SG
Seth Grahame-Smith

Seth Grahame-Smith

Born in Rockville Centre, NY, Grahame-Smith grew up in Weston and Bethel, CT where, inspired by his literary editor mother and bookshop owner stepfather, he developed a passion for reading. After graduating from Boston's Emerson College with a film degree, Grahame-Smith landed his first writing credit on Roman history mini-series "The Most" (History Channel, 2000-04), and went onto pen and produce the "Sodom and Gomorrah" and "The Death of Marilyn Monroe" episodes of "History's Mysteries" (History Channel, 1998-2011). After writing a "Library of Congress worth of awful literature," Grahame-Smith finally got published in 2005 with a history of erotic cinema titled Big Book of Porn: A Penetrating Look at the World of Dirty Movies, and followed it up a year later with The Spider-Man Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual, an irreverent guide of how to lead the superhero life. Shortly after, Grahame-Smith and his Katzsmith Productions partner David Katzenberg teamed up to produce "Clark and Michael" (CBS, 2006) a meta mockumentary web series starring Clark Duke and Michael Cera as two aspiring screenwriters.Grahame-Smith added to his written body of work with 2007's tongue-in-cheek manual How To Survive A Horror Movie: All the Skills to Dodge the Kills, and 2008's Pardon My President: Fold-and-Mail Apologies for 8 Years, a satirical collection of letters sent on behalf of President Bush to those who had suffered under his administration. But it was an intriguing idea from Grahame-Smith's Quark Books editor Jason Rekulak that took his promising career to the next level. A 'mash-up' novel which combined Jane Austen's 1813 classic with elements of contemporary horror, 2009's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies became a literary sensation, reaching No.3 on the New York Times Best Seller list and selling over a million copies as well as being translated into 20 different languages. Following a brief diversion into comic book territory on Marvel Zombies Return: Hulk, Grahame-Smith stuck to a similar theme for its follow-up, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a blood-thirsty revisionist take on the 16th President's diaries which achieved similar commercial success.Two years later, Grahame-Smith was hired to write the screenplay for its big-screen adaptation, and also took on the same role on "Dark Shadows" (2012), Tim Burton's gothic comedy loosely based on the campy '60s soap opera. Self-described as a blend of "The Wonder Years" (ABC, 1988-1993) and "Superbad" (2007), "The Life and Times of RJ Berger" (MTV, 2010-11) saw Grahame-Smith and Katzenberg reunite for a teenage comedy series focusing on the trials and tribulations of an unpopular sophomore. Grahame-Smith then went further back in time for his third novel, Unholy Night, a typically twisted retelling of the Nativity Story which cast the Three Wise Men as three infamous criminals, but returned to more familiar fare in 2015 with The Last American Vampire, a sequel which shifted the focus towards Abraham Lincoln's supernatural sidekick Henry Sturges. In the same year, Grahame-Smith was approached to take the director's chair for the first time on a remake of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (1983), pen screenplays for new outings of '80s classics "Gremlins" (1984) and "Beetlejuice" (1988), horror miniseries "It" (ABC, 1990), and "The Lego Batman Movie" (2017), and co-write the script for the 2015 Academy Awards.
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