J. J. Abrams

Abrams was born in New York City with the name Jeffrey Jacob Abrams to veteran television producer Gerald W. Abrams (born 1939) of Polish-Jewish descent and Carol Ann Abrams (née Kelvin; 1942–2012), a Peabody Award winning television executive producer as well as author and law academic.

His sister is screenwriter Tracy Rosen.

His father worked at CBS in Midtown Manhattan the year prior to Abrams' birth.

Jeffrey Jacob Abrams (born June 27, 1966) is an American filmmaker and composer.

He is best known for his works in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction.

By 1971 the family had relocated to Los Angeles.

His mother worked as a real estate agent while Abrams and his sister were at school.

Abrams attended Palisades High School and after graduation planned on going to art school rather than a traditional college but eventually enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College, in Bronxville, New York.

Abrams' first job in the movie business was at age 16 when he wrote the music for Don Dohler's 1982 horror movie Nightbeast.

During his senior year at college, he teamed with Jill Mazursky, the daughter of award-winning writer/director Paul Mazursky, to write a feature film treatment.

Purchased by Touchstone Pictures, the treatment was the basis for Taking Care of Business, Abrams' first produced film, which starred Charles Grodin and James Belushi and was directed by Academy Award winner Arthur Hiller.

He followed with Regarding Henry, starring Harrison Ford, and Forever Young, starring Mel Gibson.

He also co-wrote with Mazursky the script for the comedy Gone Fishin' starring Joe Pesci and Danny Glover.

Abrams wrote and produced such films as Regarding Henry (1991), Forever Young (1992), Armageddon (1998), Cloverfield (2008), Star Trek (2009), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

In 1994, he was part of the "Propellerheads" with Rob Letterman, Loren Soman, and Andy Waisler, a group of Sarah Lawrence alums experimenting with computer animation technology.

They were contracted by Jeffrey Katzenberg to develop animation for the film Shrek.

Abrams has created numerous television series, including Felicity (co-creator, 1998–2002), Alias (creator, 2001–2006), Lost (co-creator, 2004–2010), and Fringe (co-creator, 2008–2013).

He won two Emmy Awards for Lost – Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Drama Series.

Abrams worked on the screenplay for the 1998 film Armageddon with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay.

That same year, he made his first foray into television with Felicity, which ran for four seasons on The WB Network, serving as the series' co-creator (with Matt Reeves) and executive producer.

He also composed its opening theme music.

Under his production company, Bad Robot, which he founded with Bryan Burk in 2001, Abrams created and executive-produced ABC's Alias and is co-creator (along with Damon Lindelof and Jeffrey Lieber) and was executive producer of Lost. As with Felicity, Abrams also composed the opening theme music for Alias and Lost.

Abrams directed and wrote the two-part pilot for Lost and remained active producer for the first half of the season.

Also in 2001, Abrams co-wrote and produced the horror-thriller Joy Ride.

His directorial film work includes Mission: Impossible III (2006), Star Trek (2009), Super 8 (2011), and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).

He also directed, co-produced and co-wrote The Force Awakens, the seventh episode of the Star Wars saga and the first film of the sequel trilogy.

The film is his highest-grossing, as well as the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time not adjusted for inflation.

In 2006, he served as executive producer of What About Brian and Six Degrees, also on ABC.

He also co-wrote the teleplay for Lost's third-season premiere "A Tale of Two Cities" and the same year, he made his feature directorial debut with Mission: Impossible III, starring Tom Cruise.

Abrams spoke at the TED conference in 2007.

In 2008, Abrams produced the monster movie Cloverfield, which Matt Reeves directed.

In 2008, Abrams co-created, executive produced, and co-wrote (along with Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) the FOX science fiction series Fringe, for which he also composed the theme music.

In 2009, he directed the science fiction film Star Trek, which he produced with Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof.

While it was speculated that they would be writing and producing an adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of novels, they publicly stated in November 2009 that they were no longer looking to take on that project.

He was featured in the 2009 MTV Movie Awards 1980s-style digital short "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions", with Andy Samberg and Will Ferrell, in which he plays a keyboard solo.

NBC picked up Abrams's Undercovers as its first new drama series for the 2010–11 season.

However, it was subsequently cancelled by the network in November 2010.

Abrams wrote and directed the Paramount science fiction thriller Super 8, starring Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning, while co-producing with Steven Spielberg and Bryan Burk; it was released on June 10, 2011.

He returned to Star Wars by executive producing The Last Jedi (2017), and directing and co-writing The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

Abrams's frequent collaborators include producer Bryan Burk, producer/directors Damon Lindelof and Tommy Gormley, actors Greg Grunberg, Simon Pegg, Amanda Foreman, and Keri Russell, composer Michael Giacchino, writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, cinematographers Daniel Mindel and Larry Fong, and editors Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey.