Peter Craig makes criminals worth spending time with, especially when friendship exposes how frightened they are. We rate his crime writing, though he can be too forgiving of his characters and too fond of complications.
Fi1m perspective
In Dope Thief (2025), Ray Driscoll and Manny Carvalho pose as DEA agents in Philadelphia, a fraud with room for both fear and comedy. Craig's instinct is to make us care about the men before adding to their troubles. We warmed to Ray and Manny because Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura let us see how vulnerable they are. Their friendship is funny enough to make us want to stay with them even when the plotting wanders.
Craig came to screenwriting from novels, making his debut with The Town (2010), co-written with Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard. Its robberies are more exacting than its romance, and that unevenness points to a recurring weakness. Rebecca Hall gives Claire Keesey a credibility the writing does not always supply. Craig and his co-writers lean too hard on Doug's tenderness as a reason to forgive his behaviour. We can believe in the attraction without accepting the excuse.
Adaptation remained central: Blood Father (2016) came from his own novel, while The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014) was co-written with Danny Strong. He later co-wrote The Batman (2022) with Matt Reeves and contributed to the story of Top Gun: Maverick (2022). With so many shared credits, we would be wary of treating every success or failure as his alone.
His story credit on Gladiator II (2024) is shared with David Scarpa, who wrote the screenplay. Paul Mescal is given revenge to pursue and too little else to want, though he delivers the speeches with conviction. Lucius is a reminder of what happens when the writing expects a grievance to do all the work of a character.
Creating, writing and running Dope Thief gave Craig more responsibility, and he also directed one episode. The eight episodes, edited by J. Kathleen Gibson, Jennifer Barbot, Eric Litman and Billy Rich, lose pace when complications pull attention away from Ray and Manny. Those lulls seldom give the characters useful breathing room. Yet the friendship remains funny and persuasive, enough to make the series worth the trouble. For an evening rather than eight episodes, start with The Town.
Biography
Peter Craig (born 10 November 1969) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He began his career as a novelist with books including The Martini Shot, Hot Plastic and Blood Father.
His screenwriting credits include co-writing The Town (2010), adapting The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014) and Part 2 (2015) with Danny Strong, and contributing to The Batman (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and Gladiator II (2024). Top Gun: Maverick earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also adapted his own novel into the film Blood Father (2016) and wrote 12 Strong (2018) and Bad Boys for Life (2020).
In television, Craig created, wrote and showran the 2025 Apple TV+ series Dope Thief, directing one episode, and is attached to the upcoming series Rabbit, Rabbit.
