playing cards, 98 percent would choose cards. (Not me, babe.)
If they say it won’t work, it probably will .
I was once told by a studio head that movies set on farms didn’t sell because “dirt doesn’t sell.” Then the film Witness came out. It was set on a farm and it was a smash.
Paddy Chayefsky was told by a studio head that movies “with funeral scenes” don’t sell. Then The Godfather came out. It had a funeral scene and it was a smash.
I was told by another studio exec that “courtroom dramas don’t sell.” I wrote Jagged Edge and it was the number-one movie in America for more than a month.
The truth is that anything that is well written, well directed, and well acted can sell.
Bull-whip every Hollywood astrologer you meet .
A uthor Hunter S. Thompson: “There is a ghastly political factor in doing any business with Hollywood. You can’t get by without five or six personal staff people—and at least one personal astrologer. I have always hated astrologers, and I like to have sport with them. They are harmless quacks in the main, but some of them get ambitious and turn predatory, especially in Hollywood. In Venice Beach, I ran into a man who claimed to be Johnny Depp’s astrologer. … I took his card and examined it carefully a moment, as if I couldn’t quite read the small print. But I knew he was lying, so I leaned toward him and slapped him sharply in the nuts. Not hard, but very quickly, using the back of my hand and my fingers like a bull whip, yet very discreetly. He let out a hiss and went limp, unable to speak or breathe.”
P ERK OF SUCCESS: YOU, TOO, CAN WIN AN INDUSTRY AWARD
Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, in a note to himself: “Develop the idea that no moderately competent hack in any field of Hollywood endeavor can spend ten years in the community without winning a wide assortment of plaques, medals, and certificates of merit.”
Leave a message at 1:30 P.M ., during lunch hour, on his answering machine .
D o this when you don’t want to talk to that studio executive but want to make it appear that you do.
But if you get a message back on your answering machine during lunch hour, it might really be time to talk to him.
You’re not going to be in The Dictionary of Film.
A magazine wanted to do a profile of me and assigned the job to David Thomson, the critic and author of A Biographical Dictionary of Film , recognized as a classic film book.
I had lunch with David Thomson, a pleasant man, at the Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, California, and told him I wasn’t going to let him do the article.
He seemed shocked. “But why not?”
I said, “Because I’ve read your dictionary and there are hardly any screenwriters in it; there are all kinds of actors, directors, producers, even cinematographers, but not one screenwriter.”
David Thomson said, “What does that have to do with anything? Just because you’re a screenwriter doesn’t mean I can’t write about you in a publication.”
I said, “But you obviously don’t believe very many screenwriters are important enough to include in A Biographical Dictionary of Film .”
“No,” he said calmly, “I don’t suppose I do.”
So I didn’t let him do the interview—enjoying the fact that I, a lowly screenwriter, was denying him a paycheck.
Keep your name out of the trades .
M ike Medavoy: “I told my writer clients to ignore the bigsplash announcements in the trades about some unknown writer getting big bucks for a script, because often these guys are never heard from again.”
Don’t be anybody’s N word .
A ccording to screenwriter Buck Henry, screenwriter Robert Towne became “Warren Beatty’s nigger.”
Don’t take yourself seriously .
P roducer Gerry Ayres: “Bob Towne would love to work for money on rewrites on which he got no credit, and would do it quickly. Over three weeks, he’d have a whole new script ready. But something that had his name on it would become all involved in the neurosis of
If they say it won’t work, it probably will .
I was once told by a studio head that movies set on farms didn’t sell because “dirt doesn’t sell.” Then the film Witness came out. It was set on a farm and it was a smash.
Paddy Chayefsky was told by a studio head that movies “with funeral scenes” don’t sell. Then The Godfather came out. It had a funeral scene and it was a smash.
I was told by another studio exec that “courtroom dramas don’t sell.” I wrote Jagged Edge and it was the number-one movie in America for more than a month.
The truth is that anything that is well written, well directed, and well acted can sell.
Bull-whip every Hollywood astrologer you meet .
A uthor Hunter S. Thompson: “There is a ghastly political factor in doing any business with Hollywood. You can’t get by without five or six personal staff people—and at least one personal astrologer. I have always hated astrologers, and I like to have sport with them. They are harmless quacks in the main, but some of them get ambitious and turn predatory, especially in Hollywood. In Venice Beach, I ran into a man who claimed to be Johnny Depp’s astrologer. … I took his card and examined it carefully a moment, as if I couldn’t quite read the small print. But I knew he was lying, so I leaned toward him and slapped him sharply in the nuts. Not hard, but very quickly, using the back of my hand and my fingers like a bull whip, yet very discreetly. He let out a hiss and went limp, unable to speak or breathe.”
P ERK OF SUCCESS: YOU, TOO, CAN WIN AN INDUSTRY AWARD
Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, in a note to himself: “Develop the idea that no moderately competent hack in any field of Hollywood endeavor can spend ten years in the community without winning a wide assortment of plaques, medals, and certificates of merit.”
Leave a message at 1:30 P.M ., during lunch hour, on his answering machine .
D o this when you don’t want to talk to that studio executive but want to make it appear that you do.
But if you get a message back on your answering machine during lunch hour, it might really be time to talk to him.
You’re not going to be in The Dictionary of Film.
A magazine wanted to do a profile of me and assigned the job to David Thomson, the critic and author of A Biographical Dictionary of Film , recognized as a classic film book.
I had lunch with David Thomson, a pleasant man, at the Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, California, and told him I wasn’t going to let him do the article.
He seemed shocked. “But why not?”
I said, “Because I’ve read your dictionary and there are hardly any screenwriters in it; there are all kinds of actors, directors, producers, even cinematographers, but not one screenwriter.”
David Thomson said, “What does that have to do with anything? Just because you’re a screenwriter doesn’t mean I can’t write about you in a publication.”
I said, “But you obviously don’t believe very many screenwriters are important enough to include in A Biographical Dictionary of Film .”
“No,” he said calmly, “I don’t suppose I do.”
So I didn’t let him do the interview—enjoying the fact that I, a lowly screenwriter, was denying him a paycheck.
Keep your name out of the trades .
M ike Medavoy: “I told my writer clients to ignore the bigsplash announcements in the trades about some unknown writer getting big bucks for a script, because often these guys are never heard from again.”
Don’t be anybody’s N word .
A ccording to screenwriter Buck Henry, screenwriter Robert Towne became “Warren Beatty’s nigger.”
Don’t take yourself seriously .
P roducer Gerry Ayres: “Bob Towne would love to work for money on rewrites on which he got no credit, and would do it quickly. Over three weeks, he’d have a whole new script ready. But something that had his name on it would become all involved in the neurosis of
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