Screenwriter Supreme Josh Olson writes an article that a lot of professional writers would like to write. It's about how we all get assailed (yes, even lowly me) to read the hopeful spec scripts of amateurs and how it creates all sorts of problems for us.
If I'd written this piece — and I think I have, only I was probably more tactful and therefore less effective — I'd have added that the opinion of another writer really doesn't (or shouldn't) matter to you. What should matter is the reaction of someone who has the power to actually do something with your script, like buy it or get it produced. Secondly, I would have told the tale of a guy about two years ago who oughta be the poster boy for How Not To Have Your Script Read.
He interviewed me briefly about a mutual acquaintance of ours — a real and interesting person who was the subject of the screenplay he was writing…only I didn't know at the time he was writing a screenplay. He later called and said, "I've written something about him and I'd like you to take a look at it." Thinking he'd penned a factual-type article for something and was responsibly fact-checking, I told him to send it over. Three days later, I received a huge package.
It started with a statement I was asked to sign and send back to him along with the enclosed script and my comments. In the statement, I acknowledged that I'd read the screenplay and that if I ever wrote anything even vaguely similar, it would constitute admitted plagiarism and he could sue me for everything I owned. And as if that wasn't enough to make me scurry to read his work, the enclosed script was 325 pages.
So I called the guy and told him his script was winging its way back to him, unloved and unread. And trying to be helpful, I told him, "No one is going to read a screenplay that's over around 120 pages."
He replied, "I have a copy here of the script for Apocalypse Now and it's 325 pages." (I don't know that it is but that's what he said.)
I said, "Well, maybe but this story isn't Apocalypse Now and you aren't John Milius and/or Francis Ford Coppola." I also tried gently to explain to the guy that there's a difference between a script that you write so someone will read it and the Apocalypse Now script he had, which was probably a shooting draft that didn't have to "sell" anyone.
He said, "If their screenplay can be 325 pages, mine can be 325 pages."
So as not to trigger a deluge of 325-page spec screenplays, I almost wish I could end this anecdote by reporting that no one ever read the script. As it turns out, it's Gus Van Sant's next picture and it starts shooting in January of 2010 with a cast that includes Sean Penn, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton and Frank Langella. And yes, I'm lying about that and no one has ever read the script. Or ever will.
Thanks to Shelly Goldstein for telling me about Josh's article. And please do not ask Josh to read your script because he's already twice had to postpone lunches we had scheduled.