Callaham was born in Fresno, California, on October 24, 1977, to Lee Hsu and Michael Callaham. He has a brother, Gregory.[2] He is of Chinese descent through his mother.[3][4] He studied English at the University of Michigan and graduated in 1999.[5][6] In 2009, Callaham married Bree Tichy.[7] They have at least one child.[8] He is a Brown Belt in 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu under Eddie Bravo.[9]
Career
After reading an article in Penthouse magazine focusing on the lifestyle of Hollywood TV writers, Callaham and a friend moved to Los Angeles with plans to write comedies together. They sent query letters to multiple agencies but never received responses. Callaham worked at Creative Artists Agency for a while, sometimes submitting his material secretly for coverage. In 2002, Callaham wrote Horsemen which was later produced by Michael Bay.[10] In 2003, Callaham wrote the film adaptation to the video game Doom which was released in 2005. Around that time, Callaham wrote Barrow for Warner Bros., a mercenary-inspired action script which later became The Expendables. Callaham was credited for story and characters after Sylvester Stallone used Callaham's Barrow script as a "starting point" for The Expendables.[11] In 2010, Legendary Pictures hired Callaham to write the first draft for Godzilla, for which he received a story credit.[12] In 2014, Callaham completed a production rewrite for Ant-Man, and in 2019, he co-wrote the Zombieland sequel, Zombieland: Double Tap, for Sony. He also worked on the yet-unproduced Jackpot for Focus Features and America: The Motion Picture for Netflix.[13][14]
On May 10, 2024, it was announced that Callaham, who wrote the early drafts to Godzilla (2014), will write a follow-up to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.[23]
Lawsuit
In late 2013, Nu Image and Millennium Films filed a lawsuit against Callaham and the Writers Guild of America West for fraud, unjust enrichment, and declaratory relief over a "flawed and misinformed" Guild arbitration that gave Callaham undeserved writing credit for The Expendables and The Expendables 2.
The plaintiffs accused Callaham of intentionally withholding emails and other correspondences from the WGA screenwriting credit arbitration panel in 2009 that reportedly reveal how very little Callaham was involved with The Expendables. They demanded reimbursements from Callaham for any payments made to him for his fraudulent credit in the two films.[24] Callaham then asserted that Sylvester Stallone used his script, Barrow, as the source for The Expendables. A WGA arbitration was ignited in which Callaham won and additionally earned $102,250 in bonus payments. Stallone offered a sworn declaration that attested he had used Barrow as inspiration for his Expendables script.[25]
