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In Reply to: RE: Hollywood: where have all the writers gone? posted by tinear on March 08, 2011 at 09:32:20
Peter Weir gave an interview on Oz TV recently where he said that mainstream Hollywood movies now only have one plot - good versus evil. The problem is cost. It costs gazillions to make a movie (big name movie stars won't get out of bed for less than $10 million a movie), so the studios have to get millions of people to watch their movies, which means they must have generic, simplistic plots. Weir said you can now only get original plots from independent productions.
Bruce Beresford (another great Oz director who made it big in Hollywood) wrote a book recently called "Josh Hartnett really wants to do this..." in which he explains how modern studio movies are made. All movies need to generate funding BEFORE any production begins. The funding is solely contingent on WHO is in the movie. Without a big name actor there is no funding. Only once an actor is locked into a project does the funding happen. Once the funding is in place all the other stuff happens, like the script. The script is often the last thing which gets done (assuming there is actually a script), and even then it's usually the director who writes the script. Have you noticed the proliferation of directors who share the writing credits on big budget movies? Who needs pesky things like a screenplay when you have CGI...
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