Rhett Reese ‘87 and Paul Wernick ’90 met as students at Phoenix Country Day School. Today, they are Hollywood writers and producers who have collaborated on multiple television and film hits.
To date, they have co-written the movies Zombieland, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Deadpool, and the upcoming Deadpool 2, as well as the television series The Joe Schmo Show. Combined, they have written and produced over 20 films and television shows. Deadpool is now the highest grossing rated R film of all time, and for their contributions to the movie, Rhett and Paul were named as the 2017 Writers Guild of America Award Winners for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Rhett recalled that his interest in film “began at PCDS through the film festival that Mr. Stokes and Mr. Schweikher coordinated. We watched movies, wrote reviews about them, and discussed them as a group. This was really one of my first exposures to film. I became the movie reviewer of the Day Star, the school’s newspaper, thereafter. This was experiential learning that you just didn’t get at other schools.”