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Zak Penn

American screenwriter (born 1968)

Field	Value
name	Zak Penn
image	Zak Penn by Gage Skidmore.jpg
caption	Penn at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con
birth_date
birth_place	New York, U.S.
occupation	Screenwriter

Zak Penn (born March 23, 1968) is an American screenwriter. Penn wrote and directed Incident at Loch Ness and The Grand, wrote the script for The Incredible Hulk, co-wrote the scripts for X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and the story for The Avengers. With Michael Karnow, Penn is the co-creator of the television series Alphas on the Syfy network.

Early life

Penn was born in New York. He is the son of New York businessman and lawyer Arthur Penn, who led the acquisition of the Capital Markets Assurance Corporation from Citicorp.

Zak Penn graduated from Wesleyan University in 1990. His screenplay for PCU was based on his experiences at the Eclectic Society house.

Career

Films that Penn has been involved in writing include Last Action Hero, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Elektra. Penn wrote early drafts of Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers and Free Guy.

Penn is also a jury member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.

In July 2012, Avatar Press released the first issue of Penn's first comic book, Hero Worship. The six-issue series is co-written with Star Wars: The Clone Wars screenwriter Scott Murphy and drawn by Michael DiPascale. It centers on Zenith, an indestructible hero who has fans following every disaster, trying to catch a glimpse of the ultimate celebrity and risking their own lives in the process. One fan becomes so obsessed that it leads to the development of his own powers.

He directed the documentary film Atari: Game Over.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Notes	Director
1993	Last Action Hero		Co-story writer with Adam Leff
1994	PCU		Co-screenwriter with Adam Leff
1997	Men in Black
1998	Antz		Story consultant
1999	Inspector Gadget		Co-screenwriter with Kerry Ehrin
2000	Charlie's Angels		Script revisions
2001	Behind Enemy Lines		Co-screenwriter with David Veloz
2002	Reign of Fire
2003	X2		Co-story writer with David Hayter and Bryan Singer
2004	Incident at Loch Ness		Directorial debut; co-producer with Werner Herzog; on-screen appearance
Suspect Zero		Co-screenwriter Billy Ray
2005	Elektra		Co-screenwriter with Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner
2006	X-Men: The Last Stand		Co-screenwriter with Simon Kinberg
2007	The Grand		Co-screenwriter with Matt Bierman
2008	The Incredible Hulk		Story; with uncredited screenwriting rewrites by Edward Norton
2012	The Avengers		Co-story writer with Joss Whedon
2014	Atari: Game Over		Documentary; on-screen appearance
2018	Ready Player One		Co-screenwriter with Ernest Cline
2021	Free Guy		Co-screenwriter with Matt Lieberman

Television

Year	Title	Showrunner
2003–2004	Ozzy & Drix	Season 2
2011–2012	Alphas	Co-created with Michael Karnow
2023	Beacon 23

Video games

Year	Title	Credited as	Notes	Creative director	Writer	Technical director
2005	Fantastic Four				Credited for game story and dialogue
2006	X-Men: The Official Game				Credited for screenplay

References

(2008). "The New York Times". [[Baseline (database).
"Elmira Star-Gazette".
[http://www.filmaka.com/profile_jury_favfilms.php?profile_id=5681 Filmaka Jury Member Zack Penn], Filmaka.com.
Wolf, Jaime. (August 23, 1998). "The Blockbuster Script Factory". The New York Times.
Ullrich, Chris. (April 15, 2008). "Interview: Zak Penn on The Grand, X-Men Fans and Co-Writing Hulk".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1968-births film-directors-from-new-york-(state) film-producers-from-new-york-(state) american-male-screenwriters living-people screenwriters-from-new-york-(state) wesleyan-university-alumni

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