Gary Dauberman

The screenwriter who understood profitable fear

Gary Dauberman did not start out scaring anyone. In his early years in Los Angeles, he spent his time polishing other people's scripts and waiting for an opportunity that was slow to arrive. His name didn't appear on the big posters, but his ability to understand commercial horror was already there.

In 2014, everything changed with the release of Annabelle. James Wan trusted him to expand the universe of The Conjuring, and the result was a box office take of 257 million dollars from a minimal budget. Dauberman wrote the story of a porcelain doll who didn't need to move to terrify audiences.

And the phone started ringing nonstop.

That success allowed him to take on large-scale projects in quick succession. He wrote The Nun in 2018 and returned to the cursed doll franchise with several sequels. His style moved away from complex metaphors and focused on effective scares and the classic structure of the genre.

The shadow of Stephen King

Stephen King entered his professional life in 2017. Dauberman was tasked with adapting It for the big screen under the direction of Andy Muschietti. He balanced the nostalgia of the 1980s with visceral horror that filled theaters across half the world. The film topped 700 million dollars at the global box office.

But condensing a thousand-page novel was no easy task. He had to make drastic decisions about what to cut and what to keep from the original work. In 2019, he repeated the formula with It Chapter Two, closing the story of the Losers' Club with a much darker and more violent tone.

Box office once again proved him right.

In 2024, his version of Salem’s Lot generated a lot of anticipation after several delays in its commercial distribution. The film bypassed theaters and premiered directly on digital platforms at the studio's decision. Dauberman kept his lean style in adapting the most famous vampire novel set in Maine, without resorting to unnecessary gimmicks.

The move into the director's chair

Before directing, he wrote a lot. In 2019, he decided to step behind the camera with Annabelle Comes Home. It was a complex shoot in which he had to manage a young cast surrounded by cursed objects in a single location. Critics praised his ability to build tension in confined spaces.

His production company Coin Operated signed an exclusive deal with Sony Screen Gems in 2023. The goal of this move was to make genre films with controlled budgets and a very clear view of the market. Because Dauberman knows that horror is the most loyal genre in the industry.

One of his most ambitious projects for 2025 is the adaptation of the video game Until Dawn. Filming for this winter horror movie began in August 2024 in Budapest, with a cast led by Ella Rubin and Peter Stormare. The production used practical effects to preserve the raw visual style that characterizes his earlier work.

His production company's contract calls for two feature films a year with a maximum cost of 15 million per film.