John Gatins graduated from Vassar College and drove to Los Angeles to become a movie star. In six years he had tended bar, parked cars, been a nanny, and watered Brad Pitt's plants. Gatins also starred in the movies WITCHBOARD II and LEPRECHAUN Ill. At age 26, Gatins returned to Vassar to participate in the New York Stage and Film Summer Theater Festival. Afterward, he wrote a one-act play that eventually became his debut screenplay, SMELLS LIKE TEEN SUICIDE. After Disney bought the script, MTV and Paramount approached him to rewrite VARSITY BLUES. Other screenplay credits include SUMMER CATCH, HARDBALL, and COACH CARTER.

He then wrote and directed his first feature, DREAMER, starring Dakota Fanning and Kurt Russell. He has appeared alongside Eddie Murphy in NORBIT and Ryan Reynolds in THE NINES. Gatins then wrote REAL STEEL starring Hugh Jackman, while also playing the character of "Kingpin". He spent some months of 2011 in Atlanta where the movie he'd been writing for 12 years, FLIGHT, was directed by Robert Zemeckis and starred Denzel Washington. He then worked on KONG: SKULL ISLAND, followed by writing and producing POWER RANGERS. Gatins is now planning on directing a movie he wrote for Paramount.