Karey Kirkpatrick

Karey Kirkpatrick
Kirkpatrick in 2006
Born	(1964-12-07) December 7, 1964 Monroe, Louisiana, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Writer, director, producer
Relatives	Wayne Kirkpatrick (brother)

Karey Kirkpatrick (born December 7, 1964) is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. His films include Over the Hedge, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Charlotte's Web, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, along with writing contributions to The Rescuers Down Under, James and the Giant Peach, and Chicken Run. He has also directed the films Imagine That starring Eddie Murphy as well as Smallfoot. Kirkpatrick wrote the English-language screenplays for the U.S. releases of the Studio Ghibli films The Secret World of Arrietty, in 2012 and From Up on Poppy Hill in 2013.

His older brother is American songwriter and musician Wayne Kirkpatrick, with whom he wrote the 2015 musical Something Rotten!.

Life and career

Kirkpatrick began his career as a staff writer at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he worked for more than three years. During that time, he earned his first screenwriting credit as a co-writer on The Rescuers Down Under. Since then, he's been working non-stop as a freelance screenwriter. His early writing credits include Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves and James and the Giant Peach, and The Little Vampire. In 1997, Kirkpatrick teamed again with James and the Giant Peach executive producer Jake Eberts to write the screenplay for Aardman's Chicken Run from a story by Peter Lord and Nick Park. Kirkpatrick also wrote the screenplay adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for Touchstone Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment.

Kirkpatrick has a longstanding relationship with DreamWorks Animation, where he has contributed as a writer or story consultant on The Road to El Dorado and Madagascar. In May 2006, DreamWorks Animation released Over the Hedge, for which Kirkpatrick co-wrote the screenplay and made his directorial debut, sharing directing credits with Tim Johnson. That same year, Kirkpatrick co-wrote the screenplay of the live-action adaptation of E.B. White's classic Charlotte's Web for Paramount Pictures/Walden Media/Nickelodeon Movies. The film starred Dakota Fanning and the voice talents of Julia Roberts, Robert Redford, Steve Buscemi, Oprah Winfrey, John Cleese and many others. He produced and co-wrote, with partner Chris Poche, the original comedy Flakes, which completed filming in New Orleans in January 2005 and stars Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Lloyd and Aaron Stanford. He directed the Eddie Murphy dramedy Imagine That for Paramount Pictures.

Kirkpatrick wrote the English-language screenplay for the U.S. releases of the Japanese animated films The Secret World of Arrietty in 2012 and From Up on Poppy Hill in 2013, both of which were produced by Studio Ghibli. The same year, he contributed to the screenplay for Sony Pictures Animation's The Smurfs 2, and was announced as the writer and director of an original comedy film from DreamWorks Animation about a "dim-witted blue-footed booby who learns that it isn't the size of your brain, but the size of your heart that counts."

Around 2010, Karey and his brother Wayne began working on the musical Something Rotten!. In 2015, they were nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre. Karey was also nominated for Best Book of a Musical along with John O'Farrell.

In 2017, it was announced that Kirkpatrick would write and directed an animated musical comedy titled Smallfoot, which was produced by the Warner Animation Group and animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks. The film, which stars the voices of Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, and Gina Rodriguez, among others, was released in 2018.

Filmography

Title	Year	Role
The Rescuers Down Under	1990	Animation screenplay
Timon and Pumbaa	1995	Writer (1 episode), songwriter (1 episode)
James and the Giant Peach	1996	Screenwriter
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves	1997
The Road to El Dorado	2000	Additional dialogue
Chicken Run		Screenwriter
The Little Vampire
Laws of Attraction	2004	Additional script
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	2005	Screenwriter
Madagascar		Creative consultant
Over the Hedge	2006	Director, screenwriter
Hammy's Boomerang Adventure		Short; creative consultant
Charlotte's Web		Screenwriter
Flakes	2007	Screenwriter, producer
The Spiderwick Chronicles	2008
Imagine That	2009	Director, screenwriter, music department (producer, writer, performer)
From Up on Poppy Hill	2011	Screenwriter: US adaptation
The Secret World of Arrietty	2012	Screenwriter: US adaptation, additional voices
The Smurfs 2	2013	Screenwriter
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon	2015	Writer (Queen Latifah/Sam Rockwell/Something Rotten!), uncredited
69th Tony Awards		Lyricist: "A Musical"
Strange Magic		Special thanks
The True Don Quixote	2017	Executive producer
71st Tony Awards		Lyricist: "Opening Number"
Early Man	2018	Story consultant
Smallfoot		Director, screenwriter, story, executive producer, lyricist
The Addams Family	2019	Special thanks
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon		Special thanks

External links

• Karey Kirkpatrick at IMDb