Simon Kinberg

b. 1973 · British-American film producer, screenwriter and director

Biography

Simon Kinberg (born in Hammersmith, London, in 1973) is a British-born producer, screenwriter and director who later became an American citizen. He is best known for his long involvement with the X-Men series, which he has written and produced for more than a decade. That work made him one of the most recognisable names in superhero cinema during the 2010s, although his output also reaches into science fiction, action comedy and television.

Raised in Los Angeles from the age of six, Kinberg was the son of a New York-born writer and producer. He studied at Brown University and later earned an MFA in screenwriting from Columbia University. Before he had even finished film school he sold a pitch to Warner Bros., and he went on to write for studios including Disney, Sony and DreamWorks.

His first screenwriting credit was the sequel XXX: State of the Union (2005). His next project, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, directed by Doug Liman, began as his thesis script. He co-wrote X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) for the franchise, then reunited with Liman on Jumper (2008) and worked with Guy Ritchie on Sherlock Holmes (2009). Since then his main role has been as producer and writer on the X-Men films, including X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). In 2010 his company, Genre Films, signed a first-look deal with 20th Century Fox.

Among his best-known superhero titles are Deadpool (2016), Logan (2017) and Deadpool 2 (2018), as well as Dark Phoenix (2019), which marked his directorial debut. On television he has served as an executive producer on series such as Legion and The Gifted. In November 2024 Lucasfilm announced that he had been hired to write and co-produce a new Star Wars trilogy alongside Kathleen Kennedy.

Key films

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005): screenwriter of an action comedy that started as a film school project.
X-Men: First Class (2011): producer of the film that rebooted the series with a younger cast.
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014): writer and producer of the film that brought both casts together.
Deadpool (2016): producer of the hit that defined the character's irreverent tone.
Logan (2017): producer of Hugh Jackman's final turn as Wolverine.
Dark Phoenix (2019): his directorial debut, which he also wrote.

Trivia

Film school project

The script for Mr. & Mrs. Smith began as Kinberg's thesis project in film school. He also has a brief cameo in the film as the banker who talks with John Smith at a dinner party.

A character in a novel

Comic writer Chris Claremont, whose Dark Phoenix storyline was the main source for X-Men: The Last Stand, also wrote the film's novelisation and included Kinberg as a character in the book.