Drew Pearce

Early life

Pearce attended Sackville school in East Grinstead.

Pearce worked at The Face magazine for editor Richard Benson, while studying at Exeter University.

Between 2000 and 2004, Pearce was the lead singer and guitarist in the London alt-country band Woodchuck.

Career

Television

No Heroics

In 2007, Pearce created the cult-hit series No Heroics, a sitcom about unsuccessful superheroes, following their R-rated off-duty exploits and their lives in hero-only pub The Fortress. The full series was shot in 2008, and released in October of that year. The show was ITV2's first original sitcom. No Heroics was well-reviewed by critics. The Times said of the show, "ITV2's new comedy No Heroics is fast, funny and a little ingenious. Drew Pearce, the creator/writer, established an engaging collection of pretenders to the throne". The show was nominated for Best New British TV Comedy of 2008 at the British Comedy Awards.

In 2009, ABC commissioned Pearce for an American adaptation pilot of No Heroics. Pearce was joined by Will & Grace writer Jeff Greenstein for the pilot.

Film

The Runaways

In 2010, Marvel hired Pearce to write a feature adaptation of Runaways based on the comic book of the same name by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona. Development on the film was put on hold the following October, and Pearce explained in September 2013 that the Runaways film had been shelved due to the success of The Avengers. Years later, Runaways would eventually be released as a streaming television series created for Hulu by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.

Iron Man 3

In March 2011, Marvel announced that Pearce would co-write Iron Man 3 with director Shane Black. Black described their take on the film as not being "two men in iron suits fighting each other," and more like a "Tom Clancy thriller," with Iron Man fighting real-world type villains. Pearce added that they would avert magic and space, with Iron Man 3 being "a techno-thriller set in a more real-world than even The Avengers."

The film received positive reviews and was commercially successful, grossing over $1.2 billion worldwide, the second-highest-grossing film of 2013 overall, and the second-highest-grossing film at the domestic box office released in 2013.

Pearce continued his work as a writer on a wide array of projects. Pearce also completed an uncredited rewrite on Guillermo del Toro's sci-fi action thriller Pacific Rim. In October 2011, he was commissioned to write the script for a third film in the Sherlock Holmes film series starring Robert Downey Jr. The following year Pearce was tapped to polish the script for Legendary Pictures' Godzilla reboot.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

In August 2013 Paramount Pictures announced the fifth Mission: Impossible film, from a script penned by Pearce. After developing the script with the director, Christopher McQuarrie, Pearce received a story by credit for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $682 million worldwide.

Continuing his relationship with Paramount Pictures, Pearce was tapped to pen The Wedding Sting, a film based on The Atlantic article of the same title. Written by Jeff Maysh, the article tells the story of how the 1990 Flint police department devised a sting to put on a fake wedding that would lure the city's drug dealers to a single location.

Music videos

In March 2012, Pearce directed the music video for the song "Rearrange" by Miles Kane. By March 2018, it had received over 3.9 million YouTube views. Pearce went on to direct a video for the Father John Misty song "The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apt.".

Filmography

Television

Short film

Feature film

Music video