Shane Salerno is an American screenwriter, producer, New York Times bestselling author, and Chief Creative Officer of The Story Factory, which has placed 34 books on the New York Times bestseller list, with seven books reaching #1. His screenwriting credits include the films Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Armageddon, Savages, Shaft, and those films have grossed more than 4.5 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. He has written, co-written or rewritten seven films that debuted at #1 at the box office, two separate films that were the highest-grossing film of the year, tw
Shane Salerno is an American screenwriter, producer, New York Times bestselling author, and Chief Creative Officer of The Story Factory, which has placed 34 books on the New York Times bestseller list, with seven books reaching #1. His screenwriting credits include the films Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Armageddon, Savages, Shaft, and those films have grossed more than 4.5 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. He has written, co-written or rewritten seven films that debuted at #1 at the box office, two separate films that were the highest-grossing film of the year, tw
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Shane Salerno (born November 27, 1972) is an American screenwriter, producer, New York Times bestselling author, and Chief Creative Officer of The Story Factory, which has placed 34 books on the New York Times bestseller list, with seven books reaching #1. His screenwriting credits include the films Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Armageddon, Savages, Shaft, and those films have grossed more than 4.5 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. He has written, co-written or rewritten seven films that debuted at #1 at the box office, two separate films that were the highest-grossing film of the year (1998 and 2022), two separate films that grossed over $1 billion and the third and fifteenth highest grossing films of all time.
Early life and education
Salerno was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1972 and was raised primarily by his mother Deborah as they moved from Memphis to Washington, D.C. to San Diego to Los Angeles. He went to the movies all the time—“theaters were kind of like a babysitter”—and cites two films as fundamental that he saw as a child—the blockbuster The Empire Strikes Back and crime thriller, Thief, Michael Mann's feature debut. (“Basically, my career has lived in those two worlds,” he told the Associated Press.)
As a high school student, Salerno wrote, produced, and directed the documentary Sundown: The Future of Children and Drugs, which he described as a "suburban ‘Boyz N the Hood." The film had its world premiere on CNN's Larry King Live in September 1991. Sundown won several "Best Documentary of the Year" honors and Salerno was honored as a teenager in separate ceremonies in both houses of the United States Congress.
Salerno apprenticed during season one of NYPD Blue under Gregory Hoblit, Steven Bochco and David Milch. In an interview with Creative Screenwriting, Salerno credited the backstage pass as his "film school". At 22, Salerno signed a three-year contract with Universal Television to work on various series beginning with New York Undercover. His television scripts led film producers to offer him the opportunity to write feature films. As a result of these offers, Salerno asked Universal to release him from his contract. Around that time, he was able to sell a TV show and land a 3-year development deal. After a year of that, Salerno changed his focus to film, with a never produced adaptation of Thunder Below by Eugene B. Fluckey. Steven Spielberg and Walter Parkes mentored Salerno during this adaptation; Salerno has called this time with them his "writing school". Salerno was then hired to do writing during production on the 1997 film Breakdown. The film opened at #1 at the box office.
In 1997, director Michael Bay asked him to rewrite the screenplay for Armageddon, which would become Salerno's first screen credit. The film opened at #1 and became the highest-grossing film of the year. In the book Visions of Armageddon, Bay called Salerno's work "brilliant". Following Armageddon, Salerno re-teamed with Michael Bay on other projects.
In 1998, working with director John Singleton and writer Richard Price, Salerno wrote the story and screenplay for the 2000 movie Shaft. The film opened at #1 at the box office. It began Salerno's lifelong friendship with the director and when Singleton passed in 2019, Salerno wrote a tribute to Singleton in Deadline Hollywood.
In 1997, Salerno sold the rights to the bestseller Zodiac to Disney's Touchstone Pictures in a seven-figure deal. Despite Salerno delivering a well-regarded screenplay, Disney was unwilling to greenlight a violent film about a serial killer. When Disney let the rights lapse, David Fincher directed Zodiac based on the same book for another studio. In February 2000, acclaimed filmmaker Michael Mann announced his next project after Ali would likely be a "fact-based film about the drug trade in the U.S. and Mexico," written by Salerno.
In 2001–02, Salerno returned to television by co-creating (with crime novelist Don Winslow) the NBC series UC: Undercover. The series starred Vera Farmiga, Oded Fehr, Jon Seda and Ving Rhames. Salerno served as showrunner. The New York Times called it a "fast paced, good-looking series." The Los Angeles Times said the series had "a rocky start" after Jimmy Smits dropped out of the series shortly before the pilot and the series was placed on hiatus before the end of the first season.
In 2003, working with director Paul W. S. Anderson, Salerno adapted the screenplay for Alien vs. Predator. Salerno spent six months writing the shooting script, finished its development, and stayed on for revisions throughout the film's production. Salerno would go on to write the screenplay for the sequel Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. The New York Times, credited Salerno and the film's directors with making a more "watchable" movie than the first Alien vs. Predator and said "the story is fairly generic try-to-get-away stuff, but it’s decently rendered."
In 2005, Salerno was brought on to adapt Meg, the Steve Alten novel, with Jan de Bont directing. The project had originally been set up at Disney, but languished in development. New Line then optioned the book, where it was developed for two and a half years. New Line's original script was written by Alten, but the studio feared it too closely resembled Jurassic Park and they brought in Salerno to do a rewrite. But the project wound up not getting produced due to budgetary concerns. Only in 2018 the adaptation got made as The Meg.
In 2009, Salerno was reported on being attached License to Steal, a pitch sold for "seven figures upfront" to Paramount Pictures and Kurtzman-Orci Productions, and a remake of Fantastic Voyage with James Cameron. While the latter film would ultimately not get made, it proved to be an important moment for Salerno, as Cameron later hired Salerno to be one of the co-writers on the sequels to Avatar.
In 2010, Salerno worked as a writer and consulting producer on the CBS reboot of Hawaii Five-0, which was co-created by Alex Kurtzman, one
