Writers? Who Are They?

It's an old but true axiom that if you're a screenwriter, the first thing a producer wants to do is fire you. Producers like writers because they give them movies to make, but once they have the script in their hand, they can't wait to bump the writer off. That's why you see so many "Written By" credits at the movies, and why directors get a bogus "A Film By" credit.

Here's how it goes: a writer turns in a script. The producer likes it. He fires the writer and hires another one to "polish" it. After polishing, the producer passes it to another writer to help clean up the dialogue. Then the script is passed to another writer to clean up character development. Then another writer is hired to clean up the mess that all the other writers made.

After the script is bent and twisted out of all relation to the original draft (not including the stars and their script consultants, who also have a say), everyone argues with the Writer's Guild about which writer deserves more credit. After a long fight, the original writer is given a "Story By" credit. Joining him is the guy who polished the characters. The other two or three writers are then given a "Written By" or "Screenplay" credit. They are the ones who will receive an Academy Award. The original writer is left to suck on his "Story By" credit.

When you see two, three, and sometimes four or five writing credits on the screen, don't fool yourself into thinking that these writers worked together. That happens, but it's extremely rare. Whenever you see two or more writing and story credits, you're basically looking at the history or who got fired and when (it's also a general rule that the more writing credits you see, the worse the movie is going to suck; more writers means more "fixing," which means the story was probably in big trouble from the start).

Writers always get short shrift. Sidney Lumet used to say that the only person treated worse than a Hollywood writer is a Hollywood music composer. In Hollywood, writers don't exist, no matter how many words they stuff into Kate Winslet's adorable mouth. The last person an actor will mention when receiving an award is the writer that gave them such memorable dialogue to say.

There's one upside: when a film tanks, the directors and stars usually take the blame, while the writer moves on in blessed anonymity.

Anyway, if you go to the Academy website, you will find the writers at the very, very, very bottom of the screen, located under sound mixing and sound editing. Also proving once again that Hollywood sucks at creating fresh material, note that all but one of the Best Picture nominees come from adapted screenplays. Without Oprah's book club, Hollywood wouldn't know what to do with itself.