Derek Kolstad

Derek Kolstad’s a name you might not know off the top of your head, but trust me, if you’ve been anywhere near a cinema in the past decade, you’ve felt his impact. Dude was born back in ‘74, right in Madison, Wisconsin – not exactly Hollywood, but hey, greatness comes from all sorts of places. He’s the brains behind the John Wick franchise, which, let’s be honest, kinda changed the action movie game. Before John Wick, action flicks were starting to feel pretty cookie-cutter. Then Keanu strolls in with that pencil and a grudge and, boom, everything’s different. That’s Kolstad. He wrote the first script when he was, what, almost 40? Proof that late bloomers can still absolutely crush it. Kolstad’s not just about John Wick, though. He’s got “Nobody” under his belt too—yeah, that’s the one with Bob Odenkirk doing his best “suburban dad with a dark past” impression. People went wild for it. You wanna talk about guys who know how to keep an audience on the edge of their seat? Kolstad’s your guy. He peppers his scripts with these moments—snappy dialogue, brutal fight scenes, and just enough heart that you actually care about the characters, even if they’re, well, professional killers. He’s done producing work as well, not just writing. That’s a rare one-two punch in the industry. You get the sense he’s a storyteller at heart, whether he’s behind the scenes or right there on the page. And honestly, given the way he’s redefined what we expect from action movies, it’s kinda wild to think he started out just like any of us—dreaming up stories in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin.