Does it matter if my first spec screenplay is high budget????

Ohhh, btw Chads $50K screenplay might have an option on it for a $67M budget, I'll know more tomorrow.
 
Go to any blog or forum page anywhere right now and ask who the best living comic book writer is and I'm betting you'll come back with a resounding 80% saying Brian Michael Bendis, a self-published independent writer who now writes 30% of every single comic book Marvel puts out.
Click to expand...

Pshhh. Maybe 10 years ago Bendis was good. Brubaker's work spanks anything Bendis has put out lately. And best LIVING comic book writer? How about Ennis, Morrison, Moore, Azzarello, Miller, Dini, Loeb, to name just a few?
 
odonnelly99 said:
Pshhh. Maybe 10 years ago Bendis was good. Brubaker's work spanks anything Bendis has put out lately. And best LIVING comic book writer? How about Ennis, Morrison, Moore, Azzarello, Miller, Dini, Loeb, to name just a few?
Click to expand...

Loeb and Dini are garbage, IMO. (though Dini's work on BtAS was completely progressive for Saturday morning cartoons). And everyone else you mentioned, better or worse, started out the same way as Bendis.

And his Powers and Ultimate Spidey still kick butt.
 
Lt_Col_Wade said:
I' ve watched this thread develop, and while I don't want to prolong this particular part of the discussion, I feel that I have to point a few specific things out.

Most of what you are saying (at least what is claimed as fact) is still patently untrue. Of course, even if you write the absolute magnum opus of screenplays, nothings ever going to come from it if you stay in your log cabin in Montana and do nothing about it, don't send it out, etc.. But if you do send it out, tell people about it, submit it to contests, even from Montana, you sure as heck have a chance of seeing it made. A small chance? Perhaps, but you do have a chance.

I absolutely don't understand why you think that a dog groomers lawn man has a better shot at getting a script made. In what world would a multi-million dollar exec blindly stake their name on that person's work? Speaking as someone who has worked and read for LA production companies, that simply isn't the case. Sure, every once in awhile a submission comes in from someone like this (friend of a friend of a producer), but its almost always crap (and usually gets made fun of) and even on those very rare occaisions when its not absolute crap, it still almost never gets made.

You can claim the contrary for whatever reasoning you have, but let me say this: talent does matter in Hollywood. Whether you're a dog groomers lawn man or a blind submission, talent matters in Hollywood. Want to know why? Because when both of those submissions come in (an unknown, or a friend of a friend), they are going to be read by the same person - an assistant or intern who knows nothing about the background of how that script got on their desk. They only know that they have to read it, and they do. And how does it get off their desk? If it's good. Only way.

That's the way it is for almost any submission that isn't specifically written under assignment, and trust me, a dog groomer's lawn man with no track record is not getting any jobs on assignment. Do some people work through the ranks of the industry and eventually get writing credits even though they aren't the worlds strongest writers? Sure, but thats not what were talking about here. We're talking about spec scripts.



Specifically, what I'm defending is this: Of course you're entitled to which writers you admire, and to advocate and emulate their paths. You're even entitled to lump every single movie studio into one pile you call evil. That's all opinion and we can argue about the merits of art vs. commerce until we're blue in the face.

What you cannot (or should not) do is make claims about what is selling and what is not selling to studios in LA, or whether or not talent matters, as fact because you are obviously not informed on the matter. What you're saying here, other than being flat out wrong, is damaging misinformation that isn't helpful at all to other writers, especially writers still struggling to make it.

From Montana, or LA, you may make it, you may not make it. While knowing people does matter (show me a profession where networking isn't a part of success), it's not the end all and be all. Giving up your current lot to invest in (to the best of my knowledge) non-existant script generating software and become a lawn mower in Hollywood in the hopes of meeting a dog groomer that can pass your pre-canned script on to a client of theirs that happens to be a movie executive doesn't bring you any closer to making a movie. But writing your ass off in Montana and sending that script out to agents, contests, managers does. I'm not saying it's all sunshine and rainbows, but that's that, for better or worse.
Click to expand...

Dude, just...go see Clash of the Titans. Just go see it, then take a minute, contemplate things, ponder the magnificent lack of literary skill that the studios decided to employ on one of the most expensive productions they would put out this year. Just, ya know, think on that, let it soak in, and then come back and tell me again that large studios do not purchase and then produce talentless hack material. Tell me that MOST of their production dollars in a year do not go to the kinds of scripts a friggin sixth grader could write with the help of some random book on screenplay writing and some random formatting software.

There's no argument here. Great writing by the most talented writers, dollar for production dollar, MAKES THE LEAST MONEY. This entire thread is about Mamet. Do ya know how much his movies usually make, despite having star talent? What about Woody Allen?

Come on, man. People are used to ingesting garbage so that's what large studios want to produce for them which makes people want more garbage, et cetera, et cetera. Welcome to McDonalds.

Sure there are exceptions like The Dark Knight, and it only took studios what, 90 YEARS to finally get Batman right???? Seriously? The source material is RIGHT THERE and studios have been making Batman moving pictures since the 20s. We got a pretty nifty interpretation from Burton, but even that was completely destroyed because the studios were afraid of some random idiots saying it was too depressing for kids.

Dude, 90 YEARS!! 90 years and I bet all the while they were making The Dark Knight the studio was like, "Well we completely destroyed the property with Batman and Robin, we certainly can't do any worse"

90 YEARS!!!!

ONE PROPERTY!

Whatever, like I said, go see Clash of the Titans (or for that matter Avatar) and tell me that big studios don't know how to purchase and produce any other kind of writing but hack, lame, idiotic, dumb struck, talentless, boring, trite, uninspired drivel.

I don't blame Walmart for being the anti-christ's toilet seat, I blame all the people who decide every day to eat from off of that toilet seat, and the writers who tell them they should.
 
I'm not arguing how they started out. I'm arguing against your assertion that Bendis is the best living writer. Yeah, Ultimate Spidey is good, but not as good as it used to be. I think he's burned out. Ten years on one title is far too long. Time to move on.
 
odonnelly99 said:
I'm not arguing how they started out. I'm arguing against your assertion that Bendis is the best living writer. Yeah, Ultimate Spidey is good, but not as good as it used to be. I think he's burned out. Ten years on one title is far too long. Time to move on.
Click to expand...

At the risk of high-jacking this thread entirely, no way should he back out of Ultimate Spidey. To me, if Bendis leaves USM, the title should close. The only reason the Ultimate U even matters is because of Bendis.

I really only follow his stuff in Powers and USM (though I did buy all 300 bucks worth of Secret Invasion, ack!), but I don't see any signs of him being "burnt out". He had to handle all of that Ultimatum stuff (not the actual script but the entire premise including the whole Origins backstory) and is still working with that in the latest issues of USM. I like Iceman, The Human Torch, Spiderwoman and Kitty all being mainstays (especially since Ultimate Xmen sucked it).

Also, you didn't mention Joss Whedon in your line-up. He's been doing a great job exec producing and sometimes-writing season eight of Buffy.

Now, for a list of my demands....
 
Chamber005 said:
Dude, 90 YEARS!! 90 years and I bet all the while they were making The Dark Knight the studio was like, "Well we completely destroyed the property with Batman and Robin, we certainly can't do any worse"

90 YEARS!!!!
Click to expand...


I think Aristophanes was the one to bring the bat to a dramatic representation, at least mention of a bat...

So, it has taken Hollywood, about 2400 years to 'get it right'...

Of course there are some who don't particularlly like the neo-realistic Batman, and prefer such gaudy representations, as "Batman Forever"(1995). I especially liked Harvey Dent and his two henchwomen... "Dark Knight"'s Harvey Dent was just plain flat... and not even two sided flat...
 
Last edited:
Chamber: your entire post has nothing to do with what I pointed out. Clash of the Titans was not a script that was bought on spec - it was a property that was developed and written under assignment. Besides, just because summer blockbusters (a genre that is developed and not bought on spec almost 100% of the time) dont have the strongest scripts doesnt mean that all films made by any studio, even all films made by major studios, are based on crap material - thats just faulty logic. If anything, it only points out the problems in development, not original material.

Scripts get sold by writers, not dog groomers lawn men. Talent does matter. Thats all Im saying.
 
Last edited:
Screenplay writing isn't rock climbing -- when you make a mistake, you don't fall off a mountain, you can still go back and fix your mistake before you ever call the screenplay "done."
Click to expand...
Good one.
 
No worries, your amazing abilities of logic and reasoning are sooo bad. Not to mention your fact checking. It's like a gleaming beacon of lazers cutting through the dark mists of modern commercial culture bringing light back to humanity.
 
Fact checking,. Look, change -- all things against the staus quo, everything a writer should exist for, is everything that a business cannot thrive on. I'm in business, succesfully. I understand. Status quo = profits. But artistry must equal uncomforability. That's all I'm saying. Profit and artistry can (almost) never co-exist.

If you'd like me to cite some examples of how they CAN co-exist I guess I'd give you The Matrix and American Beauty. But those are the rarities.
 
many times, this thread amused me, mostly because of arguments between writers.

....is there even an argument?

...writers can always argue, because they can always write arguments. god damn vicious circle.
 
Writer are the best for telling you to shut the F up in a thread, you always know who your dealing with btw.
 
Homer made a lot of really good points, that was a great post back on page 5...

From all of the screenwriting books I read, one of them I forget its name but it had basically a Q&A form with a bunch of known screenwriters, they all agreed you must be in Los Angeles to be a successful screenwriter, at some point. It's not that you have to live here forever, but they all said this is where the action is, if you want to make it, you will move to Los Angeles. Whether you move here when you just start to get attention, or you move here to start your career, whatever, your odds are simply way better being in the midst of the action. That makes sense to me, but I admit I thought it was surprising at first because I figured, well, it's just writing, you can send it from anywhere.

But what is lost in that thought is that life and business is a lot about human connections. Sure, I can keep my friendships going with all my friends who don't live in L.A., which is basically all of them, but it's not as much fun or as easy as when we're in the same town, actually hanging out in person. Business is the same. People enjoy meeting with someone in person and having that face-to-face connection, which despite all of the amazing technology we have still can't really be replaced.

Another good point was made that if your goal is to get a script made, budget is important simply because of the number of studios / production companies that can deal with a film at different budgets. I know that if I write a good story that can be made for $100,000 to $500,000, it's not that hard finding investor financing for a project like that with a great script. I'm not saying it's easy, but it can absolutely be financed with private equity and done through any number of thousands of small production companies out there. It'll be made if someone wants it made. If it can be done for $5 million, it still has a fairly broad variety of production companies that could possibly tackle it. The company I'm co-producing my feature with has done indie films up to $10M and is working on financing several well more than that now, and they're not a studio like Warner Bros. or Universal or Fox. But when you get up to $100 million budget, there are only a few studios that can pull off that kind of project, and we can all name them in 5 seconds ;) So of course your options become a lot narrower.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top