John Rogers (writer)
Quick Facts
Biography
John Rogers is a screenwriter, film and television producer, television director, comedian, and comic book writer. He is best known as the creator of the television series Leverage (2008–2012), The Librarians (2014–present), and The Player (2015).
Rogers co-wrote the films American Outlaws (2001), The Core (2003), and Catwoman (2004), and co-wrote the story for the film Transformers (2007).
Early life and education
Rogers was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and attended McGill University in Montreal. While at McGill, he wrote for the school's comedy magazine The Red Herring.
Career
Rogers wrote the first draft of the script for the live-action movie Transformers, released in 2007. He wrote an early screenplay for Catwoman and created the cartoon series Jackie Chan Adventures. He also co-wrote the science fiction adventure film The Core. In 2004 Rogers wrote and executive-produced a television pilot based on the graphic novel Global Frequency. Although the pilot was never aired on network television, it was leaked onto the internet and accrued an international fan base. He created and served as executive producer for the TNT television series Leverage, which ran for five seasons from 2008 to 2012.
Apart from his work in movies and television, Rogers has also worked in the comic book industry. In March 2006, he co-created the new Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, in the relaunch of the Blue Beetle comic book for DC Comics with plotter Keith Giffen and artist Cully Hamner. He has also written comics for BOOM! Studios. Rogers' stories are included in BOOM!'s Zombie Tales, Cthulhu Tales, Pirate Tales and What Were They Thinking? anthologies. Rogers currently writes the Dungeons & Dragons comic series for IDW Publishing.
Rogers has also worked on role-playing games, and is the author of Feywild chapter of the 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons, Manual of the Planes (2008).
Filmography
Film
Year | Title | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2001 | American Outlaws | Screenplay | With Roderick Taylor |
2003 | The Core | Written by | With Cooper Layne |
2004 | Catwoman | Story and Screenplay | With Theresa Rebeck and John Brancato & Michael Ferris |
2007 | Transformers | Story and Screenplay | With Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman |
Television
Year | Title | Credited as | Notes | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Writer | Director | Producer | Executive producer | |||
1996–1999 | Cosby | Yes | Yes | Writer (7 episodes), executive story editor; producer, co-producer | ||
2000–2005 | Jackie Chan Adventures | Yes | Creator; writer (2 episodes) | |||
2002 | Red Skies | Yes | Yes | Writer (TV movie) | ||
2005 | Global Frequency | Yes | Yes | Creator, pilot | ||
2006 | Eureka | Yes | Teleplay: "Before I Forget" | |||
2008–2012 | Leverage | Yes | Yes | Yes | Co-creator; writer (16 episodes), director (4 episodes) | |
2014–present | The Librarians | Yes | Yes | Developer; writer (7 episodes) | ||
2015 | The Player | Yes | Yes | Co-creator; writer (1 episode) |