---
name: "Alfred Gough"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/alfred-gough"
fi1m_id: "alfred-gough"
imdb_id: "nm0332184"
tmdb_id: 18924
wikidata_id: "Q622651"
roles: ["Writer","Producer"]
born: "22 August 1967"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 6
average_fi1m_score: 64
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 6
updated: "2026-10-05T05:29:45.756333+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Alfred Gough

## Identity

Alfred Gough

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/alfred-gough
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** alfred-gough
- **IMDb ID:** nm0332184
- **TMDB ID:** 18924
- **Wikidata ID:** Q622651
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Gough, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q622651, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0332184/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18924

Writer and producer. Born 22 August 1967 in Leonardtown, Maryland, USA.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Producer
- **Born:** 22 August 1967, Leonardtown, Maryland, USA
- **Active:** 1998–present
- **Also known as:** Al Gough, 阿尔·高夫
- **Frequently works with:** [Miles Millar](https://film.one/person/miles-millar.md), [James Marshall](https://film.one/person/james-marshall.md), [Jenna Ortega](https://film.one/person/jenna-ortega.md), [Tim Burton](https://film.one/person/tim-burton.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 64, as writer, over 6 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1990s 55 (1), 2000s 64 (3), 2020s 68 (2)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 63 to 58 across 5 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 2 under 60
- **Genres:** Action 3, Adventure 2, Comedy 2, Fantasy 2, Sci-Fi & Fantasy 2, Action & Adventure 1
- **Screen time:** 8 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $1,930m across 4 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Gough, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q622651, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0332184/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18924

## Streaming the US now

- **Netflix:** [*Wednesday*](https://film.one/tv/wednesday.md) (71)
- **Disney+:** [*Smallville*](https://film.one/tv/smallville.md) (66)
- **Apple TV:** [*Beetlejuice Beetlejuice*](https://film.one/film/beetlejuice-beetlejuice.md) (64)
- **Tubi:** [*The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor*](https://film.one/film/the-mummy-tomb-of-the-dragon-emperor.md) (40)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Alfred Gough

> Alfred Gough, always with Miles Millar, takes a famous name, removes the thing everyone knows it for and hands what is left to a teenager. The premises are his best work. *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* ran five plots where two would do, and that is typical.

A boy on a Kansas farm can outrun a truck and does not know why. A girl at a boarding school treats the supernatural mystery around her with complete severity, and the severity is the joke. Alfred Gough's scripts, written for a quarter of a century with Miles Millar, start with someone young who has been given something too large for them, and with a famous property stripped of its most famous feature. *Smallville* (2001) took Superman and removed the cape, the flying and Metropolis. *Wednesday* (2022) took the Addams girl out of the family house and put her in a school. In *Smallville*'s case the idea is stated in the first hour, and it is a good one.

The partnership began in the late 1990s, after the two met at USC, and it has worked the same way since: they break the story together, outline at length and write in the same room. Through the 2000s that produced features, *Shanghai Noon* (2000), *Spider-Man 2* (2004) and *The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor* (2008), while *Smallville* ran alongside them. They ran that series for seven seasons and left in 2008; it carried on without them until 2011. *Into the Badlands* (2015) and *The Shannara Chronicles* (2016) followed, and then Tim Burton, first on *Wednesday* and then on *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* (2024).

What works is the sturdiness. The first two or three seasons of *Smallville* are proper Tuesday-night television, warm and better acted than they needed to be, chiefly by the Luthors. *Wednesday* gives Jenna Ortega a heroine whose severity is funny in itself. *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* hands Catherine O'Hara the sharpest lines in the film and the one running joke that pays off every time. We laughed at every one of Delia's lines, and somewhere in the middle we noticed we had lost track of which of the five plots we were in and did not much mind, which is the film's problem in a sentence.

What does not work is the same thing each time, at different lengths. *Smallville* ran to 216 episodes, about a third of them the same episode, and its central romance went round in circles the writers have since admitted regretting. *Wednesday* keeps its heroine busy with the complications of any teenage sleuth and shows the conventions of school television rather too much respect; Ortega cannot make every predictable development feel like a discovery. *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* runs five plots when two would do, and a scene ends when its joke does. Burton is the director who gets the most out of them, because he supplies the tone the pages leave to him.

Gough has said the pair once kept a hard and fast rule never to write more than three lines of exposition. They keep it, too; nobody in their scripts stands still and explains. What they have never rationed is incident. Whatever famous name they take up next, we will want to be there for the idea. We would also, for once, like them to stop at two plots.

## Biography

Alfred Gough is an American screenwriter and producer. Born on 22 August 1967 in Leonardtown, Maryland, he graduated from the University of Southern California, where he began his long-term writing partnership with Miles Millar.

Gough and Millar co-created the television series *Smallville* (2001) and *Wednesday* (2022). Their film credits include the story for *Spider-Man 2* (2004) and screenplays for *Shanghai Noon* (2000), *Shanghai Knights* (2003), *The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor* (2008) and *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* (2024).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, themoviedb.org.*

## On Fi1m (6)

- *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* (2024), Fi1m 64, Executive Producer, Screenplay, Story — [page](https://film.one/film/beetlejuice-beetlejuice.md)
- *Wednesday* (2022), Fi1m 71, Writer, Creator, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/tv/wednesday.md)
- *The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor* (2008), Fi1m 40, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-mummy-tomb-of-the-dragon-emperor.md)
- *Spider-Man 2* (2004), Fi1m 85, Screenstory — [page](https://film.one/film/spider-man-2.md)
- *Smallville* (2001), Fi1m 66, Teleplay, Story, Writer, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/smallville.md)
- *Lethal Weapon 4* (1998), Fi1m 55, Story — [page](https://film.one/film/lethal-weapon-4.md)

## Complete filmography (27)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Grim* (2025), series, Executive Producer, Creator
- *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* (2024), Story, Screenplay, Executive Producer — Fi1m 64, [page](https://film.one/film/beetlejuice-beetlejuice.md)
- *Wednesday* (2022), series, as TSA Officer #3 · Writer, Executive Producer, Creator — Fi1m 71, [page](https://film.one/tv/wednesday.md)
- *The Shannara Chronicles* (2016), series, Writer, Creator
- *Into the Badlands* (2015), series, Writer, Creator
- *Bullet to the Head* (2012), Producer
- *Charlie's Angels* (2011), series, Writer
- *I Am Number Four* (2011), Screenplay
- *Hannah Montana: The Movie* (2009), Producer
- *The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor* (2008), Writer — Fi1m 40, [page](https://film.one/film/the-mummy-tomb-of-the-dragon-emperor.md)
- *Aquaman* (2006), series, Writer, Executive Producer
- *Herbie Fully Loaded* (2005), Screenplay
- *Spider-Man 2* (2004), Screenstory — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/film/spider-man-2.md)
- *Shanghai Knights* (2003), Screenplay
- *Smallville* (2002), Writer
- *Showtime* (2002), Screenplay
- *Smallville* (2001), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Story, Teleplay, Creator — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/tv/smallville.md)
- *Shanghai Noon* (2000), Screenplay
- *The Strip* (1999), series, Producer
- *Made Men* (1999), Writer
- *Martial Law* (1998), series, Writer
- *Lethal Weapon 4* (1998), Story — Fi1m 55, [page](https://film.one/film/lethal-weapon-4.md)
- *Timecop* (1997), series, Writer
- *Double Tap* (1997), Writer
- *Bugs* (1995), series, Writer
- *Ice Cream Man*, Producer, Screenplay
- *Untitled Animated Addams Family Reboot*, Writer

## Gallery

- ![Alfred Gough](https://film.one/media/person/11006/gallery-5dc7dd474abd.jpg) Alfred Gough — Greg2600, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Alfred_Gough_%2840679250193%29_%28cropped%29_2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands. NYC April '19. (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/11006/gallery-41bc66179554.jpg) Creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands. NYC April '19. (2019) — Greg2600, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Alfred_Gough_and_Miles_Millar_%2840679250193%29.jpg/1280px-Alfred_Gough_and_Miles_Millar_%2840679250193%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands. NYC April '19. (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/11006/gallery-c9dafa1a3523.jpg) Creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands. NYC April '19. (2019) — Greg2600, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Alfred_Gough_and_Miles_Millar_%2840679250193%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Alfred_Gough_and_Miles_Millar_%2840679250193%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands. NYC April '19. (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/11006/gallery-37324e05642f.jpg) Creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands. NYC April '19. (2019) — Greg2600, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Alfred_Gough_and_Miles_Millar_%2840679250193%29_%28cropped1%29.jpg/1280px-Alfred_Gough_and_Miles_Millar_%2840679250193%29_%28cropped1%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Alfred Gough](https://film.one/media/person/11006/gallery-64ee0b454d2a.jpg) Alfred Gough — Image via TMDB
- ![Strand Books, New York, NY (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/11006/gallery-67cd9711a3d9.jpg) Strand Books, New York, NY (2019) — Greg2600, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Alfred_Gough_and_Miles_Millar_%2840679250353%29.jpg/1280px-Alfred_Gough_and_Miles_Millar_%2840679250353%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/alfred-gough