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kleinbl00  ·  4019 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Don't Watch "Oblivion"

    I'm really confused by Hollywood screenplay writing. Why do so many movies have shit scripts?

So. Let's say you have a brilliant idea. Let's say you write the perfect script. Let's say everyone you've ever shown it to says it's perfect and needs no changes.

Now let's say "is it so brilliant that it needs no changes before we spend one Hundred MILLION DOLLARS on it?" I'll bet you can find something to tweak. I'll bet everyone else can find something to tweak, too. In fact, I'll bet every person with any authority to tweak is going to tweak, just so they can continue to have the authority to tweak.

So what you end up with is the story that managed to survive being tweaked by every single person who touched it. And oh, by the way, if you refuse to tweak, it's no longer your script.

Screenwriters will literally rewrite lines that don't need rewriting because if they don't rewrite enough lines, they won't get credit. And if they don't get credit, they won't get residuals (money).

Assistants will literally suggest changes that don't need to be changed because they want to remind their bosses that they have a 'fresh look."

Studio heads will greenlight movies their predecessors killed and kill movies their predecessors green-lit just to prove they're studio heads.

Take a script. Throw it on the ground in the middle of the parking lot. Now take out a megaphone and announce that everyone with a designated parking spot (and half the people in general parking) on the Warner Brothers lot are invited to come piss on it.

Everything that hasn't washed away from being pissed on throughout the entire development process (and I AM LEGEND was in "development" from 1979 until 2007) is your script.

There's your movie.