Arne Schmidt was born in Cleveland Ohio to David and Pauline Schmidt. He attended Ohio State University for his freshman year and then followed his family to Los Angeles where he attended UCLA, graduating in 1970 with a B.S. in philosophy. His big break came when he answered an ad for a part time job washing and waxing John Frankenheimer's cars. After three years of wax on, wax off, Frankenheimer did him a huge favor and told him about the Directors Guild Assistant Director Training Program. He applied and was rejected, but not defeated. He found work on three low budget films for Gene and Roger Corman as an assistant director. He then reapplied to the trainee program and was accepted. He pursued working for the best directors of the era. They included, John Schlesinger, Michael Cimino, Delbert Mann, Peter Bogdanovich, Elia Kazan, (uncredited), Robert Wise, (uncredited), Karel Reisz, Martin Scorcese, Richard Attenborough, Sam Fuller, Francis Coppola, Wim Wenders, John Milius, Michael Crichton, and John Hughes. Another big break came when Jon Davison asked him to produce RoboCop directed by Paul Verhoeven. He continued producing for noted directors Andrew Davis, Penny Marshal, William Friedkin, Randall Wallace, Rob Cohen, and Tim Burton. In between jobs he wrote screenplays. He got one produced in 1996, Chain Reaction, and had several others sold or optioned without being produced. After retiring from producing, he continued writing and after ten years in development, got Hunter Killer made. He continues his passion for finding great stories and writing spec scripts.