David Benioff's Wiki: 5 Facts To Know About The 'Game Of Thrones' Screenwriter

'Game of Thrones' was a hit series and one of the most viewed television shows of all time. It was so big that ‘The black man in every movie,’ Samuel L. Jackson created a YouTube channel to summarize the TV show for those who were lazy to watch the show or didn’t have the time to watch it. Screenwriter David Benioff played a big part in making 'Game of Thrones.' Benioff is a screenwriter who has worked on many projects but 'Game of Thrones' gave Benioff helped put his name on the map. 47-year-old Benioff was born David Friedman in New York City. His family is Jewish and his ancestors hail from Romania, Russia, Austria, and Poland. His mother is Barbara Benioff, hence the use of his professional name in Hollywood. His father is Stephen Friedman and at one point he was the head of Goldman Sachs. According to The Sun, Benioff took his mother’s maiden name to avoid being confused with a writer by the name of David Friedman. He and his two siblings grew up in Manhattan but his moved close to the U.N. Headquarters when he turned 16. He is married to Amanda Peet and they have children together.

Benioff studied at The Collegiate School before he switched to Dartmouth College. While studying at Dartmouth, Benioff was a member of Sphinx Senior Society and Phi Delta Alpha Fraternity. He graduated in 1992 and landed jobs here and there including that of a club bouncer in San Francisco and a teacher at Poly Prep High School in Brooklyn. Benioff even served as the school’s wrestling coach for two years before he went back to college to study Irish Literature for a year. He was in Dublin when he met D.B. Weiss. After leaving college, Benioff became a DJ in Moose for a year before he applied to join a Creative Writing Program that was held at the University of California Irvine. He became fascinated with the writing program after he came across a book titled “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” by Michael Chabon, an alumnus of the university. Benioff graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the UC Irvine, in 1999. He became famous after he was listed among the Top 50 Most Eligible Bachelors in 2001 by People magazine. The most popular movies and television series the screenwriter has worked on include: 'City of Thieves,' 'The 25th Hour,' 'The Kite Runner,' 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' and 'Game of Thrones.'

The movie '25th Hour' is an adaptation of Benioff’s book that he wrote after he left college. Spike Lee directed the movie and it exposed Benioff as not only a novelist but also an upcoming screenwriter. As Benioff stated, it affected his choice of joining film and being the screenwriter of 'Games of Thrones.' Before his book was adapted, Benioff was aware that there would be compromises and there would be changes made. Benioff mentioned that he had seen many adaptations that run into trouble for being too faithful to the source and kind of hot hamstrung by that. It was something Benioff had told his friend George a long time ago that for their job to go well, they had to make choices.

You would be surprised by what happens between the crew of 'Games of Thrones,' but if you don’t get to watch it, one of them is the pranks they do to one other. For instance, after the re-shoot of a pilot that had not be done perfectly, David Benioff pranked Peter Dinklage by calling him and telling hi that the show had actually been canceled. It took Peter six hours to realize that he had been pranked by Benioff and actually the show was on. He either cursed Benioff or laughed at how stupid he had been that day.

Benioff said that the television show has a history of killing off characters and there was one death that was hard for him to take. There was a character known as Joffrey Baratheon played by Jack Gleeson and according to Benioff, Gleeson was exactly opposite of the character he played, one who was a cruel young king. Benioff was sad that he couldn’t see him again for the rest of the TV show because he liked him so much but they had to go with what was written in the script.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Benioff would be the screenwriter of the brand new 'Star Wars' series. The series will be separated from the trilogy that is being developed by Rian Johnson, the latest being 'The Last Jedi.' President of Lucas Films, Kathleen Kennedy stated that David Benioff was one of the best storytellers of his generation.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Benioff has a net worth of $18 million. Benioff has made most of his net worth as a screenwriter for the movies and TV series like 'City of Thieves,' 'The 25th Hour,' 'The Kite Runner,' 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' and 'Game of Thrones.'

David Benioff has not written anything since 2009 and after 'Game of Thrones' he and his wife, Amanda Peet seem very busy. Now Benioff has big shoes to fill with his work on “Star Wars.” Let’s see how well it turns out.