Roberto Patino

Roberto Patino is an American screenwriter and television producer whose work spans crime drama, science fiction, historical fantasy, and comic-book adaptation. His credits include FX's Sons of Anarchy, HBO's Westworld, and HBO Max's limited series DMZ. His career has repeatedly placed him in writers' rooms built around strong genre premises, but his work also includes an original feature screenplay. That combination is visible in Cut Bank, the 2014 thriller he wrote for director Matt Shakman. The film follows Dwayne McLaren, a young Montana mechanic whose discovery of a bag of cash triggers consequences involving a murdered postal worker, local police.

Cut Bank premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014, and its cast includes Liam Hemsworth as Dwayne, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Dern, and Michael Stuhlbarg. Shakman, who later directed episodes of WandaVision and The Great, made the film before his more prominent television work. Patino's script uses the fictional Montana town of Cut Bank as a tightly constructed setting, with the plot connecting Dwayne's ambition to an investigation led by Sheriff Vogel. Patino received a writing credit on the released film, distinguishing this project from his staff-writing and producer roles on television series elsewhere.

On Sons of Anarchy, Patino was part of the writing and producing staff for Kurt Sutter's FX drama. The series centers on the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original, and its illegal gun-running operations in the fictional California town of Charming. Patino later joined Westworld, HBO's adaptation of Michael Crichton's 1973 film. The television series, created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, begins in a Western-themed amusement park populated by artificially intelligent “hosts.” Its first season follows the hosts' increasingly unstable encounters with guests and their movement toward consciousness. Patino received writer and producer credits on the HBO production.

Patino created DMZ, a limited series released by HBO Max on March 17, 2022. Adapted from Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's DC/Vertigo comic book, it imagines a second civil war after which Manhattan becomes a demilitarized zone. Rosario Dawson plays Alma Ortega, a medic who enters the island to search for her son, Christian, after their separation during the evacuation. Benjamin Bratt plays Parco Delgado, a figure in the zone. Ava DuVernay directed the first episode and was an executive producer. Patino served as creator and producer, while the series compressed the comic's expansive setting into a four-hour television story.