Carlton Cuse

Arthur Carlton Cuse (born March 22, 1959), known as Carlton Cuse, is an American screenwriter, showrunner, producer, and director, best known for the American television series Lost, for which he made the Time list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010.

Arthur Carlton Cuse was born on March 22, 1959 was born in Mexico City, Mexico.

His father was working in Mexico for Cuse's grandfather, who had a machine-tool manufacturing business.

Cuse's paternal grandfather was Latvian, of Baltic German heritage.

After a few years in Mexico City, his parents moved to Boston, Massachusetts.

A few years later, his father accepted a job in Tustin, California where Cuse attended El Dorado Private School, in Orange.

Cuse was raised a Roman Catholic.

He went to boarding school at the Putney School in Vermont.

The school was on a working dairy farm, and placed a strong emphasis on an education in the arts, music, and the outdoors.

At the Putney School, Cuse said that he realized he wanted to be a writer.

Cuse attended Harvard University (class of 1981) and was recruited at freshmen registration by Ted Washburn for the rowing team.

In his words, he became "a hardcore athlete".

Cuse's original plan was to attend medical school, but he instead majored in American history.

During his junior year at Harvard, Cuse organized a test screening for the makers of the Paramount film Airplane!.

The producers wanted to record the audience reaction to time the final cut of the jokes in the film.

Cuse said then was when he started thinking about a career in film.

Cuse is known for his groundbreaking cross-genre storytelling, pioneering work in interactive media, collaborative achievements, and mentorship of many screenwriters who went on to become showrunners of television series.

Cuse teamed up with a Harvard classmate, Hans Tobeason, and made a documentary about rowing at Harvard called Power Ten.

He convinced actor, writer, and fellow Harvard graduate George Plimpton to narrate the film.

After graduating, Cuse headed for Hollywood, and worked as an assistant to a studio head, then as a script reader.

By working as a reader, Cuse said he gained insight into what made good scripts work.

In 1984, Cuse took a job working as an assistant producer for Bernard Schwartz and then spent a year and a half working on Sweet Dreams, directed by Karel Reisz, starring Jessica Lange and Ed Harris.

He described the experience as his version of film school.

After helping a writer, David J. Burke, with a feature script, Cuse was hired as a writer on the Michael Mann series Crime Story, for which David J. Burke wrote the pilot.

In 1986, Cuse wrote two teleplays for the series.

Cuse formed a partnership with feature writer Jeffrey Boam, with whom he helped develop the films Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon 3, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Cuse wrote the screenplay for the 2015 disaster film San Andreas.

The film was directed by Brad Peyton, starred Dwayne Johnson, and was released in the United States on May 29, 2015.

San Andreas was the #1 film for Warner Bros in 2015, grossing $473.5 million worldwide.

Cuse and Ryan Condal rewrote Ryan Engle's screenplay adaptation of the video game franchise Rampage.

The film, reuniting Cuse and Condal with San Andreas director Brad Peyton, producer Beau Flynn, and star Dwayne Johnson, began production in early April 2017 for New Line/Warner Bros. The film premiered on April 13, 2018, and was the number-one film in the U.S. its opening weekend, earning $35.8 million.

Its global gross was $426 million.

Rampage also had one of the best showings ever for a video game adaptation.

Because of his involvement with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, an executive at Fox, Robert Greenblatt, asked Cuse and Boam if they would be interested in doing a television version of the old movie serials.

Cuse said yes and wrote The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., about a Harvard-educated bounty hunter who wants to avenge the death of his father, the most famous lawman in the Old West.

Fox gave the go-ahead for the series.

Brisco also had a science-fiction element, in the form of a mysterious orb that appears in several episodes.

Boam went back to making features, leaving Cuse to write and serve as sole showrunner of the critically acclaimed series.

Afterwards, Cuse gave much of the credit for the show's success to actor Bruce Campbell, who played Brisco County, Jr., the lead character.

After Brisco, Cuse met Don Johnson, who had a commitment from CBS to make a new series.