---
name: "Miles Millar"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/miles-millar"
fi1m_id: "miles-millar"
imdb_id: "nm0587692"
tmdb_id: 18923
wikidata_id: "Q1074029"
roles: ["Writer","Producer","Director"]
born: "1 January 1967"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 6
average_fi1m_score: 63
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-10-05T05:29:45.759398+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."
---

# Miles Millar

## Identity

Miles Millar

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/miles-millar
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** miles-millar
- **IMDb ID:** nm0587692
- **TMDB ID:** 18923
- **Wikidata ID:** Q1074029
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Millar, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1074029, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0587692/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18923

Writer and producer. Born 1 January 1967 in UK.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Producer, Director
- **Born:** 1 January 1967, UK
- **Active:** 1998–present
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 6: 1 directing, 5 writing
- **Frequently works with:** [Alfred Gough](https://film.one/person/alfred-gough.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:** 63, as writer, over 5 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+, 2 at 60–79, 2 under 60
- **Genres:** Action 3, Adventure 2, Comedy 2, Fantasy 2, Crime 1, Mystery 1
- **Screen time:** 8 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $1,930m across 4 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Millar, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1074029, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0587692/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18923

## 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 Miles Millar

> Miles Millar, with Alfred Gough, has one trick and it is a good one: take a character everyone knows, remove the thing they are known for, and put a teenager in the gap. The first hour is usually fine. The hundredth is where the trouble starts.

A boy on a Kansas farm outruns a truck and does not know why. A girl in a black dress is sent to a school full of other people's monsters and treats it as a punishment. A ghost in a striped suit comes back and finds the film has a teenager's grief to see to before it can get round to him. Miles Millar writes with Alfred Gough, and has since the 1990s, and the shape of what they write is easy to see once you have watched two of them: a famous character with the famous bit held back, and someone young standing where it used to be. Millar has said as much himself: "We gravitate towards stories of teenagers who are grappling with bad situations."

The pair met on the producing programme at USC and sold a script while still students. They wrote features first, *Lethal Weapon 4* (1998) and *Shanghai Noon* (2000), then made their name with *Smallville* (2001), which they created and ran for seven seasons before leaving; the show carried on until 2011 without them. The story for *Spider-Man 2* (2004) came in between, and *Into the Badlands* (2015–2019) gave them a martial-arts world to build from nothing. The recent phase belongs to Tim Burton: *Wednesday* (2022), which they created and write, and *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* (2024), for which they wrote the screenplay.

The pitch is always sound and it is always stated early. *Smallville* lays out its idea in the first hour, and for two or three seasons it is sturdy Tuesday-night television, chiefly because Michael Rosenbaum and John Glover play the Luthors better than the show required. Then it kept going. Somewhere in the middle seasons we found we could tell from the first minute of an episode what its last would be, and we resented it, because we had liked the show; about a third of its 216 episodes are the same episode. *Wednesday* has a different problem. The writing hands its heroine the tasks any teenage detective might be given, and it is Jenna Ortega, not the script, who makes them funny. An Addams should make ordinary behaviour look ridiculous, and here the ordinary conventions of teen television are treated with too much respect.

*Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* is the pattern in miniature. Gough and Millar give Catherine O'Hara the best lines and the one running joke that lands every time, then run at least five plots, so that no thread gets long enough to matter and Ortega, in the only part written without jokes, is rather wasted. A good idea, a good line, and then more of everything than the story can carry.

So the recommendation is the same each time: the early seasons of *Smallville*, *Wednesday* for Ortega, *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* for O'Hara. Millar and Gough know how to open a door. What to do once everyone is through it is the part they have not yet solved.

## Biography

Miles Millar is an Australian-British screenwriter, producer and showrunner. He has frequently collaborated with writing partner Alfred Gough since they met at the University of Southern California.

Millar and Gough created the series *Smallville* (2001) and *Wednesday* (2022). Their feature credits include the story for *Spider-Man 2* (2004), the screenplay for *Shanghai Noon* (2000) and its sequel *Shanghai Knights* (2003), and the screenplay and story for *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* (2024).

Millar was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC.

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

## On Fi1m (6)

### Directed (1)

- *Smallville* (2001), Fi1m 66, Teleplay, Director, Writer, Creator, Story — [page](https://film.one/tv/smallville.md)

### Wrote (5) — the average rests on these

- *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* (2024), Fi1m 64, Story, Executive Producer, Screenplay — [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)
- *Lethal Weapon 4* (1998), Fi1m 55, Story — [page](https://film.one/film/lethal-weapon-4.md)

## Complete filmography (28)

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, Executive Producer, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 71, [page](https://film.one/tv/wednesday.md)
- *The Shannara Chronicles* (2016), series, Writer, Creator
- *Into the Badlands* (2015), series, Writer, Director, 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, Executive Producer, Writer
- *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, Writer, Executive Producer, Teleplay, Story, Director, 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 Beetlejuice 3*, Executive Producer
- *Untitled Animated Addams Family Reboot*, Writer

## Gallery

- ![Miles Millar](https://film.one/media/person/11007/gallery-25a53970337b.jpg) Miles Millar — Jerome DUVAL from Paris, France, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Miles_Millar.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/11007/gallery-5dc7dd474abd.jpg) Creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands. NYC April '19. (2019) — 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/11007/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/11007/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)
- ![Miles Millar](https://film.one/media/person/11007/gallery-8080e23e1854.jpg) Miles Millar — Image via TMDB
- ![Creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands. NYC April '19. (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/11007/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)
- ![Strand Books, New York, NY (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/11007/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)

## Awards

### Other awards — 0 won, 2 nominated

- Hugo Awards 2005: Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (nominated), for *Spider-Man 2*
- Hugo Awards 2004: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (nominated), for *Smallville*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© 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/miles-millar