Nic Pizzolatto

Nicholas Austin Pizzolatto (born October 18, 1975) is an American author, screenwriter, director, and producer. He is best known for creating the HBO crime drama series True Detective (2014–present).

Early life and education Nicholas Austin Pizzolatto was born in New Orleans on October 18, 1975. He grew up in a Catholic family of . His father, Nic Pizzolatto Jr., was an attorney. At the age of five, he moved with his family to a rural area of Lake Charles, Louisiana. He graduated from St. Louis Catholic High School in 1993 and left home when he was 17. graduating with a BA in English and philosophy. He graduated in 2005. In 2004, his work was among the finalists for the National Magazine Award in Fiction. He also received an honorable mention from the Pushcart Prize, and his short story "Wanted Man" is included in Best American Mystery Stories 2009.

Pizzolatto's first novel, Galveston, was published by Scribner's in June 2010. It was translated into many languages. In 2005, Pizzolatto was named one of Poets & Writers magazine's best new writers. In 2010, Galveston earned him the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger, the French Academy's award for Best First Novel, Foreign. He was dissatisfied by the dynamic between the showrunner and the writers of the show and remarked, "I want to be the guiding vision. I don't do well serving someone else's vision." It premiered in January 2014, and became the most watched freshman show in the network's history. The show was critically acclaimed and was so popular the finale crashed HBO's HBO Go streaming service. Pizzolatto listed several influences on the show's first season: philosophy books such as Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Eugene Thacker's In The Dust of This Planet, Ray Brassier's Nihil Unbound, Jim Crawford's Confessions of an Antinatalist, and David Benatar's Better Never to Have Been. Pizzolatto also mentions horror authors Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, and Ligotti. In August 2014, he was accused of plagiarizing the aforementioned sources.

A new season of True Detective premiered on June 21, 2015, with Pizzolatto again writing/co-writing all the episodes. In late 2015, it was announced that Pizzolatto had signed a new deal with HBO through 2018.

In August 2016, HBO announced a potential new series written by Pizzolatto and starring Robert Downey Jr., centering on the character of investigative attorney Perry Mason. On August 25, 2017, it was announced that Pizzolatto had dropped out of the production in order to focus on the third season of True Detective and that he was being replaced as the project's writer by Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald. Along with Richard Wenk, Pizzolatto co-wrote the screenplay for The Magnificent Seven (2016), a remake of the period-piece western The Magnificent Seven (1960) (which was itself a western remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai). Antoine Fuqua directed, and the film, released on September 23, 2016, starred Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard and others.

Pizzolatto adapted his 2010 novel Galveston for the 2018 film of the same name; however, he requested to be credited under the pseudonym Jim Hammett following director Mélanie Laurent's contributions to the screenplay, despite not being formally engaged as a writer on the project, feeling the final script did not reflect his own. Producer Tyler Davidson confirmed the news to Entertainment Weekly, saying, "My personal opinion is that Nic did not feel the final script reflected his work as the sole credited writer, and his representatives advised us to credit him with his pseudonym." In December 2018, Pizzolatto revealed that he had assisted Deadwood creator David Milch in writing the screenplay for the film adaptation. In return, Milch helped him with the third season of True Detective by co-writing the fourth episode as well as giving Pizzolatto advice on crafting the season.

In April 2019, it was announced that Pizzolatto had written the screenplay for the film Ghost Army for Universal Pictures. The film was to be headlined and directed by Ben Affleck. In January 2020, FX announced that Pizzolatto had signed an overall deal with the network, with the first project being the drama series Redeemer. The following year, negotiations for an early termination of the deal were underway after the development of Redeemer was canceled. In April 2020, Pizzolatto said he was interested in writing a Batman film, saying: "Batman is the only character in the world I didn't create that I want a shot at. And he's the only piece of geek culture I have any affinity for."

In March 2022, HBO announced that a fourth season of True Detective entered development, which would carry the subtitle Night Country, a first for the series. The first episode would be written by Issa López, who would also direct it. López would executive produce the season, alongside Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak. In June 2022, HBO officially greenlit the season, with López serving as showrunner. Pizzolatto would remain as an executive producer, marking his first season without a writing credit. In March 2023, it was reported that Pizzolatto would be writing a Western series for Prime Video. Pizzolatto has said that the series "may be the most purely fun story I've ever written". The previous year he had said that "The Grass Rifles is an original western TV series I've written two episodes of, along with a season-long outline. It's the most populist, funniest thing I've ever written. Also the most romantic..." A month later, it was announced the series was being "refashioned" into a television series adaptation of the 1960 film The Magnificent Seven. In April 2023, Pizzolatto was hired to co-write the script for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Blade.

Other work Pizzolatto taught fiction and literature as Kenan Visiting Writer (2005–2006) at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in 2008 at the University of Chicago, and as assistant professor of English (2008–2012) at DePauw University. He moved to California to pursue a screenwriting career in 2010.

Works Film Year Title Director Writer Notes 2016 The Magnificent Seven 2018 Galveston Credited as Jim Hammett 2019 Deadwood: The Movie 2021 The Guilty 2025 Easy's Waltz

Television Writer Year Show Season Episode Episode number Original airdate Notes 2011 The Killing 1 "What You Have Left" 6 May 1, 2011 "Orpheus Descending" 14 June 19, 2011 Written by Pizzolatto & Veena Sud 2014 True Detective 1 "The Long Bright Dark" 1 January 12, 2014 "Seeing Things" 2 January 19, 2014 "The Locked Room" 3 January 26, 2014 "Who Goes There" 4 February 9, 2014 Writer and actor "The Secret Fate of All Life" 5 February 16, 2014 "Haunted Houses" 6 February 23, 2014 "After You've Gone" 7 March 2, 2014 "Form and Void" 8 March 9, 2014 2015 2 "The Western Book of the Dead" 9 "Night Finds You" 10 "Maybe Tomorrow" 11 "Down Will Come" 12 Written by Pizzolatto & Scott Lasser "Other Lives" 13 "Church in Ruins" 14 Written by Pizzolatto & Scott Lasser "Black Maps and Motel Rooms" 15 "Omega Station" 16 2019 3 "The Great War and Modern Memory" 17 "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" 18 "The Big Never" 19 "The Hour and the Day" 20 Written by Pizzolatto & David Milch; also director "If You Have Ghosts" 21 Writer and director "Hunters in the Dark" 22 Written by Pizzolatto & Graham Gordy "The Final Country" 23 "Now Am Found" 24