--- name: "Mark Protosevich" canonical: "https://film.one/person/mark-protosevich" fi1m_id: "mark-protosevich" imdb_id: "nm0698873" tmdb_id: 6854 wikidata_id: "Q1406447" roles: ["Writer"] born: "24 August 1961" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 62 average_as: "writer" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-22T21:51:50.219909+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." --- # Mark Protosevich ## Identity Mark Protosevich - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/mark-protosevich - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** mark-protosevich - **IMDb ID:** nm0698873 - **TMDB ID:** 6854 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1406447 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Protosevich, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1406447, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0698873/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/6854 Writer. Born 24 August 1961 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Writer - **Born:** 24 August 1961, Chicago, Illinois, USA - **Active:** 2011–present - **Also known as:** マーク・プロタセヴィッチ, Mark David Protosevich - **Average Fi1m score:** 62, as writer, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 66 (1), 2020s 58 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Protosevich, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1406447, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0698873/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/6854 ## Streaming the US now - **Apple TV:** [*Sugar*](https://film.one/tv/sugar.md) (58) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Mark Protosevich > Mark Protosevich writes lone men with a code and a head full of old films, and he sets them up better than he pays them off. *Sugar* is the clearest case: a private eye we would follow anywhere, in a mystery that runs out on him. The private detective in Mark Protosevich's *Sugar* (2024) lives in a Los Angeles hotel, wears a sharp suit, speaks softly and keeps a shelf of old films, and the series keeps cutting to those films to show us what he is thinking. That is Protosevich in one man. He has said that a cynical view of the world is essential to any private-eye story, and that what saves the private eye is a code of honour. He writes the code with real affection. It is the world around it that gives him trouble. He came up reading other people's scripts as a story analyst, then sold one of his own, *The Cell* (2000), a psychological thriller directed by Tarsem. After that came two decades of studio work, most of it on other people's material: *Poseidon* (2006), *I Am Legend* (2007), a story credit on *Thor* (2011) and a remake of *Oldboy* (2013) for Spike Lee. Of these we have reviewed only *Thor*, where the Asgard half works and the Earth half is thin, and a story credit is a hard thing to hold anyone to; we could not tell you which of that film's ideas are his. The others we have not reviewed, so we will say only that together they show a writer drawn to high concepts, adaptations and remakes, and one who waited a long time for something of his own. *Sugar* is that something, his first television series, most of it written or co-written by him. For two hours it is nearly the thing it wants to be. Fernando Meirelles directs the opening episodes, Colin Farrell is as good as he has ever been, and the question on the poster, who is Sugar, is answered the way a good noir answers it, by watching the man work. We were happier in those two hours than we had expected to be, because Protosevich trusted the walk through the hotel and the soft voice to carry us and did not stop to explain either. That trust is rarer in television than it should be. Then the case goes thin. The remaining six episodes spend most of their time not answering the question and the rest answering it badly, and there is a turn late on we will not describe except to say that it goes worse. Whether the same fault runs through his features we cannot say from what we have reviewed, but it is the whole shape of *Sugar*. The mystery is the bait and the character is the meal, and he leaves the bait in the water too long. Watch the first two episodes of *Sugar* and you will see what he is for. Whether he can finish what he starts is the question a second series would have to answer, and on present evidence we would go in hoping rather than expecting. ## Biography Mark Protosevich is an American screenwriter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and studied at Columbia College Chicago. His screenwriting credits include *The Cell* (2000), *Poseidon* (2006), *I Am Legend* (2007), the story for *Thor* (2011), and *Oldboy* (2013). He created and wrote for the Apple TV+ series *Sugar* (2024), also serving as executive producer. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife, the painter Robena Malicoat. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Sugar* (2024), Fi1m 58, Creator, Executive Producer, Writer — [page](https://film.one/tv/sugar.md) - *Thor* (2011), Fi1m 66, Story — [page](https://film.one/film/thor.md) ## Complete filmography (9) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Sugar* (2024), series, Executive Producer, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/tv/sugar.md) - *Oldboy* (2013), Screenplay, Co-Producer - *Thor* (2011), Story — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/thor.md) - *I Am Legend: Awakening - Story 2: Isolation* (2008), Screenplay - *I Am Legend Awakening* (2008), Writer - *I Am Legend* (2007), Screenplay - *Poseidon* (2006), Screenplay - *The Cell* (2000), Co-Producer, Writer - *I Am Legend 2*, Screenplay --- © 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/mark-protosevich