Eric Heisserer
writer/director Hours; writer Arrival, The Thing, Final Destination 5
Eric Heisserer is a screenwriter and author who recently won the Writers Guild of America award for his screenplay Arrival, for which he also received an Academy Award nomination. The film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, and starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, is a sci-fi thriller based on the short story by acclaimed author Ted Chiang. A Paramount Pictures feature, Arrival was produced by 21 Laps and FilmNation, and co-financed by Lava Bear Films. Heisserer’s feature Bird Box, which landed on The Black List, is now in the works and out to cast; Andy Muschietti is directingand Scott Stuber is set to produce. Heisserer also directs, having made his directorial debut in 2013 with the film Hours, which starred Paul Walker and Genesis Rodriguez.Last year, Heisserer also wrote Lights Out, a feature at New Line based on the short film by David Sandberg. Lawrence Grey, James Wan and Heisserer were producers on the project and David Sandberg directed.Heisserer is currently at work rewriting Bloodshot, the first of Sony’s launch of ValiantComics to screen, for Neil Moritz, Valiant Comics, and Sony Pictures; Chad Stahelski (John Wick) will direct. Heisserer is also developing Harbinger, another Valiant Comic for Sony/Neil Moritz.Also in development is Understand, based on another story by Ted Chiang, at Fox with 21 Laps. Additionally, Christine Boylan is adapting his Popcorn Fiction short story Lost Vegas for television with UCP, of which he is attached to direct the first two episodes.He is also writing Lone Wolf 2100 Chase the Setting Sun for Dark Horse Comics, based on his relationship with them from the Shaper graphic novels he wrote for Dark Horse Books.A published author, Heisserer’s works include the recent “150 Screenwriting Challenges” book and several short stories for the anthology site Popcorn Fiction, including Hours. That story became the template for the 2013 movie, along with personal stories he collected from Katrina survivors. His previous feature work includes Final Destination 5, The Thing (2011), and the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.Heisserer grew up in Oklahoma, where his father taught ancient history at Oklahoma University and took him on sabbaticals to rare and fascinating European locales. A self-described “autodidact,” Heisserer began his writing career in the mid-1990s in the tabletop game market, but he broke in as a screenwriter with an online epistolary story called The Dionaea House, a series of letters from the fictional Mark Condry to the author. Warner Bros. bought the rights to The Dionaea House, which led to screenwriting jobs with Paramount, Warner Bros., CBS, and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.For the ten-year anniversary of The Dionaea House, Heisserer released an online companion story called Exposure on Reddit (http://redd.it/2ielup), which sold preemptively to Neil Moritz.