J.J. ABRAMS
Jeffrey Jacob “J.J.” Abrams was born on June 27, 1966 -- he is an American film and television producer, writer and director, best known for creating the hit television series Felicity, Alias and Lost, as well as directing 2009’s reboot of Star Trek.
J.J. was born in New York to television producer Gerald Abrams and his wife Carol. After attending Sarah Lawrence College in his home state, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film production.
While he was still in college, J.J. cowrote a film treatment with a friend, that was later purchased by Touchstone Pictures. Hired to also cowrite the script, the movie, Taking Care of Business, starring Jim Belushi and Charles Grodin, was released to respectable business in 1990.
J.J. was off and running. He next wrote and sold screenplays for the films Regarding Henry (1991) and Forever Young (1992). In collaboration with fellow writers Jonathan (Die Hard With a Vengeance) Hensleigh, Tony (The Bourne Identity) Gilroy, and Shane Salerno, he co-wrote the Bruce Willis vehicle Armageddon (1998) for producer Jerry Bruckheimer. That same year, J.J. made his first venture into television production with Felicity -- it would run for four years on the WB. In 2001, he co-wrote and produced the Duel homage, Joy Ride.
Creating his own production company, Bad Robot Productions, J.J. would go on to create and supervise such popular television series as Alias (2001 - 2006), Lost (2004 - 2010), and Fringe (2008 - ??).
J.J. made his directorial debut with 2006’s Mission Impossible III -- the movie underperformed at the box office, but many critics (including myself) thought this was the best of the franchise.
In 2008, J.J. produced the feature film Cloverfield -- the high-concept, Godzilla meets War of the Worlds meets The Blair Witch Project film would become a surprise hit -- further cementing J.J.’s increasing reputation as a producer with his finger firmly on the pulse of the American movie-watching public.
Also that same year, J.J. filmed the high-profile, big-budget reboot of Paramount’s staple franchise Star Trek. With a script by previous collaborators, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Mission Impossible III and Transformers), J.J. hired a new cast to portray young Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of our merry band of space travelers, as they come together for their very first mission. Leonard Nimoy also appears in the film as old Spock. The film will be released in May of 2009, and is expected to be one of the biggest hits of the year.
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