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VETERAN PRODUCER DAVID FOSTER AT SCREENWRITING EXPO 3
By Tom McCurrie
Though the recent Screenwriting Expo 3 had its share of stellar speakers, veteran producer David Foster stood above the rest. After all, anyone who can sustain a producing career for more than thirty years and live to tell about it knows whereof he speaks. And an audience of writers was eager to listen at his Q & A.
Showbiz survivor that he is, Foster is not one to mince words. "It's real crazy in Hollywood today. Everybody's looking for remakes. Old films, they want to remake them. Old TV series and features. You have an original idea, you're probably dead."
Nevertheless, Foster tries to keep a variety of projects on his plate. "I try real hard not to type myself. I think if you looked on the computer at my filmography, I've done everything from dramas to comedies to action films to science-fiction: THE THING with John Carpenter, RUNNING SCARED with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines, McCABE AND MRS. MILLER with Warren [Beatty] and Julie [Christie] and the great [Robert] Altman, Peckinpah directed THE GETAWAY. I've actually worked hard at not zeroing in on any one area. It keeps me more fertile and more inquisitive...Right now, I'm really dying to do a movie that has dance in it. I see that any Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie is going to be on late at night, I'll stay up and watch it. I've probably seen FLYING DOWN TO RIO a hundred times. I would love to do a picture that had dancing in it."
Still, any good producer goes with the prevailing wind, so Foster has his remakes, too. "I'm remaking THE FOG starting in January with John Carpenter...I'm doing another genre film with John which he's going to direct -- he's not going to direct THE FOG, as he said, he's done it once, he doesn't want to do it again. So I just look for really good stories and hopefully stories that I've never done before...and if I have then [I'll] look for a different take on it..." Whether it's the period swashbuckler THE MASK OF ZORRO or the high-concept disaster flick THE CORE, Foster explains, "I try to do different things. I think I'd be bored if I did the same kind of thing over and over again to be challenging."
So how can writers get their material to Foster? Having an agent helps, but as Foster says, "It's really hard to get an agent...[Still,] enterprising writers somehow nail me. They're either knocking at my door unannounced, or something comes FedEx. They buy this thing called the Creative Directory, and they see all the listings, and they choose to send their scripts to whoever they choose to send them to. Somehow [I] manage to get a lot of things like that. Maybe once or twice in my life I responded to something like that, because I think it's important to talk to the writer first. You see, I think the most important thing is the subject. The first thing is what you choose to write about. If someone [sends me] one more CIA script I will scream. It's like enough already, stop! But seriously...to get to the agent, you have to have a script. And to get a script, you have to write it and you have to have an idea. And I think a lot of people unfortunately don't think about their ideas [enough]...I think it's kind of ridiculous to start writing something without finding out if there's three other of them in development right now in town. And that happens all the time. So your chances of getting your script read and done [are reduced]...It comes in waves, it really does. I remember a couple of years ago there was a run on the Knights of the Round Table from the woman's point of view. Guinevere. And suddenly there were like four things in development from the woman's point of view. So I think it would be silly to sit down and write one about Guinevere when four of them were being already written. Doesn't make sense to me. So I think the subject that you choose, before you spend three months or five months or whatever it's going to take you to write it, you damn well check to make sure it's not being done by someone else or else you're going to waste your time."
Foster continues: "I've been working for two months with Revolution Studios on a remake of THE FOG. Two weeks ago, THE GRUDGE opened. 40 million dollars. That Monday, my picture was greenlit...they gave us a start date in February...and we already have a release date, October 21, 2005. Thank you, THE GRUDGE! Everybody, they're like sheep leading sheep...Now everybody wants to do genre films...to scare the s**t out of you. You're all by yourself. Monsters, dismemberment, whatever it is, that's all because of THE GRUDGE." If Foster has any advice for writers these days, it's "you should write some good genre films."
Still, whether it's genre or not, Foster explains, "It's also as Shakespeare said, the play is the thing. You gotta start with the script. That's where you people are really viable. Assuming you're talented. To be really blunt, not everybody in this room is going to be talented. It's hard to say that but it's true. It's like you keep beating your head against the wall if you wrote ten scripts and they didn't sell, something's rotten in Denmark, as they say. So you have to be talented, and I think you have to pick a subject that is appealing. And today more so than ever. Today, they'll do the same thing over and over and over again, another comic book and another comic book and another comic book. I have a son who's a really successful producer, Gary, and he did DAREDEVIL, he just finished ELEKTRA, and now he's about to do GHOST RIDER. That's three in a row...The most important thing in the whole process is the script. And I think if you're wise, you'll read Variety every day, see what's going on, what pictures are being made. Look at the charts, and see what's successful. In Variety once a week they have a gross chart. And what's terrible about that is it could be a high-grossing picture and a piece of crap. Picture could be lousy, but it's making a ton of money. So then people [at the studios] go, oh, we gotta do that!"
Though some readers and execs turn down scripts if they don't grab them in the first ten pages, Foster is much more lenient: "I'll read thirty, forty pages max. If I don't like it by then, then I just chuck it. My time is too valuable because there's a stack of them like this [hand over head]. And even if I don't like the subject and like him, I say, that's a good writer, and I'll have him come in or her [to pitch ideas]." Foster sometimes takes a chance on unknown writers as well. "[I made] a couple of pictures through writers who never made any before. A guy pitched me something, I sold it to Paramount, they made the movie [THE CORE]. The problem was it opened the week the [Iraq] War broke out, and then everybody's at home watching CNN and not going to the movies...including myself, I was home watching CNN, what was going on in Baghdad, you know, and so that was a horrible week to open a picture. But that guy never had anything that...sold. He pitched me the idea. So that was good for him...Another time an editor, a film editor, Ron Roose...and son of a gun, he came to me with a script that he wrote and I sold it to Warner Bros. They made the movie and it was with our Governor [Arnold Schwarzenegger] called COLLATERAL DAMAGE. So, sometimes it works, you know? It really depends on you guys, on the subjects you choose. I cannot impress upon you how important the subject you choose [is]. Don't sit there and fantasize -- write something that you know has a chance to be made...look at the trades, see what's going on [otherwise] you're wasting your time."
Whether you're a writer or producer, another thing necessary in Hollywood is persistence. Foster: "For me, I am very easy [with scripts]. I love it or I hate it. If I don't love it, [it's] out. And if I love it, I will not let go of it. I started in this business as a producer with a deal at Fox. Dick Zanuck was then running [production at] Fox. And he used a word all the time that has stuck with me...Stick-to-itiveness. Stick-to-itiveness. The first thing I ever sold was THE GETAWAY. And it was just a book at the time...and it was set up at Fox with [Dick Zanuck]. And we had one writer after another and so on. And then his father fired him. Darryl Zanuck [head of the studio] fired his son. And we were thrown out with everything. Fortunately for me, my attorney, a wonderful guy...named Frank Wells, a...legend in Hollywood, great, great guy...he moved over to Warner Bros. as an executive. So he had made the deal for me, so he knew about the change, and he lived across the street from me...So I called him and I go, what do I do, man, what do I do? And he talked to John Calley who was then running Warner Bros...and within a week he made me a deal at Warner Bros. [for THE GETAWAY]. And it was four years in the making [after that]!"
Foster continues: "It's a very difficult business. No one should lead you down the primrose path to tell you how wonderful it is today in Hollywood, because they're all corporate...they're one division of a big...whether it's Viacom, or whether it's Sony, or whatever it is, AOL Time Warner, whatever it is, and it's all...bottom-line stuff [now]. So...nothing's easy."
But getting risk-averse conglomerates to buy your script isn't the only problem. Foster ends on this sobering note for writers: "Not everybody is really good. It's really hard to accept that, you know? If you passionately want to write, if you really have this burning desire to write, you gotta keep writing. You gotta keep writing. And you gotta pray that you're good. And maybe you're not good. And maybe it's delusional to think you are good. So maybe then you say, all right, maybe I'll be a producer because I like movies, because you don't have to write as a producer, you know, you can still be in the business. I loved movies from day one so I became a publicist in the movie business, and that's how I got into producing...But there's a lot of ways you can get into [the movie business]. I hope you're all great, I mean, I hope you all sell scripts for millions of dollars and you come knocking on my door and all that stuff. But there's thousands of you guys and gals out there wanting to write, you know? It's a hard thing you've chosen, really hard thing. If you're good, you'll get rich, and if not, [it's] gonna get painful." But if you're determined to be a writer no matter what, take Foster's words to heart: "Write. Just keep writing. If you really want to be a writer, just keep writing. That's the only way you're going to get better and better and better."
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
(Note: For all those who missed my past reviews, they're now archived on Hollywoodlitsales.com. Just click the link on the main page and it'll take you to the Inner Sanctum. Love them or Hate them at your leisure!)
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles and is currently writing a novel about Spaghetti Westerns.
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