10 Highest-Grossing Screenwriters Of All Time, Ranked

You have probably heard that filmmaking is a director's medium. Whether it's ranking directors by their total box office or even their number of "perfect movies," there's no denying that a lot of attention is paid to whoever is sitting in the director's chair. Perhaps this dedicated devotion to directors is unfair to the screenwriters, who, after all, are the artists who put the words on the page that are turned into a movie. Especially since screenwriters suffer through anxiety-inducing levels of input from directors, producers, execs, executive assistants, execs' family members, the janitorial staff, and online bloggers. But if we're being honest, filmmaking is a financier's medium first and foremost, and the bean counters care most about money. In which case, there's a reason the following screenwriters have stayed busy — their scripts make bank.

While only a few of these writers are Oscar winners, or have written films that took home the Best Picture prize, all of them have penned scripts that have taken in billions of dollars at the box office To keep things fair and balanced, I'm going to focus on screenwriters, not writer-directors, so sorry to you, Cameron lovers, Jackson junkies, and  Nolan nerds. Sure, some of these screenwriters have called the shots by directing their own movies, but their biggest hits by far have come from movies they wrote that were directed by someone else. Which screenwriters' scripts have netted the most money? Here are the 10 highest-grossing screenwriters of all time!

Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna started as staff writers on TV shows when they met while working on "American Dad," and formed a fruitful partnership penning TV shows and eventually films. Sommers and McKenna have only been writing screenplays for less than 10 years, but in that short time, almost all of their seven feature films have been massive hits. Their first screenplay was "The Lego Batman Movie" ($312 million worldwide) for Warner Bros. and DC in 2017, but that same year, they wrote an even bigger hit for Sony's sole Marvel property, featuring the little-known character named Spider-Man. 

Sommers and McKenna have since written all of the Tom Holland "Spider-Man" trilogy, including the nearly $2 billion-grossing "Spider-Man: No Way Home." However, they have more than Spidey to thank for the $5.8 billion total gross, as they also wrote the surprise smash hit "Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle," and made their way to another Marvel property (this time for Disney) with "Ant-Man & The Wasp." Okay, so technically, Chris McKenna is just a smidge ahead of Erik Sommers, as he wrote and even acted in the animated film "Igor." The 2008 film tanked with $31 million, but it still gives him mild bragging rights over his writing buddy ($5.829 billion versus $5.86 billion).

Despite now being considered one of the greatest film trilogies of all time, J.R.R. Tolkien's epic tome "The Lord of the Rings" was once considered "unfilmable." Well, the Academy Award-winning, New Zealand-born screenwriter Philippa Boyens laughs in the face of danger, probably in a Kiwi accent people frequently mistake for Australian. Boyens has co-written with director Peter Jackson and his screenwriting collaborator/producing partner/wife/mother of his children, Fran Walsh, on every Middle-earth movie Jackson directed, and even the one he didn't, "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim." 

Yep, Boyens brought her talent to both the Middle-Earth masterpieces (the OG "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy) and the middle-brow mid ones ("The Hobbit" trilogy), but before you pick on the trio for the latter films, remember they had to stretch out the shortest book into three epic films. That takes a lot of imagination and deep affection for the source material (something Amazon Prime could have used more of in its prequel series). Boyens boasts Oscar gold on her shelf, more than $6 billion total in worldwide box office, and an average of $672 million worldwide across 10 films to her name, giving her one of the highest per-film averages on this list.

Ehren Kruger may not be a household name even among film fans, but his list of screenplays include some major hit franchises, such as many of "The Ring" and "Transformers" films. Despite (or maybe because of) his last name, Kruger has regretfully never written a "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie. However, he has proved his versatility as a screenwriter, penning such diverse scripts as thrillers ("Arlington Road"), action pics ("Reindeer Games"), horror flicks ("The Ring"), anime adaptations ("Ghost In The Shell"), and even picking up sequels to series some other screenwriters started ("Transformers" and "Top Gun: Maverick").

In fact, Kruger's sequel scripts wound up being the highest-grossing entries in their respective franchises (and some would say the best), so you could argue he's kinda like Dwayne Johnson as "Franchise Viagra," only for the screenwriting trade. Kruger has written three movies that have grossed more than a billion dollars worldwide: "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" ($1.12 billion), "Transformers: Age of Extinction" ($1.1 billion), and "Top Gun: Maverick" ($1.4 billion), the latter of which also netted him an Oscar nom for Best Adapted Screenplay. Combined, these three movies contributed around half of his $6.128 billion worldwide total, more than wiping away the stench of turkeys like "Blood and Chocolate" and "Dumbo."

Steven Spielberg takes the crown for highest-grossing director, while James Cameron has to settle for No. 2 (for now), though Cameron technically gets bragging rights as the number one screenwriter thanks to little flicks like "Titanic" and the "Avatar" series. Alas, as he's a writer-director, I had to exclude Cameron from my list (I'm sure he's emotionally crushed from his compound in New Zealand). However, two of the screenwriters he has taken along with him on a mountain banshee ride to Pandora do make the cut: Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa. 

Silver and Jaffa are a wife-and-husband screenwriting duo that have been married since 1989, and have been co-writing since the early 90s. One of their early efforts (1997's "The Relic") was a massive flop with $31 million, sidelining them until 2011's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" turned their fortunes around (literally) with $470 million worldwide. Silver and Jaffa proved the power of tenacity as their partnership has pretty much been all uphill ever since. Besides co-writing almost all of the new "Planet of the Apes" movies (they only produced "War for the Planet of the Apes"), they were tapped by producer Spielberg to pen "Jurassic World" in 2015 ($1.6 billion worldwide) and Cameron to help him write "Avatar: The Way of Water" ($2.3 billion worldwide) and the upcoming "Avatar: Fire and Ash." All told, the spouses' scripts have earned $6.27 billion worldwide, a number I expect to continue climbing upward.

Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott may be two of the few household names on this list (well, at least among film fans). But even if you haven't heard of them, you are certainly familiar with the blockbusters they have written. They include such watershed cinematic films as "Aladdin," "Shrek," and four "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, including their biggest hit, "Dead Man's Chest," which broke the opening-weekend box office record in 2006. Sure, Rossio and Elliott have their fair share of massive misfires to their name. There's the screen credit they received for Roland Emmerich's poorly received "Godzilla" from 1998, which was based on an unused script they wrote (though Rossio redeemed himself to Godzilla fans by writing "Godzilla vs. Kong" and "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire"), as well as "The Lone Ranger," one of Disney's biggest live-action disasters.

In fact, the financial failure of "The Lone Ranger" might have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Rossio and Elliott haven't written together since, and Elliott doesn't have any screenwriting credit after that famous flop. But hey, there's no denying the duo's combined total of $6.4 billion worldwide places them on this list — frankly, I'm surprised they're not higher. While Rossio's solo scripts since their "The Lone Ranger" breakup tally up to $7.7 billion, I'm placing them both here, given the bulk of Terry Rossio's billions came from his partnership with Ted Elliott.

The famously camera-shy Fran Walsh may not have the instant name recognition of her blockbuster director, co-writer, and co-producer husband Peter Jackson. Nor is she as effusive about her work as her frequent collaborator Philippa Boyens. Heck, despite the "The Lord of the Rings" making-of documentaries totaling several hours, she barely makes a peep. Rest assured, those films (and many more) would not be possible without her work as a screenwriter. In fact, as Jackson's wife, she has been his collaborator in life, and his co-producer and co-writer since 1994's "Heavenly Creatures," for which the two were first nominated for an Academy Award. 

Meanwhile, Boyens missed out on the couple's early forays, joined the trio for the "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies, so it's a less traditional collaboration than some of the others on this list, which is why I've split them up. As a screenwriter, Walsh's work has earned her multiple nominations and awards, including Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Song for "The Return of the King." It has also landed her near the top of this list with $6.6 billion worldwide. Fran Walsh may not have much to say in public, but her work certainly speaks for itself, as her $601 million worldwide per-film average is one of the highest on this list.

Chris Morgan has the unique distinction of probably writing the word "family" more than anyone who has ever lived. That's because he has been the go-to screenwriter for "The Fast and the Furious" franchise since "Fast & Furious" (a.k.a. "the fourth one") in 2009. In addition to all the "Furious" movies featuring Dwayne Johnson's Agent Luke Hobbs that Morgan wrote, he also penned the series spin-off "Fast & Furious Present: Hobbs & Shaw," so he has also probably written "sumb***h" more than anyone ever too.

"The Fast and The Furious" movies make up the bulk of his $6.79 billion by far, and include his career-best "Furious 7," which drove away with just shy of $1.5 billion worldwide. Alas, Morgan's other forays in film writing haven't had nearly the same cultural impact, even if some of them were hits (e.g., "Wanted"). Of course, there were also the critical and commercial failures like "47 Ronin," "Blade of the 47 Ronin" (its sequel that I've never heard of), "Shazam! Fury of the Gods," and "The Vatican Tapes," which a Google search tells me was a 2015 supernatural horror film. Okay then. Hey, you don't need to churn out hits across genres and franchises when Vin Diesel has your number and trusts you to write a believable scenario where a sports car goes into space. Snicker and make snide remarks all you want, but that takes talent.

As a writer-director, David Koepp's films have netted a pretty measly $217 million worldwide, with his sole "hit" (relatively speaking) being "Secret Window" with $93 million. This is a Stephen King adaptation from 2004 that only managed its gross because it starred Johnny Depp right after "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." In fact, another Depp disaster (2015's "Mordecai") may have killed Koepp's directorial dreams entirely, as his latest directing effort (2020's "You Should Have Left") didn't even get a theatrical release. Ouch. But hey, who needs to be a top-grossing director when you are one of the highest-grossing and most in-demand screenwriters of all time, right?

Koepp's screenplays have netted $7.3 billion worldwide, for a per-film average of $272 million across more than 30 movies since 1990's "Bad Influence." There's no denying that the dude stays busy, as he's the most prolific writer on the list. But it's not just quantity; it's quality, at least when it comes to writing hits. Koepp has been Steven Spielberg's go-to writer for blockbusters since "Jurassic Park" in 1993 (still Koepp's biggest hit with $1+ billion worldwide), and was also hired to launch the "Mission: Impossible" and "Spider-Man" (the 2002 one) movie franchises. Sure, some of his franchise launches include "The Shadow" and "The Mummy" (the 2017 one), but nobody's perfect. Basically, if you need a screenwriter to kick off a blockbuster franchise, and you need it by Friday, David Koepp is your guy. Well, call me first, but then call Koepp.

Steve Kloves tried directing with "The Fabulous Baker Boys" in 1989 and gave it another shot with "Flesh and Bone" in 1993 — these two movies managed only $27 million worldwide combined. Kloves has evidently decided to ditch the director's chair and stick with the keyboard, a smart financial decision. Kloves' 13 films as a screenwriter have netted a combined total of $7.9 billion worldwide, for a per-film average of more than $600 million, among the highest on this list. So yeah, pretty impressive. How did he do it? Have you ever heard of a little character called "Harry Potter?"

Kloves wrote every "Harry Potter and the Whatever of Whatever," so that's seven films that made around or above a billion dollars. To the surprise of no one, his biggest hit was "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II" with $1.3 billion worldwide. But Kloves has done more than adapt the boy wizard. He was brought on board to right the ship that was the "Fantastic Beasts" prequel series with trilogy closer "The Secrets of Dumbledore" in 2022, and wrote "The Amazing Spider-Man" in 2012, a franchise reboot that wasn't well-received but still made more than $750 million worldwide. But don't assume Kloves just waved a wand over J.K. Rowling's work and money shot out. Adapting six massive books into seven movies under three hours while still keeping fans happy and studios rich is no easy feat. When it came to the task, Kloves was a wizard.

The highest-grossing screenwriter ever is technically James Cameron with $9.6 billion earned across 14 films, a factoid I'm sure the famously immodest Cameron is happy to share (frequently and unprompted). But due to his status as a writer-director, I'm not including Big Jim on this list (don't @ me). Yes, I know he wrote screenplays for movies he didn't direct (e.g., "Rambo: First Blood Part II," "Strange Days," "Alita: Battle Angel"), but if we only included those, he definitely wouldn't rank. As such, the No. 1 spot for pure screenwriters goes to the team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

Besides boasting the massive box office total of nearly $9.3 billion worldwide, the two also have the highest per-film average of $844 million worldwide across 13 films, topping even Cameron. How did the dynamic dudes make so much dough? They have been writing for the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2011's "Captain America: The First Avenger," including some of the bar-none biggest hits in the series: "Captain America: Civil War" ($1.1 billion), "Avengers: Infinity War" ($2 billion), and "Avengers: Endgame" ($2.7 billion). The latter is not only their biggest hit, but it also was the biggest hit ever for a time (until "Avatar" took it back for ... you guessed it ... James Cameron). 

The thing is, none of their movies have flat-out tanked, as most have made well north of $300 million. Thanks to their Marvel-ous total, Markus and McFeely are the highest-grossing screenwriters of all time.