Screenwriting Quote #154 (Tony Gilroy)

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Screenwriting Quote #154 (Tony Gilroy)

April 25, 2011 by Scott W. Smith

“I have written a bunch of scripts that have not gotten produced, much more so early in my career than later. I think that 10 or 12 years ago I decided to try to make that happen, that I wrote fewer scripts that didn’t get made. I do some very conscious things to make that happen. They are not the thing a first-time screenwriter would be able to do. I only do one project at a time. When I start something, I know people I am working with, it’s a project they’re interested in. It also means I can be working for a studio or the executives who will still have their jobs when it’s time to make the film. Developing films with directors, developing films with actors, is a poor percentage play for a screenwriter. If that person happens to not be ready, changes their mind, lost attention, whatever, your script sits there. So I don’t take those jobs anymore.”
Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, The Bourne Identity)
Washington Post 2007 Interview

Posted in Screenwriting Quotes | 4 Comments

4 Responses

on April 25, 2011 at 9:25 am Screenwriting From Iowa » Screenwriting Quote #154 (Tony Gilroy)

[...] “I have written a bunch of scripts that have not gotten produced, much more so early in my career than later. I think that 10 or 12 years ago I decided to try to make that happen, that I wrote fewer scripts that didn’t get made. I do some very conscious things to make that [...] Original Source… [...]
on April 25, 2011 at 6:19 pm Trevor

Excellent quote. Thanks Scott.

It would be nice to have the options that Gilroy has now… but everyone has to pay their dues to get there.
on April 26, 2011 at 3:42 pm Ted

I don’t know … he says that developing films with directors, developing films with actors, is a poor percentage play for a screenwriter because they can change their minds about doing the project somewhere down the road. But everything is changeable in the film business. Certainly, developing with a studio (any studio) is treacherous, because execs are routinely hired and fired and your project can easily become part of a regime that’s suddenly past.

He’s saying he only works with friends, or people he knows who are evidently sincere. But those people could be directors too, actors too. A studio is more likely to pay well, so maybe that’s what he’s saying. But generally I don’t understand this quote at all. Makes no sense to me.
on April 26, 2011 at 5:13 pm Scott W. Smith

Ted—I try to find quotes that are a little different and thought provoking…and thought this fit that category. I’m not 100% sure what he meant, but I do know it’s from ’07 when Gilroy was a co-writer on”The Bourne Ultimatum” and his Oscar nominated “Michael Clayton” (that he wrote and directed) also came out the same year so he was in a good postion to pick his projects—and the people he wanted to work with.

Maybe he had just be jerked around by directors and actors more than he had studio executives.

Note: He wrote and directed “The Bourne Legacy” which will come out in ’12.

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