Ken Nolan

Ken Nolan (/ˈnoʊlən/) is an American screenwriter and novelist best known for adapting the 2001 biographical war film Black Hawk Down^[1] from the non-fiction book of the same name.^[2]

Ken Nolan
Born	Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Writer
Education	University of Oregon
Genre	War, biographical, historical fiction, thriller, military fiction, action adventure
Notable works	Black Hawk Down The Company Transformers: The Last Knight
Notable awards	WGA Award for Television

Life and career

Nolan was born in Detroit and raised in Buffalo, New York and Portland, Oregon.^[3] He applied twice to the UCLA Film School but was turned down both times.^[3] He ultimately attended the University of Oregon, earning an English degree. He moved to Los Angeles, California in the early 1990s to pursue a career as a screenwriter, working at Richard Dreyfuss' company using The Screenwriter's Workbook by Syd Field as a guide.^[3] He wrote several screenplays before breaking through in 1994, writing a series of spec scripts for Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures.

His first produced screenplay was an adaptation of Mark Bowden's 1999 non-fiction book Black Hawk Down, which was ultimately made into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name by Ridley Scott.^[1] He initially wrote a 60-page treatment and writing a total of eight drafts before Scott was attached to the project by producer Jerry Bruckheimer.^[4] Nolan was one of several writers (including Steven Zaillian,^[1] Stephen Gaghan, Eric Roth^[5])^[6] who contributed to the final shooting script, though he was the only one to receive on-screen credit.

Nolan's next major project was the TNT miniseries The Company, for which he received a Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Long Form – Adapted.^[7] In early 2015, he published his first novel, The Spawn.^[8][9]

He replaced Ehren Kruger as the writer of the Transformers film series, penning the latest entry Transformers: The Last Knight and the as-yet untitled spin-off film.^[10] Nolan wrote Only the Brave, a 2017 drama film which, like Black Hawk Down, is a work of historical fiction based on true events.

Works

Film

• Black Hawk Down (2001)
• Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
• Only the Brave (2017)
• Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (additional literary material) (2023)
• The Amateur (2025)

Television

• The Company (2007)

Print

• The Spawn (2015)