It's A Wrestling Picture! |
Don't worry, this relates to comics. I'm reading this article in the Weekend Journal section of last Friday's Wall Street Journal (12-14-'00) about why screenplays for action films have been so weak of late. The general consensus is that today's film studios and producers start with a single high concept idea that they can easily market and then order up a script for it. They wind up with lots of splashy visuals and a script that's dumber than dumb. PRODUCER: So there's this bus. And it has a bomb on it. If the bus goes any slower than 55 miles an hour - kaboom! Everybody dies. WRITER: How am I supposed to turn that into ninety minutes of screen time? PRODUCER: Am I a writer? You figure it out! The writers lament that they can't work well under these conditions and so write crappy, uninspired screenplays about tornadoes and giant sharks and people falling off of mountains. They're creative hands are tied by these childish ideas thunk up by agents or studios or who knows. Just so the turkey can be promoted in one line with some compelling footage and have a huge opening weekend before it sinks into the straight to video ooze. The agony… How is one to tempt the muses with such fare? The writers interviewed (one was the odious David Koepp who couldn't write a decent screenplay for either Jurassic Park movie) seemed to think this was some kind of new phenomenon; a conspiracy against their lofty artistic sensibilities. As though in 1933 King Kong started as the story of a young girl looking for work in New York and evolved (in some writer's heart of hearts) into a tale ending with a blonde and a giant ape atop the Empire State Building. Hollywood has always put concept first and execution second. No writer leapt from their desk after days of brooding and shouted "I've got it! Frankenstein MEETS the Wolfman!" The thing is, back in those days the Hollywood writers knew something of craft. The big studios were combing publishing houses, magazines, Broadway and everywhere else for the best writers. The studios were hungry for stories and they'd throw money at anyone who could string together a plot. When these guys got out to LA they weren't given assignments right off the bat. They had to learn how to write movies. Even if the ink was still wet on their Pulitzer they were apprenticed to veteran screenwriters. The movie BARTON FINK is not off the mark. This hot playwright is assigned a low budget Wallace Beery wrestling picture to script and placed under the eagle eye of his producer and told to get help from the other writers. It didn't matter if you were F. Scott Fitzgerald or Joe from Kokomo. You went back to school. Consequently, even second feature programmers designed to fill out the bottom of a double bill had solid writing, inspired dialogue and relentless pacing. Check out movies from the Falcon series or Charlie Chan. Sure they were hokey. But they were better paced and showed more craft and showmanship than any recent 100 million buck plus Tom Cruise "epic" of recent years. Heck Van Johnson vehicles had more sustained comedy than most of today's "#1 comedy hit" pieces of dreck. If these clowns can't deal with a few demands from the studio or producer (who, Heaven forbid should have a say since it's their cash on the line for these turkeys.) then maybe they're in the wrong business. What really gripes me about all this is that I work in a medium that demands constant re-writes and changes and re-plots because of continuity or the interruption from a crossover or whatever. "Wonder Woman's trapped on Apocalypse. Rewrite your story by tomorrow with a different character." I'm paid far less than these jokers But I understand that changes are a part of writing. I accept them. Heck, I welcome the challenge of working in such a fluid and collaborative medium. And comics aren't alone here. TV is just as demanding. You want high concept? It's all over TV. And they have to crank out 22 episodes a year. And yet more often than not these shows have inventive plotting, compelling characterization, rapid pacing and witty dialogue. TV writing excels over movie writing for the most part. And these writers are paid a fraction of what their cinema counterparts take home. But these crybabies are handed some high concept idea, paid six figures and more and asked to "make it work". And they complain! Not only that but they shift blame for their lame-o writing to the people who hired them. Look, I'm no fan of the current state of affairs in Hollywood. But if a guy throws money at you and asks you write LETHAL WEAPON 5 and the movie HAS to feature a Winnebago full of pandas falling off the World Trade Center then you do the best you can to make it believable, entertaining and suspenseful. You don't phone in a script then shrug when the movie tanks. That's what gripes me. Now comes the part that will gripe you. Koepp was using as an example the difficulties of working on the screenplay for the upcoming Spider-man movie. He whined that not only did he have to deal with Hollywood execs and agents but also people from "the comic book company." The indication here was the mere "comic book" people had no place telling him what to do on a property they own and have an abiding interest in. My first reaction was horror that this loser was working on Spider-man. This reaction only grew deeper when it was made clear that his instincts on what makes the character "work" are firmer than Marvel's. Not since Akiva Goldsman was asked about Batman and began talking about his therapist have I felt so much dread for a comics- related movie project. It looks like a small army of empty-headed H'wood writers will have their way with Spider-man for the umpteenth time. Even with the success of X-Men (owing mostly to its adherence to the core of the comic and what makes it tick and the writer and director's respect for the material.) these guys don't learn. I could be wrong. Maybe a dozen or two of these guys will come up with something that will thrill audiences. But if it doesn't then they can blame Stan Lee, I guess.
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©2004 by Chuck Dixon. All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced without permission. |
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