Jeff Vintar

Jeff Vintar attended the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, where he published a series of cartoons in Random House's The Quarterly. Carving out a living as a factory worker, English teacher and transit bus driver, Vintar broke into the film business when he sold three original spec scripts in the span of six months.

The second screenplay, a twist-filled sci-fi love story called Spaceless, has become almost legendary in insider circles due to its reputation and long tortuous twenty-three year struggle through Hollywood's "development hell." With notable professionals calling it their favorite unproduced screenplay and online collectors always on the lookout for a copy of the script, it is often referred to as one of the Holy Grail scripts. It is a long-time favorite of Gore Verbinski, who directed The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean and Rango.

The third spec sale, Hardwired, renamed by the studio I, Robot after the Isaac Asimov short story collection, starred Will Smith and made $350 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing non-sequel of the summer, and the tenth highest-grossing film of 2004. The original Hardwired screenplay was a cerebral murder mystery that read like a stage play, and representatives of the Asimov estate considered it "more Asimov than Asimov." Vintar transformed the script into a big-budget studio film, also moving the story into the greater I, Robot universe. Mandated changes made the project more of a summer action blockbuster, a move that angered Asimov purists, although many critics considered the final product to have brains as well as brawn. The years have been kind to I, Robot which remains a popular audience favorite, and has inspired a generation of A.I. researchers, with retrospective articles calling for the film's reevaluation, saying it is more relevant than ever, far more faithful to Asimov's entire body of work than generally recognized, and hoping for a sequel.