Terry Rossio (born July 2, 1960) is an American screenwriter and film producer. He co-wrote the films Aladdin, The Mask of Zorro, Shrek, and all five of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. For Shrek, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and won the Annie Award for Writing in a Feature Production and BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He often collaborates with fellow screenwriter Ted Elliott.

Life and career

Rossio was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. After graduating from Saddleback High School in Santa Ana, California, he went on to study at California State University, Fullerton where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Communications, with an emphasis in radio, television and film. He is the founder of Wordplay, also known as Wordplayer.com, one of the premier screenwriting sites on the Internet. Along with his writing partner Ted Elliott, Rossio has written some of the most successful American films of the past 30 years, including Aladdin, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Shrek. He is the eleventh-most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of domestic box office receipts with totals at around $5.5 billion. In May 1993, Rossio and Elliott were hired by TriStar Pictures to write a screenplay for Godzilla, which featured Godzilla battling a shape-shifting alien in New York. Their script was dropped by Roland Emmerich in favor of a new script of his own co–written with Dean Devlin. However, Rossio and Elliott retained a "Story By" credit. In 2015, Dodie Gold Management filed a Commissions Non-Payment Lawsuit against Rossio and sought a jury trial for "damages of more than $25,000 plus a court declaration that they are entitled to the 10% commissions and a full look at the records and accounting of Rossio and his Chamaeleon Productions." In March 2017, Legendary Entertainment announced that Rossio would lead their writers room to help develop the story for Godzilla vs. Kong. He received "story by" credit on the film. In June 2019, Rossio was announced as the screenwriter for The Amazing Maurice. In 2021, Rossio and Bill Marsilii sold their spec script Time Zone to Amazon Studios. The film will be a joint venture between Amazon Studios and Davis Entertainment. In February 2023 Ashly Bell and Dr. Bernice A King (daughter of Martin Luther King) announced their intent to executive produce Cash Money, written by Terry Rossio and Kevin Arbouet, concurrent with the launch of ReadLife Entertainment, which plans to create television and film projects centered around strong social messaging. Arbouet is going to direct Cash Money.

Controversy

On November 23, 2018, Rossio expressed his condolences to parents of "vaccine damaged children", however, he likened the term "anti-vax" to a slur equivalent to "nigger." Following immediate outcry, he apologized the day after for using the slur and for proclaiming that both epithets were analogous.

Filmography

Other credits