My name’s Jon Wright and I’m a film and television director based in the UK.
In 2025 I directed two epsiodes of THE WAYFINDERS, a new American TV show billed as “STRANGER THINGS meets LORD OF THE RINGS”.
I also developed a horror feature called THE DOOR which has been optioned by Wellington Films, with Alastair Clark set to produce.
I love directing, it’s my idea of fun. I’ve been studying how stories are told in moving pictures for most of my life.
I enjoy collaborating with creative people and encouraging them to do their best work.
My favourite film of recent years is THE SUBSTANCE — Demi Moore should’ve won an Oscar — and currently my favourite TV show is ALIEN: EARTH on Disney Plus… I love the eyeball!
My Back Story
I was born in Belfast in the seventies but my family left for Dublin, and later England, to escape “The Troubles”. I’m the proud bearer of an English and an Irish passport.
At the age of eleven I had an epiphany, a magic moment, watching RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK at my local cinema. I thought it was the best film I’d ever seen, and decided I wanted to become a film director.
I made my first film, a short horror slasher, when I was 12. My mother claims she is still traumatised by the scene where I was stabbed to death in the bath. ;-)
I went on to study Film and English Literature at The University Of East Anglia and became a runner (and later an editor) at Saatchi & Saatchi’s video facilities company. I would shoot short films during termtime and edit them while working during my holidays.
After graduation I directed pop promos, commercials and corporate videos, while making short films with the crew I’d met on those shows. The shorts got better every year. I also wrote music for commercials with a friend for some huge clients including Pepsi and Smirnoff. Neither of us could play a musical instrument, we used to Frankenstein our songs together in a computer.
My last short film, THE LIBRARIAN’S DREAM, a Faustian fable about a deaf librarian tempted by the devil, won the BBC Talent Competition and was screened in film festivals around the world. I also co-wrote the score with the same friend I wrote music for ads with.
After years of determined development hell I finally directed my first feature film, TORMENTED, a gory comedy horror about a murderous zombie ghost. It’s a mixed bag with some great moments that caught various excellent British actors on their way up: Tuppence Middleton, Tom Hopper, James Floyd, Alex Pettyfer and Olly Alexander. I also worked with Paul Hartnoll of Orbital fame on the soundtrack, one of my musical heroes.
Since then I have worked regularly as a film director on more personal projects I’ve generally helped develop and bring to the screen, and as a director-for-hire on a wide variety of television shows in a variety of genres. I really enjoy both types of job.
I’ve had the great pleasure of working with fantastic actors like Ben Kingsley, Martin Freeman, Hannah John-Kamen, Dominic West, Mackenzie Crook, Gillian Anderson, Joe Gilgun, Geraldine James and Bertie Carvel. I love actors and have boundless admiration for their ability to reveal their innermost, most emotional selves in a public setting. I could never do what they do, which is where I think the admiration stems from.