Too Many Writers

by Max Adams

G21 Irregular

Max Adams
Photo courtesy of Colleen Patrick

I got into trouble the other day in a radio interview. There are several reasons I got into trouble. Reason one, it was 10 a.m. A freakish hour for me to attempt coherent speech. (Night is when phones do not ring, that is when I write.) Reason two, the alarm went off late so I had rough choices before the interview hour struck: dogs, cigarettes, or Diet Coke? (Caffeine free is not the best way for me to operate at midnight. It is lethal at 10 a.m. And nicotine free is worse.) Reason three, the interviewer opened with a bad question. "Why are movies so bad?" That was his first question. Right out of the gate. And like the sleep-deprived caffeine-deprived cigarette-deprived moron I was, I stumbled right into it. Which means I tried to answer the question.

In interviews, you never, ever answer bad questions. You dodge them. Either with a humorous remark or by acknowledging you can't answer because the question is for other people.

Like this one was. You don't like a movie? Ask the person who made it. Not me. Jeesh.

I know this and I blew it anyway. My good question/bad question screen was down. I was in stupid-before-noon mode. And never in a million years did I expect someone interviewing me to lead with a question like "Why are movies so bad?" What the hell?

Someone asking me why movies are bad is like someone asking a quarterback how come football sucks. It's not nice. But there I was. And what came popping out of my cherubic mouth was ‚

"Development."

Personally, I do not think movies are bad. I love movies. That is why I write them.

Also, technically, I think the biggest problem when movies go bad is too many writers. But too many writers is a result of development so that is where the blame lands. "Development."

Loosely translated "development" means "people in business suits telling creative people how to create." There are special executives at studios hired just for this. They are called "development executives." There are special titles for development executives too. "Head of Development." "VP of Development." There is slang for development people in training: "D Girl." Do not be fooled by that "D." That does not stand for cup size. That stands for "Development."

Development works like this:

1. A writer writes a script.
   
   
2. A producer goes crazy for the script and takes it to a studio. (Studios have all the money. They also have special accountants to make sure it stays that way.) The producer says, "This is a great script, I want to make this movie."
   
   
3. Studio people read the script and love it too. The studio buys the script.
   
   
4. Then everyone reads the script again and thinks up ways to make it completely different. As far as I can tell, that is the entire purpose of most development people, too. To figure out how to make a script everyone loves completely different.
   
   
5. After everyone comes up with ideas to make the script completely different, the writer gets "development notes." If you are a writer, you do not always know which notes came from which people. Some might be from the studio head. Some might be from the producer's assistant. Maybe someone showed the script to his or her astrologer. You do not know. You just get a whole lot of suggestions nicely typed. And it is your job to take those suggestions home and figure out how to use them and still write a good script.

Incorporating notes does not always work. Often a writer knows this going in. Say you get notes that say "Wouldn't it be cool if the movie started with the plane crash instead of ending with it?" You, the writer, remember all the characters die in the plane crash and figure killing all the characters during the first five minutes of the movie might be a problem.

So you bring this up at the story meeting. ("Story meetings" are you and people who are not writers getting together so people who can't write can suggest better ways for you to write.) You can tell people in those meetings the notes do not work. You can tell them why. In the end, though, they often want you to "just try it anyway and see how it goes." And writers mostly do try it anyway and see how it goes because, if they don't, they will get fired.

(It's important to note, screenwriters do no retain copyright to screenplays. It is entirely possible to be fired from your own movie even if it is your original work. This is how Hollywood works and someone should fix that but for the moment, that's how it is.)

The writer goes home and writes a new draft doing his or her best to incorporate notes from a lot of people who can't write and turns in the new draft. Everyone reads the new draft and either ‚

A) Thinks up new things to change and sends the writer off to do another draft or --

B) Fires the writer and hires a new writer because the plane crash on page one just did not work.

When a new writer gets hired, it all starts over again.

The above scenario is so common there is a name for it: "Development Hell." That is where scripts that get sold go. And many of them never come out again. Ever.

"Development" is a phenomenon that, as far as I know, is only practiced in Hollywood. I could just be sheltered but I have never heard of publishers "developing" a book. Or Broadway producers "developing" a play. I have never heard of anyone "developing" poetry. But in Hollywood, everyone "develops" scripts.

The idea behind development is it is supposed to make better scripts. (Do not ask me why sane, intelligent people -- okay, it's Hollywood, scratch "sane" but mostly intelligent -- even believe a 24 year old business school graduate can tell a veteran story teller how to tell a story better.) And better scripts are supposed to make better movies. And better movies are supposed to make better box office. So "development" is supposed to be good for everyone, right?

Well, not exactly. For one thing, development encourages big changes. I've gone into meetings with real nice, smart people. The nice, smart people have sent me a book they think I should maybe adapt. Or a script they think I should maybe rewrite. Now I'm at a meeting to tell them how I would do that. And I see the "change everything" gleam. Right before they lean in and say, "You can change anything here, we are not wedded to the material."

Then they lean back to hear what maverick changes I will suggest.

RELATED LINKS Academy Awards Winners 2000 (73rd Academy Annual Awards 2000 All) Academy Awards Data Base (a listing of Academy Awards since 1927) Academy Awards Voting Practices (for anyone curious, how Academy voting really works) About the Academy Awards (more info for those not complacent) The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) Writers Guild of America "Somebody Wrote That" *"Somebody Wrote That," which is a Writer's Guild of America page on the union web site, wga.org, is truly interesting not only because all the "someobody wrote that" ads are truly badly written, but because any organization professing a desire to make writers more well known should probably not consider more than half the writers on any project "confidential information." Which the WGAw does. I know this because they will not release information on writers on projects outside assigned Guild and studio writing credits. Everything else, such as who else worked on the film and how many uncredited writers worked on a film is "confidential." Ahem. But that's my union. (Wry grimace.) NYT Writing for a Business Where No One Reads By DAVID THOMSON (A very interesting article that talks about screenwriters not retaining copyright -- albeit, as if it were the screenwriters' fault and from an aberrant and scaborous point of view, but it is still an interesting article.) *Academy Awards have been being passed out since 1927 to present. Presentations have been held since 1929 to present.

Here is the problem: I am wedded to the material. I flat out love it. If I did not, I would not be in someone's office to discuss working on it.

I do not know why people pay thousands and thousands of dollars for stories they are willing to toss out a window. I have theories, but they are made up and to me, it remains a mystery. But something in "development" encourages it.

Development also encourages musical writers. Since writers do not have final say in creative matters -- because writers do not own copyright -- development executives can play God and, if a writer balks, just fire the writer and hire a writer who won't. Which is what mostly happens. Writers say no. Studios say "next!"

Musical writers makes for bad scripts. No one in charge seems to have figured this out yet. I am not sure why. It is right there for anyone to see. The development process, which allegedly exists to make better scripts, just does not work. If it did, scripts with ten to twenty different writers getting fired one after the other would be much better scripts. They would be such good scripts, you would expect them to once in a while win prizes. And Oscars. Hell, you would expect them to always win Oscars. I mean, after all that development, they should be the best scripts, right?

"Developed" scripts do not win best script Oscars.

Scripts the suits and business graduates left alone win best script Oscars. Or at least have for the last eleven years.

Scripts that one or at most two writers worked on from start to finish. Scripts written by creatives. Directed by creatives. And controlled by creatives. Those are the scripts taking home "best screenplay" awards.

I know this because after I stuck my size seven foot in my now size seven mouth in that radio interview, I looked it up. Oscar winning scripts. (This is when my beloved editor Rod says, "Um, Max, not all of us agree with the Academy." And I say, "Well, Rod, I had to choose some criteria and this seemed like safer ground than Max's favorite movies. There was a consensus on these at least.")

Looking up which scripts won Oscars is easy. You just hit the Academy website and there they all are. The hard part is finding out who worked on them.

Not all writers who work on a movie get screen credit.

Or, more importantly, "screenplay by" or "written by" credit. A rule my union has says only three writing entities ("entity" means a writer alone or a writing partnership) may take "screenplay by" credit on a movie.

You could have eight writers working on a movie ‚- there were eight writers on my movie but you won't find them all in the credits ‚- but only three writing entities can be given "written by" credit.

So even if you look up movies, which are all listed on the Internet Movie Data Base (see link), you can still not be sure the screen credits accurately reflect how many writers worked on the script.

And all those writers who worked on a movie who didn't get screen credit?

You can't find out who they are or how many of them there were because my union (that is the WGAw, a.k.a. the Writers Guild of America west) won't tell you. It is a secret. Which they spell "confidential" but I spell it "secret" and I'd like to see someone at the union tell me I'm wrong.

There is no good reason to keep the identities of writers who worked on a film secret. But my union does it. Which is one reason I do not like my union very much. I have spent a certain amount of time in Hollywood, though, so after I got off the phone with the union that says it promotes writers only half their work is "secret," I called agents.

Agents know if their clients got rewritten. Agents know everything. And sometimes will even tell you what they know. So I called all the "best original screenplay" Oscar winners' agents and asked, "Hey, were there uncredited writers on these movies?"

Here is the verdict (these are Best Original Screenplay Oscars, not Best Picture Oscars, which is a different animal and an important distinction):

• "Almost Famous" won the best original screenplay Oscar in 2000. It was written by Cameron Crowe. And directed by Cameron Crowe. No other writers. Which equals ‚

  One writer. Who also directed. (Pay attention to that also directed part. It will crop up again. Which might just mean something.)
  
  

• "American Beauty" took home the statue in 1999. It was written by Alan Ball ‚ alone ‚ and directed by Sam Mendes.

  One writer.
  
  

• "Shakespeare in Love" was written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard and directed by John Madden. Norman wrote the first drafts, Stoppard rewrote him. They collaborated on the final draft.

  Two writers. Who ended up working in partnership.
  
  

• Ben Affleck and Matt Damon took home the statue for "Good Will Hunting" in 1997. It was directed by Gus Van Sant. There has been a lot of carrying on about whether Affleck and Damon wrote all the drafts for "Good Will Hunting." The final verdict is yes they did. And they are a writing team which equals ‚

  One writer.
  
  

• "Fargo" took home the gold in 1996. Written and directed by the Cohen brothers. They are a team. Which equals ‚

  One writer.
  
  

• "The Usual Suspects" written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer took home the gold in 1995. I know McQuarrie.

  One writer.
  
  

• In 1994 "Pulp Fiction" by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary directed by Quentin Tarantino took home the statue. This is a writing team. Which equals ‚

  One writer.
  
  

• In 1993 Jane Campion's "The Piano" took the statue. Jane is a Brit, it is harder for me to track down information on a Brit, but when you've got a writer/director in the picture, guess whether the writer gets fired and rewritten? I can't confirm it, but I am pretty safe guessing ‚

  One writer.
  
  

• Neil Jordan took home the statue in 1992 for "The Crying Game." Jordan also directed. Ahem.

  One writer.
  
  

• In 1991 Callie Khouri's "Thelma & Louise" won the gold. Directed by Ridley Scott, there was (you see this coming right?) ‚

  One writer.
  
  

• In 1990, "Ghost" written by Bruce Joel Rubin and directed by Jerry Zucker took home the statue. Want to guess?

  One writer.

Those are the original screenplay awards spanning the last eleven years. According to Academy writers, the best of the best. And that could just be a conspiracy, writers voting one way to tip the scales of justice, but I doubt it. If writers were that devious and organized, they wouldn't have given an actress an award for best adaptation in 1995 (that was Emma Thompson for "Sense and Sensibility") and would be doing a whole hell of a lot better at the negotiation table, pre-strike, right now.

One of those scripts was worked on by two writers. Who collaborated at film's end.

The other ten?

One writer.

If you are wearing a suit reading this?

Take a good look at that list.

And you tell me. Does development work?


*Special thanks to the agents and assistants at the following agencies for their help confirming writers' participation on films: Artists Management Group; Creative Artists Agency; Endeavor Talent Agency; Industry Entertainment; International Creative Management; The Sanford Gross Agency; United Talent Agency; The William Morris Agency.

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