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Kelly Fremon Craig (born January 1, 1981) is an American screenwriter, producer, and film director. She is known for directing, writing, and co-producing the 2016 coming-of-age dramedy The Edge of Seventeen.

Kelly Fremon Craig
Fremon Craig in 2016
Born	Kelly Fremon (1981-01-01) January 1, 1981 (age 41) Whittier, California, U.S.
Alma mater	University of California, Irvine
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter, producer
Years active	2000s–present
Notable work	The Edge of Seventeen Post Grad
Children	1

Early life

Fremon Craig was born in Whittier, California and graduated from UC Irvine with an English degree. When she was 13 she watched a lot of MTV, which sparked her interest in music videos. She stated that music videos were "like little short films". Spoken word or slam poetry was what Fremon Craig initially began writing.[1]

Career

2000s

Fremon Craig started out by writing sketch comedy and spoken word poetry in college, then landed an internship in the film division of Immortal Entertainment, where she read her first film script and began to pursue screenwriting. She developed several screenplays during the 2000s, including a modern high school retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac and a comedic remake of the 2004 French drama Intimate Strangers for Paramount Pictures. One of her scripts, Ticket to Ride, caught the attention of Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman. He bought the script under his The Montecito Picture Company as a directing vehicle for himself. According to Reitman, the script was rewritten at least 15 times. The film was released, under the new title Post Grad and was instead directed by Shrek director Vicky Jenson. Post Grad was released in 2009 to critical and commercial disappointment.

2010s

In 2011 Fremon Craig completed another script titled Besties and sent the script to James L. Brooks. Brooks bought the script and it was announced that Fremon Craig would direct the film and Brooks would serve as a producer and mentor for her first film.[2] No updates were issued for the feature until August 2015, when Hailee Steinfeld was announced to star in the film. Casting continued until October of that same year, with filming commencing that same month. The film was released by STX Entertainment in fall 2016 under its new title The Edge of Seventeen to critical praise and it was a modest financial hit. Fremon Craig kept a series of journals that helped inspire her while writing The Edge of Seventeen. She took some of these journal entries and formed them into the script.[3] For research on the film and script, Fremon Craig went to high schools and hung out with teenagers to better understand what their lives were like.[1] Fremon Craig also provided uncredited rewrites (and was briefly attached as co-screenwriter[4]) for the 2018 Transformers spin-off film, Bumblebee, which also starred Steinfeld.

2020s

Fremon Craig was originally attached as the sole screenwriter for an animated film adaptation of Scooby-Doo for Warner Animation Group.[5] The film, released as Scoob! in 2020, was instead rewritten by Adam Sztykiel, Jack Donaldson, Derek Elliott, Matt Lieberman, Eyal Podell, and Jonathon E. Stewart. Fremon Craig plans on collaborating again with James L. Brooks in the film adaptation of the Judy Blume book Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.[6]

Upcoming projects

• Wild Game, a film adaptation of the memoir Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me for Chernin Entertainment[7]
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, a film adaptation of the classic novel for Gracie Films[8]

Influences

Fremon Craig has cited writer-director John Hughes as an influence on writing The Edge of Seventeen,[9][10] and has mentioned Christopher Guest, Alexander Payne, Nick Hornby, and David Sedaris as inspirations.[11] She also takes inspiration from Nora Ephron by taking moments of her own life and putting them into her writing.[12] Fremon Craig stated that James L. Brooks is her comedy idol,[3] “there's nobody in the world I love more than Jim Brooks. Like he is the reason I wanted to be a filmmaker."[1]

Unrealized projects

• Intimate Strangers for Paramount Pictures[11]
• A modern-day high school retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac for Level 1[11]
• The Good Life for Fox Searchlight Pictures[2]
• The Best Mistakes for Level 1[2]
• Lovehampton for The CW and Alloy Entertainment[2]
• An untitled pilot for CBS Television Studios and Uppity TV[2]
• Scoob! rewrites for Warner Animation Group and Warner Bros.
• Untitled The Edge of Seventeen web series for YouTube Premium[13]

Personal life

Fremon Craig now resides in Los Angeles with her husband and young son.[14] She is a represented by UTA and Kaplan/Perrone.[8]

Filmography

Title	Year	Role
Streak	2008	Writer, story
Post Grad	2009	Screenwriter
The Edge of Seventeen[15][16][17]	2016	Director, screenwriter
Bumblebee[18]	2018	Uncredited rewrites
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret[8]	2022	Director, screenwriter, executive producer

Accolades

List of awards and nominations
Year	Award	Category	Film(s)	Result	Notes
2016	Critics' Choice Movie Awards	Best Comedy	The Edge of Seventeen	Nominated	[19] [20]
	New York Film Critics Circle	Best First Film		Won[lower-alpha 1]	[21]
	Chicago Film Critics Association	Most Promising Filmmaker		Nominated	[22]
	Toronto Film Critics Association	Best First Feature		Runner-up	[23]
	Detroit Film Critics Society	Best Film		Nominated	[24]
		Best Breakthrough		Won
	Austin Film Critics Association	Best First Film		Nominated	[25][26]
	Indiewire Critics' Poll	Best First Feature		3rd place
	Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards	Breakout Filmmaker of the Year		Nominated
2017	Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Awards	OFCC Award for Best First Film		2nd place	[27]
	Directors Guild of America Awards	First-Time Feature Film		Nominated	[28]
	Golden Tomato Awards	Best Comedy Movie 2016		5th place
	Online Film & Television Association	Best Feature Debut		Nominated
	2017 MTV Movie & TV Awards	Best Movie		Nominated	[29]

Note

References

External links

• Kelly Fremon Craig at IMDb
• 10 Screenwriters to Watch by Variety

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