Zak Penn

Zak Penn
Penn at the Tribeca Film Festival
Born	1968 (age 43–44)

Zak Penn (born 1968) is an American screenwriter and director. Penn wrote and directed Incident at Loch Ness, The Grand, and co-wrote the script for X-Men: The Last Stand. With Michael Karnow, Penn is the co-creator of Alphas.

Early life

Penn graduated from Wesleyan University in 1990. His screenplay for PCU was based on his experiences at the Eclectic Society house. He is the son of New York businessman and lawyer Arthur Penn, who led the acquisition of the Capital Markets Assurance Corporation from Citicorp.

Career

The screenplay for Last Action Hero, for which he received a Story By credit with Adam Leff, was nominated for a 1993 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay; however, it lost to the Indecent Proposal script. Other films that he has been involved in writing include Inspector Gadget, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Elektra. Penn wrote early drafts of both Hulk and The Incredible Hulk.

Penn is also a jury member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.

Filmography

• Last Action Hero (with Adam Leff and Shane Black) (1993)
• PCU (with Adam Leff) (1994)
• Inspector Gadget (with Kerry Ehrin) (1999)
• Behind Enemy Lines (with David Veloz) (2001)
• X2 (2003) (Story Only)
• Incident at Loch Ness (with Werner Herzog) (2004) (also Director)
• Suspect Zero (with Billy Ray) (2004)
• The Fantastic Four (2005) (Video game)
• Elektra (with Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner) (2005)
• X-Men: The Official Game (2006) (Video game)
• X-Men: The Last Stand (with Simon Kinberg) (2006)
• The Grand (with Matt Bierman) (2007) (also Director)
• The Incredible Hulk (with Edward Norton) (2008)
• Alphas (co-created with Michael Karnow) (2011) (TV)
• The Avengers (with Joss Whedon) (2012)

External links

• Zak Penn at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with Zak Penn at IFC.com