John Collee

John Gerald Collee (born 1955) is a Scottish/Australian doctor, novelist and screenwriter whose films have three times been nominated for Oscars. Master and Commander was nominated for Best Film 2003, Happy Feet won Best Animation in 2006, and Tanna (2015) was nominated for Best Foreign Language Feature in 2015. His many other films, written or co-written, include Creation (2013), Hotel Mumbai (2018) and Lee. His novels include Kingsleys Touch, A Paper Mask and The Rig published by Viking/Penguin. His TV Adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe received critical acclaim upon release on Netflix in 2024.

Background
Collee was born in 1955 to Isobel Galbraith and Prof J. Gerald Collee CBE, who became professor of microbiology at the University of Edinburgh. Collee grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland and in India. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and began practising medicine in Cambridge, Bath, and Bristol. In his third year of practice, he wrote the medical thriller Kingsley's Touch, which was published in 1984. Collee subsequently worked in emergency medicine at home and abroad in Gabon, Madagascar, and Sri Lanka. His second novel titled A Paper Mask was published in 1987. Rights to the novel were acquired for a film adaptation, and Collee wrote the screenplay for director Christopher Morahan and Granada, who released the film Paper Mask in 1990. Around the time that his third novel The Rig was published, in 1991, Collee became a columnist for The Observer and wrote articles about travel, science and medicine, weekly for the next six years.

While escorting medical supplies to Azerbaijan in the former Soviet Union, Collee met his wife Deborah Snow - Moscow-based correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The following year, and mid-way through writing a book about Soviet medicine called The Kingdom of the Blind, Collee accepted a medical post in the Solomon Islands. The couple had their first child, Lauren, on the islands. then both worked in London for a short time before moving to Sydney, Australia where Collee joined forces with Australian directors Peter Weir and George Miller. With Weir, Collee wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-nominated Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and with Miller he wrote the Oscar-winning Happy Feet. He wrote an early (uncredited) draft of The Legend of Tarzan (2016) for Warner Bros. with Guillermo del Toro slated to direct. The movie was later directed by David Yates.

Creation reunited him with Paul Bettany and he later executive-produced The Water Diviner with Russell Crowe directing. Tanna was a collaboration with anthropological film-makers Bentley Dean and Martin Butler which was shortlisted for an Oscar in the foreign language category. Wolf Totem with director Jean-Jacques Annaud made upwards of $100M at the Chinese Box office. After co-writing Hotel Mumbai, which starred actor Dev Patel, he collaborated with Patel on the actor's first film as director, Monkey Man. His most recent collaboration (with co-writer Marion Hume) is the movie Lee about war correspondent Lee Miller, starring Kate Winslet. His film "The Return", taken from The Odyssey of Homer, is currently in post production with Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope.

John Collee was one of four co-founders of the Australian production company Hopscotch Features. He was also, for many years, a board member of the Australian branch of climate activist group 350.org. and, until recently, vice-president of the Australian Writers Guild

Filmography
Screenwriter


 * Bergerac - four TV episodes (BBC1, 1988–1990)
 * Star Cops - three TV episodes (BBC2, 1987)
 * Paper Mask (1990) - based on Collee's novel.
 * The Heart Surgeon – two-part TV serial (BBC1 1997)
 * Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) – with director Peter Weir; based on the novels by Patrick O'Brian.
 * Happy Feet (2006) – credited with director and co-directors.
 * Creation (2009) - based on the biography of Charles Darwin by Randal Keynes.
 * Walking with Dinosaurs (2013)
 * Wolf Totem (2015) – credited with director and two others; based on the novel by Jiang Rong.
 * Tanna (2015) – credited with directors.
 * The Patriarch (2016) – based on a novel by Witi Ihimaera.
 * Hotel Mumbai (2018)

Executive producer
 * Son of a Gun (2014)
 * The Water Diviner (2014)
 * The Guests (short) (2015)