Screenwriting for Dummies

Our first conversation about film adaptations of books happened way back in August 2019 with episodes 54 & 55 – we talked so much we had to continue it out the next week. But yesterday was National Screenwriters’ Day and so I delivered my five inimitable screenwriters on the morning show:

Tina Fey — Mean Girls, 30 Rock, Saturday Night LiveThe Coen brothers — The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, o Brother Where Art Thou, and FargoJulius J. And Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch — CasablancaGreta Gerwig — The Barbie Movie, LadybirdAaron Sorkin — The West Wing, The Newsroom

Only the Casablanca crew was working from source material, and that was a play. The others were written for the screen, specifically.

So what about that category at the Oscars of “best adaptation” – what makes adapting harder (is it?) than creating for the screen?

Last April we visited specifically the adaptations process with Episode 228 with the focus on the origin of the story. And today we’re going to expound upon that with the craft of bringing the book alive with some great ones and some terrible ones.

For example, what’s the difference between Wonka as played by Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp? They both have the same source material. So why are these interpretations so different?

I just watched Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. which was a Judy Blume novel in the 70s and became a cool retro look at teenage-ish girls 50 years later.

There’s a great line in Entourage (I think) where Jeremy Piven’s character says something to the effect of, “if screenwriting is hard, why do Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have Oscars?”

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