The Business of Screenwriting: What to do if your movie sucks
“I don’t care how expensive your shrink is or how good they are, when confronted with a story — your story — as a movie and it both sucks…
“I don’t care how expensive your shrink is or how good they are, when confronted with a story — your story — as a movie and it both sucks and blows [Simpsons reference], you are going to take a serious ego-hit.”
I wrote a movie that sucked. I don’t think it sucked so much because of my contribution. In fact, the script got me a ton of work. When the studio went out with the project, dozens of hot young directors vied for the gig. A writer-director famous for two memorable teen movies told me the script was the best thing she’d read in years.
And yet the movie sucked. How bad? It sucked so much that it went from plans for a wide theatrical release on thousands of movie screens to a straight to video release.
That sucks.
I can’t even begin to imagine how much more work the movie could have brought my way if it had turned out even passably decent. Plus, I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in theoretical residuals because the movie did not receive a theatrical release.
Obviously, I don’t wish this type of thing on anyone, but the fact is it can happen to you.
So what to do if your movie sucks?
The first thing is see if you can remove your name from the credits. Believe it or not, there was another movie I wrote that sucked even worse than this one. And on that one, I did pull my name, using a pseudonym instead [so technically I have four writing movie credits]. However, there apparently is some sort of standard contractual clause whereby if you make a certain amount of money and the studio feels like your name in the credits can be of value to the project, the writer can not remove their name.
[That’s how it was explained to me. I could be wrong. If a writer, agent, manager or lawyer would care to provide more accurate information in Comments, I’d appreciate it.]
Thus in terms of the first movie that sucked, I could not remove my name. And there it is on IMDb page forever with my moniker attached to it [assuming IMDb lasts forever].
[BTW from 1968–2000, film directors who wanted to remove their name from a project would often use the pseudonym “Alan Smithee”. If you go here to the Wikipedia page, you can see dozens of Alan Smithee film and TV projects when in fact Smithee is a total concoction.]
If you can’t remove your name from the credits a movie you wrote, fortunately you have an out: The perception that Hollywood movies are a “collaborative effort.” If you give this idea the benefit of the doubt, what this may mean is the film receives the best of the best — the best ideas and creative input from the best people hired to produce the movie. However, as a writer facing the reality that their movie sucked, you do a one-eighty: “collaborative effort” can mean anybody on the production and their bastard child can contribute ideas to the process. Thus, the final product is not really a reflection of the script you wrote, but a piece of crap with which you basically had nothing to do.
In other words, it’s not your movie, it’s their movie.
In politics, they call this “plausible deniability.” And there are times in Hollywood, my friend, when you will have to get in touch with your inner politician.
This line of reasoning is especially effective if you have been rewritten, which you almost assuredly will have been, so the shooting script does not really reflect your creative vision and the story you were trying to tell.
In other words “collaborative effort” is a writer’s best line of defense on any movie that sucks.
Don’t blame me, blame them!
Okay, so you may be able to spin the negative buzz in the public sector. But what to do with you? You come up with an idea. You write the script. Sell it. Work your ass off on it. It’s taken away. Gutted and whatever. You show up for the premiere. It sucks.
I don’t care how expensive your shrink is or how good they are, when confronted with a story — your story — as a movie and it both sucks and blows [Simpsons reference], you are going to take a serious ego-hit.
What to do? Here are your options:
- Quit The Biz.
- Get really pissed off, stalk the director, and assault them in a very public Beverly Hills eatery.
- Spiral down into a deep depression from which you may not return.
- Become a consulting producer on a reality TV show.
- Turn into a bitter, prune-face, slump-shouldered cynic with whom no one wants to work… ever.
- Start worshiping at the altar of Jack Daniels.
- Or just move onto the next damn project.
Which one do you think I recommend?
The Business of Screenwriting is a series of Go Into The Story articles based upon my experiences as a complete Hollywood outsider who sold a spec script for a lot of money, parlayed that into a screenwriting career during which time I’ve made some good choices, some okay decisions, and some really stupid ones. Hopefully you’ll be the wiser for what you learn here.
For 100+ more Business of Screenwriting articles, go here.