Ben Johnson Jr.

Ben Johnson is a multi-talented author, screenwriter and content creator who's passionate about telling authentic, emotionally compelling, universally-appealing stories.

He grew up in a previously disadvantaged community in South Africa during the apartheid years. His strict upbringing was peppered with loads of personal trauma, rebellion, and domestic violence. While his mother was a God-fearing woman, his father was an alcoholic. One of his brothers was a minister; the other, a drug addict and gangster. As a result of this domestic dichotomy, he tells stories about characters who either embrace or fight their inner darkness.

Ben is a NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY Fellowship Alumnus whose screenplays have placed highly in both local and international script competitions. His action-thriller script, CANAAN, won the feature diversity category of the 2019 Final Draft Big Break Contest. Ben was invited to Los Angeles to participate in the Final Draft Awards, and was consequently signed by Plain Text Literary Management. In 2020, Ben was invited to pitch two of his scripts at the Berlin Film Festival's, Africa Finance Hub.

Ben comfortably straddles a career in both film and television. He's a seasoned feature writer with 12 commissioned scripts under his belt, including two novel-to-screen adaptations, an international martial arts co-production between South Africa and Thailand, and most recently a biopic for one of the directors of BBC's DOCTOR WHO.

As a headwriter, storyliner and scriptwriter in the African television space, he's amassed over 500 episode credits on 13 shows. He's worked as headwriter on the South African adaptation of UGLY BETTY, and is currently heading up an original series development for NETFLIX.