Jane Goldman

Jane Loretta Anne Goldman (born 11 June 1970) is a British screenwriter and producer. She is mostly known for collaborating with director Matthew Vaughn on the screenplays of Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and its sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), as well as X-Men: First Class (2011), Kick-Ass (2010) and Stardust (2007). Goldman also worked on the story of X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), the sequel to First Class, again in partnership with Vaughn. Both met high critical praise for their work.

Goldman's first solo screenplay is The Woman in Black (2012). She also wrote the script for The Limehouse Golem and Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, both released in 2016. She is the writer of Edgar Wright's upcoming thriller The Chain.

She has also written books such as The X-Files Book of the Unexplained (1995) and the novel Dreamworld (2000). Goldman presented her own TV show, Jane Goldman Investigates (2003–04), a non-fiction series on the paranormal, for the channel Living.

Early life
Goldman was raised in a liberal, middle-class family in north London, the only child of a Jewish father, Stuart and a Buddhist mother, Amanda. She attended the King Alfred School, an independent school in Hampstead, until the age of 15 before moving to the United States to follow Boy George on tour. Upon her return to the UK, she took a job as an entertainment reporter with the Daily Star. When she was 16, she met TV presenter Jonathan Ross. They married in 1988, when Goldman was 18 years old. The couple have three children: two daughters and a son.

Journalism, books and TV
As a journalist, Goldman worked on newspapers and magazines such as Just Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, The Times, Evening Standard, Zero, Daily Star, Total Guitar, Game Zone and Sega Zone. At the age of 19, she became a freelance writer.

Goldman also wrote books: Thirteen-Something (1993), Streetsmarts: A Teenager's Safety Guide (1996), Sussed and Streetwise (1997), the two-volume best-selling series The X-Files Book of the Unexplained (1997), her first and only novel Dreamworld (2000), and Do the Right Thing (2003), among others.

Between 2003 and 2004 she had her own television series. Jane Goldman Investigates researched the paranormal and was transmitted by channel Living between 2003 and 2004. Goldman is also in the production teams of a number of TV shows, such as The Big Fat Quiz of the Year.

In 2000, she modelled for Fantasie Bras.

Screenwriting
She made the jump to screenwriting, and was part of the writing team for David Baddiel's short-lived sitcom Baddiel's Syndrome, in 2001. Later, she co-wrote the screenplay of Stardust (2007), based on the novel of the same name by Neil Gaiman and directed by Matthew Vaughn. Gaiman introduced Goldman to Vaughn to provide the director some help with the adaptation process. The film received many accolades and gave the screenwriters a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.

After Stardust, Goldman became a frequent collaborator of Vaughn. In a 2011 interview, the writer said that when she works with the director she does the "construction work" and the "interior designing" while Vaughn acts as the "architect." Goldman co-wrote his next films, the comic-book adaptations Kick-Ass (2010) and X-Men: First Class (2011). Both films won strong praise amongst film critics. Kick-Ass nowadays has a cult following, while X-Men: First Class is considered by many critics to be one of the best of all X-Men franchise. Rotten Tomatoes consensus says: "With a strong script, stylish direction, and powerful performances from its well-rounded cast, X-Men: First Class is a welcome return to form for the franchise." Goldman has described the film as an "alternate history" for the X-Men, saying that while rebooting, the writers did not want to go fully "against the canon of the X-Men trilogy", comparing to the various approaches the comic had in over fifty years of publication.

She continued to work in adaptations, and was also a co-writer with Vaughn and Peter Straughan for the 2011 drama-thriller The Debt, which was based on the 2007 Israeli film HaHov and directed by John Madden. Goldman also adapted for Hammer The Woman in Black, a gothic horror film based on Susan Hill's novel. The project marks the first solo screenplay by Goldman. The film was directed by James Watkins. It was released in 2012 and met positive reviews. In March 2013, The Woman in Black won the Empire Award for Best Horror.

She is credited on X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to First Class, as writing the story with Matthew Vaughn and Simon Kinberg. After that project, she co-wrote with Vaughn the script for Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), based on the comic book by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons.

She wrote the script for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an adaptation of the Ransom Riggs novel of the same name, which was directed by Tim Burton. The project was followed by The Limehouse Golem, an adaptation of Peter Ackroyd's 1994 murder mystery novel Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. Goldman read the book years before she was a professional screenwriter and kept it in mind as a potential project. She said in an interview for ScreenCraft: "What's funny is that I read the book long before I was screenwriting. I think it was the only time that I can remember when I read a book and thought, 'Gosh, I hope somebody makes a movie of this!' ... Weirdly, years later I was on a film jury together with the producer whom I had read had the rights and I asked him whatever happened to the adaptation and said that I loved the book. That is how this came about, because he said the rights were free again and asked, 'Do you want to do it?'"

Goldman and Vaughn collaborated again for the screenplay of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, the sequel to The Secret Service. The film was released in 2017.

In May of that year, HBO announced Goldman was one of four writers working on a potential pilot for a Game of Thrones spin-off. In addition to Goldman, Carly Wray, Max Borenstein, and Brian Helgeland were also working on potential pilots. Goldman worked with George R. R. Martin, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, the series of novels upon which the original show is based and Game of Thrones showrunners D. B. Weiss and David Benioff would also be executive producers for whichever project.

In June 2018, it was confirmed that Goldman's pilot had been greenlit by HBO, and would focus on "the world's descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour", thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones. Naomi Watts was cast in a lead role and S.J. Clarkson was the chosen director for the opening episode. In late October 2019, it was announced that HBO would not be moving forward with the pilot.

On 6 December 2017, it was announced Goldman would write a screenplay for Disney's live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid with Rob Marshall being eyed to direct. The film was released on May 26, 2023 and Goldman was not credited in the final script.

Goldman co-wrote the 2020 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance Rebecca, directed by Ben Wheatley.

Upcoming projects
Goldman is attached to various upcoming projects, including Nonplayer, an adaptation of the sci-fi comic book by Nate Simpson for Warner Bros., and a rewrite of the Pinocchio screenplay originally written by Bryan Fuller. She is also involved in adaptation of Anubis, based on a science-fiction/comedy short story by Paul Murray.

In May 2017, Vaughn stated that a sequel to The Golden Circle is currently in development, adding that he and co-writer Goldman mapped out the plot during production on the second film.

In June 2020, it was announced that Goldman is the screenwriter of Edgar Wright's new thriller The Chain, which is based upon the novel by Adrian McKinty. It is set to be released by Universal Pictures.

In popular culture
Alongside her husband, broadcaster Jonathan Ross, Goldman appeared as a character in Neil Gaiman's short story "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch" in 1996. Gaiman is a personal friend of the couple.

Awards and nominations
Goldman also won the Cosmopolitan magazine Woman of Tomorrow award for achievement in journalism.