Devil's Guide to Hollywood The Screenwriter As God

Part One Pursuing Your Dream Lesson 1 They Can Snort You Here! Why do you want to be a screenwriter? The answer I get from most young wannabe screenwriters is, "Cuz I want to be rich." I tell them what Madonna says: "Money makes you beautiful." And I tell them that I've made a lot of money but that I'll never be beautiful. Why do you want to write a screenplay? Screenwriter/novelist Raymond Chandler (The Blue Dahlia): "Where the money is, so will the jackals gather." You, too, can be a star. My biggest year was 1994. I wrote five scripts in one year. I made almost $10 million. I had houses in Tiburon and Malibu, California, and in Kapalua, Maui. I made half a million dollars for writing a thirty-second television commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume. I fell in love. I got divorced. I married my second wife. Our first child was born. I had the best tables at Spago and the Ivy and at Granita, Postrio, and Roy's. I had limos in northern California, in Malibu, and on Maui. I ate more, I drank more, I made love more, and I spent more time in the sun than I ever had. The world was my oyster. I became the screenwriter as star. "Ben Hecht," his friend Budd Schulberg wrote many years ago, "seemed the personification of the writer at the top of his game, the top of his world, not gnawing at and doubting himself as great writers were said to do, but with every word and every gesture indicating the animal pleasure he took in writing well." Robert McKee makes money, doesn't he? When a student interrupted a McKee seminar with a question, McKee roared, "Do not interrupt me!" A few minutes later, McKee shouted to the student, "If you think that this course is about making money, there's the door!" I'll say this right up front: This book is about making money. Money is not the best thing about screenwriting. The best thing about screenwriting is this: I sit in a little room making things up and put my conjurings down on paper. A year and a half later, if I'm lucky, my conjurings will be playing all over the world on movie screens, giving enjoyment to hundreds of millions of people. For two hours, the lives of hundreds of millions of people will have been made better by something that I conjured up in a little room out of my own heart, gut, and brain. By then, my conjurings will have become a megacorporation employing thousands of peoplefrom gaffers to makeup people to ticket sellers. And it will all have begun with me, with my imagination and my creativity, literally communicating with the whole world. That's the best part of screenwriting. The money (almost) doesn't matter. Screenwriter Jack Epps (Top Gun, Legal Eagles): "You do it because you love the movies. The money gets in the way. I think that if you're a good writer, the money will follow. But if you're writing for money, I don't think it's going to work. I think that very few people can make that happen." I'll say this right up front: This book is about making money. Without losing your soul. Ben Hecht is no role model. Wrote Ben: "The fact that the movie magnate is going to make an enormous pile of money out of my story and that I am therefore entitled to a creditable share of it seldom, if ever, occurs to me. I am, to the contrary, convinced that my contribution is niEszterhas, Joe is the author of 'Devil's Guide to Hollywood The Screenwriter As God' with ISBN 9780312359874 and ISBN 031235987X.