Roberto Orci, who produced and wrote screenplays that relaunched some of Hollywood’s most popular and recognizable franchises, has died. Confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter via Orci’s manager, the screenwriter died of kidney disease at his home in Los Angeles. He was 51.
“He was a visionary storyteller with a boundless heart and a beautiful soul,” his brother J.R. said in a statement. “But beyond his creative talents, he was a compassionate friend who would put his life on hold to help a stranger and find room in his home for the most overlooked pup at the shelter.”
Born on July 20, 1970, in Mexico City, Orci moved with his family to America when he was 10, growing up in Texas and, later, Los Angeles. Throughout the late 2000s and 2010s, it was common to see Orci’s name in the credits to the year’s biggest tentpoles. Along with writing partner and childhood friend Alex Kurtzman, he course-corrected Mission: Impossible, rebooted Star Trek, and delivered Michael Bay his Transformers.
Orci met Kurtzman in his senior year at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica, bonding over their shared love for Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Orci reconnected with Kurtzman, with the duo landing a gig on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. After star Kevin Sorbo suffered a stroke, producers made Orci and Kurtzman showrunners at 24. Following a stint working on Xena: Warrior Princess, Orci and Kurtzman met J.J. Abrams, who hired them to write for Alias. Years later, Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman would create the sci-fi series Fringe.
“When we wanted to make the jump to network, we heard a lot of ‘No,'” Kurtzman told Variety in 2009. “J.J. was like, ‘They did a female-driven action show? Great.’ And when we walked out of the meeting, we felt like we’d just spent time with someone we’d known all our lives.”
In 2005, Orci and Kurtzman jumped to features, penning Michael Bay’s The Island and Martin Campbell’s The Legend Of Zorro, starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Two years later, Bay hired them to write Transformers, which grossed over $700 million worldwide and launched an ongoing franchise that’s made billions. Orci and Kurtzman would return to write the third installment, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, working around the 2007–08 WGA strikes.
“Two weeks before the strike, we handed Bay a 30-page treatment, then he went off and turned it into 70 pages,” Orci told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011. “He started prepping the movie, and because of the time constraints, he got totally locked in. By then, we were locked in a hotel room for three months because the strike had just ended. So it was me, [co-writer Ehren Kruger], and Alex in a hotel room every day so he could drop by at noon, see what we had, take pages, and then go prep the movie because it’s gotta go shoot!”
The summer of 2009 was a big one for the scribes. In addition to writing Revenge Of The Fallen, Orci, and Kurtzman wrote J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, finding themselves in the characters of Kirk and Spock. “We didn’t even realize we were writing about ourselves until we were halfway through the script,” said Orci in 2009. “That was a little embarrassing.” Orci and Kurtzman continued working with Abrams on Cowboys & Aliens and Star Trek Into Darkness, but the pair ended their partnership after 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Throughout the 2010s, Orci pursued producing and counted Now You See Me, Ender’s Game, and Star Trek Beyond among his credits. He also developed the reboot of Hawaii Five-0 and co-created the series Sleepy Hollow.
Orci is survived by his father, Roberto Orci Sr., mother, Macuqui Robau-Garcia, three siblings, and dog, Bogey.
