J. J. Abrams
Jeffrey Jacob Abrams is an American filmmaker. He is known for his work in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction. Abrams wrote or produced such films as Regarding Henry , Forever Young , Armageddon , Cloverfield, Star Trek , ' , and ' .
Abrams has created numerous television series, including Felicity, Alias, Lost, and Fringe. He won two Emmy Awards for Lost — Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Drama Series.
His directorial film work includes , Star Trek, Super 8, and Star Trek Into Darkness. He also directed, produced and co-wrote The Force Awakens, the seventh episode of the Star Wars saga and the first film of the sequel trilogy. The film is his highest-grossing, as well as the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time not adjusted for inflation. He returned to Star Wars by directing and co-writing The Rise of Skywalker.
Abrams's frequent collaborators include producer Bryan Burk, producer/director Tommy Gormley, actors Greg Grunberg, Simon Pegg and Keri Russell, composer Michael Giacchino, writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, cinematographers Daniel Mindel and Larry Fong, and editors Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey.
Early life
Abrams was born and raised in New York City and raised in Los Angeles. He is the son of television producer Gerald W. Abrams and executive producer Carol Ann Abrams. His sister is screenwriter Tracy Rosen. He attended Palisades High School. After graduating from high school, Abrams planned on going to art school rather than a traditional college, but eventually enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College, following his father's advice: "it's more important that you go off and learn what to make movies about than how to make movies."Film career
Early career
Abrams' first job in the movie business was at age 16 when he wrote the music for Don Dohler's 1982 horror movie Nightbeast. During his senior year at college, he teamed with Jill Mazursky to write a feature film treatment. Purchased by Touchstone Pictures, the treatment was the basis for Taking Care of Business, Abrams' first produced film, which starred Charles Grodin and James Belushi. He followed with Regarding Henry, starring Harrison Ford, and Forever Young, starring Mel Gibson. He also co-wrote with Mazursky the script for the comedy Gone Fishin' starring Joe Pesci and Danny Glover.In 1994, he was part of the "Propellerheads" with Rob Letterman, Loren Soman, and Andy Waisler, a group of Sarah Lawrence alums experimenting with computer animation technology. They were contracted by Jeffrey Katzenberg to develop animation for the film Shrek. Abrams worked on the screenplay for the 1998 film Armageddon with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay. That same year, he made his first foray into television with Felicity, which ran for four seasons on The WB Network, serving as the series' co-creator and executive producer. He also composed its opening theme music.
2000s
Under his production company, Bad Robot, which he founded with Bryan Burk in 2001, Abrams created and executive-produced ABC's Alias and is co-creator and was executive producer of Lost. As with Felicity, Abrams also composed the opening theme music for Alias and Lost. Abrams directed and wrote the two-part pilot for Lost and remained active producer for the first half of the season. Also in 2001, Abrams co-wrote and produced the horror-thriller Joy Ride. In 2006, he served as executive producer of What About Brian and Six Degrees, also on ABC. He also co-wrote the teleplay for Losts third-season premiere "A Tale of Two Cities" and the same year, he made his feature directorial debut with , starring Tom Cruise. Abrams spoke at the TED conference in 2007.In 2008, Abrams produced the monster movie Cloverfield, which Matt Reeves directed. In 2009, he directed the science fiction film Star Trek, which he produced with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof. While it was speculated that they would be writing and producing an adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of novels, they publicly stated in November 2009 that they were no longer looking to take on that project. In 2008, Abrams co-created, executive produced, and co-wrote the FOX science fiction series Fringe, for which he also composed the theme music. He was featured in the 2009 MTV Movie Awards 1980s-style digital short "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions", with Andy Samberg and Will Ferrell, in which he plays a keyboard solo. NBC picked up Abrams's Undercovers as its first new drama series for the 2010–11 season. However, it was subsequently cancelled by the network in November 2010.
2010s
He wrote and directed the Paramount science fiction thriller Super 8, starring Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning, while co-producing with Steven Spielberg and Bryan Burk; it was released on June 10, 2011.Abrams directed the sequel to Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, released in May 2013. The film ended being considered less original than its predecessor and more of a loose remake of '. Despite critics reacting positively towards the film, Nicholas Meyer the director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan from which Into Darkness borrowed lines and plot elements, revealed in 2018, to have been disappointed with the film. Meyer was quoted saying: "In my sort of artistic worldview, if you’re going to do an homage, you have to add something. You have to put another layer on it, and they didn’t. Just by putting the same words in different characters’ mouths didn't add up to anything, and if you have someone dying in one scene and sort of being resurrected immediately after there's no real drama going on. It just becomes a gimmick or gimmicky, and that's what I found it to be ultimately."
Additionally, some of Star Trek legacy actors, criticized the film´s re-casting of classic villian Khan Noonien Singh, perceiving it white-washed the character that was originally played by actor Ricardo Montalban. Despite the performance from Benedict Cumberbatch being well received, Christian Blauvelt of Hollywood.com said the character had been "whitewashed into oblivion", since Khan is an explicitly non-white character in the Star Trek canon. There have been similar accusations of whitewashing by fans and American Sikhs, with ' actor Garrett Wang tweeting "The casting of Cumberbatch was a mistake on the part of the producers. I am not being critical of the actor or his talent, just the casting". George Takei, the original Hikaru Sulu, was also disappointed with the casting, expressing he thought it would have been better to make a new character. On Trekmovie.com, co-producer and co-screenwriter Bob Orci addressed Khan's casting: "Basically, as we went through the casting process and we began honing in on the themes of the movie, it became uncomfortable for me to support demonizing anyone of color, particularly any one of Middle Eastern descent or anyone evoking that. One of the points of the movie is that we must be careful about the villain within US, not some other race". An in-canon comic book has subsequently been created to retcon Khan's hitherto unexplained change in ethnicity in the film. In an interview with Buzzfeed two years after the film's release, Abrams apologized publicly for the plot and shortcomings of the film.
On January 25, 2013, The Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm officially announced Abrams as director and producer of ', the seventh entry in the Star Wars film saga, which is a rival saga to Star Trek for which Abrams previously directed. Disney/Lucasfilm also announced that Bryan Burk and Bad Robot Productions would produce the feature. Following the news that he would direct The Force Awakens, speculation arose as to Abrams's future with Paramount Pictures, with whom he had released all of his previously directed feature work, and which had a first-look deal with his Bad Robot Productions. Paramount vice-chairman Rob Moore stated that Abrams will continue to have a hand in the Star Trek and Mission: Impossible franchises going forward. Abrams directed, produced, and co-wrote the screenplay for, The Force Awakens, working alongside Lawrence Kasdan, following the departure of co-writer Michael Arndt. Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened in theaters on December 18, 2015. It grossed over $2 billion at the box office, making him the first director of a $2 billion movie since James Cameron. Despite its strong box-office performance and positive reviews from critics, the film was considered by some, including Star Wars creator George Lucas, to be too similar to the original 1977 film. Lucas felt the film relied too much on "retro" nostalgia to his films and too little on creating merits of its own. In a 2019 memoir, Disney president Bob Iger further said that Lucas felt "betrayed" after learning that Abrams, Kennedy, and Iger were not using his ideas for the sequel trilogy.
In 2016, Abrams responded towards complaints that The Force Awakens was too derivative of previous films, Abrams defended his choices, stating: "What was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new — to go backwards to go forwards". Abrams however, did apologized for how he handled Chewbacca and Leia's meeting after Han Solo's death, noting that Han Solo's best friend and widow ignore each other, with Leia instead hugging Rey. That year, the 2016, the Disney-produced Star Wars anthology film Rogue One, with whom Abrams had no involvement, was reported to have been liked by Lucas, more than The Force Awakens. Regardless of this, Abrams remained involved with the franchise, serving as a producer for direct sequel to The Force Awakens, titled The Last Jedi. Leaving writing and directing duties to Rian Johnson, the film was described by Lucas as "beautifully made", which was widely interpreted as Lucas, also liking it more than Abrams´ The Force Awakens.
Abrams also returned as producer for the sequel of the rival franchise Star Trek Beyond, released in 2016. And also produced The Cloverfield Paradox, a sequel to 10 Cloverfield Lane. It was released on Netflix in February 2018. Also on 2018, Abrams produced Overlord, a horror film set behind German enemy lines in World War II and directed by Julius Avery.
Abrams, also remained involved in the Mission: Impossible films, producing the fourth and fifth, and the 2018 released sixth film '. The fourth film were written and directed by Brad Bird, while the firth and sixth by Christopher McQuarrie. The three Abrams produced sequels, were better received on Rotten Tomatoes, than the Abrams´s directed Mission: Impossible III.
In September 2017, it was announced by Lucasfilm's president, Kathleen Kennedy, that Abrams would be returning to direct and co-write with Chris Terrio. The film was released in December 2019; it received mixed reviews from critics and fans, while audience reactions leaned more positively. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film became the worst reviewed live-action film in the series, at the time it released. Scott Mendelson´s review for Forbes described the film as "possibly worse than any prior Star Wars 'episode'. It ends a legendary franchise with a thud while denying this new trilogy its artistic reason for existence." He said that "the 142-minute movie spends almost its entire running time retconning its predecessor and adding painfully conventional 'plot twists' and patronizing reversals in the name of mollifying the fans who merely want to be reminded of the first three movies." Additionally, the film was criticized for reducing the screen-time of asian actress Kelly Marie Tran, whose character Rose Tico, played a main role in the previous film The Last Jedi. In the previous film, she had around ten minutes of screen-time, while in The Rise of Skywalker, she was reduced to one minute. Some fans and critics, interpreted it as a concession towards fans who committed online harassment towards the actress, due to her asian ethnicity and supposedly disliking her character; from the previous film. Screenwriter Chris Terrio said Tran had reduced screen-time because of the difficulty of including the late Carrie Fisher in scenes planned to feature both characters.
Upcoming projects
In 2008, it was reported that Abrams purchased the rights to a New York Times article "Mystery on Fifth Avenue" about the renovation of an 8.5 million dollar co-op, a division of property originally owned by E. F. Hutton & Co. and Marjorie Merriweather Post, for six figures and was developing a film titled Mystery on Fifth Avenue, with Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot Productions, and comedy writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky to write the adaptation. According to the article, a wealthy couple Steven B. Klinsky and Maureen Sherry purchased the apartment in 2003 and live there with their four children. Soon after purchasing the apartment, they hired young architectural designer Eric Clough, who devised an elaborately clever "scavenger hunt" built into the apartment that involved dozens of historical figures, a fictional book and a soundtrack, woven throughout the apartment in puzzles, riddles, secret panels, compartments, and hidden codes, without the couple's knowledge. The family didn't discover the embedded mystery until months after moving into the apartment. After Abrams purchased the article, Clough left him an encrypted message in the wall tiles of a Christian Louboutin shoe store he designed in West Hollywood.Abrams announced at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit that Bad Robot Productions had made a deal with Valve to produce a film based on either the video game title Portal or Half-Life.
In July 2016, Abrams reported that a fourth alternate universe Star Trek installment was in the works and that he is confident that Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Chris Hemsworth will return for the sequel.
In February 2018, HBO ordered Abrams' sci-fi drama Demimonde to series.
In May 2018, Abrams and Avery had reunited to produce and direct, respectively, a superhero thriller film titled The Heavy, with a script written by Daniel Casey. Paramount and Bad Robot plan to begin filming sometime in 2018.
Abrams will produce and Guillermo del Toro will write and direct a science-fiction action/thriller film titled Zanbato, which Abrams has been working on since 2011.
In September 2019, Abrams and his Bad Robot Productions company signed a $250 million five year deal with WarnerMedia, including HBO and Warner Bros. Pictures. In April 2020, it was announced that Abrams would be developing three new shows for HBO Max: Justice League Dark, Overlook, and Duster.
Unrealized projects
In 1989, Abrams met Steven Spielberg at a film festival, where Spielberg spoke about a possible Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel, with Abrams as a possible writer and with Robert Zemeckis as producer. Nothing came up from this project, although Abrams has some storyboards for a Roger Rabbit short.In July 2002, Abrams wrote a script for a possible fifth Superman film entitled . Brett Ratner and McG entered into talks to direct, although Abrams tried to get the chance to direct his own script. However, the project was finally cancelled in 2004 and instead Superman Returns was released in 2006.
In November 2009, it was reported that Abrams and Bad Robot Productions were producing, along with Cartoon Network Movies, Warner Bros., Frederator Films and Paramount Pictures, a film adaptation of Samurai Jack. However, in June 2012, series creator Genndy Tartakovsky stated that the production of the film was scrapped after Abrams' departure from the project to direct Star Trek. For this and other reasons, Tartakovsky decided to make a new season instead of a feature film. Also in 2009, it was reported that Abrams and Bad Robot Productions would produce a film based on the Micronauts toy line. However, a film has never gone into production.
Other
Videogame
In November 2015, it was announced that Abrams was developing video game called Spyjinx, in a collaboration between Bad Robot Productions And Chair Entertainment.Books and comics
On September 9, 2013, it was announced that Abrams would release a novel, S., written by Doug Dorst. The book was released on October 29, 2013.In 2019, Abrams made his debut as a writer for Marvel Comics, co-authoring the company's title Spider-Man from September of that year with his son Henry. The first issue of the comic includes the death of Mary-Jane Watson, and a twelve-year time shift, with the series' protagonist being Ben Parker, son of Peter Parker and Mary Jane.
Personal life
Abrams is married to public relations executive Katie McGrath and has three children. He resides in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California. He is Jewish and his wife is Roman Catholic, and he sometimes takes his children to religious services on Jewish holidays.Abrams serves on the Creative Council of Represent.Us, a nonpartisan anti-corruption organization.