Allan Loeb

Life and career

Loeb was born to a Jewish family in Highland Park, Illinois, the son of Elsie and Henry Loeb. He attended Ithaca College in New York from 1988 to 1992, dropping out to work at the Chicago Board of Trade. He relocated to Los Angeles, California in 1993 to pursue a career in screenwriting. Loeb was only marginally successful, making three deals early in his career. His gambling habit began to overtake his writing and eventually drained him of the little money he did make. He didn't make another deal for a couple of years. In 2003, Loeb landed a rewrite assignment on producer Neal H. Moritz' romantic comedy Made of Honor. He received no credit when the movie was finally made and released in 2008. In 2004, after graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, he moved to New York to write what he calls his "Hail Mary" script The Only Living Boy in New York. After a tumultuous period, Loeb returned to Los Angeles and continued writing his script with the help of Little Miss Sunshine producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa. He also joined Gamblers Anonymous to cure his gambling addiction, which he claims changed his writing for the better. While this was going on, Loeb was quickly putting pen to paper on his next script, Things We Lost in the Fire.

By December 2005, both scripts landed in the top four spots in the inaugural Black List of the Best Unproduced Scripts in Hollywood. Loeb parlayed that into one of the hottest streaks of any writer in recent history. In 2006, Loeb landed 6 movie script deals as well as 3 TV shows that he and his Scarlet Fire Entertainment producing partner (and former writing partner) Steven Pearl sold to Fox and FX in 2007, one of which was New Amsterdam.

Things We Lost in the Fire, a $16 million small character drama that did not live up to early critical excitement and acclaim. It was met with mixed reviews and was a box office failure grossing only around $8 million worldwide. In 2008, Loeb got his first taste of box office success with the release of the card counting true story 21, a script that he was hired to rewrite. He shared 'screenplay' credit with Peter Steinfeld on the film, produced by and starring Kevin Spacey. It turned out to be a surprise sleeper hit of the year, grossing over $158 million worldwide. In 2010, Loeb wrote The Switch, which premiered in August 2010. While it got relatively poor reviews, the film did manage to gross nearly $50 million worldwide. He also co-wrote Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps directed by Oliver Stone. The film got generally good reviews and earned a respectable $135 million worldwide at the box office. In addition, he wrote a pair of 2011 films, The Dilemma, which was a box office flop, grossing only $67 million worldwide. And then Just Go With It, which was a hit grossing over $215 million worldwide.

Loeb rewrote the $75 million 1980s rock musical Rock of Ages, starring Tom Cruise, which Loeb received a shared 'screenplay' credit on. The film was a box office disappointment grossing only $56 million worldwide upon its release in June 2012. Finally, in October 2012, the release of the $42 million Kevin James led mixed martial arts comedy Here Comes the Boom which Loeb co-wrote the script to with James. It too has become a box office flop. It has grossed just over $73 million (estimated) worldwide, with $45 million (of that) at the domestic box office.

His later deals included setting up a television production company Dark Fire with Ryan Reynolds where they have a first look deal with Fox. They are developing a pair of shows including the animated series And Then There Was Gordon which Loeb is co-creator, writer of the pilot script and executive producer. And Guidance which Loeb and Reynolds are executive producers. They're also developing the mother-daughter gumshoe series Murder in Manhattan, another sitcom set in an airport hotel, and another animated series Lowe Rollers. For those projects, Loeb and Reynolds will serve as executive producers. He is now writing the pilot script, creating and executing producing the gambling addict single camera sitcom All In which is currently in pre-production at Fox Television for a pilot to premiere by late 2013.

Loeb also rewrote the 2015 earthquake disaster 3D project San Andreas at New Line Cinema, and the action comedy The Machine, with Vin Diesel attached to produce and star at MGM. He has also signed on to rewrite the action adventure project, The Leading Man, for Universal, based on the comic book series. These are just the most recent of the more than two dozen movie scripts that Allan Loeb has in development around Hollywood. Loeb is also attached to developing at least a half dozen other projects in both film and television as a producer.

Among the many movie projects Loeb has in development, including the remake of Escape From New York, which he did a rewrite for at New Line Cinema, an action comedy he is writing and producing with Neal H. Moritz titled The Charm Artists over at Columbia, the spec supernatural thriller Visibility he sold to Motion Picture Corporation of America in the fall of 2010, a baseball comedy with Bradley Cooper at Disney titled Late in the Count, which he is writing and producing, an adaptation of the novel Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life with Robert Downey Jr. attached to produce and star, a Ryan Reynolds led cross dressing comedy titled A Boy Named Sue, a Mark Wahlberg led comedy Avon Man which he is rewriting, just to name a few. As of November 2012, Loeb was shopping around his latest spec script The Trust List, an action thriller about M:I 6, the British Intelligence agency. As of March 2013, Allan Loeb has signed on to pen the remake of the 2008 Swedish hit dramedy Patrik, Age 1.5, which Fox 2000 is producing under the title Patrick 1.5.

In 2014, Loeb landed the assignment rewriting the musical comedy Bob the Musical at Disney. The project has been in development since the early 2000s and Loeb's draft was attracting the attention of Tom Cruise. Also that year, Loeb landed a rewrite assignment of the Nina Colman romantic comedy I Met Someone, for Exclusive Media. Both projects remain in development.

In 2015, Allan Loeb's long-developing script Out of This World, a project he had been writing since 2007, finally moved forward. Retitled The Space Between Us, the film was released in 2017. Loeb also landed two new deals that year. He sold his spec script, Collateral Beauty (2016), to Palm Star Media, for a career high $2.25 million. The project attracted the attention of Hugh Jackman and Johnny Depp, before landing Will Smith in the lead. Loeb then landed the adaptation assignment of the novel Q for Lions Gate, for an undisclosed seven figure deal.

In a career that began back in the 1990s, Allan Loeb has been a part of more than 60 projects as a writer and or producer, in both film and television.

He is represented by CAA - Creative Artists Agency agents Carin Sage, Jon Levin and Roeg Sutherland and attorney Sean Marks of Myman Greenspan Fineman Fox Rosenberg & Light, LLP. and is managed by Michael Sugar and Bard Dorros of Anonymous Content.

Personal life

Loeb was a compulsive gambler from the age of ten until he joined Gamblers Anonymous in 2005, claiming: "Literally the minute I quit gambling my writing changed. It was magical. I had been giving so much emotional energy to gambling that only half of myself was out there writing. Gambling was a time suck, an energy suck, a creativity suck. I started going to GA meetings every Thursday night, and the writing flourished. It had so much more energy and passion." He lost up to $30,000 to his gambling addiction in a single weekend and he was eventually left with $150,000 in credit-card debt. Loeb is a keen follower of rock band Grateful Dead, which he compares to the film industry in its fanbase.

Three years after resurrecting his screenwriting career with The Only Living Boy in New York, Allan Loeb had landed enough script deals to go from broke-to-buying a home in the Hollywood Hills. In 2008 he paid $2.03 million for the home, which he later invested an additional $500,000 for upgrades and renovations. By 2014, Allan Loeb had relocated to Venice Beach, for a "quieter" pace. It wasn't disclosed how much he paid for his Venice Beach home, but he listed his Hills home for $1.99 million.

As of 2016, Allan Loeb divides his time between his apartment in Manhattan, New York and his beach house in Venice, California.