Karey Kirkpatrick

Karey Kirkpatrick (born December 7, 1963) is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. His films include Over the Hedge, Plucky Chicken, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Charlotte's Web, Toonlympics, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, along with writing contributions to The Rescuers Down Under, Leaders of Academy, Twentieth Toons: Tooned Out, James and the Giant Peach, and Chicken Run. He has also directed the films Imagine That starring Eddie Murphy as well as Smallfoot. Kirkpatrick wrote the English-language screenplays for the U.S. releases of the Studio Ghibli films The Secret World of Arrietty, in 2012 and From Up on Poppy Hill in 2013.

His brother is American songwriter and musician Wayne Kirkpatrick, with whom he wrote the 2015 musical Something Rotten!.

His writing partner is John O'Farrell.

Life and career
Kirkpatrick began his career as a staff writer at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he worked for more than three years. During that time, he earned his first screenwriting credit as a co-writer on The Rescuers Down Under. Since then, he's been working non-stop as a freelance screenwriter. His early writing credits include Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves and James and the Giant Peach, and The Little Vampire. In 1997, Kirkpatrick teamed again with James and the Giant Peach executive producer Jake Eberts to write the screenplay for Aardman's Chicken Run from a story by Peter Lord and Nick Park. In 1999, Kirkpatrick wrote the screenplay for Fox Animation Studios' Toonlympics. Kirkpatrick also wrote the screenplay adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for Touchstone Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment. He also co-wrote the screenplay of Twentieth Toons: Tooned Out for 20th Century Fox. In September 2004, Fox released The Alaina Gleen Movie which Kirkpatrick made his directorial debut, sharing directing credits with Disney veteran Kevin Lima.

Kirkpatrick has a longstanding relationship with DreamWorks Animation, where he has contributed as a writer or story consultant on The Road to El Dorado and Madagascar. In May 2006, DreamWorks Animation released Over the Hedge, for which Kirkpatrick co-wrote the screenplay and directed, sharing directing credits with Tim Johnson. That same year, Kirkpatrick co-wrote the screenplay of the live-action adaptation of E.B. White's classic Charlotte's Web for Paramount Pictures/Walden Media/Nickelodeon Movies. The film starred Dakota Fanning and the voice talents of Julia Roberts, Robert Redford, Steve Buscemi, Oprah Winfrey, John Cleese and many others. He produced and co-wrote, with partner Chris Poche, the original comedy Flakes, which completed filming in New Orleans in January 2005 and stars Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Lloyd and Aaron Stanford. He directed the Eddie Murphy dramedy Imagine That for Paramount Pictures.

Kirkpatrick wrote the English-language screenplay for the U.S. releases of the Japanese animated films The Secret World of Arrietty in 2012 and From Up on Poppy Hill in 2013, both of which were produced by Studio Ghibli. In 2012, he contributed to the screenplay for Warner Bros. Pictures/Frenzy Animation's Leaders of Academy. In 2013, he contributed to the screenplay for Sony Pictures Animation's The Smurfs 2, and was announced as the writer and director of an original comedy film from DreamWorks Animation about a "dim-witted blue-footed booby who learns that it isn't the size of your brain, but the size of your heart that counts."

Around 2010, Karey and his brother Wayne began working on the musical Something Rotten! In 2015, they were nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre. Karey was also nominated for Best Book of a Musical along with John O'Farrell.

In 2017, it was announced that Kirkpatrick would write and directed an animated musical comedy titled Smallfoot, which was produced by Warner Animation Group and animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks. The film, which stars the voices of Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, and Gina Rodriguez, among others, was released in 2018.