Paul Wernick

Paul Wernick is a Canadian screenwriter and producer. He is best known for writing screenplays for the Zombieland films and the Deadpool films with his creative partner Rhett Reese.

Career Wernick has produced several network reality shows, including CBS's Big Brother 2 and ABC's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!. Wernick won three Emmy Awards for his work in news, which included producing stints at KVOA, KOLD, KTVK, KSL and KCAL.

Big Brother 2 inspired Wernick and Rhett Reese, a screenwriter friend of his brother back from Phoenix, Arizona, where both attended high school to create their own take on reality television, The Joe Schmo Show. Broadcast on Spike TV, the series drew the highest ratings for the channel. The Joe Schmo Show was also named on numerous Best Of lists, including Time magazine's "Top 10 TV Shows of 2003" and Entertainment Weeklys "50 Best TV Shows Ever on DVD."

In 2004, Reese and Wernick created and executive-produced Stuck on ODB, a comedy reality show starring Ol' Dirty Bastard (ODB) of the Wu Tang Clan for Spike TV. However, ODB died before the show ever aired. A year later, Wernick and Reese followed up with Invasion Iowa, a high-concept, high-stakes comedy hybrid starring William Shatner. The show premiered on Spike on March 29, 2005.

Wernick and Reese's first feature collaboration was the 2009 film Zombieland, which they created and also executive-produced. The film was released by Sony Pictures on October 2, 2009, and became the highest-grossing zombie film at the time.

Wernick and Reese followed Zombieland with Paramount Pictures' G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), starring Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum, and Bruce Willis. The sequel outperformed the original, grossing $375 million.

In February 2012, it was announced Universal Studios had acquired Wernick and Reese's script for a feature film adaptation of Cowboy Ninja Viking. In September 2012, their original science fiction spec screenplay Epsilon was sold to Sony Pictures, with plans to co-produce with Michael De Luca. In April 2015, Wernick and Reese had optioned Thomas Oliver's book The Real Coke, The Real Story to produce a film about the failed launch of New Coke.

FilmographyFilm Year TitleWriterExecutiveProducer Director 2009 Zombieland Ruben Fleischer 2013 G.I. Joe: Retaliation Jon M. Chu 2016 Deadpool Tim Miller 2017 Life Daniel Espinosa 2018 Deadpool 2 David Leitch2019 6 Underground Michael Bay Zombieland: Double Tap Ruben Fleischer 2022 Spiderhead Joseph Kosinski 2023 Ghosted Dexter Fletcher 2024 Deadpool & Wolverine Shawn Levy 2025 Now You See Me: Now You Don't Ruben Fleischer 2025 Eenie Meanie Shawn Simmons 2026 Balls Up Peter FarrellyTelevision' Year TitleWriterProducerCreator 2005 Invasion Iowa 2003–2004, 2013 The Joe Schmo Show 2019 Wayne 2023–present Twisted Metal 2023 The Continental: From the World of John Wick