Shane Salerno
- Producer
- Writer
- Music Department
Shane Salerno is the co-screenwriter of the forthcoming Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Avatar 3 (2025), Avatar 4 (2029), Avatar 5 (2031) produced and directed by Oscar winner James Cameron. He has been a professional screenwriter since the age of 19.
In the years that have followed Detour Magazine has named Salerno as
"one of Hollywood's true shapers of popular culture" and Fade In
magazine selected him as one of the "100 people you need to know in
Hollywood". His diverse screenwriting is distinguished by the quality
of directors who have chosen him to write their films including Steven
Spielberg, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, Ron Howard, Oliver Stone,
William Friedkin and Michael Bay among many others.
Salerno produced and directed the documentary film Salinger, a documentary on the mysterious life of Catcher in the Rye author J.D.
Salinger. The film was released theatrically and was also an American Masters television special. The film features interviews with friends, colleagues and members of Salinger's inner circle that have never spoken on the record
before as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has
never been seen.
Salerno is also a New York Times bestselling author. He co-wrote the biography Salinger about J.D. Salinger with David Shields.
The book was a New York Times bestseller and a #1 national bestseller. The book also made bestseller list for NPR, Independent Booksellers, Barnes & Noble and The Los Angeles Times. It was also named an Amazon Best Book of the Month and received starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.
He was born in Memphis, Tennessee and grew up in Memphis, Maryland,
Washington, D.C. and San Diego. He attended ten schools in twelve years
on both coasts of the United States.
His film debut happened when he was in high school. At 17 he wrote,
produced and directed the award winning documentary film Sundown: The
Future of Children and Drugs. The film debuted on Larry King Live in
September 1991. Sundown won several notable "best documentary of the
year" honors and was showcased on major talk shows and news programs
around the world. Shane was also honored individually, in separate
ceremonies, in both houses of Congress.
The critical acclaim Sundown received led nine-time Emmy winner Gregory
Hoblit to invite a then 19 year old Shane to apprentice on the
first season of NYPD Blue as a writer-director. Shane has credited the
backstage pass to the brilliant, gritty series during a year when they
were honored with a record 26 Emmy nominations as a front line film
school.
Salerno is the co-writer and executive producer of Savages, directed by
three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone, based on the acclaimed crime
novel by Don Winslow which the New York Times voted as one of the "top
ten books of 2010". The all-star cast includes Taylor Kitsch, John
Travolta, Blake Lively, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek,
Aaron Johnson, Emile Hirsch and Mia Maestro. Universal Pictures will
release the film in the fall of 2012.
Salerno one of the few screenwriters to have found success in both film
and television: he's the co-writer of #1 blockbusters Armageddon and
Shaft, and served as one of the writer/producers of Hawaii Five O
during its Golden Globe-nominated first season.
Salerno is also one of the select screenwriters to have sold both
pitches and spec scripts to studios for over $1 million.
By the age of 22 he was consistently writing the highest rated episodes
of the hit Fox TV series New York Undercover. Shane's gritty, street
wise episodes attracted the attention of film producers. At the end of
the first season, Shane asked Universal television to be let out of his
three-year contract in order to pursue the feature film opportunities
that he was being offered.
The first feature screenwriting job Salerno accepted was the adaptation
of the World War II submarine thriller Thunder Below for producer-director
Steven Spielberg and the newly formed Dreamworks
Pictures. Shane next sold the spec script A Season in Hell for $600,000
to Dino DeLaurentiis who also asked him to polish the screenplay of
Breakdown starring Kurt Russell. Breakdown was released by Paramount
Pictures to critical acclaim.
Salerno experienced his breakthrough at the age of 24 when director
Michael Bay recruited Shane to rewrite the Jerry Bruckheimer produced
Armageddon based on an original screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh. The blockbuster film
debuted at #1 on July 1, 1998 and was the highest grossing film of the
year, earning over $570 million worldwide.
In 1998, at the age of 25, Variety selected Shane as one of the
"hottest new creatives on the film scene." Based on Thunder Below and
Armageddon, John Singleton, the youngest director ever nominated for an
Oscar, telephoned Shane and asked him to serve as his writing partner
on "Shaft" which Paramount Pictures was mounting. The Singleton-Salerno
collaboration (aided by novelist Richard Price) resulted in Shane's
second #1 film when "Shaft" debuted at the top of the box office on
June 16, 2000.
That year, Shane (now 27) returned to television by co-creating (with
acclaimed novelist Don Winslow), executive producing and serving as
show-runner, head writer, and music supervisor for the NBC television
series UC: Undercover starring Vera Farmiga (Martin Scorsese's "The
Departed"), Oded Fehr (Showtime's "Sleeper Cell") and Golden Globe
winner Ving Rhames. The series won and was nominated for awards in
acting, cinematography and sound.
Salerno is also the co-writer of the 3-D re-imagining of Fantastic
Voyage, produced by James Cameron, Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini for
Twentieth Century Fox.
On January 29, 2010, the website Deadline Hollywood broke an exclusive
story and review of Salinger, a feature-length documentary about
reclusive author J. D. Salinger that Salerno directed, produced and
financed himself. The documentary was kept secret for five years. The
film features interviews with 150 subjects including Philip Seymour
Hoffman, Edward Norton, John Cusack, Danny DeVito, John Guare, Martin
Sheen, David Milch, Robert Towne, Tom Wolfe, E.L. Doctorow, Pulitzer
Prize winners A. Scott Berg and Elizabeth Frank, Gore Vidal, and "many
other fans, journalists, filmmakers, playwrights, and artists inspired
by Salinger's work." Michael Fleming, the first journalist in the world
to view the film, said Salerno's picture was "arrestingly powerful and
exhaustively researched." Additionally, Fleming announced that Salerno
had co-written a 700 page biography on Salinger with New York Times
bestselling author David Shields. The Salinger film was profiled in
Entertainment Weekly and Newsweek and is scheduled for release in 2012.
In 2010, Salerno joined the writing-producing team of Hawaii Five-0. In
its first season, Hawaii Five-0 also won the "Favorite New TV Drama" at
the 37th People's Choice Awards on January 5, 2011. Series star Scott
Caan was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor -
Series, Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Danny on Hawaii
Five-0. In addition to his producing duties, Salerno was credited for
writing the episode "Po'ipu" (Episode 9) on November 15, 2010,
co-writing "El Malama" (Episode 16) on February 7, 2011 and "Ho'op'i"
(Episode 20) on April 18, 2011 which featured a special guest
appearance by Sean Combs.
In addition to his own writing, Salerno also runs The Story Factory a
company that produces the work of screenwriters and authors. The company has had six New York Times bestsellers.
In 2004 Salerno became the youngest "Guest of Honor" speaker in the
history of the Los Angeles Screenwriting Expo. He made follow up
appearances in 2005, 2006 and 2011.
In the years that have followed Detour Magazine has named Salerno as
"one of Hollywood's true shapers of popular culture" and Fade In
magazine selected him as one of the "100 people you need to know in
Hollywood". His diverse screenwriting is distinguished by the quality
of directors who have chosen him to write their films including Steven
Spielberg, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, Ron Howard, Oliver Stone,
William Friedkin and Michael Bay among many others.
Salerno produced and directed the documentary film Salinger, a documentary on the mysterious life of Catcher in the Rye author J.D.
Salinger. The film was released theatrically and was also an American Masters television special. The film features interviews with friends, colleagues and members of Salinger's inner circle that have never spoken on the record
before as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has
never been seen.
Salerno is also a New York Times bestselling author. He co-wrote the biography Salinger about J.D. Salinger with David Shields.
The book was a New York Times bestseller and a #1 national bestseller. The book also made bestseller list for NPR, Independent Booksellers, Barnes & Noble and The Los Angeles Times. It was also named an Amazon Best Book of the Month and received starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.
He was born in Memphis, Tennessee and grew up in Memphis, Maryland,
Washington, D.C. and San Diego. He attended ten schools in twelve years
on both coasts of the United States.
His film debut happened when he was in high school. At 17 he wrote,
produced and directed the award winning documentary film Sundown: The
Future of Children and Drugs. The film debuted on Larry King Live in
September 1991. Sundown won several notable "best documentary of the
year" honors and was showcased on major talk shows and news programs
around the world. Shane was also honored individually, in separate
ceremonies, in both houses of Congress.
The critical acclaim Sundown received led nine-time Emmy winner Gregory
Hoblit to invite a then 19 year old Shane to apprentice on the
first season of NYPD Blue as a writer-director. Shane has credited the
backstage pass to the brilliant, gritty series during a year when they
were honored with a record 26 Emmy nominations as a front line film
school.
Salerno is the co-writer and executive producer of Savages, directed by
three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone, based on the acclaimed crime
novel by Don Winslow which the New York Times voted as one of the "top
ten books of 2010". The all-star cast includes Taylor Kitsch, John
Travolta, Blake Lively, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek,
Aaron Johnson, Emile Hirsch and Mia Maestro. Universal Pictures will
release the film in the fall of 2012.
Salerno one of the few screenwriters to have found success in both film
and television: he's the co-writer of #1 blockbusters Armageddon and
Shaft, and served as one of the writer/producers of Hawaii Five O
during its Golden Globe-nominated first season.
Salerno is also one of the select screenwriters to have sold both
pitches and spec scripts to studios for over $1 million.
By the age of 22 he was consistently writing the highest rated episodes
of the hit Fox TV series New York Undercover. Shane's gritty, street
wise episodes attracted the attention of film producers. At the end of
the first season, Shane asked Universal television to be let out of his
three-year contract in order to pursue the feature film opportunities
that he was being offered.
The first feature screenwriting job Salerno accepted was the adaptation
of the World War II submarine thriller Thunder Below for producer-director
Steven Spielberg and the newly formed Dreamworks
Pictures. Shane next sold the spec script A Season in Hell for $600,000
to Dino DeLaurentiis who also asked him to polish the screenplay of
Breakdown starring Kurt Russell. Breakdown was released by Paramount
Pictures to critical acclaim.
Salerno experienced his breakthrough at the age of 24 when director
Michael Bay recruited Shane to rewrite the Jerry Bruckheimer produced
Armageddon based on an original screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh. The blockbuster film
debuted at #1 on July 1, 1998 and was the highest grossing film of the
year, earning over $570 million worldwide.
In 1998, at the age of 25, Variety selected Shane as one of the
"hottest new creatives on the film scene." Based on Thunder Below and
Armageddon, John Singleton, the youngest director ever nominated for an
Oscar, telephoned Shane and asked him to serve as his writing partner
on "Shaft" which Paramount Pictures was mounting. The Singleton-Salerno
collaboration (aided by novelist Richard Price) resulted in Shane's
second #1 film when "Shaft" debuted at the top of the box office on
June 16, 2000.
That year, Shane (now 27) returned to television by co-creating (with
acclaimed novelist Don Winslow), executive producing and serving as
show-runner, head writer, and music supervisor for the NBC television
series UC: Undercover starring Vera Farmiga (Martin Scorsese's "The
Departed"), Oded Fehr (Showtime's "Sleeper Cell") and Golden Globe
winner Ving Rhames. The series won and was nominated for awards in
acting, cinematography and sound.
Salerno is also the co-writer of the 3-D re-imagining of Fantastic
Voyage, produced by James Cameron, Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini for
Twentieth Century Fox.
On January 29, 2010, the website Deadline Hollywood broke an exclusive
story and review of Salinger, a feature-length documentary about
reclusive author J. D. Salinger that Salerno directed, produced and
financed himself. The documentary was kept secret for five years. The
film features interviews with 150 subjects including Philip Seymour
Hoffman, Edward Norton, John Cusack, Danny DeVito, John Guare, Martin
Sheen, David Milch, Robert Towne, Tom Wolfe, E.L. Doctorow, Pulitzer
Prize winners A. Scott Berg and Elizabeth Frank, Gore Vidal, and "many
other fans, journalists, filmmakers, playwrights, and artists inspired
by Salinger's work." Michael Fleming, the first journalist in the world
to view the film, said Salerno's picture was "arrestingly powerful and
exhaustively researched." Additionally, Fleming announced that Salerno
had co-written a 700 page biography on Salinger with New York Times
bestselling author David Shields. The Salinger film was profiled in
Entertainment Weekly and Newsweek and is scheduled for release in 2012.
In 2010, Salerno joined the writing-producing team of Hawaii Five-0. In
its first season, Hawaii Five-0 also won the "Favorite New TV Drama" at
the 37th People's Choice Awards on January 5, 2011. Series star Scott
Caan was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor -
Series, Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Danny on Hawaii
Five-0. In addition to his producing duties, Salerno was credited for
writing the episode "Po'ipu" (Episode 9) on November 15, 2010,
co-writing "El Malama" (Episode 16) on February 7, 2011 and "Ho'op'i"
(Episode 20) on April 18, 2011 which featured a special guest
appearance by Sean Combs.
In addition to his own writing, Salerno also runs The Story Factory a
company that produces the work of screenwriters and authors. The company has had six New York Times bestsellers.
In 2004 Salerno became the youngest "Guest of Honor" speaker in the
history of the Los Angeles Screenwriting Expo. He made follow up
appearances in 2005, 2006 and 2011.