Chris Galletta

Galletta, who comes from an Italian background,[1] grew up in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York, where he attended Tottenville High School.[2] He graduated from the St. John's University College of Professional Studies; his major was in television and film studies.[3] He later attended the Columbia University School of the Arts and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in 2010.[4]

Galletta first worked in the entertainment industry on the Late Show with David Letterman where he was an intern.[1] He worked on Letterman as a contributing writer for several years before he left to pursue writing film screenplays full-time.[5]

Galletta's first screenplay, Toy's House, was written as the thesis of his degree at Columbia University.[4][5] In 2009, the script made the Black List, a survey of the best unproduced film screenplays, and was purchased by Big Beach Films the same week that the list was published, before Galletta had graduated from Columbia.[4][6] The film was directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and renamed The Kings of Summer. It premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews.[1] Elements of the screenplay are based on Galetta's experiences as a youth living on Staten Island, but the producers of the film changed the location to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, a move that Galetta endorsed for giving the story "an 'any town' type of feel."[1]

Galletta has also managed to sell a pitch for a screenplay to New Line Cinema, which he described as "an action comedy set in Rio de Janeiro".[1] The story was co-written with Todd Strauss-Schulson, who is also slated to direct the film, although Galletta was hired to write the script individually.[4][7]

• Chris Galletta at IMDb