David S. Goyer

David S. Goyer
Goyer at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con International.
Born	David Samuel Goyer (1965-12-22) December 22, 1965 Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter, novelist, comic book writer
Nationality	American
Genre	Screenwriter; comic books
Spouse	Marina Black

David Samuel Goyer (born December 22, 1965) is an American screenwriter, film director, novelist, and comic book writer.

His screenwriting works includes the Blade trilogy, Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, Dark City and Man of Steel, and he directed four feature films: Zig Zag, Blade: Trinity, The Invisible, and The Unborn.

Goyer was also co-writer of the video games Call of Duty: Black Ops and its sequel Call of Duty: Black Ops II. He won a Saturn Award for Best Writing for Batman Begins and received another nomination for Dark City, and has been nominated for four Hugo Awards.

Early life

Goyer and his brother Jeff were born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and were raised by their mother. He is Jewish on his mother's side, and attended Hebrew school. He has stated that in the regular school, "a lot kids beat me up, saying that I killed Christ. I was very consciously different... I grew up with something of a chip on my shoulder." Goyer is an alumnus of Huron High School and the University of Southern California, graduating from the School of Cinema-Television in 1988.

Goyer was a student of screenwriter Nelson Gidding at USC and frequently returned to Gidding's class as a guest speaker. He graduated in 1988 and sold his first screenplay for Death Warrant in 1989, which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme. With his first paycheck, he bought a new Isuzu Trooper, which was stolen the very first night he drove it home.

Career

A professed comic book fanatic, Goyer has written or co-written several screenplays based on comic book characters and series, including Batman, Superman, Ghost Rider, and Blade.

Goyer wrote a title based around the Justice Society of America for DC Comics titled JSA, which debuted in August 1999. For the first five issues, he collaborated with James Robinson and, until his departure following issue 51, with Geoff Johns, who would take over as solo writer.

Alongside Brannon Braga, Goyer co-created FlashForward, a science fiction TV series that premiered on ABC in Fall 2009. The show was based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer. He stepped in as show runner in October 2009 after the show struggled out of the gate. On Feb. 5, 2010, Goyer announced he would be stepping down as FlashForward showrunner to focus on feature films and directing.

In 2011, Goyer wrote a short story titled "The Incident" in which Superman renounces his U.S. citizenship.

Goyer has recently been working with Legendary Pictures on three of their upcoming projects. He co-wrote the scripts for The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Man of Steel (2013). In addition, he did a one-step 4-week rewrite for Legendary Pictures' Godzilla reboot.

Goyer also recently published his first novel, Heaven's Shadow, the first in a trilogy co-written by Michael Cassutt for Ace/Penguin. The novel received generally positive reviews. Goyer subsequently sold the film rights to Warner Brothers and is currently adapting the first novel for the big screen.

In late October 2011, cable channel Starz and BBC Worldwide greenlit his new project called Da Vinci’s Demons. The project will follow the life of a 25-year old Leonardo da Vinci. "This will be a show about secret histories, genius, madness and all things profane," according to Goyer.

Goyer has been announced as the director to a new adaption to Alexandre Dumas, père's novel The Count of Monte Cristo, which is still in development.

In March 2013, Goyer was reported to have been chosen as writer for a film adaptation of the video game Metal Gear Solid. In June, he was announced to work on both Justice League and a sequel to Man of Steel.

In September 2013, Goyer delivered a screenwriting lecture as part of the BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters' Lecture Series.

In November 2013, Jason Zada was signed by Lava Bear Films and David S. Goyer to helm the Goyer-produced upcoming film The Forest. Focus Features picked up the North American distribution rights to the film, which will act as Zada's feature film directorial debut.

In December 2013, it was announced that Goyer would work with Joseph Gordon-Levitt on a film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's comic book, "The Sandman" with a story treatment by Goyer and script by Jack Thorne.

Controversy

In a May 2014 interview for the podcast Sciptnotes by Craig Mazin, Goyer made the following statement regarding the creation of She-Hulk:

"I have a theory about She-Hulk. Which was created by a man, right? And at the time in particular I think 95% of comic book readers were men and certainly almost all of the comic book writers were men. So the Hulk was this classic male power fantasy. It’s like, most of the people reading comic books were these people like me who were just these little kids getting the shit kicked out of them every day… And so then they created She-Hulk, right? Who was still smart… I think She-Hulk is the chick that you could fuck if you were Hulk, you know what I’m saying? … She-Hulk was the extension of the male power fantasy. So it’s like if I’m going to be this geek who becomes the Hulk then let’s create a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could fuck."

The statements drew criticism from the comic community as an example of the misogyny rampant among comic fans. Accordingly, Stan Lee, one of the creators of She-Hulk responded against Goyer's accusations stating "Never for an instant did I want her as a love interest for Hulk, only a nut would even think of that."

Works

Films

Year	Film	Director	Producer	Writer	Screenplay
1990	Death Warrant	No	No	Yes	No
1992	Demonic Toys	No	No	Yes	No
1994	The Puppet Masters	No	No	Yes	Yes
1996	The Crow: City of Angels	No	No	Yes	No
1998	Dark City	No	No	Yes	Yes
	Blade	No	No	Yes	No
2002	Zig Zag	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
	Blade II	No	No	Yes	Yes
2004	Blade: Trinity	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
	Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys	No	No	Yes	No
2005	Batman Begins	No	No	Yes	Yes
2007	The Invisible	Yes	No	No	No
2008	Jumper	No	No	Yes	Yes
	The Dark Knight	No	No	Yes	No
2009	The Unborn	Yes	No	Yes	No
2012	Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance	No	No	Yes	Yes
	The Dark Knight Rises	No	No	Yes	No
2013	Man of Steel	No	No	Yes	Yes
2016	The Birth of a Nation	No	Yes	No	No
2016	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice	No	No	Yes	Yes
2017	Justice League Part One	No	No	Yes	No
2019	Justice League Part Two	No	No	Yes	No
TBA	The Forest	No	Yes	Yes	No
	Principia	No	Yes	No	No

Television

Year	TV Series	Director	Producer	Writer	Note
						1997	Sleepwalkers	No	Yes	Yes	Writer of the Pilot episode
1998	Nick Fury: Agent of Shield	No	No	Yes	Television film; Written by Goyer
2000	FreakyLinks	No	No	Yes	Writer of the Pilot episode
2005	Threshold	No	Yes	Yes	Writer of Episode 2
2006	Blade: The Series	No	Yes	Yes	Writer of the Pilot episode and Episode 13
2009-2010	FlashForward	No	Yes	Yes	Co-writer of the Pilot episode and writer of Episodes 2; 10 and 17
2012-Ongoing	Da Vinci's Demons	No	Yes	Yes	Creator; Writer of the Pilot Episode and Episodes: 2; 4; 8; 9 and 14
2014-2015	Constantine	No	No	Yes	Creator; Co-writer of the Pilot Episode and Episode 3
TBA	Krypton	No	Yes	Yes	Creator

Video games

• Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) (Writer)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012) (Writer)

Novels

• Heaven's Shadow (2011)
• Heaven's War (2012)
• Heaven's Fall (2013)

External links

• David S. Goyer at IMDb
• David Goyer Interview @ PopImage, Oct.01
• David Goyer Interview @ PopImage, Feb 2000
• The Dialogue: An Interview with Screenwriter David Goyer