Erik Bergquist

Erik Bergquist is an American screenwriter.

Erik Bergquist was born in Los Angeles, Ca on February 13, 1968. Bergquist grew up in Palos Verdes, Ca where he attended Chadwick School, a college preparatory school. His contemporaries at Chadwick include actor Brandon Lee and writer-producer Michael Saltzman . Erik went on to study English Literature and Theater Arts at California State University Dominguez Hills. For his senior project, he directed the documentary film, Backstage, about a college production of West Side Story.

After college, Erik was mentored by screenwriter Michael Frost Beckner and, in 1995, he wrote the spec script Fortune's Fools which he sold to 20th Century Fox.^[1] Michael Mann was the first director to sign on to the project.^[2]

In 1996, Bergquist was hired by Fox and producers Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck to write the film adaptation of the George V. Higgins' novel The Digger's Game.^[3] Later that year, he pitched an off-beat satire of the John Grisham courtroom dramas to then, Fox 2000 studio chief, Laura Ziskin, entitled Kill All the Lawyers. The project was bought with Paul Schiff and Michael London as producers.^[4]

In 1999, director Rob Cohen brought Erik to Universal Pictures to re-write a script about diamond thieves who happened to like street racing. Bergquist sold Universal execs on the idea of changing the story to one about truck hijackers so that the import sports cars could be featured more. He also used his extensive background in police procedural to flesh out the undercover cop story and make it more realistic. The project, originally called Racer X,^[5] became The Fast and the Furious.^[5]

In 2003, Columbia Pictures and producer Lili Fini Zanuck teamed Bergquist with Limp Bizkit front man turned director Fred Durst to write a film about four characters named Guy who are essentially the same person at different points in his life, all co-existing at the same time and place.

Erik Bergquist is married with 3 children and lives in Southern California.

References