Brian Duffield

Template:Use American English Template:Infobox person Brian Duffield (born November 5, 1985) is an American filmmaker. He wrote and directed the 2026 survival thriller film Whalefall ,the 2023 sci-fi horror film No One Will Save You and the 2020 dark comedy coming-of-age film Spontaneous. His previous writing credits include Love and Monsters (2020), Underwater (2020), The Babysitter (2017) and Insurgent (2015). He is known for having multiple spec scripts featured in The Black List, an industry log of highly regarded but unproduced screenplays, including his scripts for Jane Got a Gun (2015) and Your Bridesmaid is a Bitch.

Early life

Duffield was born on November 5, 1985, the son of Brenda and Brian Duffield. He has two sisters and spent the first nine years of his life in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1995, he moved with his family to rural Ireland when his parents decided to become evangelical missionaries. He later described the surroundings of the area in which they settled as being completely remote and lacking in popular culture. He attended school in County Kildare; in one classroom, three separate grades were being taught by one teacher, which he described as "very Little House on the Prairie-esque". He moved back to the U.S. upon graduating from high school in 2004.

Duffield graduated from both Temple University and Messiah College in 2008. After graduation, he moved to Universal City, California for a summer internship through Temple University at the Oakwoods apartments prior to the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike and at the beginning of the Great Recession. From there, he worked various jobs before becoming a professional screenwriter. His first job in Los Angeles was at the now defunct Storyopolis, a children's book store/art gallery, in Studio City, where he worked with writer Blake Harris. He has also worked as an assistant and script reader within the film industry for several years. Prior to selling his first spec screenplay, Duffield was a temporary employee at the Lucky Brand Jeans factory in nearby Vernon, California.

Career

2012 to 2020: Screenwriter

Duffield's first spec script sale was for Your Bridesmaid is a Bitch to Skydance Media. The story is partially based on his personal experience with his friends' weddings and a slew of failed relationships. His friend from college had sent a copy to a contact at Circle of Confusion management company, who later offered to be Duffield's manager. Several days later, they got a meeting with Skydance, who bought the script. Duffield said: "(It) was something like my tenth script. It was the first one people paid attention to and I haven’t really shown the earlier scripts to anyone in LA." Eli Craig was last attached to direct and rewrite the film in May 2015. Black List Live!, a live monthly stage reading of scripts featured on the Black List, did a performance of Your Bridesmaid is a Bitch in 2014.

Duffield sold his script for Monster Problems to Paramount Pictures in 2012. The film underwent some rewrites by Matthew Robinson and was renamed Love and Monsters before being released in October 2020.

Duffield's first writing assignment was for the film adaptation of the second book in the Divergent trilogy, Insurgent (2015), in 2013.

The script for The Babysitter (2017) was sold to McG's company, Wonderland Sound and Vision, at auction. McG also directed the film, which later premiered on Netflix in October 2017. In 2020, the thriller Underwater starring Kristen Stewart was released. The screenplay was by Duffield and revised by Adam Cozad.

(2020-present): Transition to Writer-Director

Later in 2020, Duffield made his writer-director debut with the dark comedy Spontaneous.

His next film as a writer-director, No One Will Save You, was released straight-to-streaming in 2023.

Upcoming

Duffield will next direct an adaptation of Whalefall, the script for which he co-wrote with the novel's writer Daniel Kraus; It will be released on October 16, 2026.

He is also set to write and direct Crumble, a film about a married couple who go on a world-traversing adventure in the hope of finding a cure to an ancient curse, for Laika LLC.

Personal life

Duffield is married. His parents still reside in Ireland.

Filmography

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Notes
2014	Quarantine	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Short
2015	The Divergent Series: Insurgent	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
	Jane Got a Gun	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
2017	The Babysitter	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
2020	Underwater	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
	The Babysitter: Killer Queen	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Spontaneous	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
	Love and Monsters	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
2023	Cocaine Bear	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Skull Island	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Animated TV series
	No One Will Save You	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
2025	Borderline	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Predator: Badlands	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	credited for "additional literary material (not on-screen)"
2026	Whalefall	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:Yes

External links

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