Simon Kinberg

During the early 21st century, Simon Kinberg became one of the motion picture industry's most promising screenwriters, working with the likes of Doug Liman, Guy Ritchie, and McG, and writing the screenplay for the hit 2005 film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." Born in London, Kinberg relocated with his family to the U.S., where the wannabe screenwriter studied at Columbia University Film School. At the start of the 2000s, Kinberg signed on to pen the follow-up to Vin Diesel's 2002 hit action-adventure film "xXx," 2005's "xXx: State of the Union" (in which Ice Cube took over the lead from Diesel).

Although the film was considered a box office disappointment, Kinberg got back on track the same year thanks to the success of Doug Liman's sprightly romcom thriller "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," in which Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play a sedate suburban married couple who both, unbeknownst to the other, are hired assassins. Subsequently, Kinberg penned further high-profile films including 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand" (the conclusion of the hugely successful "X-Men" trilogy), and 2008's supernatural teen thriller "Jumper," on which he was reunited with Liman. In 2009, Kinberg scripted Guy Ritchie's high-octane revisionist take on "Sherlock Holmes," starring Robert Downey Jr. as the legendary sleuth, and returned to romcom thriller territory in 2012 by penning McG's love triangle flick "This Means War," starring Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy and Chris Pine.