Roberto Orci

Roberto Gaston Orcí (born July 20, 1973) is a Mexican-American film and television screenwriter and producer.

He began his longtime collaboration with Alex Kurtzman while at school in California.

Together they have been employed on television series such as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess.

Orci was born in Mexico City on July 20, 1973, to a Mexican father and a Cuban mother.

Orci grew up in Mexico, and moved with his family to the United States at the age of 10.

He was raised in Texas, Los Angeles and Canada.

He met his longtime friend and collaborator Alex Kurtzman when both were 17-year-old students at Crossroads, a privately funded school in Santa Monica, California.

The first time they came across each other was in a film class, where they discovered each other's love for films and in particular the Steven Soderbergh film Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

The duo found that they had a number of things in common, as Kurtzman had previously lived in Mexico City and the two could relate.

Orci later called him an "honorary Hispanic".

Orci went on to attend the University of Texas at Austin.

The duo got together once again, and began to write scripts.

These included one called Misfortune Cookies which Orci described as "loosely autobiographical", and Last Kiss, which Kurtzman said was their version of The Breakfast Club but was set in a lunatic asylum.

Orci and Kurtzman began their writing collaboration on the television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, after being hired by Sam Raimi.

After actor Kevin Sorbo suffered a stroke, the duo were required to come up with inventive ideas to minimize his appearances on screen.

Due to this work, they became show runners at the age of 24.

They were also involved in the sister-series to Hercules, Xena: Warrior Princess.

They sought to move to writing for a network-based television series, but found this difficult.

After receiving a series of negative responses, they met with J. J. Abrams who was starting work on Alias at the time.

The meeting went well, and resulted in them working on the series.

They would go on to work together again on the Fox science fiction series Fringe where all three were listed as co-creators.

Orci and Kurtzman received their break in writing for films in 2004, with the Michael Bay film The Island, for which they developed the spec script by Caspian Tredwell-Owen.

When Kurtzman and Orci first met Bay, he asked the pair "Why should I trust you?", to which Orci replied "You shouldn't yet. Let's see what happens."

While the film was not an overwhelming success, they were brought back for Bay's following film, Transformers, after producer Steven Spielberg asked them to come in for a meeting.

The movie took in $710 million at the box office.

Following their work on that film, the duo were brought in to revise the script for Zack Snyder's Watchmen, in an uncredited capacity.

They worked once more with Abrams, on Mission: Impossible III.

Between 2005 and 2011, Kurtzman and Orci's film projects took revenues of more than $3 billion.

When they collaborated once more with Bay for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, they were under significant time pressures due to the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike.

Kurtzman and Orci had two weeks to outline the film, and after the strike Bay had them moved into the Hotel Casa del Mar.

The hotel was six blocks away from his office, enabling Bay to conduct surprise inspections.

In 2008, together with J. J. Abrams, they created Fringe.

Orci first became a film producer with 2008's Eagle Eye and again with 2009's The Proposal.

He and Kurtzman since returned to working with Abrams on Mission: Impossible III and both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness.

In 2013, they created Sleepy Hollow alongside Phillip Iscove.

Orci and Kurtzman's first film project was Michael Bay's The Island, and due to that partnership they went on to write the scripts for the first two films of the Transformers film series.

In April 2014, Orci and Kurtzman announced that they would only collaborate in television projects, and Orci worked on the third Star Trek film, Star Trek Beyond, until being replaced the following December.

Orci created the television series Matador for the El Rey Network, but after this was initially renewed, it was cancelled at the end of the first season.

Both Kurtzman and Orci continue to work as producers on the television series Limitless and Scorpion.

Orci was awarded the Norman Lear Writer's Award and the Raul Julia Award for Excellence, in addition to shared awards and nominations including The George Pal Memorial Award.