Jon Spaihts

Biography:

Spaihts, Jon is an American author and screenwriter who was born on February 4, 1970. His most well-known works are co-writing Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021) and its follow-up Dune: Part Two (2024), both of which are based on Frank Herbert’s book of the same name. Additionally, he authored the screenplays for the 2016 movies Doctor Strange, Passengers, and Prometheus. Spaihts received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on Dune.

The 2007 Black List of unproduced high-value scripts featured his science fiction romance Passengers. After Reeves initially grew  connected to Spaihts’ abandoned science fiction script Shadow 19, Spaihts was engaged to write the movie at the request of Keanu Reeves and Stephen Hamel, who co-founded Relativity Media with Lynwood Spinks. After Reeves consented to co-produce with Hamel and star in Passengers,  Scott Free hired Spaihts to write the next Alien saga installments and two prequel films that Ridley Scott would direct. These eventually evolved into the more independent story Prometheus, which Damon Lindelof would later revise.  Based on a story by Leslie Bohem and M.T. Ahern, Spaihts also created the screenplay for the alien invasion thriller The Darkest Hour for New Regency.

In addition to creating the Disney feature Children of Mars, Spaihts worked on the Sony Pictures adaptation of St. George and the Dragon. He signed a two-picture agreement with Jerry Bruckheimer Films in 2012 to develop a space adventure movie based on his own original proposal and adapt Ashley Wood’s graphic novel World War Robot.