Life and career

Kurtzman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where he met his high school friend and longtime collaborator Roberto Orci. He attended Wesleyan University.

Kurtzman first teamed with Orci on television on the syndicated series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, for the television unit of Pacific Renaissance Pictures, then operating out of Universal International. After they produced several storylines to cope with the absence of lead actor Kevin Sorbo following a stroke that Sorbo had suffered during the fourth season, Kurtzman and Orci were placed in charge of the show. They were both aged 24. They moved into films after they were asked to rewrite Michael Bay's The Island. The film earned $162 million at the worldwide box office, on a budget of $126 million, which was a sufficient enough success that they were brought to write Bay's Transformers, which earned $710 million. Though The Island, Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were not particularly well received by critics, the three films earned a combined $1.7 billion. They wrote the 2009 film Star Trek alongside J. J. Abrams, with whom they had co-created the Fox science-fiction series Fringe. After the pilot, Kurtzman served as consulting producer on the show for the remainder of its run.

In 2011, Forbes magazine described Orci and Kurtzman as "Hollywood's Secret Weapons" as, over the course of the previous six years, their films had grossed a combined total of over $3 billion at the box office. The partnership also wrote People like Us, originally known as Welcome to People, which was Kurtzman's directorial debut.

In April 2014, both Orci and Kurtzman confirmed to Variety that they would no longer work together on film projects; they added that they would still work together—but only on television projects.

Personal life

In 2002, Kurtzman married Samantha Counter, the daughter of lawyer Nick Counter.

Filmography

Year	Film	Credit	Notes
2005	The Island	co-writer
2005	The Legend of Zorro	co-writer
2006	Mission: Impossible III	co-writer
2007	Transformers	co-writer
2008	Eagle Eye	producer
2009	Watchmen	co-writer	uncredited script polish
2009	Star Trek	co-writer and executive producer
2009	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	co-writer
2009	The Proposal	executive producer
2011	Cowboys & Aliens	co-writer, producer
2012	People Like Us	director, co-writer, co-producer
2013	Star Trek Into Darkness	co-writer, producer
2013	Now You See Me	producer
2013	Ender's Game	producer
2014	The Amazing Spider-Man 2	co-writer, executive producer
2016	Now You See Me 2	Producer	Filming
2017	The Mummy	executive producer, director	Filming

Television credits

Year	TV Series	Credit	Notes
1997-1999	Hercules: The Legendary Journeys	co-executive producer, writer
1999-2000	Xena: Warrior Princess	co-executive producer, writer
2000	Jack of All Trades	executive producer, writer
2001-2003	Alias	supervising producer, co-executive producer, executive producer, writer
2004	The Secret Service	co-creator, executive producer, co-writer	pilot
2008-2013	Fringe	co-creator, executive producer, consulting producer, writer
2010-2013	Transformers Prime	executive producer
2010-present	Hawaii 5-0	co-developer, executive producer, writer
2011	Exit Strategy	co-creator, executive producer, co-writer	pilot
	Locke & Key	co-developer, executive producer, co-writer	pilot
2013-present	Sleepy Hollow	co-creator, co-writer, executive producer
2014	Matador	executive producer
2014-present	Scorpion	executive producer
2015	Limitless	executive producer
2017	Star Trek	producer	no official title yet

[ Source: Wikipedia ]