Having attended the USC School of Cinema-Television, Ben Ripley worked for four years on a spec script that he eventually sold to Universal Studios in 2007 titled Source Code in 2007, which was made into a movie and released in 2011. Much before this, he had written the script of the 2004 sci-fi horror Species III. The American screenwriter has other movies such as Species: The Awakening, The Choir, which he was also credited as an executive producer in, and Flatliners.