Biography
James Schamus is an American screenwriter, producer and business executive. He was born on 7 September 1959 in Detroit, Michigan. He co-founded the production company Good Machine and later co-founded and served as CEO of Focus Features.
Schamus has frequently collaborated with director Ang Lee. Their joint credits include The Ice Storm (1997), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Hulk (2003) and Lust, Caution (2007). He also produced Brokeback Mountain (2005) and wrote the screenplay for The King's Daughter (2022). He created the Netflix series Somos. (2021) and wrote one episode of the 2026 series The Boroughs, on which he also served as consulting producer.
Schamus is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University, where he has taught film history and theory since 1989. He heads the New York-based production company Symbolic Exchange.
