Career
Born in Monroe, Louisiana, but spent the formative years of his life in Baton Rouge. Kirkpatrick attended a performing arts high school and started out as an actor. Formerly, he performed in the SAK Comedy Lab improvisational theater in Orlando, Florida. He is an alumnus of Baton Rouge Magnet High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Kirkpatrick attended the University of Southern California, graduating in 1988. His career pursuits eventually landed him on the streets of Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center, where he performed improvisational audience-participation street theater. As his artistic focus turned to writing, he was accepted to the USC School of Cinema-Television's Filmic Writing Program, where he won the Robert Riskin Screenwriting Award and the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Awards Immediately out of film school, Kirkpatrick landed a job 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 Chicken Run for Aardman Animations and DreamWorks SKG. Nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2001 for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy, “Chicken Run” has the distinction of being the best reviewed film of 2000. Kirkpatrick also wrote the screenplay adaptation of “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” for Walt Disney Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment. Kirkpatrick has a longstanding relationship with DreamWorks Animation, where he has contributed as a writer or story consultant on “The Road to El Dorado,” “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” and “Madagascar.” In May 2006, DreamWorks Animation released “Over the Hedge,” for which Kirkpatrick co-wrote the screenplay and made his directorial debut, sharing the credit with Tim Johnson. Most recently, 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 Movie. 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 is directed the Eddie Murphy dramedy Imagine That for Paramount Pictures. Kirkpatrick wrote the English-language screenplay for U.S. release of The Secret World of Arrietty, in 2012 and From Up on Poppy Hill, in 2013. He currently worked on The Smurfs 2
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