American screenwriter, producer, and Chief Creative Officer of The Story Factory, a production company and literary agency for novelists, which produces films and TV series based on literary properties.
His writing credits include the films Armageddon (1998), Shaft (2000), Savages (2012) and the TV series Hawaii Five-0 (2010). He was chosen by director James Cameron to co-write the four sequels to the film Avatar, set to release in 2022, 2024, 2026 and 2028. He spent ten years writing, producing, financing, and directing the documentary Salinger (2013), and co-writing with David Shields the companion book which became a New York Times bestseller.
As a screenwriter, Salerno has collaborated with James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, William Friedkin, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, John Singleton, Jan de Bont, and Ridley Scott.
He has sold pitches, spec screenplays, fiction and non-fiction books, feature film documentaries, television pilots, television documentaries, and foreign book deals reaching eight figures. All-told, films he has either written or co-written have resulted in six movies premiering at number one at the box office, and have grossed over one billion dollars (not including the upcoming Avatar sequels).
Surrounding the 2020 presidential election, Salerno partnered with Don Winslow to champion Democratic candidates and causes and to fight back against Donald Trump and his agenda. Together they launched Don Winslow Films and began creating their own political videos for social media, highlighting the corruption of Trump and his administration. On 13 October 2020, Don Winslow Films released a video critical of Trump prior to his campaign event in Pennsylvania. The video features Bruce Springsteen’s song “Streets of Philadelphia” and has been viewed many millions of times.
Link to Wikipedia biography