Nic Pizzolatto

He wrote two short stories when he was completing his MFA at the University of Arkansas – "Ghost-Birds" and "Between Here and the Yellow Sea" – which were sold to The Atlantic Monthly.[3][15] In 2004, his work was among the finalists for the National Magazine Award in Fiction.[11] His collection of short fiction Between Here and the Yellow Sea was long-listed for the 2006 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and was also named one of the top five fiction debuts of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine.[16]

He also received an honorable mention from the Pushcart Prize, and his short story "Wanted Man" is included in Best American Mystery Stories 2009.

His first novel, Galveston, was published by Scribner's in June 2010.[17] It was translated into many languages. In 2005, Pizzolatto was named one of Poets & Writers magazine's best new writers. In 2010, Galveston earned him the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger, the French Academy's award for Best First Novel, Foreign.[7] It was also a 2010 Edgar Award finalist for best first novel.[12] Galveston also won third prize in the 2010 Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, and additionally won the 2011 Spur Award for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America. A film adaptation of the novel was released in 2018, based partially on a screenplay by Pizzolatto himself (credited under the pseudonym Jim Hammett) and starring Ben Foster and Elle Fanning.

Before creating True Detective, Pizzolatto taught fiction and literature as Kenan Visiting Writer (2005–2006) at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in Spring 2008 at the University of Chicago, and as Assistant Professor of English (2008–12) at DePauw University.[11] He moved to California to pursue a screenwriting career in the fall of 2010.[12]

In 2011, he wrote two episodes for the first season of the crime drama television series The Killing.[18] Pizzolatto was dissatisfied by the dynamic between the showrunner and the writers of the show; he remarked that, "I want to be the guiding vision. I don't do well serving someone else's vision."[6] He decided to leave the show after spending two weeks in the writers room on the show's second season.[6]

In 2012, he created an original television series called True Detective, which was sold to HBO and completed shooting in June 2013, with Pizzolatto as executive producer, sole writer, and showrunner.[19] It premiered in January 2014, and became the most watched freshman show in the network's history.[20] The show was critically acclaimed[21][22] and was so popular the finale crashed HBO's HBO Go streaming service.[23] Pizzolatto listed several influences on the show's first season: philosophy books such as Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Eugene Thacker's In The Dust of This Planet, Ray Brassier's Nihil Unbound, Jim Crawford's Confessions of an Antinatalist, and David Benatar's Better Never to Have Been. Pizzolatto also mentions horror authors Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, and Ligotti.[24]

A new season of True Detective premiered on June 21, 2015, with Pizzolatto again writing/co-writing all the episodes.[25]

In late 2015, it was announced that Pizzolatto had signed a new deal with HBO through 2018.[26]

In August 2016, HBO announced a potential new series written by Pizzolatto and starring Robert Downey Jr., centering on the character of investigative attorney Perry Mason.[27] On August 25, 2017, it was announced that Pizzolatto had dropped out of the production in order to focus on the third season of True Detective and that he was being replaced as the project's writer by Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald.[28]

In January 2020, FX announced that Pizzolatto had signed an overall deal with the network, with the first project being the drama series Redeemer.[29] The following year, negotiations for an early termination of the deal were underway after the development of Redeemer was canceled.[30]

In March 2023, it was reported that Pizzolatto would be writing a Western series for Prime Video.[31] Pizzolatto has said that the series "may be the most purely fun story I've ever written".[32] The previous year he had said that "The Grass Rifles is an original western TV series I've written two episodes of, along with a season-long outline. It's the most populist, funniest thing I've ever written. Also the most romantic..."[33] A month later, it was announced the series was being "refashioned" into a television series adaptation of the 1960 film The Magnificent Seven.[34]

Along with Richard Wenk, Pizzolatto co-wrote the screenplay for The Magnificent Seven (2016), a remake of the period-piece western The Magnificent Seven (1960) (which was itself a western remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai). Antoine Fuqua directed, and the film, released on September 23, 2016, starred Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard and others.

Pizzolatto adapted his 2010 novel Galveston for the film of the same name; however, he requested to be credited under the pseudonym Jim Hammett following director Mélanie Laurent's contributions to the screenplay, despite not being formally engaged as a writer on the project, feeling the final script did not reflect his own. Producer Tyler Davidson confirmed the news to Entertainment Weekly, saying, "My personal opinion is that Nic did not feel the final script reflected his work as the sole credited writer, and his representatives advised us to credit him with his pseudonym."[35][36]

In December 2018, Pizzolatto revealed that he had assisted Deadwood creator David Milch in writing the screenplay for the film adaptation. In return, Milch helped him with the third season of True Detective by co-writing the fourth episode as well as giving Pizzolatto advice on crafting the season.[37]

In April 2019, it was announced that Pizzolatto had written the screenplay for the film Ghost Army for Universal Pictures. The film is to be headlined and directed by Ben Affleck.[38]

In April 2020, Pizzolatto said he was interested in writing a Batman film, saying: "Batman is the only character in the world I didn't create that I want a shot at. And he's the only piece of geek culture I have any affinity for."[39]

In April 2023, Pizzolatto was hired to co-write the script for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Blade, currently set for release on February 14, 2025.[40]