Burk Sharpless is one of the two creators of Netflix's Lost in Space, alongside Matt Sazama. He also serves an executive producer and writer for the series.
Biography[]
Burk Sharpless grew up writing science fiction stories and drawing comic books for his friends, but it never really occurred to him that might be his true calling. Hailing from an academic family, he wanted to do something appropriately erudite and high-brow.
After graduating in philosophy from the UW in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, he moved to New York to pursue a career as an abstract painter. He eventually recognized that the art world wasn’t exactly the right fit, so he headed to Los Angeles to become a screenwriter, naively thinking that was the more practical alternative. Together with his writing partner Matt Sazama, they wrote the original spec script Dracula Untold, which was on the prestigious Black List of best unproduced screenplays before it was finally made by Universal Pictures in 2014. Since then, they wrote the script for Gods of Egypt and co-wrote the motion pictures, The Last Witch Hunter and Saban's Power Rangers.
Burk lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. He may pick up painting again someday, once he tires of screenwriting.