katiemac
07-19-2005, 03:04 AM
I just finished reading an article on the upcoming The Island. Spielberg sent the script, written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, to Michael Bay immediately, who accepted the project within hours.
Spielberg's company then shelled out a million dollars to get the project rolling. The next step was to get rid of Owen because as Bay said, "We worked with Caspian for maybe three, four weeks. It didn't work." So he hired two younger screenwriters to take over and start doctoring the script so it would be as action-packed and Michael Bay-ish as possible.
This doesn't actually surprise me. I'm sure screenwriters get "kicked" off their own scripts all the time. What does, however, is that a company would shell out so much money upfront -- one million dollars -- before the script is even greenlighted, and then hire new writers. They had to show their pages to the powers-that-be every day to make sure it was working in the direction they wanted.
So, obviously, changing screenwriters must happen even more often than I thought originally. Owen is still credited with story and the two new guys nabbed screenwriting credits. It reminds me of a novel-turned-film, where the author gets original story credit, but didn't have a hand in the script.
Out of sheer curiosity, how often do you suppose this does happen? And when it comes to story/screen credit, how would you say the paychecks differ? I'm sure it's interchangeable per movie, but would a production company with a future film in mind be more likely to look at the story credit or the screen credits to hire? Obviously in this case the director and screenwriter had different views so I'm guessing it depends on what they want the final movie to feel like.
By the way, I'm not looking into screenwriting professionally. The article happened to jog a few of these questions.
Spielberg's company then shelled out a million dollars to get the project rolling. The next step was to get rid of Owen because as Bay said, "We worked with Caspian for maybe three, four weeks. It didn't work." So he hired two younger screenwriters to take over and start doctoring the script so it would be as action-packed and Michael Bay-ish as possible.
This doesn't actually surprise me. I'm sure screenwriters get "kicked" off their own scripts all the time. What does, however, is that a company would shell out so much money upfront -- one million dollars -- before the script is even greenlighted, and then hire new writers. They had to show their pages to the powers-that-be every day to make sure it was working in the direction they wanted.
So, obviously, changing screenwriters must happen even more often than I thought originally. Owen is still credited with story and the two new guys nabbed screenwriting credits. It reminds me of a novel-turned-film, where the author gets original story credit, but didn't have a hand in the script.
Out of sheer curiosity, how often do you suppose this does happen? And when it comes to story/screen credit, how would you say the paychecks differ? I'm sure it's interchangeable per movie, but would a production company with a future film in mind be more likely to look at the story credit or the screen credits to hire? Obviously in this case the director and screenwriter had different views so I'm guessing it depends on what they want the final movie to feel like.
By the way, I'm not looking into screenwriting professionally. The article happened to jog a few of these questions.