Jon Spaihts

Jon Spaihts is an American screenwriter and author.

Career

As a screenwriter Spaihts became known in the film industry as a "go-to-guy for space thrillers" when his science fiction romance Passengers was included on the 2007 Black List of unproduced high-value screenplays.Keanu Reeves and Stephen Hamel had hired Spaihts to write the film after originally becoming attached to Spaihts' now abandoned science fiction script Shadow 19. After Reeves agreed to produce with Hamel and star in Passengers, Spaihts was commissioned by Scott Free to write the next installments in the Alien saga, two prequel films to be directed by Ridley Scott, which eventually turned into the more autonomous story Prometheus, ultimately revised by Damon Lindelof. For New Regency Spaihts also wrote the screenplay to the alien invasion thriller The Darkest Hour, based on a story by Leslie Bohem and M.T. Ahern.

Spaihts has worked on a film version of St. George and the Dragon for Sony Pictures, and originated a Disney film project called Children of Mars. In 2012 he entered a two-picture deal at Jerry Bruckheimer Films to adapt Ashley Wood's graphic novel World War Robot and write a space adventure film based on his own original pitch. Spaihts was also commissioned to write the reboot of The Mummy franchise for Universal to be produced by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Sean Daniel. In 2013 Spaihts began work on the story for the Black Hole remake by Walt Disney Studios. In 2014 he was hired by Marvel Studios to revise the script for the live action Doctor Strange film.