John Pogue

John Pogue drew on his own experience as a member of a Yale University secret society when he wrote "The Skulls," about a working-class student (Joshua Jackson) who joins a sinister elitist fraternity. Pogue, who also produced the film, along with its two straight-to-video sequels, had previously written "U. S. Marshals," starring a post-"The Fugitive" Tommy Lee Jones as a hard-nosed marshal on the trail of an escaped murderer and robber. The modest success of "The Skulls" helped Pogue land a position as executive producer on "The Fast and the Furious," about a crew of L.A. street racers and the undercover cop who befriends them. He next wrote the screenplay for "Rollerball," a remake of the 1975 film of the same name, about a world controlled by faceless global corporations and the dangerous sport they invent to keep an overpopulated society under control. Though the original film was widely praised for its blend of sci-fi futurism and inventive action sequences, Pogue's remake was poorly received by both critics and audiences. He has since written the '02 horror thriller "Ghost Ship," about the strange occurrences that befall a salvage crew upon discovering a long-lost passenger ship, and written and directed "Quarantine 2: Terminal," which follows the isolated survivors of a gruesome virus.