Akela Cooper

Akela Cooper is an American screenwriter and television producer. She is best known for co-creating the M3GAN franchise with James Wan. She also wrote the horror films Hell Fest, Malignant (2021) and The Nun II (2023). Cooper was named in Varietys 10 Screenwriters to Watch for 2021 list.

Early life and education Cooper was raised in Hayti, Missouri. She enjoyed watching horror films with her family from childhood, including A Nightmare on Elm Street. She described seeing Pumpkinhead when she was eight as a "core memory" that influenced her writing.

She graduated from Truman State University with a degree in creative writing in 2003 and received her MFA from the USC School of Cinema-Television, where she was the first recipient of the NAACP/CBS Writer's Fellowship.

Career Cooper was a staff writer for Grimm for two seasons and went on to be a writer and co-producer for The 100, American Horror Story, Luke Cage, Jupiter's Legacy, Witches of East End, and Chambers. She wrote the horror film Malignant, released in September 2021.

In 2021 she was announced as the showrunner for the upcoming HBO Max television adaptation of the novel Monster by A. Lee Martinez. She will write the screenplay for the adaptation of a short story It's Over by Jack Follman produced by Vertigo Entertainment and Ground Control for Sony Pictures.

In October 2024, it was announced that she will write and co-produce a screenplay of the comic The Lot by Marguerite Bennett for the publisher Bad Idea. The strip tells the story of a Black woman chosen to head a movie studio without knowing that an occult ritual depicted in a filmmaker's latest project has awakened a dormant evil. Cooper co-wrote the sequel to M3GAN, M3GAN 2.0 (2025). 2017 – Nominee, Black Reel Award for Outstanding Drama Series (for Luke Cage) 2024 – Nominee, Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Screenplay (for M3GAN)

Filmography

Film Television