Jim Wynorski is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. Wynorski has been making B-movies and exploitation movies since the early 1980s, and has directed over 150 feature films. His earliest films were released to film theaters, but his later works have predominantly been released through the cable or straight-to-video market. He often works under pseudonyms such as "Jay Andrews," "Arch Stanton," "H.R. Blueberry," "Tom Popatopolis," and "Noble Henry." His adult films often spoof popular horror movies: Cleavagefield, for example, parodies Cloverfield, The Bare Wench Project parodies The Blair Witch Project, and Para-Knockers Activity parodies Paranormal Activity.
John Skipp is a splatterpunk horror and fantasy author and anthology editor, as well as a songwriter, screenwriter, film director, and film producer. He collaborated with Craig Spector on multiple novels, and has also collaborated with Marc Levinthal and Cody Goodfellow. He worked as editor-in-chief of both Fungasm Press and Ravenous Shadows.
Aaron P. "Pat" Boyette was an American broadcasting personality and news producer, and later a comic book artist best known for two decades of work for Charlton Comics, where he co-created the character the Peacemaker. He sometimes used the pen names Sam Swell, Bruce Lovelace, and Alexander Barnes.
The Chronicles of Riddick is an American science fiction space Western media franchise created by brothers Ken and Jim Wheat and later continued by writer-director David Twohy. It follows the adventures of antihero character Riddick in the 28th century.
Patrick Melton is an American screenwriter, producer and novelist.
Griff Furst is an American actor, film producer, and film director.
Nightdreams is a 1981 pornographic film with strong horror elements directed by Francis Delia, and written by Jerry Stahl and Stephen Sayadian.