Writing ‘The Fisher King’ (After Two Failed Starts) and the Influence of Howard Stern

He had a home, love of a girl
But men get lost sometimes as years unfurl
New York Minute 
Written by Don Henley, Danny Kortchmar, and Jai Winding.

The original spark for The Fisher King (1991) was screenwriter  Richard LaGravenese seeing two men crossing Third Ave. in Manhatten late one night. It triggered in his mind a bond between a handsome man and one who was mentally challenged. Informed by the book He: Understanding Masculine Psychology, this excerpt from The Moment with Brain Koppelman podcast covers how LaGravenese developed his idea.

RICHARD LAGRAVENESE:  “[The Fisher King] was the first script I’d ever written by myself, so I didn’t know what I was doing in term of structure. So the first [draft] was a really dense version that was really pretentious and heavy-handed, and he was a cab driver-philosopher kind of guy. And he sees this homeless man and at some point takes him to Vegas because he realizes he can make from from him. And I saw this ad in the Times about a movie named Rain Man that was being made—and it was almost exactly the same story. So I threw it out and keep the two characters. 

Then I tried like a sitcomy version of it where the Jeff Bridges character was an heir to a rubber magnate and he had to marry off this cousin of his or else he wouldn’t get the inheritance. And that was a terrible version, and I threw that out. And I kept the character of the cousin which was Lydia. So I got one thing from that. 

And then the third draft of it, I was driving in the morning and listening to Howard Stern and I went “Oh!”—and that clicked in. And suddenly it started to build itself.

KOPPELMAN: And when did you come up with that idea, “A selfish person  who commits a selfless act”?

LADEAVENESE: It was around that part when I was listening to Howard Stern I decided [the Jeff Bridges character] was a shock jock.

Have you had an idea, started a screenplay, or actually finished a screenplay only to learn of a similar story to yours has been made? Of course you have—  join the club. My first screenplay was called Walk-On about a walk-on football player. I was told by several people in the mid-80s that they’d never heard of a walk-on football player and that it was a fresh concept, but sports stories don’t sell. Six or seven years latter Rudy got made. The story about a walk-on football player, and now considered one of the most popular sports films ever made.

The real lesson from LaGravenese is when he found out his original idea was basically Rain Man, he pivoted. He picked up the pieces (two characters) and wrote a new version. That idea failed, so he picked up the pieces and put them in his little red wagon and carried them to his third version of his script which not only got sold, produced, but brought him an Oscar-nomination.

P.S. And it was not only The Fisher King script that evolved over time,  Howard Stern has evolved from his shock jock persona from the ’80s. Here’s a video where he sets up Don Henley singing a melancholy version of Boys of Summer.  (You can put Henley’s albums in the bin marked Understanding Masculine Psychology.)

Scott W. Smith