Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

[bjamin]

Re: Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

Not a fan of Max by any means, but damn do I respect his work ethic. Silver spoon or not, the kid keeps the pen to the paper.

[Bunker]

Re: Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

Sure, he goes off on a tangent bemoaning the existing-IP-centric nature of the studio system, but the primary point of his article is: "Studios aren't buying stories, they're buying YOU. And so if you want to stand out, you need to create your own mystique and persona. Like me... Max Landis. Son of John. But that doesn't matter. And if you think it matters, F you. I'm Max Landis."

The piece is self-promotion. And in a weird way, the piece is about why self-promotion is important for screenwriters. And it's almost an apology - "I'm sorry if you think I'm a d-bag, but I need to be a d-bag because it's my schtick and that's how I stand out. I'm Max Landis."

I think he has a very keen understanding of the business side of screenwriting, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's able to propel himself into that Diablo Cody, Charlie Kaufman strata of screenwriters - the ones whose names the general public knows.

[Southern_land]

Re: Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

I've got news for Max. Not only doesn't Hollywood want his (or anyone's) scripts, they don't need them. They could spend the next 50 years just cherry picking their catalogs from the last 100 years and re-making them. Anyone want to take a bet on what year WB re-boots Harry Potter? I'm guessing by 2018.

Oddly enough I watched Peter Jackson on the news last night wondering out loud if he would see a reboot of the rings/hobbit in his lifetime

[sc111]

Re: Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

... I think what Max is complaining about (but really it comes off as whining) is that the giant teat of studio development money is running dry, and the people who used to subsist on options and pitches and assignments (and lunch meetings) are begging for table scraps.

The entire business now runs on a corporate business model -- secure product (scripts) for the lowest wholesale cost possible and slash overhead as deeply as possible.

I say too bad. If you want to be a writer, go write something original. If it's any good, someone will give you money for it. If you don't have anything original to say, perhaps you've set your hopes on the wrong business.

Re: "If you don't have anything original to say ..."

Great point. You've essentially recapped the same thing my creative writing professors used to say, over and over.

Early on, I did get some notice for my specs. No sale or option but the feedback from prodcos on my writing skills was good -- more than once notes said, "Definitely has writing chops."

Now, I've been writing and getting paid for it a long time. I'm sort of indifferent to "praise" about my core writing skills. By now I should be able to craft solid sentences so, to me, such compliments are like telling me, "Definitely has the skills to walk across a room."

It was clear to me what was being said between the lines was: "We love how you write. We don't love what you're writing."

I had forgotten those professors' advice.

I had to admit to myself I was trying to give them what I thought they wanted. I was giving them watered down versions of the themes I wanted to explore. I was pulling punches and playing nice. I was writing "me-too" scripts.

And there was another thing I was doing -- or, more precisely -- failing to do. I was not giving proper respect to the craft itself. I was assuming being a good writer who can write cogently and with a touch of flair was all that was required.

No. It's not. Those skills are a pre-requisite not the be-all, end-all key to success. The skills required to get through the gate is to tell stories only I can tell.

And that's hard. Because it means a writer has to dig deep, walk in the shadowy places of his/her own psyche, and be radically honest about what they find there. And, as hard as it is, as deeply personal as it feels, what we find there is indeed universal to the human condition and will strike a chord with readers. That's when you get their attention.

Now, once you have their attention, the question is, will they produce your script or now ask you, their new talent discovery, to write something "more commercial?" These days, it's probably the latter.

[TheConnorNoden]

Re: Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

Now, once you have their attention, the question is, will they produce your script or now ask you, their new talent discovery, to write something "more commercial?" These days, it's probably the latter.

This happened a lot to me, the frustration caused my burnout that has resulted in a very unproductive 2014.

I give them screenplays that only I could do, that have something to say, something original. I get high praise and comparisons to some of my filmmaking idols. But I'm dealing with some niche stuff so it might be difficult to sell, do I have anything more commercial to sell? I rattle some ideas about and come up with some scripts. I like them but they don't excite me in the way that my true work does, there's no truth to it. So the notes I get are vague, it is missing a certain something. I could tell them the thing it is missing is me, I'm doing scripts anybody could do. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

So you can understand how I became disillusioned. Independent funding seems like the way to go, there's no room for mid budget in Hollywood right now.

I really wish I had a TV concept.

[grumpywriter]

Re: Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

This happened a lot to me, the frustration caused my burnout that has resulted in a very unproductive 2014.

I give them screenplays that only I could do, that have something to say, something original. I get high praise and comparisons to some of my filmmaking idols. But I'm dealing with some niche stuff so it might be difficult to sell, do I have anything more commercial to sell? I rattle some ideas about and come up with some scripts. I like them but they don't excite me in the way that my true work does, there's no truth to it. So the notes I get are vague, it is missing a certain something. I could tell them the thing it is missing is me, I'm doing scripts anybody could do. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

So you can understand how I became disillusioned. Independent funding seems like the way to go, there's no room for mid budget in Hollywood right now.

I really wish I had a TV concept.

Well... the link below is probably worth a whole separate thread altogether (I'm surprised nobody's posted anything about it yet -- unless I missed something), but it's very interesting how much people INSIDE the system want to see the system change as well, at least as evidenced by the data revealed in a huge hack of private/sensitive info. at Sony Pictures --

http://gawker.com/sony-hack-reveals-...o-w-1666264634

[kintnerboy]

Re: Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

Now, once you have their attention, the question is, will they produce your script or now ask you, their new talent discovery, to write something "more commercial?"

there's no room for mid budget in Hollywood right now.

#1 complaint I've heard from producers & agencies about my scripts is that they're "too small" (for a studio to bother with).

#2 complaint is that they're "too big" (to sell to a studio without A-list talent attached).

I don't think anybody knows what they're doing. They're just struggling to come up with new ways to say no. Which would be discouraging if my work was not improving from script to script.

[kintnerboy]

Re: Open Letter to All Screenwriters from Max Landis

Also, I saw this on the Bitter Script Reader's blog-

Universal Pictures, through a quirk of scheduling (if you can call Paul Walker's death a quirk) did not release a single big-budget or franchise film or a cartoon from Illumination this year.

The result was their most profitable year ever.

Of the 14 films Universal put into wide release in 2014, the average production budget was $30 million, and the average worldwide gross was $143 million.

This pretty much puts to bed the misconception that Hollywood 'isn't interested' in making mid-budget films.

It would be hard to imagine a studio head that didn't want to ONLY do that from here on out (or a stockholder that wouldn't want to know why).


http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmen...ecord-profits/