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Announcements Mar 23, 2026 at 11:16 AM

How many show creators are never involved with their own creation? AKA: Is Anthony Salter a real person?

Posted by kuhpunkt


I know TV credits can be a tricky thing. Being a creator basically just means that you had the idea for a show and you were involved with the show at the beginning - it doesn't mean that you are the showrunner or anything. Also creators (and even showrunners) can ultimately leave the shows they created, for a variety of reasons. Like Frank Darabont has a "developed by" credit on the Walking Dead and he kept that credit, even though he was fired after the first season. That's just how credits work. Or Battle Creek. It was an old script by Vince Gilligan that didn't become a reality. Gilligan became famous for Breaking Bad, so they took his script and David Shore turned it into an actual show 10 years later. Gilligan wasn't involved with it creatively, but since he wrote the initial script, he's credited as a creator. Makes sense. Lost is another interesting example. Jeffrey Lieber and JJ Abrams & Damon Lindelof are all credited as creators of the show. Lieber however only wrote one script by himself, was fired and replaced by Abrams & Lindelof - but since they used a few of his ideas (hence his "story by" credit in the pilot), he's still credited as a creator, even though he never actually wrote for the show that people know. But at least he was involved to a degree and wrote something. And he's a real person. What I'm however just curious about is The I-Land, which premiered on Netflix back in 2019. It's an absolutely terrible show, but I think it's worth watching (just 7 episodes), because of how fascinating it is that this show exists. It's baffling. The thing is... the show was created by somebody named Anthony Salter. But he is not credited as a writer or anything - only as the creator. He has no "story by" or "written by" or "teleplay by" credit. The only known writers of the show are Neil LaBute and Lucy Teitler. Salter doesn't have any kind of online profile. No other imdb entries. He never worked on any other show as a staff writer. It's like he doesn't exist - and yet he got to create a show for Netflix? A show that he apparently had no involvement with? What happened there? Is he a ghost? A pseudonym? Are there any other shows where something like this happened?

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MonstersGrin Mar 23, 2026 +9
There's a non-zero chance "Anthony Salter" is just a pseudonym, because someone didn't want to be officially credited, kinda like "Alan Smithee".
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MiloTheMagnificent Mar 23, 2026 +5
It’s Alan Smithee
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DanHero91 Mar 23, 2026 +3
Normally in this case it's either someone who happened to give a good idea to an actual writer, and so they need a credit so they can't use later, or it's a different writer using a fake name as they don't actually want to be associated with it. (I can't remember the exact person right now, but Mr Sunday Movies recently did a movie where the guy essentially had two director names, one for serious movies and one for trash he was just doing as a paycheck.)
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youthofoldage Mar 23, 2026 +3
I have also heard of people using an alias for non-union jobs. They don’t want the union to find out so they use a different name.
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kuhpunkt Mar 23, 2026
But just having the idea wouldn't be enough. The WGA is rather strict about that. It's just such an odd case.
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tqgibtngo Mar 23, 2026 +2
THR, 2019: > ... It’s [Salter's] only credit on the series and his only credit period. Online, he doesn’t exist. It’s a puzzlement. ... qz.com: > ... Anthony Salter ... has no other IMDb credits to his name and no discernible online footprint (it may very well be a pseudonym)...
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KTOWNTHROWAWAY9001 Mar 23, 2026 +1
They can be forced out. The Battle Creek one was interesting. They promoted it so hard almost the day Breaking Bad ended. I think after it ended I saw ads for it. As the next Vince Gilligan show.
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Mysterious_Ant8200 Mar 23, 2026 +2
This honestly reads less like a mystery and more like one of those weird credit situations where someone had the original kernel of the idea and then got completely sidelined once the show actually got made.
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LiveFromNewYork95 Mar 23, 2026
It's probably a pseudonym But I think it's probably more likely or most likely to happen when a relative unknown sells an idea to a big producer. Almost none of the Chuck Lorre shows were his idea, he just gets the created by credit because his production company paid for an produced the idea, now in almost all of them, the actual creator of the idea also stayed on producing and/or writing for a time but I'm sure there's some examples out there of an unknown selling a pilot to a big producer, getting a co-creator credit, and then being completely left out.
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