Many moons ago, I wrote a couple of TV shows for a small production company that also produced the occasional movie, either for TV or theaters. The producer — we'll call him Mr. Producer — had a fellow on staff to act as his "reader." We'll call him Mr. Reader. This is another anecdote about what often happens to scripts when they get submitted in Hollywood. Mr. Producer had neither the time nor the interest in reading the many scripts that were submitted to him, mostly by agents but occasionally by friends or friends of friends. That was why he needed Mr. Reader. The job of Mr. Reader was to read those scripts, write "coverage" for the files and then to politely reject them.
That was not a joke. His job was to reject every single script. That was the assignment.
Mr. Producer made one or two movies a year. He was not a writer, not in the slightest, but he wanted a little pride of authorship in the films he produced. Any movie he made had to originate with an idea of his.
It could be the vaguest of ideas. One time, he had the notion that it would be interesting to make a movie filled with slapstick about an ordinary guy who's very clumsy. That was the totality of the concept. He called in (one at a time) a couple of good, experienced screenwriters and told each this whim and said, "If you have an idea for a movie about an ordinary guy who's really clumsy…something that could be filled with slapstick…come back in and pitch it to me." Each came back with such an idea and he picked the one he liked and hired the writer to develop it.
But understand this: If before he'd had that initial thought, you'd submitted a slapstick-riddled script about a clumsy guy, there's no way Mr. Producer would ever have made it. It never would have gotten past Mr. Reader and if by some chance it did, Mr. Producer would have rejected it. Because it didn't originate with him and he wanted every movie he made to begin with him so he could feel it was "his" movie. (For some reason, he didn't care that much about the point of origin on his TV projects.)
So why did he need Mr. Reader? Because if you want the agents to treat you like a real producer, you have to accept script submissions and respond to them. Mr. Reader would take the pile of scripts and read enough of every one to write the coverage, which was a one or two page memo-to-the-files that briefly summarized the plot and quoting One Great Moment in the script. That was an important part: Citing One Great Moment. Mr. Reader told me that was sometimes the hardest part of his job…finding that One Great Moment.
Then he'd give his recommendation, which was — always — that the script had great merits and the writer had talent but that this particular effort was not right for Mr. Producer's company at this time. And then he'd make up some reason why not.
If an important agent phoned Mr. Producer to ask, "Hey, didn't you just love that script I sent over last week?", Mr. Producer would consult Mr. Reader's memo and say, "Oh, yes. What a great idea…a script about [whatever Mr. Reader said it was about]!" Then he'd add, "Your client is very, very talented. I especially loved the bit where —" and here he would cite that One Great Moment and then he'd say, "I'm afraid though this isn't quite what I'm looking for right now."
If pressed to explain further, Mr. Producer would cite Mr. Reader's reason and the agent would be disappointed but satisfied. He'd go back to the client and say, "I got Mr. Producer to read your script. He really liked it — especially [One Great Moment] but it's not what he's looking for at the moment." That was how it worked. Every time.
In theory, having Mr. Reader read those scripts might have had its value in that he could have discovered a great writer and suggested that person for when Mr. Producer had one of his ideas…but I don't think that ever happened. Mr. Reader liked to call in folks who'd written recent hit movies he'd liked.
As I said, I worked for him on some TV projects. I got the distinct impression that he wasn't reading what I wrote, either — and I was writing material he was going to produce. He'd tell me he'd read it and that it was fine and he'd send it over to the network…and if they had notes, he'd pass them on to me. Once, I asked him of a script I'd handed in, "Did you think the scene in the gymnasium was too long?" He said, "No, seemed about right to me." There was no scene in that script in a gymnasium…but I wasn't about to point that out. I liked having a producer who didn't read the script. It was one less person to tell me to change things.