- Spaceless has become almost legendary in insider circles due to its reputation and long tortuous twenty-three year struggle through Hollywood's "development hell." It is often referred to on-line as one of the Holy Grail scripts most sought after by screenplay collectors.
- When approached to co-write an adaptation of Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon for SyFy, Vintar immediately asked, "Are you sure you guys want to do this? It's a fantasy." Reassured that SyFy channel intended to branch out beyond science-fiction, he happily took the job. Two years later, after adapting Eyes of the Dragon first as a two-night mini-series, then a TV pilot, then back to a mini-series again, there was a regime change at SyFy. The new executive team looked at the current slate and immediately asked: "Why are we doing this? It's a fantasy!" And that was the end of Eyes of the Dragon.
- Ten years before Iron Man with Robert Downey, Jr. was released, Vintar wrote an early draft called The Iron Man for 20th Century Fox. He only agreed to take the job after he asked Stan Lee to co-write the screenplay or story with him, and Stan agreed. The villain was a giant-headed M.O.D.O.K. This was before the X-Men and Spider-Man films proved super-heroes are box office gold, and the project never stood a chance, with studio meddling insisting that Tony Stark not be a heartless weapons manufacturer. Vintar and Lee were forced to come up with an entirely new origin story. Studio head Tom Rothman complimented the script, saying he did not understand the character until he read the Vintar/Lee draft, but insisting that the market would never support all these super-hero movies, especially not a fringe title like Iron Man. The Iron Man by Jeff Vintar and Stan Lee has made several reader's lists, including the one at Screenwriter's Utopia, of Best Unproduced Screenplays.
- A graduate of the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop
- When Rogue One screenwriter Gary Whitta was asked on Twitter to name a screenplay that made him say, "Damn, this is a great screenplay!" he responded: "Hardwired by Jeff Vintar. Later re-written heavily and turned into I, Robot".
- I, Robot started as a screenplay entitled Hardwired, a classical-style murder mystery that read like a stage play, and was very much in the spirit of Isaac Asimov's "three laws" mysteries. After being developed at Walt Disney with director Bryan Singer, Hardwired was bought by Twentieth Century Fox for Alex Proyas. He and Vintar opened up the story to fit a big-budget studio film. When Fox acquired the rights to Asimov's short story collection, Vintar adapted Hardwired to serve as a "tenth story" in the canon, a prequel that would explain why robots were banned from Earth in the Asimov tales, complete with a young Susan Calvin and the Three Laws of Robotics. Representatives of the Asimov estate considered these early drafts "more Asimov than Asimov!" Will Smith signed on to star and the project quickly turned from a cerebral thriller into a summer action movie.
- Spaceless was offered to screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven) as a rewrite job by befuddled studio executives several times over the years, to which Walker would always reply: "It doesn't need a rewrite. Just make it!".
- Vintar sold his first spec script, Spaceless, to Fox 2000 in 1995. From there it moved to Fox Animation and finally to the main live action division of 20th Century Fox. Gore Verbinski was attached to direct but the project got lost in development hell. Vintar reacquired the rights to Spaceless through the WGA's little-known reacquisition clause, and took the project to Gore Verbinski's Blind Wink Productions and Universal in 2009 under the oversight of Peter Cramer, who had pursued Spaceless fifteen years earlier.
- Vintar was given the chance to write a fictionalized feature film adaptation of TV's reality sports competition American Ninja Warrior. He not only turned down the job but did his best to convince the producers not to ever, ever make that movie. So far, so good.
- In his spare time, usually the middle of the night when he can't sleep, Vintar creates comic strips using his vintage action figure collection. You can see these on Facebook at the Super Mega Fun Time Vintage Action Figures Rock You Page.
- For Vintar, his adaptation of Ubik is a long-time passion project that he hopes will finally show, along with its mind-bending qualities, just how funny of a writer Philip K. Dick really was. It was in this spirit of showcasing Dick's humorous side that Vintar was invited to adapt "Beyond Lies the Wub," about a 400 lb space pig that can talk, for Electric Dreams series 2.
- Vintar has written faithful adaptations of Frederik Pohl's Man Plus and Gateway, Isaac Asimov's Foundation, the comic Y: the Last Man, and Joe Haldeman's Seasons. Ironically the one sci-fi adaptation that made it to the screen was I, Robot - not really an adaptation at all - but based on his original screenplay, Hardwired.
- Vintar co-wrote a TV pilot called The Riviera, filled with pulp sex and violence, under the pen name "Dick Strong".
- Brian Koppelman, the creator of Showtime's "Billions", on two discrete Twitter Q&A interactions identified "Spaceless" as his favorite unproduced script from another screenwriter.
- Vintar's adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation for 20th Century Fox and director Shekhar Kapur, which made The Blacklist in 2005, began with the messiah-like death of Hari Seldon and ended in a cliffhanger that revealed the true identity of The Mule. The second film would have dramatized the search for the mysterious Second Foundation.
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