“Right out of film school I sold a movie and a TV show, and I thought ‘Hah!’ this is going to be easy.”
Screenwriter Phil Johnston on his early misperceptions
It’s not because Cedar Rapids is Iowa that I feel obligated to do another post on the movie Cedar Rapids, it’s because I found a couple quotes from the movie’s screenwriter, Phil Johnston, that I thought you’d find encouraging. The first one is from a an online article at Film Independent by Maggie Mackay.
Mackey: This is your first feature script to be produced, and you were able to attach a name cast and a seasoned director in Miguel Arteta, can you talk about how the project came together?
Johnston: ”It was truly a dream to get this gaggle together, you couldn’t ask for a better group of actors in comedy today. You’ve seen how long things can go in movies, I’ve sold things that haven’t gotten made, had projects start and then stop, and this was the exact opposite. I had breakfast with Ed (Helms) a couple years ago, and I just had the skeletal outline, and he loved it. He was just on The Office at that point and The Hangover hadn’t been shot yet. We went back and forth with the script for a while after that, and then we were so lucky to attract Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, and Jim Taylor as producers, then Miguel, and Searchlight. Then The Hangover came out, and he [Ed] became an international movie star type and we were able to develop it as we liked. Ed is a bankable movie star now, and within twelve weeks of Searchlight saying “yes” we were rolling on it. I’ve been out of film school for five years and there was a lot of stuff that came close. I had a film that came close then the company folded. It’s a minor miracle when it all comes together.”
And this question came from Kiko Martinez at CineSnob: “Out of all the cities in the entire United States, why write a movie set in Cedar Rapids, Iowa?”
Johnston: I worked in Western Iowa for three years. I spent some time in Cedar Rapids and so I had some great affection for the Midwest. Physically, Cedar Rapids had those bad floods in 2008. I wanted something that an insurance agent might be able to look to as a place where they could be a hero. For Ed [Helms’] character, Tim Lippe, he saw these floods as a terrible thing, but he looked at insurance people working in the trenches like firefighters and police officers helping people out.
Martinez also asked Johnston, “Were you disappointed the film could not be shot in Cedar Rapids, Iowa?”
Johnston: Place is a huge part of my writing process, so it was a bummer. It was interesting from a moviemaking standpoint because we had a production office set up in Des Moines, Iowa and we were going to shoot exclusively in Iowa, but there was a scandal with the Iowa Film Commission where they stopped their rebate program. Tax incentives got shut down. We were four weeks away from principal photography and the producer had to find a new location. We moved the whole production from Iowa to Michigan in four weeks. While it would have been great to shoot the movie in Iowa, I think the fact that it got made at all is a minor miracle given that huge speed bump in front of production.
Since Johnston knew Helms and that helped get Cedar Rapids made, I guess I should add to my post on alternative ways to market your script: Get to know an actor in a hot Tv show who is about to become a movie star in a hot movie.
Related post: “Cedar Rapids” — The Movie
[...] “Right out of film school I sold a movie and a TV show, and I thought ‘Hah!’ this is going to be easy.” Screenwriter Phil Johnston on his early misperceptions It’s not because Cedar Rapids is Iowa that I feel obligated to do another post on the movie Cedar Rapids, it’s because I found a [...] Original Source… [...]