John Gatins (born April 16, 1968^[1]) is an American screenwriter, director, and actor. For writing thedrama filmFlight (2012), he was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Gatins made his directorial feature debut by filming his screenplay forDreamer (2005), and also wrote or co-wroteCoach Carter (2005),Real Steel (2011),Kong: Skull Island andPower Rangers (2017). As an actor, he has collaborated three times withEddie Murphy, onNorbit (2007),Meet Dave (2008) andA Thousand Words (2012).

Gatins was born inManhattan,New York, where his father worked as aNew York City police officer.^[2] Later, his family relocated to thePoughkeepsie area, where Gatins went on to attendArlington High School^[3] andVassar College.^[2] He graduated in 1990 with a degree in drama.^[2]

After graduation, Gatins moved toLos Angeles with the intention of pursuing acting.^[2] His first role was in the low budget 1993 horror filmWitchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway, followed by a role in the 1994 moviePumpkinhead II: Blood Wings.^[2] As he won small roles in larger-budget productions, including 1999'sVarsity Blues and 2002'sBig Fat Liar,^[2] Jeremy Kramer, a fellow Vassar grad and employee atFox, paid him $1,000 to write a teen comedy by the name ofSmells Like Teen Suicide.^[4]Varsity Blues was directed byBrian Robbins and produced byMichael Tollin, the latter of whom would, in 2001, direct Gatins's first screenplay, a romantic comedy entitledSummer Catch, while Robbins produced it.^[2] Tollin returned in 2002 to direct Gatins's second screenplay, adramedy calledHardball.^[2] While continuing to act, Gatins wroteCoach Carter which was released in 2005.^[2] The same year, he presented his first directorial effort,Dreamer, which he also wrote.^[2]

At the suggestion ofSteven Spielberg, Gatins was brought in to work onReal Steel, a science fiction film based on a 1956Richard Matheson short story.^[5] Gatins considered the draft of the screenplay which he received when he began working on the project to be very dark, and he adapted it to focus more on the family aspects, such as the film's father-son relationship, about which he was accustomed to writing in his previous works.^[5]Real Steel was released October 7, 2011.^[5]

Since 1999, Gatins had been working onFlight, an original screenplay which, by 2009, was 149 pages.^[4]Robert Zemeckis picked up the script; and the resulting film, starringDenzel Washington, was released to critical acclaim in 2012.^[4] Gatins received a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) at the85th Academy Awards for his screenplay.^[6]

DreamWorks tapped Gatins to writea sequel toReal Steel before the film was released based on positive test screenings of the movie.^[7] He and his brother, George Gatins, also adapted theElectronic Arts videogame seriesNeed for Speed into aneponymous film.^[8]

Gatins rewroteKong: Skull Island (2017) forLegendary Pictures andWarner Bros. Pictures.^[9] He also rewrote the 2017Power Rangers reboot film, incorporating aspects from previous drafts byMax Landis,Matt Sazama,Burk Sharpless, Michele Mulroney, andKieran Mulroney.

In 2022, Gatins andAndrea Berloff have signed a creative partnership withNetflix.^[10]

Uncredited script revisions

• Varsity Blues (1999)
• Behind Enemy Lines (2001)
• Timeline (2003)
• Spectral (2016)

Acting roles

Thanks

• Ciggies (2006) (Short film)
• Eagle vs Shark (2007)
• Harmony and Me (2007)
• Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
• The House of Tomorrow (2017)

• John Gatins atIMDb

• Living people
• American male screenwriters
• American male film actors
• Male actors from Manhattan
• Vassar College alumni
• Writers from Manhattan
• Writers from Poughkeepsie, New York
• 20th-century American male actors
• 21st-century American male actors
• American male television actors
• Screenwriters from New York (state)
• 1968 births

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• Use mdy dates from July 2014