Mythbusting: The Good Writer and the Bad Execs

Myths abound in our myth-making movie biz. There’s the myth of director as God – addressed by scribe Robert Riskin when he thrust a sheaf of blank screenplay pages at Frank Capra and said, “Put the ‘Capra touch’ on this!” There’s the myth of starlets discovered in coffee shops and producers who move their lips when they read; there’s the William Goldman-penned myth of Nobody knows anything (actually, a number of people know a hell of a lot; a more accurate credo would have been ‘Nobody knows everything’).

But there’s one pervasive myth in the industry that I’ve yet to see addressed in print, and I’ve had enough of its dogged perpetuation. It’s the one that goes:

Writer good, executives bad.

You’ve heard it countless times – the gifted but beleaguered writer whose work has been unaccountably butchered by the stupid, philistine studio executives (always the insidious plural). The writer, in white hat, doing his best for the cause of cinematic artistry is an underdog rugged individualist hero who’s being unjustly repressed (and rewritten) by heinous, mercenary corporate studio thugs who lack only black hats and mustaches to twirl to complete the mythic scenario.

Here is a prominent writer-director enacting the age-old conflict on the front page of last week’s NY Times Arts and Leisure section:

David Fincher, impolitic as ever, is ridiculing the notes he's been getting from the studio executives overseeing his latest film, Zodiac. '' 'It's easy to get lost in all the details,' '' he intones, reading their critique of one scene from his laptop. '' 'Are there any trims you could make here to cut down on the information and focus it even more' '' on two main characters?

''I love this,'' Mr. Fincher says, leaving no doubt as to his sarcasm. ''It's this weird shell game where they go, 'Can you focus it more on the people by making it be less of them?' And of course what it really gets down to is that they want me to audition their cuts to them.''

But he won't. Instead, he says, ''you just rope-a-dope.''

Actually the studio’s note doesn’t sound so nonsensical to me. It’s not uncommon to encounter a scene in a screenplay draft where the amount of exposition or information detail crammed into the dialogue in fact overpowers your sense of the characters as living, breathing 3-D humans. And for the record, if an employer (the studio) asks an employee (the writer) to “audition their cuts for them,” maddening as it may be, you signed a contract, dude; they’re paying you – big bucks.

I know I’m going to catch hell for this, but sorry, as a professional writer who also works for a studio as a reader and thus sees both sides of the equation on a daily basis, I gotta say that this perception of writer as saint and executive as Satan-incarnate is just a crock.

Believe it or not, there is such a thing as a bad writer. There is such a thing as a good and helpful studio executive. And to retire this bogus good/bad dichotomy altogether, let me put it another way: sometimes an uncooperative or unskilled writer does more harm to a movie in development than the useful, smart execs who are trying to make a better movie in spite of the writer’s failings.

Blasphemy, I know. And yes, of course there are horrible, useless executives who mess with material just to piss on it, there are execs who know nothing about writing who make ridiculous suggestions; there are writers a-plenty who do know better about what works and what doesn’t but get unduly constrained by the powers-that-be; there are writers who are fired on projects, only to be re-hired by the same studio after three other writers have gotten nowhere with the material. Yes, yes, happens all the time.

But what also happens all the time is that writers screw up. Since I don’t want to lose my day gig (while I’m losing all my screenwriting friends), I can’t name names and tell tales out of studio school here, so you’ll have to take the following on faith. But here’s the deal from inside the belly of the studio beast: quite often writers are hired for gargantuan sums of money to pen a studio project, and what we have, as they say, is a failure to communicate.

The writer has one idea (okay, call it “vision”) of what the movie should be, the studio has another… and nothing but headaches follow. I write up notes on the project, an executive follows suit, a document goes to the writer, and… what comes back is nothing like what’s been discussed. For example, last year I did exhaustive notes on a movie, recommending some fairly serious overhauls of characterizations and plot trajectories… and what the next draft delivered was some dialogue tinkering, some character shading, a little nip and tuck here and there: the equivalent of rearranging deck furniture on the Titanic. None of the more important issues cited – not a one – had been addressed, for whatever pigheaded reasons, by the writer.

Most probably this writer will be fired. And the studio’s just wasted a lot of time and money. And the project is in jeopardy. So who wins?

Studio story departments' known if well-kept secret is that nine times out of ten, if you pull coverage of a movie out of the files and set it beside the reviews that the released film has received, the critique is virtually identical (especially when the movie’s not so good) down to the specific language. Reader and critic alike speak of “contrived plot developments” and a “lack of credibility in the character’s motivations,” etc. So if the studio was wrong, if all the critics are wrong, and if the audience is wrong (i.e. the movie’s tanking)… how right can the writer be?

Chances are (after a lifetime of complaining that these guys take all the credit), he’ll blame the director.

I’ve seen one Big Name Writer hired by the studio to do a rewrite hand in a draft that read, as my story editor reported, as if she’d been paid a little under a million dollars to take the last draft out of its box, retype the title page and then put the draft back inside the box again. And I’ve seen a head of production at the studio badger a writer-director into shooting an ending that everyone, award-nabbing helmer included, later agreed had turned a potential turkey into a trophy-winner.

Here’s another awful truth you don’t hear about much, outside the studio trenches: there’s maybe all of about a dozen or so screenwriters who can be trusted to be dependable, solid, skilled, even inspired – on all craft levels. Closers is what the studios call them, as in “they can close the deal,” and it’s an amazingly small, select club. Used to be Towne and Goldman; these days Richard LaGravanese, Steve Zaillan, Scott Frank and Paul Attanasio are among the Closer Elite, who get serious money thrown at them to get the job done when there’s a lot at stake.

So what is that, maybe 2o writers out of… 2,000 to 20,000? What does that tell you about the craft of screenwriting and the business of movies getting made? Evidently your average screenwriter needs a little help.

Here’s a couple of screenwriters sitting around talking, in this case Oscar-nominated Peter Morgan (The Queen) and Oscar-winner Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine), from a pre-Oscars round table conducted in the L.A. Times Calendar section:

MORGAN: We had a moment afterward, in the cutting room, where people concerned with the marketing of the film saw the film and said, "Well, it's a hell of a movie. And right now, hers [Helen Mirren's] is a good performance, but it's not an Oscar performance. So, Pete, would you write an argument, or a scene where she's angry, in the first act?" I said to Stephen [Frears], "I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is, there isn't enough Tony Blair." Which made them slowly begin to weep, because Tony Blair — no international audience. "More Helen, more Helen, more Helen…." I explained to Stephen why, and Stephen put his foot down, and we shot four extra days of Tony Blair. The net effect was that by putting in counterpoints, his part feels no bigger, but her part feels enormous, without shooting a single extra frame of Helen Mirren.

ARNDT: I just want to jump in and say that everything that got added to the original script of Little Miss Sunshine was an improvement. There was nothing that I was forced to put in that I didn't think was better, and there was nothing taken out that I wanted to be in there.

Check it out: Morgan’s saying he got a note that he didn’t entirely agree with, but he found a way to arrive at a proper solution. The specifics of the Stupid Studio Exec note might have been off the mark, but apparently the executives were right, in that something did need to be adjusted (a common phenomenon, see this post on “looking beneath the note”). So why didn’t the execs give a smarter note? Um, maybe because they’re not writers. It was the writer’s job to solve the problem, which he did, ingeniously, without disturbing the integrity of the piece. And everybody won, including the audience.

And Michael Arndt’s response, bless his heart, is kind of astonishing. I mean, I’ve experienced this myself – shrewd, deep-thinking development people helping a writer to more fully realize what he hadn’t got exactly right from the get. But the astounding thing is that Arndt was big enough to admit it. Man, you’ll never succeed in Hollywood if you voluntarily give other people credit for their contributions to your work, right?!

As of this past Oscar night, another myth busted.

Comments

[E.C. Henry]

Wow, great post! I've never thought studio exec's were morons, just that they're maybe a little jealous of the writer's ability to write a creative story, and felt the need to, "put the writer in his/her place."

This myth of mine, actually, started many years ago with my first encouter with a working screenwriter, who roll played as a studio exec at ta writer's conference I attended on Widbey Island in WA. In this pannel a Hollywood screenwriter listened to pages of an audiences screenplay then reacted -- as he said a studio exec would. When I read my entry the screenwriter turned studio exec started lauching f-bombs in a kind of Texas oil barrow drawl. Needless to say I was shocked -- but I kept my cool and dutifully listened to what he had to say.

So in the theme of myth busting, does this brand of studio exec really exist? And how much of "putting a writer in his/her place," can a writer expect to experience?

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Caroline]

Really good stuff, Billy.

I'll just say this. In every job I've had, in and out of the industry, there are people who excel at their jobs and go the extra mile, people who do what they are told or expected to, and those that slack and try to fly under the radar. This applies equally to execs. A good one is worth their weight in gold and it isn't about you or him or the credit, it's about the work and ultimately what is ending up on the page and the screen. So try giving your exec the benefit of the doubt, try to believe that if you look good, they do too, and that if you let them, they might really want to be on your team.

[Paul Lacques]

On the money, Mernit-meister! For further evidence check out any number of "director's cut" DVDs. ZZZzzzz . . .

[Mystery Man]

I felt a gazillion reactions to this post. (I loved it.) I'll narrow the reactions down to 3:

1 - much of the blame for the sorry state of today's films should be layed squarely on the screenwriters.

2 - in my circle of writer friends, we've been reading and reviewing each other's stories for so many years now that we're extremely familiar with both sides of giving AND receiving notes. Many of them have moved on to screenwriting careers. They all, without exception, have enjoyed great healthy working relationships with producers because they're not only so completely accustomed to criticism and notes, they LOVE GOOD NOTES, they'll keep their cool if they're told something completely ridiculous, and if they disagree with a note, they're capable of articulating what it is they're trying to accomplish so that there's an open discussion about that aspect of the story. And their movies have been better for it. I also believe that, thanks to sites like TriggerStreet, the next generation of screenwriters will be a much more engaging, dynamic group than the old guard, because they will bring with them years of experience in receiving criticism, writing endless revisions, and mastering the craft BEFORE they ever talk to a studio. And therefore, I also believe that a new, golden age of cinema is ahead of us.

3 - not every studio is lucky enough to have Billy Mernit offering sensational notes. I've never worked with you before. And ya know, I've become so curious about how good your notes are that when I finish my next script, I may very well plunk down the $500 or whatever just to see what the Billy Mernit experience is all about.

-MM

[debbieb]

Thanks for another great post Billy!

Are there any female screenwriters in the "closer" group?

What about female/male cowriting teams?

If not, do you think a female could make it to this "closer" group?

Thanks for giving us the view from both sides!

Writer hugs all,

Debbie

[Dave]

Any man who likes Jessica Alba has to do worse than trash a myth before I wont talk to him.

I'd rather know the truth than be influenced by myths. I think the thing is the dumb studio notes make great entertainment. E! Notes coming soon Thursday afternoons when all screenwriters are strung out on Starbucks. Kindly brought to you by Starbucks and Kinko's and of course, hosted by the highly experience screenwriter Ryan Seacrest. Did I miss anything?
cheers
Dave

[MaryAn]

MM, MUCH of the blame for the sorry state of today's films should be layed squarely on the screenwriters? Ouch. To the degree that writers need to grow a pair and stop selling out just to sell maybe. Make no mistake that while there are many a fine exec out there, control still lies in the wallet, not the pen.

[MaryAn]

I.e...those who fund have the power.

[Frank Conniff]

Billy -- I enjoyed your comments about how wonderful development executives are, but in your next draft I think you need to raise the stakes and make the protagonist more likeable.

[Mystery Man]

Hey MaryAn, yeah, I honestly believe that. You can make a great film from a good script. You can even screw up and make a bad film from a good script. But you can never make a good film from a bad script. I think McKee is right when he says that we're really seeing films being made from the best scripts that are out there right now, and thus, much of the blame should fall on the screenwriters.

It's really sad. There are so many great people who are capable of accomplishing great things, but more often than not, I view most films as lost opportunities for real greatness because the script pulled the rug out from underneath all that wonderful talent.

-MM

[Brookelina]

I think it's quite funny that David Fincher is complaining about studio executives. Considering Se7en and Fight Club, I'd say the executives have pretty much given him free reign with his vision.

Let's end the movie with her head in a box! Awesome!

[MaryAn]

Sorry, MM, but a statement that generalized is disconcerting.

Screenwriters have no control over budget, distribution, production, release dates, casting, directing, set development and a whole host of other gigantic components that make up the overall quality and success of a film.

Even IF writers always maintained full editing control of their stories and were always on the set to protect the integrity of the screenplay once it left their hands, which of course we all know know isn't the case, what makes you think writers aren't writing quality stuff? BORAT was nominated for an OSCAR for crying out loud!!

We live in a consumer driven society. Filmmakers make what the consumer will pay to see. You want to point a finger at the sorry state of films? Point it at the people carrying the wallets. Point it at the people who buy the tickets and the studios who make the films. Point at the crappy theaters and the lack of ushers that make people stay home and wait for DVD's. Point at anything you want, but making the writers shoulder the blame? On the rare occasion, perhaps, but "much" you say? I don't think so.

Studios used to make character driven films and if that's what the consumer wants to see then films like Little Miss Sunshine will move out of the indys and into the studios again.

I hope it happens. But if it doesn't, DON'T BLAME THE WRITERS!

[Patty]

What a provocative post! All sorts of questions come to my mind. Are we just getting what we pay for? Are we the consumers to blame for all the "with a vengeance" sequels? I notice there are two ways a new movie is touted: by how many millions it made in the first and then subsequent weekends and then also how many reviewers were taken with it. (I do look at all those shaded moons, and know they influence me to at least consider the movie.) I would be curious to know how much the two overlap--and whether people 10 years from now will be watching today's so-called blockbusters. But about your main thesis...If the director does not seem to have been present, or the actors don't have a clue, I suppose that falls in the lap of the executives? What a huge collaborative effort a film is. The intention will be realized only if every single person involved is on board and has absolute integrity. Doesn't the whole effort begin--and end--with the writer? Who is not writing for the page, but for that screen...Helps if that writer can walk on water.

[Mystery Man]

Hehehe...

Great post, MaryAn. I have no complaints about what you wrote, except the "don't blame the writer" part. You assume that all screenwriters actually care about the "integrity" of their scripts. Many of them don't. Some should be called "crooks." They're hacks looking to make big bucks and they don't truly care about the craft or the "integrity" of screenwriting for that matter. We have our own fair share of wolves in our flocks, and they are actively working in Hollywood. I'd love to name names, but I won't. Of course, it could be said "blame the studios" and the people with wallets for hiring them. They can get conned like everyone else in the biz, and they don't want to spend another six figures on another writer to fix it. So they just go with what they have.

By the way, Billy, I saw "Zodiac" over the weekend. I wouldn't have minded the almost 3 hours of intense exposition if it led to something really great, but it didn't. The movie ended with an anti-climactic third act and "reasonable speculation" about who the killer was. File that one under "BFD."

The studio was right.

-MM

[Miriam Paschal]

Right now I'm working with a fellow Triggerstreet member whose dream is film-making, not so much writing. He's been rubbing shoulders with the writers and I've ended up writing 3 scripts for him of varying quality, all based on his ideas.

We've been looking for that great first project, and we think we've found it. It needs to be a great story with great characters that can overcome a very low budget and unknown actors.

It's been a GREAT experience working with the guy who wants to film my words, and I've been trying to be very responsive to every single request of his. He, for his part, is very open to hearing my advice that this or that idea won't serve the story or the characters, but he's also given me notes that have prevented me from making some basic mistakes.

We had one scene during the first act (set-up) that he didn't like. So I went back and re-wrote it several times and he kept giving me notes and I re-wrote it and gave him more notes and it finally became something that is really meaningful.

Another scene at the end of the second act was scrutinized just as hard. His input showed me a better twist to the scene AND that I was allowing my character to be moved by external forces when he should have been moved by internal forces. He needed to make the decision himself, not let the other person make it for him.

Kudos to my director for guiding me through this process. Our first review was all praise and no criticism.

Of course, I have yet to receive Mystery Man's review.

[MaryAn]

MM, I'm not assuming "all screenwriters" do anything. I haven't met all screenwriters so I wouldn't make an absolute assumption like that. I am, however, okay with your statement that "some" writers have no integrity and that "many" are crooks or hacks because I feel certain that you've met some who don't and many who are.

[Eddie]

McKee's a joke, MM.

Nice post, Billy.

[mernitman]

EC: Generally, the entire industry "puts the writer in his/her place" by continually underplaying the vital importance of the screenplay in the moviemaking process... if certain execs add specific insult to general injury, that's not wholly surprising.

Caroline: Absolutely.

Lacquesman: Yes, indeed -- I believe Oliver Stone's 4th cut of ALEXANDER will shortly take the place of Ambien as the sleep narcotic of choice.

MM: The Trigger Street paradigm sounds ideal. And re: consults, I look forward to the pleasure.

Debbie: I wish there WAS a famous female Closer. To my knowledge, Nora Ephron has come closest to closer as a comedy fixer...

Dave: No, but you're giving me great material for my next nightmare.

Frank, you Philistine! I'm taking a walk on this project, or as someone else once said (before donning a wig to act in the soaps): "Not with ME as Tolstoy!"

Brookeleenster: More awesome would be the head of Joe Eszterhas.

Patty: More writers who can walk on water -- that's what we need.

But seriously, you've nailed it:
the thing is collaboration. Thing is, it can't begin to BE a collaboration until there's a viable writer's draft to bring the project into being.

Miriam: What a great relationship.
That's how it s'posed to be!

MM: Slowly I turn, step by step...

Hi MaryAn! I know you're really having a conversation with MM here, but I'm just waving from the next barstool. Most "dialogues" these days seem to take place between two positions frozen in stone, so I like how you're willing to get off your dime in reasonable time.

Thenkew, Mr. Eddie.

[wcdixon]

Lovely post...

[Laura Reyna]

Great post.

I missed it when 1st written. Found it thru MM's site.

From everything i've read--
1. even talented, experienced pros turn out crappy scripts.

2. Only a handful of writers do everything well: concept, dialogue, structure, set peices, etc... this has lead the the specialized re-writing business where one writer is called in to fix one thing, & another writer is called in to fix another thing.

So, no, not everything that comes out of a particular writer is golden.

Writers have to own up to the fact that we're not perfect, & our scripts aren't always perfect.