Ehren Kruger

Biography

Ehren Kruger (born 1972) is an American screenwriter and producer whose career has centred on large commercial films of the 2000s. Raised in Alexandria, Virginia, he trained at New York University and built his reputation on thrillers and horror before becoming a regular writer on major franchises.

His early credits include Arlington Road (1999), a conspiracy thriller, and Scream 3 (2000). He wrote the American version of The Ring (2002) and its follow-up The Ring Two (2005), as well as The Skeleton Key (2005). He then wrote three of the five films in the Transformers series, among them Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), and went on to adapt Ghost in the Shell (2017) and contribute to Dumbo (2019). He earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Top Gun: Maverick (2022). The most recent credit listed in his sources is F1 (2025). His legacy lies in studio assignment work and in rewriting projects he did not originate, often without credit.

Key films

• Arlington Road (1999): a conspiracy thriller that brought his name to wider notice as a screenwriter.
• Scream 3 (2000): a sequel to the horror franchise, written by him.
• The Ring (2002): the American version of the Japanese horror film, which earned him a Bram Stoker Award nomination.
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009): one of the robot action franchise entries he scripted.
• Ghost in the Shell (2017): the American adaptation of the science fiction manga and anime.