Screenwriter Danny Strong on LEE DANIELS THE BUTLER
For nearly three and a half decades the White House had a man under its roof who saw almost as much as an of its presidents. His name was Eugene Allen and he was head butler. When Washington Post reporter Wil Haygood wrote an article about the extraordinary life of this White House employee who
When you’ve got a credit on your writing resume like Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, it’s hard to believe your next passion project would be a sweet romantic comedy about a couple who are trying to make it through their first year of marriage. But that’s I
The minions are back! And they’re ready for their sequel in the newest animation feature, Despicable Me 2. Screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul (Hop, The Lorax) were called back to write the second iteration of the enormously successful film Despicable Me, the story of an uber villain who ends up adopting three little girls.
How does a screenwriter in Hollywood approach the challenge of bringing one of the most beloved characters of the Old West to the silver screen when legendary Pirates of the Caribbean producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski ask you to write the script? “The way to approach this was to not be overly precious
The marketing for the new action thriller, White House Down, staring Channing Tatum seems to focus more on his dirty white tank top than the plot itself. What does screenwriter James Vanderbilt think of all the hunky hubbub around his new movie? He loves it! This conversation about costuming with the writer who penned The
In the screenwriting world, writing a movie with Pixar is like taking a trip to the moon. Deep in the recesses of the “brain trust” – as Monsters University writers Robert Baird and Dan Gerson call the folks who sit in on story development at the exclusive animation studio – is where all the magic
How could the man who wrote Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures, like totally, and also write a crime thriller with elaborate plot twists such as Now You See Me? Meditation is his answer. With every project screenwriter Ed Solomon takes on, he rediscovers the craft of writing and what drew him to it in
John Lasseter is now the head of Disney Animation Studios, but he’s best known for molding the Northern California based animation studio, Pixar, into a household name that is synonymous with a kids’ brand of movies that adults can enjoy, too. Screenwriter Phil Johnston, one of two writers on the newest animation out of the
“I got sober when I was 25,” screenwriter John Gatins tells ScreenwritingU in a very personal one-on-one interview about his new drama, Flight, the story of a pilot who saves the lives of everyone on his plane only to be questioned about his own state of sobriety while flying. Gatins uses his experiences with addition to mold the
Screenwriter Chris Terrio got lucky, he says. That’s the only way he can explain how a first time writer like himself got the opportunity of a lifetime – to write a move directed by Ben Affleck. The new political thriller,Argo, received a standing ovation at Toronto Film Festival and is fast becoming the most talked