Terry Rossio (born July 2, 1960) is an American

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

and film producer. He co-wrote the films ''

Aladdin Aladdin ( ; , , ATU 561, 'Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with '' One Thousand and One Nights'' (often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part of the original ...

'', '' The Mask of Zorro'', ''

Shrek ''Shrek'' is a 2001 American animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, and written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, and Roger S. H. Schulman, loosely based on the 1990 children's picture boo ...

'', and all five of the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' series. For ''Shrek'', he was nominated for the

Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay adapted from previously established material. The most frequently adapted media are novels, but other adapted narrative formats include stage plays, mus ...

, and won the Annie Award for Writing in a Feature Production and BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He often collaborates with fellow screenwriter Ted Elliott.

Life and career

Rossio was born in

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 73,598. It is the principal city of the Kalamazoo–Portage metropolitan are ...

. After graduating from Saddleback High School in

Santa Ana, California Santa Ana (Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As ...

, he went on to study at

California State University, Fullerton California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public research university in Fullerton, California, United States. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the California State ...

where he received his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in Communications, with an emphasis in radio, television and film. He is the founder of Wordplay, also known a
Wordplayer.com
one of the premier screenwriting sites on the Internet. Along with his writing partner Ted Elliott, Rossio has written some of the most successful American films of the past 30 years, including ''

'', '' Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl'' and ''

''. He is the eleventh-most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of domestic box office receipts with totals at around $5.5 billion. In May 1993, Rossio and Elliott were hired by

TriStar Pictures TriStar Pictures, Inc. (spelled as Tri-Star until 1991) is an American film studio and production company that is part of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, which is part of the Japanese conglomerate Sony, Sony Group Corporation. The compan ...

to write a screenplay for ''

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or ''kaiju'', that debuted in the eponymous 1954 film, directed and co-written by Ishirō Honda. The character has since become an international pop culture icon, appearing in various media: 33 Japanese films p ...

'', which featured Godzilla battling a shape-shifting alien in New York. Their script was dropped by

Roland Emmerich Roland Emmerich (; born 10 November 1955) is a German-American filmmaker. Emmerich is widely known for his science fiction and disaster films and has been called a "master of disaster" within the movie industry. His films, most of which are Eng ...

in favor of a new script of his own co–written with

Dean Devlin Dean Devlin (born August 27, 1962) is an American screenwriter, producer, director, and actor of film and television. He is best known for his collaborations with director Roland Emmerich, and for his work on the The Librarian (franchise), ''Li ...

. However, Rossio and Elliott retained a "Story By" credit. In 2011, Terry Rossio was working on a script for a fifth ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' film without his partner Ted Elliott. Rossio's script was discarded in 2012, and the writer stated on his website Wordplay that a major reason was its use of a female villain, which made actor

Johnny Depp John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor and musician. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Johnny Depp, multiple accolades, including a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for ...

"worried that it would be redundant to ''

Dark Shadows ''Dark Shadows'' is an American Gothic fiction, Gothic soap opera that aired weekdays on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television network from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. The show depicted the lives, loves, trials, and tribulatio ...

'', which also featured a female villain." By January 2013, Disney hired Jeff Nathanson, with whom Rossio shared co-story credit with. Following the theatrical release of '' Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales'' in 2017, Rossio released his unproduced screenplay, and made it available on Wordplay. In 2015, Dodie Gold Management filed a Commissions Non-Payment Lawsuit against Rossio and sought a jury trial for "damages of more than $25,000 plus a court declaration that they are entitled to the 10% commissions and a full look at the records and accounting of Rossio and his Chamaeleon Productions." In March 2017,

Legendary Entertainment Legendary Entertainment, LLC (also known as Legendary Pictures or simply Legendary) is an American mass media and film production company based in Burbank, California, founded by Thomas Tull. The company has often collaborated with the major stu ...

announced that Rossio would lead their writers room to help develop the story for '' Godzilla vs. Kong''. He received "story by" credit on the film. In June 2019, Rossio was announced as the screenwriter for '' The Amazing Maurice''. In 2021, Rossio and Bill Marsilii sold their spec script ''Time Zone'' to Amazon Studios. The film will be a joint venture between Amazon Studios and Davis Entertainment. In February 2023 Ashly Bell and Dr. Bernice A King (daughter of Martin Luther King) announced their intent to executive produce ''Cash Money'', written by Terry Rossio and Kevin Arbouet, concurrent with the launch of ReadLife Entertainment, which plans to create television and film projects centered around strong social messaging. Arbouet is going to direct Cash Money.

Controversy

On November 23, 2018, Rossio expressed his condolences to parents of "vaccine damaged children", however, he likened the term "anti-vax" to a slur equivalent to "

nigger In the English language, ''nigger'' is a racial slur directed at black people. Starting in the 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been increasingly replaced by the euphemistic contraction , notably in cases where ''nigger'' is Use–menti ...

." Following immediate outcry, he apologized the day after for using the slur and for proclaiming that both epithets were analogous.

Filmography

Other credits

References

External links

Terry Rossio Website via Wordplayer
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rossio, Terry 1960 births American male screenwriters Animation screenwriters Best Adapted Screenplay BAFTA Award winners California State University, Fullerton alumni DreamWorks Animation people Living people Writers from Kalamazoo, Michigan Walt Disney Animation Studios people People from Santa Ana, California Screenwriters from California Screenwriters from Michigan