After graduation, Gatins moved to Los Angeles with the intention of pursuing acting.[2] His first role was in the low budget 1993 horror film Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway, followed by a role in the 1994 movie Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings.[2] As he won small roles in larger-budget productions, including 1999's Varsity Blues and 2002's Big Fat Liar,[2] Jeremy Kramer, a fellow Vassar grad and employee at Fox, paid him $1,000 to write a teen comedy by the name of Smells Like Teen Suicide.[4]Varsity Blues was directed by Brian Robbins and produced by Michael Tollin, the latter of whom would, in 2001, direct Gatins's first screenplay, a romantic comedy entitled Summer Catch, while Robbins produced it.[2] Tollin returned in 2002 to direct Gatins's second screenplay, a dramedy called Hardball.[2] While continuing to act, Gatins wrote Coach Carter which was released in 2005.[2] The same year, he presented his first directorial effort, Dreamer, which he also wrote.[2]
At the suggestion of Steven Spielberg, Gatins was brought in to work on Real Steel, a science fiction film based on a 1956 Richard Matheson short story.[5] Gatins considered the draft of the screenplay which he received when he began working on the project to be very dark, and he adapted it to focus more on the family aspects, such as the film's father-son relationship, about which he was accustomed to writing in his previous works.[5]Real Steel was released October 7, 2011.[5]
