How much power does a Director have over the screenplay?

I

ICD Films

Well-known member
This is an open question, I have no idea whatsoever... really interested in this subject.

Generally speaking, how much power does the director possess over the screenplay? Dialogue for example... "Nah we don't need all this rabbling, let's just put in a matte painting and be done with it". (?)
 
Well obviously that would differ from one situation to another. Is it Hollywood? Is it indie? Who are the producers? How much power has the production company given the director? How much reputation does the director have amongst the producers? etc, etc, etc... I'd say if it's generally speaking the director would try to change dialogue and anything else before shooting. Dialogue changing on-set would usually be due to the actor not feeling comfortable saying something a certain way (although this should have been cleared up during the table reading). Generally the director, if comfortable with the change, would authorize the slight change in dialogue.
 
Well if it's Tarantino for example, Total Control. Total Control over everything. Also Tarantino pays his A-list Actors Scale.
 
In many situations (perhaps even most) the director of a feature film has almost complete control over what goes into the film, most certainly not excepting the script. In other cases, the producer, key actor(s) or even (rarely) the writer him/herself may have a tighter rein, but I think the former is more often the case. It's the good news and the bad news - the director typically has enormous latitude to make the script better (as in Rob Reiner's contribution to "When Harry Met Sally", for example*), or perhaps just as often to completely screw it up, as Bill Martell so aptly details here:

http://sex-in-a-sub.blogspot.com/2010/05/robbing-from-poor-writer.html

*Re: Reiner - at least I believe this is the case - that RR rewrote much of Nora Ephron's script; most particularly Harry's (Billy Crystal's) dialog, which for my money is some of the best/funniest writing in it. If you look up the film on IMDB, Ephron is the sole credited writer, but if you look at a scan of the script on scriptologist.com:

http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/whenharrymesally.pdf

...you'll see that (Director/Producer) Reiner is also credited (as well as Andrew Scheinman, who was also a Producer).
 
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