If you send it to him first, he will tell you how you can make it “better” before the studio sees it. Chances are, if you listen to his ideas, your script will be worse than it was before he told you his ideas.
“Tell me everything you have in mind.”
This is William Goldman’s spin on what to say to a producer. Take out a notebook and say this to the producer, who will have nothing to say that he would want written down … so your meeting won’t last long.
Producers want to get paid, too.
If you’re a screenwriter, you’re paid when you start writing the script or when you sell it. But if you’re a producer, you’re paid only when the movie starts shooting.
Consequently, the producer will do everything he can to get you moving along on the script as fast as possible—so he can get paid.
You’re better off ignoring his notes.
Screenwriter/novelist James Brown: “The producer is an articulate, intelligent man, and during the course of our meeting he gives me several pages of notes, all of them insightful. I want to do a good job, and once more I’m willing to mercilessly cut and chop, create new scenes and eliminate others. Inside of six months we have a strong screenplay with the original vision of my novel still intact. The producer shops it around to actors, directors, and studio executives. A year passes. No luck. The call comes from Vermont, where he is vacationing, and I can sense by the tone of his voice that he’s given up. ‘You wrote a good script,’ he tells me, ‘but they’re all saying that it’s too soft.’
“My phone stops ringing. My book mysteriously disappears from the bookstores. I think it’s all over and then out of the blue he phones again to tell me, in short order, that I’m fired.”
ALL HAIL
Gore Vidal!
Screenwriter and novelist Vidal (Myra Breckinridge): “I was having a meeting with a producer and I said to him, ‘Look, I’m tired shitless of your complaints. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You know marketing, you may know how to make deals, but you don’t know how to make movies, and you intrude on other people who are talented and do.’ He exploded. ‘How can you say that to me?’ he said. He was halfway across the room. ‘I will hit you!’ he said. Then I started toward him and said, ‘I am going to throw you out of this window.’ And I came at him. We were about three feet apart and he was running toward me and he couldn’t stop because of how much he weighed—he was very heavy. He veered off to the right and ran into a wall. I heard his nose crack against the wall.”
A producer today isn’t what a producer was yesterday.
Mike Medavoy: “Producer credits today are given out like lollipops in a pediatrician’s office—to managers, wives, girlfriends, lawyers, and development executives. They are the ego badge of the business.
Schnorrer
A flimflam man who can talk you into and out of anything … especially your wallet. It’s a term usually applied to producers.
You, too, can be a producer today.
The Assassination of Richard Nixon boasted sixteen producers.
That sound you just heard was Sam Spiegel and David O. Selznick rolling over—and over and over—in their graves.
Beware of producers’ offices that are in fancy buildings but have no furniture.
I had a meeting once with a well-known producer in an office like this and called my agent as soon as the meeting was over to tell him that I didn’t trust the fact that there was no furniture in the office.
“They just moved in,” my agent said; “the furniture is on the way.”
Two weeks later, the producer declared bankruptcy and closed his office.
Producers are intellectuals.
I con producer Sam Spiegel said his two favorite things in life were “great food and very young girls.”
Producers are honorable people.
Said writer/director John Huston about producer Sam Spiegel, the winner of three Oscars for best picture: “If you had committed murder, a totally unjustified act of which you were guilty as hell, Sam would be one of the two or three friends you would turn to, certain that Sam would help.”
TAKE IT FROM ZSA ZSA
You don’t want to seduce your producer.
Actress and Hungarian femme fatale Zsa Zsa Gabor: “Everyone thinks that the one kind of man you find most in Hollywood is the ugly, vulgar producer who smokes big fat cigars. This image is, of course, exaggerated. Some of these ugly, vulgar producers smoke little thin cigars, and nowadays some of the producers are young bearded men who smoke pot.”
Producers are demanding.
Producer Charles Evans advanced me 2 million to write the script of Showgirls. When I was more than a month late turning it in, he threatened to sue me unless I agreed to rewrite for free a script that he owned called Bloodlines (after I finished writing Showgirls).
When I finished Showgirls and Carolco agreed to finance the project, Charles Evans received 3.7 million—a 1.7 million profit on his 2 million investment.
But even after he made such a whopping profit, he still insisted that I had to rewrite Bloodlines for free.
My lawyers told me I had no choice but to rewrite it. I did.
But my rewrite somehow wasn’t very good. Bloodlines was never made.
No one can force you to write anything.
Alas, as hard as I worked on that free and forced Bloodlines rewrite—as much of my heart and soul and guts I put into it—alas, alas, alas, my rewrite was god-awful. But I completed it and Charles Evans couldn’t sue me.
Joel Silver is demanding, too.
What do you want out of life?” someone asked the producer Joel Silver.
Joel said, “Everything!”
So was the great Selznick.
Producer David O. Selznick, looking back at his career: “I was a pig. I worked so hard and waited so long, I got piggish and wanted everything.”
How to deal with a European producer …
Quote Paddy Chayefsky to him in your first meeting. Paddy said, “You America-haters bore me to tears. Europe was a brothel long before we came to town.”
The Nipple Check
A producer’s role at the casting call.
A powerful producer like my friend Robert Evans can change the course of history.
Evans told me this story: “I called Henry Kissinger and invited him to The Godfather premiere in 1972. I needed Henry there for the publicity. Henry said he couldn’t come—something about the war and the Paris peace talks and having to fly to Moscow the next morning. I reminded Henry how often he’d stayed in my guest house. I didn’t hear any more about the Paris peace talks. Henry didn’t fly to Moscow the next morning. He flew to The Godfather premiere.”
TAKE IT FROM ZSA ZSA
Actress and famed Hungarian femme fatale Zsa Zsa Gabor: “I was in Boston, touring in Blithe Spirit, and Henry Kissinger made a date with me to fly down and take me out. But on opening night, he called and canceled. A trifle piqued, I asked why. And Henry gave me the reason—a reason that even I couldn’t quibble with: ‘I can’t fly down because we are invading Cambodia tomorrow. It is a big secret, you are the first person outside the White House who knows about it.’ ”
It’s all about whose is bigger.
Producers have big egos.
The first time that producer Sam Spiegel met director David Lean’s girlfriend, he tried to seduce her.
ALL HAIL
Irwin Shaw!
The novelist and Sam Spiegel didn’t get along and Spiegel criticized Shaw’s work behind his back to other Hollywood producers—thereby stopping Shaw from getting screenwriting jobs.
To get even, Shaw began having an affair with Spiegel’s wife.
ALL HAIL
Irwin Shaw!
Sam Spiegel dumped the wife that Irwin Shaw had seduced and remarried.
And one day Irwin Shaw was having lunch with a mutual friend and the friend said that Sam Spiegel’s new wife was supposed to be “great in the feathers.”
S
o Irwin Shaw seduced Sam Spiegel’s new wife and began an affair with her.
ALL HAIL
Marion Shaw!
Shaw’s wife, Marion, found out about the affair and, at a dinner party, she stuck her foot out and tripped Spiegel’s wife, who broke her ankle.
ALL HAIL
Omar Sharif!
Sam Spiegel discovered Omar Sharif in obscure Egyptian films. He made him an international star.
In return, Sharif seduced Sam Spiegel’s wife and had an affair with her.
ALL HAIL
John Huston!
Angered that Sam Spiegel’s wife was flaunting jewels while he was broke, African Queen director John Huston began an affair with her.
“John was very cruel to her,” a friend said. “He really abused her.
Sam Spiegel’s was bigger than Mike Todd’s.
Sam Spiegel took his new wife to the Lido in Venice. Producer Mike Todd went over to their table.
“Hey, angel face,” Todd said to Spiegel’s new wife. “Do you know where you were last year on this exact same date at this exact same time?” Sam Spiegel said to his new wife, “Never mind.”
But Mike Todd continued: “You were sitting right here, at this exact same table, with me, angel face.”
Don Simpson admired Sam Spiegel.
Don didn’t date; he fucked,” said a former assistant.
Simpson said, “When you meet a lady and she says, ‘Would you like to make love?’ well, the first thing I like to do is fuck, not make love.”
Because they’re all empowered …
Screenwriter Nick Kazan: “Why is it that, in Hollywood, every producer, studio executive, and development person just out of college feels entitled to make suggestions on every script they receive? How can they be so confident of their opinions? Are they truly unaware of the damage they can do?”
What’s it really like being a producer?
Sam Spiegel, who had escaped from Hitler’s Germany, said, “It’s better than being a lamp shade.”
“Some producers have hearts full of shit.”
Director Elia Kazan said that about Sam Spiegel.
Because we’re scared to speak up …
Screenwriter Nick Kazan: “Why do we writers accept notes (from producers, studio executives, development people) which will destroy what we have so painstakingly created?”
Don’t throw the damn thing back at ’em.
Producer William Sackheim was known for throwing across the room scripts that he didn’t like.
If someone throws your script across the room, pick it up, tear off the first page, and make whoever threw it eat it.
Producers have impeccable taste (oh yeah!).
Respected Broadway producer Cheryl Crawford turned down a new play Arthur Miller offered her.
She wept bitterly at the opening night of Death of a Salesman.
These are the kind of people who give you notes on your script.
Jed Harris was Broadway’s most famous stage director when he saw Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Harris called it “a stupid play” and said “there is no drama in an ass like Willy Loman.”
It takes one to know one.
Otto Preminger, the director, and Sam Spiegel, the producer, met in Hollywood for the first time—they had known each other previously in Europe.
Preminger said to Spiegel, “You are the greatest, most treacherous son of a bitch that every lived. … You end up in Mexico where you get involved in selling dope. You also get arrested on a white slavery charge. You get thrown in prison. Somehow or other you bribe yourself out of prison and you sneak illegally into the United States at Tijuana.”
Spiegel looked at him sorrowfully and said, “It wasn’t Tijuana.”
Showman
The highest praise for a producer whose name, identified with a project, immediately gives it status: Sam Spiegel, Mike Todd, David Merrick, Irwin Winkler, Alan Carr, David O. Selznick, Jerry Bruckheimer, Joel Silver, Brian Grazer, Scott Rudin, Steven Spielberg, and Cecil B.
DeMille are showmen.
Nazis yes, producers no …
Screenwriter/playwright/director David Mamet: “It occurred to me that there are films about good Nazis, but there are no films about good producers. Every producer in every movie is bad. Of course, that makes sense, because all of the films about bad producers are written by writers.”
Don’t bugger any boys in the backseat of the Porsche, either.
Producer Don Simpson, on why he was fired by Paramount as vice president of production: “They fired me for doing coke. They fired me on a fucking morals clause in the contract. They had executives buggering boys in the backseats of their Porsches and they fired me on a fucking morals charge.”
Some producers really know how to hype their films.
Executive producer Robert Redford, discussing The Motorcycle Diaries: “There’s a lot that’s touching, there’s a lot of humor, there’s a lot of comedy, but it’s real. It’s honest comedy that comes out of real experiences, particularly with the young guys on what starts as an adventure. But there’s also a lot of poignancy, and a lot of powerful emotional stuff in it, that’s also real, and for that reason, it’s all the more powerful.”
Some producers really, really know how to hype their films.
Executive producer Robert Redford, discussing The Motorcycle Diaries: “When you see the film, you’ll see that they really went through something to tell their story. Exactly what the characters actually went through. They followed the path that was absolutely authentic—the actual path they took on the motorcycle. They went to all the same places. And you see it, but more importantly you feel it. And if you feel it, then you’re going to feel how Ernesto Guevara was affected by it.”
Some producers really, really, really know how to hype their films.
Executive producer Robert Redford, discussing The Motorcycle Diaries: “This is a great story. This was not an easy film to make. They went to some really extreme locations that were next to impossible in some cases. The weather, you had the threat of violence along the way, political violence. You didn’t know how things were going to go. You were going to go into some pretty hot areas. So that’s all evidenced in this film.”
Some producers know how to hype the directors who work for them, too.
Executive producer Robert Redford, discussing Walter Salles, the director of The Motorcycle Diaries: “Walter’s work draws you in because, first and foremost, he is a natural storyteller. He blends, in a visually compelling manner, a specific world of characters, places and struggle that subtly reveals larger threads of shared human experience and emotion that link us all.”
Robert McKee took producer Don Simpson’s film course.
Producer Lynda Obst: “Don created the three-act structure that we all use, the one that Robert McKee and Syd Field [another screenwriting teacher] use and take credit for. Don made up this logarithm. There is the hot first act with an exciting incident, and the second act with the crisis and the dark bad moments in which our hero is challenged, and the third act with the triumphant moment and the redemption and the freeze-frame ending.”
Some producers are true liberals.
During the South Central riots of 1992, producer Bert Schneider said, “I wish they’d come up here [to Bel Air] and burn my house down.”
Some producers really respect screenwriters.
Producer Bert Schneider walked past writers’ offices on the Columbia lot, banging on their doors and yelling, “Get out from under your desk, motherfucker! I know you’re in there. Why don’t you go write something, turn something in, you jerkoff!”
ALL HAIL
Charles MacArthur!
In the middle of a script dispute, MacArthur (The Front Page) knocked producer David O. Selznick over a bed.
Selznick’s agent brother, Myron, jumped on MacArthur’s back to try to stop him, but MacArthur hurled himself on Selznick and bit him in the leg.
“Dracula!” Myron Selzni
ck screamed.
A Pisher
An old term used by producers for a nobody.
Many producers are happy and well adjusted.
The secret to happiness is whores,” said “the producer of producers,” Sam Spiegel.
If he speaks Hungarian, he’s not all bad.
Sam Spiegel spoke fluent Hungarian.
Unfuckable
A producer’s term for an actor or actress whom he doesn’t want to cast in the movie.
Because they can’t do what we do.
Screenwriter Nick Kazan: “If we refuse to make destructive changes, why are we considered ‘difficult’ rather than ‘principled and passionate’? Why are we not considered experts, both in general and, most especially, on the distinct universe of the script which we have written?”
A powerful producer can even move the White House.
When I needed serious government help with a personal problem (a psychotic brother-in-law), I went to Robert Evans, who was walking around his house those days with a commander in chief ball cap from the Bush White House.
Evans got the government involved for me and solved my problem.
Press secretary Marlin Fitzwater had been a guest in Evans’s guest house.
Bring ’em a towel from the rest room.
A producer and I met in the little bar at La Scala on Little Santa Monica. He proposed a deal and it sounded good to me. We shook hands on it.
I told my agent about the deal and the agent said, “Forget it. There’s no way I’ll let you make that deal.”
The producer went ballistic when he heard we had no deal.
The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood Page 26