Career
Following college, Ridley spent a year living and traveling in Japan.[7] Then, he returned to New York and began performing standup comedy in New York City, and he made appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.[5] Moving to Los Angeles in 1990, he began writing for such television sitcoms as Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The John Larroquette Show.[5] After both writing and directing his film debut, the 1997 crime thriller Cold Around the Heart, he and Oliver Stone co-adapted Ridley's first novel, Stray Dogs (still unpublished when Stone bought the rights) into the 1997 Stone-directed film U Turn, which was released slightly earlier than Cold Around the Heart. Ridley went on to write the novels Love Is a Racket and Everybody Smokes in Hell.
He challenged himself to see how quickly he could write and sell a script, and produced and sold the original screenplay Spoils of War in 18 days, which was later adapted into the 1999 David O. Russell-directed Three Kings.[9] Russell claimed he did not read Ridley's script, and just took the idea. Ridley received a "story by" credit negotiated among himself, Russell, and the releasing studio, Warner Bros.[9] Ridley then became a writer and a supervising producer on the NBC crime drama Third Watch. His other novels are The Drift, Those Who Walk in Darkness, and A Conversation with the Mann.[5] He also wrote the graphic novel The American Way.[10][11]
From 2000 to 2010, he was a commentator and blogger for NPR.[12] His blog was Visible Man, a play on Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.[13] In 2003, Ridley inked a one-year overall deal with Universal Network Television.[14]
His work as screenwriter also includes 12 Years a Slave, Red Tails, and Undercover Brother. His script for 12 Years a Slave won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay,[15] making Ridley the second African American to win the award, after Geoffrey S. Fletcher (for Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire).[16][17]
In April 2015, Ridley was developing an ABC television series involving an existing Marvel Comics character.[18] However, by December 2019, the project was cancelled due to Marvel Television folding into Marvel Studios.[19] Ridley later revealed that his cancelled project would have been a version of Eternals, which was instead developed as an unrelated movie directed by Chloé Zhao.[20]
On April 16, 2018, it was announced that Ridley would direct and write an adaptation of his graphic novel The American Way produced by Blumhouse Productions.[21]
On June 4, 2018, it was announced that Ridley would direct a feature film adaptation of the Robert Silverberg short story, Needle in a Timestack produced by Bron Studios. The film featured performances from Leslie Odom Jr., Freida Pinto, Cynthia Erivo, and Orlando Bloom.[22]
In 2021, Ridley began writing a number of series for DC Comics. The series include a new Batman series 'The Next Batman' as part of the company's line-wide event 'Future State', and a 5-issue series 'The Other History of the DC Universe' a text-based story about the history of the non-white, non-American DC heroes such as Black Lightning and Katana.
In May 2021, Marvel Comics announced that Ridley will write Black Panther comics.[23]
