Shane Salerno was born on November 27,1972 and is an American screenwriter, producer, director, and Chief Creative Officer of The Story Factory.
41 Facts About Shane Salerno
2.
Shane Salerno's writing credits include the films Avatar: The Way of Water, Armageddon, Savages, Shaft, and the TV series Hawaii Five-0.
3.
Shane Salerno was chosen by director James Cameron to co-write the four sequels to Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: The Seed Bearer, Avatar: The Tulkun Rider, and Avatar: The Quest for Eywa.
4.
Shane Salerno spent ten years writing, producing, financing, and directing the documentary Salinger, and co-writing with David Shields the companion book which became a New York Times bestseller.
5.
Shane Salerno is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of The Story Factory, a production company and literary agency for novelists, which produces films and TV series based on literary properties, including the Showtime miniseries The Comey Rule in 2020, for which Jeff Daniels and Brendan Gleeson were both nominated for Golden Globes.
6.
Shane Salerno attended 10 schools in 12 years, including St John's College High School, a military academy in Washington, DC where he was co-captain of the football team and the only write-in class president since the school was founded in 1851.
7.
Shane Salerno has repeatedly cited the influence of filmmaker Michael Mann and the TV show Miami Vice, which Mann created and produced.
8.
Shane Salerno wrote two films for Mann in 2000 and 2012 and dedicated his documentary film Salinger to him in 2013.
9.
Shane Salerno first made national headlines as a high school senior when he wrote, produced and directed the award-winning documentary film Sundown: The Future of Children and Drugs.
10.
At 22, Shane Salerno signed a three-year contract with Universal Television to work on various series beginning with New York Undercover.
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Shane Salerno has called this time with Steven Spielberg his "writing school".
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Shane Salerno was then hired to do a production rewrite of the Kurt Russell film Breakdown, directed by Jonathan Mostow.
13.
In 1998, working with director John Singleton and writer Richard Price, Shane Salerno wrote the screenplay for the 2000 movie Shaft.
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In 1999, Shane Salerno sold the rights to the bestseller Zodiac to Disney's Touchstone Pictures in a seven-figure deal.
15.
Shane Salerno served as executive producer, showrunner, head writer, and music supervisor.
16.
In 2003, working with director Paul W S Anderson, Salerno adapted the screenplay for Alien vs Predator.
17.
Shane Salerno spent six months writing the shooting script, finished its development, and stayed on for revisions throughout the film's production.
18.
Shane Salerno would go on to write the screenplay for the sequel Aliens vs Predator: Requiem.
19.
In 2004, Shane Salerno became the youngest "Guest of Honor" speaker in the history of the Los Angeles Screenwriting Expo.
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Shane Salerno made follow up appearances in 2005 and 2006.
21.
In 2005, Shane Salerno was brought on to adapt Meg, the Steve Alten novel, with Jan de Bont directing.
22.
New Line's original script was written by Alten, but the studio feared it too closely resembled Jurassic Park and they brought in Shane Salerno to do a rewrite.
23.
In 2006, Shane Salerno was brought on board to do a production draft of the Nicolas Cage vehicle Ghost Rider.
24.
On Monday, June 29,2009, Variety carried a front-page story about Shane Salerno selling License to Steal, a pitch for "seven figures upfront" to Paramount Pictures and Kurtzman-Orci Productions.
25.
In 2010, Shane Salerno worked as a writer and consulting producer on the CBS reboot of Hawaii Five-0, which was co-created by Alex Kurtzman, one of the producers on Shane Salerno's previous project, License to Steal.
26.
In 2013, Shane Salerno began working as a screenwriter on James Cameron's much-anticipated sequels to Avatar.
27.
In 2016, Shane Salerno brokered the seven-figure film rights deal to Don Winslow's Cartel Trilogy, which will be titled The Border.
28.
The trilogy of novels was originally purchased by 20th Century Fox for Shane Salerno to write the script for Ridley Scott to direct.
29.
In 2018, Shane Salerno was instrumental in selling the film rights to former FBI Director James Comey's book A Higher Loyalty.
30.
Shane Salerno spent ten years on his documentary Salinger, a project that he researched, wrote, produced, directed, and financed.
31.
Shane Salerno is the founder of The Story Factory, an entertainment company that currently represents authors, including Don Winslow, the Michael Crichton estate, Steve Hamilton, Lou Berney, Meg Gardiner, Marcus Sakey, TJ Newman, John Katzenbach, Adrian McKinty, Reed Farrel Coleman, Bill Beverly, Steve Cavanagh, Dervla McTiernan, Eric Rickstad, James Phelan, and Greg Harden, former US Capitol Police Chief Steven A Sund, as well as four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Michael Mann.
32.
Shane Salerno would go on to transform Winslow's book, film, and TV deals and began accruing seven-figure deals for Winslow's work.
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The publishing world took notice and soon other prominent authors began calling Shane Salerno to represent them, as well.
34.
In 2012, Shane Salerno was flipping through novels in a bookstore when he came across Steve Hamilton's Edgar Award-winning novel The Lock Artist.
35.
The early days of the company saw Shane Salerno pulling double-duty, splitting his time between his screenwriting career and his literary company.
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Shane Salerno would spend all day working with James Cameron and the other writers on the Avatar sequels, then spend all night working on the deals, marketing, and publicity for his author's books.
37.
Shane Salerno had heard of Irish author Adrian McKinty's struggles to sustain his family on his writing advances and, recognizing his immense talent, Shane Salerno called McKinty.
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Shane Salerno called back, this time with Don Winslow, and the two convinced McKinty to sign with The Story Factory.
39.
Shane Salerno sold the film rights in another seven-figure deal to Universal, with Edgar Wright slated to begin directing the project later in 2022.
40.
Shane Salerno happened to pick up the letter on the top of his pile of mail and was intrigued by her concept for a novel about a pilot whose family is kidnapped and will be killed unless he crashes the plane.
41.
Shane Salerno signed Newman and eventually sold the publishing rights for seven-figures, then the film rights to Universal in another seven-figure deal.