David S. Goyer builds the machinery: an Empire ruled by three clones of one man, a mathematician who works out that it will fall, a man who is partly a vampire. Then he explains it, at length. His best films are the ones Nolan directed.
Fi1m perspective
Three men rule the Galactic Empire in Foundation (2021), and they are the same man, cloned, ruling at once at different ages. None of that is in Asimov. It is Goyer and Josh Friedman's invention, and it is the best thing in the series, a premise good enough that Lee Pace can carry whole stretches of it alone.
He came up through Blade (1998) and Dark City (1998), and both films are worth an evening because of the idea rather than the people carrying it. In Blade the exposition about vampires runs long, and Wesley Snipes is given fewer chances to show what being partly one costs him than he deserves. Dark City, written with Alex Proyas and Lem Dobbs, asks better questions, about what makes a person, and gives its characters too little life beyond their part in the puzzle. Then came Christopher Nolan, and the Batman films of 2005, 2008 and 2012 are the peak. Batman Begins, which Goyer wrote with Nolan, takes revenge and justice seriously enough that the difference between them matters. The two of them can be laborious about it, and we were ready to move on before the preparation was over, but Bale's Bruce Wayne is a man the script serves.
Without Nolan the habits come back unsupervised. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), written with Chris Terrio for Zack Snyder, runs four stories and several dreams at once and hands Henry Cavill a fair question with almost no lines to answer it. Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), on which he shares the screenplay with Billy Ray and Justin Rhodes, follows Terminator 2 almost scene for scene and delivers its one idea as a speech. We were not bored by the last half hour of that film so much as worn down, digital figures throwing each other through digital walls until we stopped following who was hitting whom. It is the same complaint every time: too much explaining, too few people to care about.
Foundation is where all of this arrives at once. He has called it "The show I spent my whole career preparing for," and you can see why: a source that is nearly all conversation, an argument that individuals do not matter, and a serial drama that needs them to. He and Friedman spend the first season arguing with the book, and now and then they win. We sat through slow, solemn hours of it waiting for Pace to come back, and forgave a good deal when he did. That is roughly how the career reads: a superb premise, a long wait, and somebody else's face making it worth staying. Watch the first two episodes and see whether Trantor holds you. If the machinery interests you more than the people, he is your writer.
Biography
David S. Goyer is an American screenwriter, producer and director. He graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television in 1988 and sold his first screenplay before completing his studies.
Goyer wrote the screenplay for Blade (1998) and the screenplay for Dark City (1998). He later wrote the screenplays for Batman Begins (2005), Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and contributed stories to The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). He created and serves as showrunner on the Apple TV+ series Foundation (2021–).
He has directed four feature films, including Blade: Trinity (2004), and produced The First Omen (2024) through his company Phantom Four Films. Goyer won a Saturn Award for Best Writing for Batman Begins.
