The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood (24 page)

Even the Writers Guild is happy about all the writers employed—the wealth is spread, there are fewer unemployed writers, and they’re all being paid handsome sums to fuck one another’s work over.

Oh yeah? Then how come
Premiere
magazine named me one of the one hundred most powerful people in Hollywood?

S
creenwriter William Goldman: “There are still a few lost souls who actually think that screenwriters have some authority. If only it were so. We have none. … There are lots of reasons. We’re not, most of us, so terrifically talented. And we’re so easy to fire—at least half of the people in positions of authority in Hollywood know the alphabet. You don’t fire composers often; editors are safe, too. But it’s not unusual, despite what you see on the credits, to have two or three or eight writers write on one film script. As well as being inept and disposable, we’re also, truly, disliked. Why? Because you can’t make a movie without us. If it’s going to be a decent flick, it better have a decent screenplay; directors know this and it drives them maaaaaaad.”

Don’t sprinkle their piss
.

I
f, that is to say, the studio execs agree to kill the script they are asking you to rewrite.

If you can create a whole new plot with all new characters, then it’s probably worth putting your creativity to work on the rewrite.

Otherwise, you’re just being asked to pour the director’s or the producer’s or the studio execs’ piss into the stew.

They piss into the bottle, hand it to you, and let you sprinkle it into the script however you want. But it’s still piss—and it’s
their
piss.

The Robert Towne award goes to
…

I
may not be the slickest screenwriter in Hollywood,” said William Faulkner, “but I know how to fix a screenplay.”

Faulkner rewrote Hemingway
.

E
verybody out here rewrites everybody else,” said screenwriter William Faulkner as he adapted Ernest Hemingway’s
To Have and Have Not
. Ironically, adapting the Hemingway book was Faulkner’s greatest success as a screenwriter.

But I didn’t rewrite Gore Vidal
.

V
idal did an adaptation of Lucian Truscott’s novel
Dress Gray,
which Paramount wanted me to rewrite.

I tried to explain to the Paramount executives that I wasn’t comfortable rewriting Gore Vidal, but they didn’t understand why not.

I didn’t rewrite William Goldman, either, but I should have
.

B
ill wrote an original script about Ross Perot that ABC Films wanted me to rewrite.

I tried to explain to the ABC executives that I didn’t feel comfortable rewriting Bill Goldman, but they didn’t get it.

Time to retire, Bill
.

W
illiam Goldman: “No matter how much shit you may have heard or read, movies are finally only about one thing: THE NEXT JOB.”

He even capitalized those three words in a book to make sure you got the point.

It’s time to get off our hands and knees
.

N
orman Mailer, writing to a friend in 1949: “We found us a house high above Sunset Boulevard in the hills west of Hollywood, and can see half of that horrible city that lies below us … the writers are walking around on their hands and knees, not knowing where their next job is coming from.”

Sometimes you won’t get any credit for what you’ve written
.

D
irector Phillip Noyce: “Steve Zaillian wrote the script of
Patriot Games
that we shot. Uncredited, because the Writers Guild decides on credits, and they usually give it to the original writer. In this case, two of them: Peter Iliff and Donald Stewart—the guy who wrote
Missing
. Their names are on the credits, but eighty percent of what was shot was written by Steve Zaillian.”

Don’t break Milton Berle’s rule
.

U
ncle Miltie said, “Don’t tell jokes only the band laughs at.”

I wrote a whole movie filled with esoteric in-jokes about the movie industry—
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn
.

No one understood the in-jokes. And no one went to see the movie.

Write an animated film
.

S
creenwriter Nicholas Kazan (
Reversal of Fortune
): “
The Incredibles
was the wittiest film of the year, as witty as
Sideways
and maybe more. There was a degree of verbal and visual wit that you just don’t see anymore, that we saw in the films of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s—the good ones. They had a lot of great writers then who were allowed to write, and today there are a lot of brilliant writers who are not allowed to write—no one is interested in wit, except in animation.”

Bill Goldman should have been a mailman
.

G
oldman: “In twenty-five years of movie work, I’ve never been late. I do crazy things to make that happen sometimes—once I called in and said I’d be late and asked for a week’s extension, got it, then went into sleepless overdrive and turned the screenplay in by the original date. The work may stink, but it arrives.”

You’re not doing slave labor, are you?

S
creenwriter James L. White (
Ray
): “When I started working on the
Ray
script with director Taylor Hackford, our workday would start at 9:00 A.M. and sometimes go until two in the morning. I was doing that seven days a week! We would go for stretches of a month and a half or two months, and in the last days I can recall two occasions where we would actually be up straight through for twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”

When all else fails, those jealous of you will say your script doesn’t “play.”

T
hat’s after you’ve sold it for a lot of money and the studio is sending it around to directors and actors.

Some midlevel studio exec you’ve never met—but who is pushing some other script to be made—will say “Sure, it reads like it’s brilliant. It makes sense why we bought it, but my gut is that it doesn’t play.”

If everyone passes on your script, he will say, “See, I told you so.”

If it gets made and fails, he’ll say, “I kept trying to tell all of you.”

A successful screenwriter’s writing schedule
…

S
creenwriters John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion liked writing at the exclusive Kahala Hilton Hotel on Oahu.

Dunne: “Our schedule did not vary: a sunrise swim, breakfast, then four hours’ work in the suite; an hour for lunch, then two more hours’ work in the afternoon; another swim, then three more hours’ work before a late dinner. After dinner, we went over the day’s pages, then printed out a schedule of scenes for the next day.”

The way to celebrate an option
…

S
creenwriter/novelist James Brown: “When an independent producer in New York options my third novel, I am excited but cautious. … I run out and buy an eight-ball of methamphetamine because it is cheaper and stronger than coke, a few cases of Budweiser, a half gallon of Smirnoff, Dewar’s scotch, and Seagram’s 7 and invite my friends over for a party. But most of them are busy for some reason and what few do show end up leaving early when I make an ass of myself.”

If you make enough money to buy two houses, at least don’t build your own road to reach them
.

S
creenwriter Albert Maltz on his friend and fellow screenwriter Dalton Trumbo: “There is no question that Trumbo had talent for much greater literary work than the film work that he produced. The reason he never did what he could have done was this obsession of his with making money and living in a grand manner. I never knew what made it necessary for him to have both a house on Beverly Drive and a ranch that he had to build a road to get to. It kept him writing, and writing, and writing, though. Why
do
writers write, after all?”

The deal every screenwriter should aspire to
…

Y
es, I did sell a four-page outline for
4 million, but …

Paddy Chayefsky made a deal with a studio, which paid him
1 million for the script. They had a year to make the movie.

If production didn’t start within the year, Paddy could sell his script elsewhere … and keep the million dollars.

Don’t think twice, it’s all right
.

S
creenwriter William Faulkner, writing from Los Angeles to his New York agent: “Things are going pretty well. My father died last month, and what with getting his affairs straightened out and getting Hollywood out of my system by means of a judicious course of alcohol in mild though sufficient quantities before and after eating and lying down and getting up, I am not working now.”

Maybe it’s not all right
.

A
t a script meeting with director Howard Hawks, screenwriter William Faulkner, who had been seen sipping earlier on a silver flask, said, “This is what I think, Howard.”

He smiled, raised his hand to make a point, fell on his face, and passed out.

Bob Towne is a big William Faulkner fan
.

W
hile waiting for executives Barry Diller and Michael Eisner to decide whether they would release his movie
Personal Best,
Bob Towne kept pouring scotch for himself from Diller’s bar. He passed out on the couch before they came back into the room.

P
ERK OF SUCCESS:
A NEW PURDY SHOTGUN

Screenwriter/director John Milius always demanded a brandnew Purdy shotgun as part of his screenwriting deals
.

He told friends he needed the guns so he could arm a battalion in case it was necessary to overcome the government. Every studio making a deal with him complied. His friends say Milius could now arm a small army
.

Words to live by
…

P
addy Chayefsky’s last words: “I tried. I really tried.”

Don’t buy a Hungarian dog
.

R
obert Towne did—a rare komondor, so big that it wouldn’t fit into the back of his car. So Towne let the dog ride next to him in the front seat and put his wife in the back. Then he and his wife got divorced.