Nic Pizzolatto

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Lore & Background

Pizzolatto wrote two short stories during his MFA at the University of Arkansas—'Ghost-Birds' and 'Between Here and the Yellow Sea'—which were sold to The Atlantic Monthly. In 2004, his work was among the finalists for the National Magazine Award in Fiction. His collection Between Here and the Yellow Sea was long-listed for the 2006 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and named one of the top five fiction debuts of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine. He received an honorable mention from the Pushcart Prize, and his short story 'Wanted Man' is included in Best American Mystery Stories 2009. His first novel, Galveston, was published by Scribner's in June 2010 and earned him the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger, the French Academy's award for Best First Novel, Foreign. It was also a 2010 Edgar Award finalist for best first novel and won third prize in the 2010 Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, plus the 2011 Spur Award for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America.

In Their Own Story

In 2011, Pizzolatto wrote two episodes for the first season of The Killing but left after two weeks in the writers room on the show's second season, remarking, 'I want to be the guiding vision. I don't do well serving someone else's vision.' In 2012, he created True Detective, which was sold to HBO and completed shooting in June 2013 with him as executive producer, sole writer, and showrunner. It premiered in January 2014, becoming the most watched freshman show in the network's history. The finale crashed HBO's HBO Go streaming service. Pizzolatto listed influences including Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, Eugene Thacker's In The Dust of This Planet, Ray Brassier's Nihil Unbound, Jim Crawford's Confessions of an Antinatalist, and David Benatar's Better Never to Have Been, as well as horror authors Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, and Ligotti. In August 2014, he was accused of plagiarizing these sources.

Reader's Guide

A new season of True Detective premiered on June 21, 2015, with Pizzolatto again writing/co-writing all the episodes. In late 2015, he signed a new deal with HBO through 2018. In August 2016, HBO announced a potential new series written by Pizzolatto starring Robert Downey Jr. centered on Perry Mason, but he dropped out in August 2017 to focus on the third season of True Detective. Along with Richard Wenk, he co-wrote the screenplay for The Magnificent Seven (2016), released on September 23, 2016. He adapted his novel Galveston for the 2018 film but requested to be credited under the pseudonym Jim Hammett after director Mélanie Laurent's contributions. In December 2018, he revealed he assisted Deadwood creator David Milch in writing the screenplay for the film adaptation, and Milch helped him with the third season of True Detective by co-writing the fourth episode. In April 2019, he wrote the screenplay for Ghost Army for Universal Pictures, to be directed by Ben Affleck. In January 2020, FX announced an overall deal with Pizzolatto for the drama series Redeemer, but negotiations for early termination began after Redeemer was canceled. In April 2020, he said he was interested in writing a Batman film. In March 2022, HBO announced a fourth season of True Detective with the subtitle Night Country, written and directed by Issa López, with Pizzolatto remaining as executive producer. In March 2023, it was reported he would write a Western series for Prime Video, later refashioned into a television adaptation of The Magnificent Seven. In April 2023, he was hired to co-write the script for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Blade.

Did You Know?

• Pizzolatto graduated from St. Louis Catholic High School in 1993 and left home when he was 17.
• He received the Lily Peter Fellowship for poetry and Walton Fellowship in 2003 while pursuing his MFA at the University of Arkansas.
• His first novel, Galveston, won the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger (Best Foreign First Novel) from the French Academy in 2011.
• The finale of True Detective's first season was so popular it crashed HBO's HBO Go streaming service.
• Pizzolatto requested to be credited under the pseudonym Jim Hammett for the 2018 film adaptation of Galveston.