Jeff Vintar (born in Oak Park, Illinois) is an American screenwriter. He is best known for his original screenplay, Hardwired, which became the basis for I, Robot. He attended the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop and published a series of cartoons in several issues of Random House's The Quarterly. Carving out a living as a factory worker, cabinet-maker, English teacher, and transit bus driver, Vintar broke into the film business when he sold three original screenplays in the span of five months.The first screenplay, The Long Hello and Short Goodbye, was made into a German-language film by Warner Bros. in 1999, starring Nicolette Krebitz and Katja Riemann. The cutting-edge structure of the story worried Studio Hamburg, who re-edited the modern noir into a more simple linear film, a move which polarized critics and audiences alike. The film received a positive review in Variety that predicted it would play in broad-minded festivals around the world "where genre fans should lap it up." An English-language version of Vintar's original Long Hello script struggled to reach the screen for years under Moebius director Gustavo Mosquera and Face/Off director-producer John Woo. It is currently in development at Circle of Confusion.The second screenplay, a twist-filled sci-fi love story called Spaceless, has remained in active development for a decade, first at specialty division Fox 2000, then Fox Animation, and finally at the main live-action division of Twentieth Century Fox. The script is a long-time favorite of Gore Verbinski, who directed The Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean. Vintar reacquired the rights to Spaceless through the little-known WGA contract "reacquisition" clause in the spring of 2009, and the project has moved to Universal with Verbinski producing through his Blind Wink Productions. Jane Eyre director Cary Fukunaga was hired to direct, but after turning in a rewrite that differed too greatly from the original script, he has since been removed from the project. Verbinski has taken over as director with Vintar back on board as writer.The third spec sale, Hardwired, survived development hell at Walt Disney Pictures under director Bryan Singer, only to be picked up by Twentieth Century Fox for Alex Proyas. The resulting film, eventually renamed by the studio I, Robot after the Isaac Asimov short story collection, made $350 million worldwide and boosted the career of star Will Smith after a series of disappointing releases. The original "Hardwired" screenplay was a cerebral murder mystery that read like a stage play, and representatives of the Asimov estate considered the script "more Asimov than Asimov." Vintar transformed the script into a big-budget studio film, also moving the story into the "I, Robot" universe. When Will Smith signed on to star, studio-mandated changes made the project more of a traditional summer blockbuster, a move that angered Asimov purists, although some critics considered the final product to h
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