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Mogul by Day, Screenwriter by Night
What changes when screenwriters get "greenlight power"?
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| “As a rule, I’m not into rewriting or polishing
the scripts we develop here. I don’t want people assuming that after all their hard work, someone is just, as a matter of the normal flow of work, going to rewrite them.” — James Schamus |
Do these appointments signal that studios will no longer look at screenwriters as annoying necessary evils, but as business-savvy future presidents of production? Bill Mechanic, former chairman and CEO of Fox, who began his career as a film critic and screenwriter, doubts that the new influx of writers-in-power will help escalate respect for writers where it really matters—financially. "Monetarily, there’s no more money left to give away," he says. "As in sports, the stars are sucking up the vast majority of the available money. And since no one else is likely to give up their share, the system will continue as is."
While writers’ salaries may not be rising any time soon, Mechanic thinks scribes might start to be appreciated in other ways. Writing executives have "much greater empathy to the flaws of the current relay system of writing scripts, since firing writers is done far too casually and to the detriment of the movies," he says. "Movies work best when everyone cares about what they’re doing."
James Schamus, who came to Focus Features after 11 years as co-founder and co-president of the indie production company Good Machine, says, "As a rule, I’m not into rewriting or polishing the scripts we develop here. I don’t want people assuming that after all their hard work, someone is just, as a matter of the normal flow of work, going to rewrite them." That may be because he’s too busy writing scripts of his own. Schamus scripted Ang Lee’s upcoming The Hulk, and is currently writing a new script for Lee. How does he find the time? He writes early in the morning, at night, in hotel rooms. And he admits that "Some of my best writing is done on planes."
Having a screenwriter as your boss can be both a blessing and a curse for writers who hop aboard the Good Ship Dreamworks, where Walter Parkes is captain. Parkes—a Yale grad who came to Dreamworks from a long tenure as co-president of production at Amblin Entertainment—is known for his hands-on development when the script reaches greenlight stage. For some (all of whom refuse to go on record), it’s a nightmare. For most, though, like Bob Gordon, who wrote the hits Galaxy Quest and Men in Black II under Parkes’ aegis, it’s a plus. "It’s like having a fellow surgeon to confer with in the operating room," says Gordon. "If you bring a civilian in there, they’re liable to just get freaked out by all the blood."
For moviegoers, having a team of surgeons working on the movies they see might be better than having just one. Gale Ann Hurd, a producer who’s worked with both writing and non-writing moguls, insists that at Focus, Dreamworks and New Line, "more literate scripts have been produced than is the Hollywood norm." She cites Oscar nominations as an accurate barometer of this trend, with multiple nods this year for New Line with Fellowship of the Rings and About Schmidt, Focus with Far From Heaven and The Pianist and Dreamworks with Road to Perdition and Catch Me If You Can.
Hurd also notes that "screenwriters-turned-executives demand a higher standard before a script is given a greenlight" and that "there is less likelihood a high-concept but poorly executed script will be made when a screenwriter has greenlight power." That’s good news for audiences, as the coming years boast a plethora of interesting projects from writer-run studios. Focus has nabbed bragging rights to Charlie Kaufman’s next opus-on-shrooms, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as well as the untitled Sylvia Plath biopic starring Gwyneth Paltrow and 21 Grams, the stateside debut of director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros). Dreamworks has film versions of Andre Dubus’ House of Sand and Fog and Deborah Moggach’s bestselling novel Tulip Fever in the works, the latter of which reunites Shakespeare in Love writer Tom Stoppard with its director, John Madden. New Line rounds out the coming year with the final Lord of the Rings, Nick Cassavetes’ The Notebook and Birth, which joins Sexy Beast director Jonathan Glazer with star Nicole Kidman.
Where does all this leave those on the Hollywood
power pyramid who aren’t
writers? Mechanic thinks maybe they should take a cue or two from their
more literate brethren. "There are only two ways to survive in those
chairs for longer than a few years," he says. "Have the best talent relationships
in the business or learn to make decent movies. There are only so many
stars to rely on and so, other than dumb luck, the script is king." MM
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This story was published in the Spring 2003 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Mogul by Day, Screenwriter by Night / What changes when screenwriters get "greenlight power"?
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