Film Devlin appeared as an actor on numerous television shows throughout the 1980s. He also appeared in films, including
My Bodyguard,
The Wild Life,
Real Genius, and
Martians Go Home. Due to his youthful appearance, Devlin often played teenage characters despite being in his 20s. Devlin gradually began writing scripts. His first produced screenplay was for
Universal Soldier. He reached prominence as a writer/producer working alongside director
Roland Emmerich, with whom he teamed after appearing in Emmerich's film
Moon 44. Together they cowrote and produced
Stargate, the first movie to have a web site. The team then produced
Independence Day and
Godzilla. They split following the 2000 Mel Gibson film
The Patriot, but re-teamed to film
Independence Day: Resurgence in 2016. Devlin also produced
Cellular,
Who Killed the Electric Car?, and
Flyboys. Devlin's directorial debut was the action sci-fi film
Geostorm for
Warner Bros. The film was set for a March 2016 release, later rescheduled for October 2017. It starred
Gerard Butler as the lead The film made $221 million on a $120 million budget. In March 2018,
Deadline Hollywood calculated the film lost Warner Bros. $71.6 million when factoring in all other expenses and revenues. Devlin's second film as director was the 2018 thriller
Bad Samaritan, starring
Robert Sheehan and
David Tennant.
Television Devlin produced
The Triangle miniseries,
Leverage (of which he has directed twelve
episodes),
The Librarian franchise, and
The Outpost. He also co-created
The Visitor series. In 2019 Devlin began working with the Philippine media conglomerate
ABS-CBN to produce a new series called
Almost Paradise (originally titled
Off Tropic.) The series premiered in the United States on May 30, 2020, on
WGN America, and premiered on
Kapamilya Channel in 2021. It was filmed entirely in the
Philippines and the majority of the cast members are Filipino, aside from the lead—played by
Christian Kane, with whom Devlin had worked on the television shows
Leverage and
The Librarians. Delvin produced
The Ark TV series for
Syfy, which aired starting in February 2023.
Video games Devlin was an advisor to the video game company
ZeniMax Media from 1999 to 2004. Additionally Devlin was involved in video game projects
The 10th Planet and
Godzilla Online. == Personal life ==