#screenwriting

#screenwriting

I'll start with the obvious: even the thinnest novel is densely packed. There's just too much good stuff! That's partly why early studio heads preferred short stories and potboilers to classic doorstoppers like War and Peace . While you can write a novel to any length (and Tolstoy tried), knowing the reader will stop and start at will, in film you have a painfully finite amount of time before the audience itches to leave.

Stoppard wrote erudite plays that touched on a broad range of topics from his 1966 absurdist comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead about two minor characters from Hamlet to his 1993 drama Arcadia which included dialogue about Chaos Theory and Garden Landscaping. But when Arcadia opened in New York, Stoppard told me his plays were always about people, not abstract ideas.

This article was last updated in 2022 but, with the US Open upon us, we're giving it another swing. Tennis is a sport of personal intensity and triumph. Granted, there are ways to play tennis in teams, from doubles to Billie Jean King's long-standing dream of making World Team Tennis one of our major sports. But at its core, tennis is about individuals, which is why it lends itself surprisingly well to the movies.

Alice Birch, a British playwright and screenwriter known for her adaptations, has been brought on to assist Taylor Swift with script rewrites for her directorial debut.

Baram's journey from aspiring cowboy to rising comedy star illustrates the unpredictable nature of pursuing one's passion in a world filled with alternatives.

In early drafts of Thunderbolts*, U.S. Agent was the primary villain until Sentry's addition brought a fresh narrative direction to the script.