How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

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  • #46
    Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

    Originally posted by SBScript View Post
    I detest Nancy Myers' movies.
    Can you say why you detest them?

    Are you a script reader? (I am still getting used to placing all the names sorry if I am mixing you up with someone else).

    Thanks.

    Comment


    • #47
      Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

      I honestly don't think there's a single person on this board who wouldn't use a contact/relationship to get on if they had one. I've been a dumb fu$k in the past and let my pride get in the way, and let good contacts slip through my fingers because of it.

      I don't begrude people getting a foot up if it's available, it's hard enough to get on in this business and time will tell if they're worth their Edwin A. salt.

      I would absolutely use any contacts I make now if I thought it would help. In a heartbeat.

      If only Scorsese had met my mum...
      @MacBullitt

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      • #48
        Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

        Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
        It just doesn't work that way. No one's handing out greenlights as favors.
        Hey Jeff: good to see you're still doing Missionary Work. A Plaque in Heaven awaits.

        Would it be fair to say that at one time, a Superstar Actor or Director might have been able to get one -- one -- Expensive Passion Project* Greenlight as a favor, to keep them happily making hits for their main Studio, but that those days are over, and no one can get an expensive passion project Greenlit anymore?

        (Projects like Mel Gibson's Hamlet, John Travolta's Battlefield Earth, maybe M. Knight's Lady in the Water)

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        • #49
          Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

          Originally posted by Travis Fields View Post
          Hey Jeff: good to see you're still doing Missionary Work. A Plaque in Heaven awaits.

          Would it be fair to say that at one time, a Superstar Actor or Director might have been able to get one -- one -- Expensive Passion Project* Greenlight as a favor, to keep them happily making hits for their main Studio, but that those days are over, and no one can get an expensive passion project Greenlit anymore?

          (Projects like Mel Gibson's Hamlet, John Travolta's Battlefield Earth, maybe M. Knight's Lady in the Water)
          Even Lady in the Water and Battlefield Earth both had serious problems being made. Warners wanted to get into bed after Disney said no with Night and Franchise wanted to get into bed with anyone!

          I thought Hamlet began with Zeffirelli and then Gibson came aboard?
          Last edited by Twofingeredtypist; 06-28-2010, 03:42 PM.
          @MacBullitt

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          • #50
            Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

            Originally posted by mariot View Post
            Can you say why you detest them?

            Are you a script reader? (I am still getting used to placing all the names sorry if I am mixing you up with someone else).

            Thanks.
            Her "war between the sexes" schtick is vacuous, forced, and retro in the worst possible way. Her characters are boring navel gazers typically living in fantasy worlds that say everything there is to say about Nancy's desires in life, and nothing about the way that most people live. I can't stand her vaseline smeared directorial aesthetic with its micro managed world of furniture and houses and high end garbage. She put Steve Martin in probably the least funny role of his life and thought it was genius.

            Comment


            • #51
              Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

              Originally posted by Travis Fields View Post
              Would it be fair to say that at one time, a Superstar Actor or Director might have been able to get one -- one -- Expensive Passion Project* Greenlight as a favor, to keep them happily making hits for their main Studio, but that those days are over, and no one can get an expensive passion project Greenlit anymore?
              The days aren't over, but it's probably harder than it was.

              If a superstar actor wants to make a movie, and there's a way to make it for a reasonable budget, he or she will probably get it made.

              Comment


              • #52
                Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                Couple of comments ...

                I thought that Martell's remarks (first page for any who did not see them) were right on the money.

                I happened to see the last half or so of "Lars and the Real Girl" on cable not long ago. I am a pretty tough critic, as in I really do not like much of anything that I see or read. But I was fascinated by that film. It somehow found the right spine for all the things that it was trying to do. Amazing, really, how well it succeeded in turning a premise that was at once laughable and slightly revolting into something touching and gripping.

                "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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                • #53
                  Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                  Originally posted by ComicBent View Post
                  Couple of comments ...

                  I thought that Martell's remarks (first page for any who did not see them) were right on the money.

                  I happened to see the last half or so of "Lars and the Real Girl" on cable not long ago. I am a pretty tough critic, as in I really do not like much of anything that I see or read. But I was fascinated by that film. It somehow found the right spine for all the things that it was trying to do. Amazing, really, how well it succeeded in turning a premise that was at once laughable and slightly revolting into something touching and gripping.
                  Lars and the Real Girl is a miracle of film making. IMO, anyone who doesn't understand the high wire act that she pulled off simply does not understand screenwriting. It was genius.

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                    I wonder who they're going to get to write Top Gun 2.

                    http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/06/28...ched-about-it/
                    Nobody's perfect.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                      Nepotism has been discussed a lot around here recently... and some people just need to get over it!

                      The vast majority of people in show business didn't know anyone in the business before they started out.

                      And even if they got a leg up by coming from a show business family or whatever, these people still needed a fair amount of talent and ambition/hustle to succeed. No one gets a free pass.

                      I personally don't begrudge anybody anything. If they came from a show biz family or went to highschool with someone who got successful or they got to know the right people along the way... I really don't care. It has nothing to do with me.

                      People need to stop obsessing about piddly shlt like this (it really serves no purpose) & go about getting their own "connections" in order to further their own careers.


                      "Trust your stuff." -- Dave Righetti, Pitching Coach

                      ( Formerly "stvnlra" )

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                        Originally posted by kintnerboy View Post
                        You know what? You've turned me around.

                        Sophia Coppola won an Oscar for a 70 page script because it was great! It's studied in film schools the world over. And Lost In Translation would have been made no matter who her father was.
                        I don't know if LIT would have gotten made anyway. I love the film, but that's the kind of project which needs somebody with mojo to push it if its going to happen. Was that person FFC? Was it Bill Murray who read the script and loved it? I don't know.

                        But clearly, it's a film which spoke to large numbers of people, so it's a big dubious for anyone to hold it up as an example of nepotism. Interesting, her brother, Roman, wrote and directed what I consider to be a great little film ... it didn't get the same sort of traction, and he hasn't done another one since.

                        A friend of mine pointed something out to me. I'm paraphrasing him.

                        THere are multiple paths into hollywood.
                        Some people get a break because of who they know.
                        Some people get random luck despite being untalented.
                        Some people are truly talented and work their way in on merit.

                        Why, my friend asked, do aspiring writers focus so much on those first two paths, rather than the third?

                        More people break in on that third path than the other two combined, by far. And yet ... everybody always wants to assume it's something other than a guy's talent which got him to the table.

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                          Two words: Sexual Favors.

                          I have tried this route, but maybe I should offer *not* to have sex with them if they buy my script?

                          Someone mentioned COLLATERAL earlier in the thread - that was a spec by an Australian writer who had written some stuff down under but that was his first US sale... made into a movie starring Tom Cruise directed by Michael Mann. How it happens - someone sells a spec, it gets made.

                          - Bill
                          Free Script Tips:
                          http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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                          • #58
                            Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                            Just to recap-

                            The OP asked a legitimate question about how a ‘first time’ screenwriter got the cherry gig of writing a Tom Cruise would be summer tent pole.

                            Then Haskil Adkins and Fortean helpfully and correctly pointed out that the writer went to school with John Cusack and Steve Pink. Simple as that. Case closed.

                            Then Ronaldinho chimes in to tell them that Knight And Day was probably not writer Patrick O’Neill’s first gig. In fact he’s been paying his dues writing for 8 years. --Although he didn’t bother to check, I did, and, what a shock, O’Neill got his start writing for Knight And Day producer (and high school buddy) Steve Pink on a show called Dead Last.

                            Ronaldinho then says “Steve Pink went to school with a lot of people. Knowing him is not sufficient for getting a script made.”

                            It’s true, Steve Pink did go to school with a lot of people:

                            Patrick O’Neill, screenwriter, Knight And Day (also actor in a bunch of Cusack films long before becoming a writer)

                            John Cusack, world famous actor/director/writer/producer

                            DV DeVincentis, screenwriter, Grosse Point Blank, High Fidelity

                            and probably some other people who I didn't have time to find out.

                            Obviously, it is just a random odd coincidence that the 4 people who were friends in high school all started writing and producing material that was worthy of succeeding purely on it’s own merit at exactly the same time!

                            Not to pick on Ronaldinho alone, there were lots of posts from people (wrongly) insisting that “no one bought this guy’s script because he was someone’s roommate” and “no one gets a free pass” and other such stuff, despite not knowing anything about the situation.

                            It got my dander up so I posted that Nancy Oliver struggled unsuccessfully for years to get into the business and then turned to an old college friend for help (again, not that’s she’s not a good writer, but that being a good writer sometimes is not enough).

                            Suddenly, the thread grew by 4 pages. People talking about how Lars and The Real Girl was “on the Black List” and “nominated for an academy award” and ‘a miracle of filmmaking’ and earnestly defending it (as if anyone had attacked it) and then suddenly there’s this whole digression into Towelhead and Sophia Coppola and Nancy Meyers and nepotism (some of which was my fault), and lots of things that had nothing to do with the original post.

                            The simple truth is, back in the 80’s there were 4 guys who all went to high school together and were friends and have spent the last 25 years working together and helping each other (and it seems like they're having a blast- Grosse Pointe Blank was inspired by their 10 year HS reunion, and most recently, Hot Tub Time Machine by their all turning 40-ish). The odds that all four would have succeeded in Hollywood separately are probably 1.000.000.000 to 1 or something (math’s not my thing). So lets put this discussion to bed.
                            Last edited by kintnerboy; 06-29-2010, 04:51 PM.

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                            • #59
                              Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                              Cronyism exists, but there's no reason to poison one's brain with that fact.
                              Last edited by Ulysses; 06-30-2010, 12:00 AM.
                              "Ecco il grande Zampano!"

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Re: How did a "first time" screenwriter end up writing a Tom Cruise movie?

                                Congratulations kb - you've cracked the case that friends sometimes like to work together, even when they meet at an early age, before they've proven themselves professionally.

                                (I always thought that Ethan Coen should dump Joel Coen and find a better writing and directing partner. It's a weird coincidence that the best person just happened to be born into the same family, don't you think?)

                                The truth is: Tom Cruise deciding to do Knight And Day (which had long been out of the original writer's hands) had nothing to do with who went to college with whom. And his commitment is what got that movie made.

                                And Lars didn't go into production because the writer went to college with Alan Ball, as you claimed.

                                Contacts can help you, but you'd better deliver.

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