Paul Wernick

Paul Wernick is a Canadian screenwriter and producer. He is best known for writing the screenplays for Zombieland (2009), Deadpool (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018), and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) with his creative partner Rhett Reese. 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 earned 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 Weekly's "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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Wernick, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Works

The Joe Schmo Show

The absurdity of reality TV by introducing a regular guy to believe he is competing in a reality show, when he is, in fact, surrounded by a cast of skilled improvisation comedians.

Release Date: 2025-01-21

Department: Creator

Job: Creator

Vote Count: 1

Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Deadpool & Wolverine

Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, and director Shawn Levy sit down and spill the proverbial beans about how "Deadpool & Wolverine" was conceived, carried to term, and then birthed.

Release Date: 2024-11-12

Character: Self - Co-Writer / Executive Producer

Vote Count: 17

Deadpool & Wolverine

A listless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life with his days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. But when his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctant Wolverine.

Release Date: 2024-07-24

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 7204

The Continental: From the World of John Wick

Winston Scott is roped into a world of assassins and must make things right after his brother's attack on the Continental hotel.

Release Date: 2023-09-22

Department: Production

Job: Executive Producer

Episode Count: 3

Vote Count: 542

Twisted Metal

A motor-mouthed outsider with no memory of his past is offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With the help of a badass axe-wielding car thief, he’ll face savage marauders driving vehicles of destruction and other dangers of the open road, including a deranged clown who drives an all too familiar ice cream truck.

Release Date: 2023-07-27

Department: Production

Job: Executive Producer

Episode Count: 22

Vote Count: 383

Ghosted

Salt-of-the-earth Cole falls head over heels for enigmatic Sadie—but then makes the shocking discovery that she's a secret agent. Before they can decide on a second date, Cole and Sadie are swept away on an international adventure to save the world.

Release Date: 2023-04-18

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 1919

Spiderhead

A prisoner in a state-of-the-art penitentiary begins to question the purpose of the emotion-controlling drugs he's testing for a pharmaceutical genius.

Release Date: 2022-06-17

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Vote Count: 1582

6 Underground

After faking his death, a tech billionaire recruits a team of international operatives for a bold and bloody mission to take down a brutal dictator.

Release Date: 2019-12-10

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 4863

Zombieland: Double Tap

Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family.

Release Date: 2019-10-09

Department: Writing

Job: Screenplay

Vote Count: 5869

Once Upon a Deadpool

A kidnapped Fred Savage is forced to endure Deadpool's PG-13 rendition of Deadpool 2, as a Princess Bride-esque story that's full of magic, wonder, and zero Fs.

Release Date: 2018-12-11

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Character: News Cameraman

Vote Count: 802

Deadpool 2

Wisecracking mercenary Deadpool battles the evil and powerful Cable and other bad guys to save a boy's life.

Release Date: 2018-05-15

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Character: News Cameraman

Vote Count: 18357

Life

The six-member crew of the International Space Station is tasked with studying a sample from Mars that may be the first proof of extra-terrestrial life, which proves more intelligent than ever expected.

Release Date: 2017-03-22

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 7502

Deadpool: No Good Deed

Deadpool sees an opportunity to save the day, but it doesn't go entirely as planned.

Release Date: 2017-03-03

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 519

Deadpool

The origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who, after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.

Release Date: 2016-02-09

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 31579

Zombieland

Four survivors are killin' zombies and searching for a place to call home.

Release Date: 2013-04-19

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Episode Count: 1

Vote Count: 67

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Framed for crimes against the country, the G.I. Joe team is terminated by Presidential order. This forces the G.I. Joes into not only fighting their mortal enemy Cobra; they are forced to contend with threats from within the government that jeopardize their very existence.

Release Date: 2013-03-27

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 5542

Zombieland

Columbus has made a habit of running from what scares him. Tallahassee doesn't have fears. If he did, he'd kick their ever-living ass. In a world overrun by zombies, these two are perfectly evolved survivors. But now, they're about to stare down the most terrifying prospect of all: each other.

Release Date: 2009-10-02

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Vote Count: 12502

Balls Up

Two American marketing executives are fired for blowing a client sponsorship opportunity and decide to use their free tickets to a major soccer match. Their drunken debauchery leads them to be hunted by every person across the country.

Department: Production

Job: Producer

Eenie Meanie

A former teenage getaway driver gets dragged back into her unsavory past when a former employer offers her a chance to save the life of her chronically unreliable ex-boyfriend.

Department: Production

Job: Producer

Untiled Split Fiction Film

A film adaptation of the video game of the same name, about a pair of authors who become trapped in the worlds they created.

Department: Writing

Job: Writer

Geeking Out

A 30-minute talk show that takes a timely look at pop culture through a fanboy lens and features celebrity interviews, discussion and out-of-the-studio segments.

Release Date: 2016-07-24

Character: Self

Episode Count: 1

Vote Count: 10

Invasion Iowa

Invasion Iowa is a television series that aired on Spike TV beginning on March 29, 2005, on ITV4 beginning on 3 November 2005 and The Comedy Channel in April 2007. The series depicts events from September 2004, in which William Shatner played a hoax on the small town of Riverside, Iowa by claiming to film a science fiction movie there. Unbeknownst to the residents of Riverside, the movie was in fact fake, a satire on the genre. In front of and behind the cameras, Shatner and his purported entourage performed a living, breathing parody of Hollywood. Producers designed the various plots and gags to elicit reactions from the townspeople. Shatner played the part of the eccentric star. Improvisational actors pretended to be members of his entourage. Residents of Riverside were encouraged to audition for parts in the movie and take jobs on its crew, only to bear witness, firsthand, to an elaborate send-up of tinseltown. Producers chose Riverside because it is the self-proclaimed future birthplace of Shatner's most enduring character, Captain James T. Kirk. Invasion Iowa was created by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who also created Spike TV's earlier "reality parody" series, The Joe Schmo Show, and its sequel, Joe Schmo 2.

Release Date: 2005-03-29

Department: Production

Job: Executive Producer

Episode Count: 4

Vote Count: 1

The Joe Schmo Show

An average, everyday person finds themselves selected for a reality TV show with a large prize at stake. Little do they know they're the only contestant: all the other "competitors" are actors and the whole show is just a set up to test how they react to different scenarios and moral dilemmas.

Release Date: 2003-09-02

Department: Production

Job: Executive Producer

Episode Count: 17

Vote Count: 11