When Carlton Cuse was starting out in the business, his office on the Warner Bros. lot was next to that of John Sacret Young, creator of “China Beach.” He spent hours at Young’s side, not only learning the craft of writing for television and features, but also about the process of showrunning. “He was very generous with me,” recalls Cuse. “And I appreciated that.”That experience — as well as his later partnership with screenwriter Jeffrey Boam (the “Lethal Weapon” movies,...
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Carlton
Cuse
After years entertaining audiences with sci-fi, horror and action fantasies, Cuse is making a left turn into fact-based drama with “Five Days at Memorial,” an Apple TV+ limited series he is writing, directing and executive producing with John Ridley (“12 Years a Slave”) about doctors and nurses stuck in a New Orleans ICU with no electricity during Hurricane Katrina. The Mexico-born, U.S.-raised Cuse established himself as a major creative force as the showrunner (with Damon Lindelof) for the entire run of ABC’s “Lost.” Today, he’s executive producing another supernatural series, “Locke & Key,” which has been renewed for a third season on Netflix, as well as John Krasinski-starrer “Jack Ryan” for Amazon, while his TV-movie revival of “Nash Bridges,” which he created in the ’90s, premiered on USA in November 2021.