John August

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Project update

Projects

After a month of baby duty, it’s back to work. This seems the perfect time to take stock of all the projects I have out there, and figure out exactly what their status is.

★ ACTIVE ★

Prince of Persia
Jordan Mechner, who created the videogame, wrote the movie adaptation, which he and I are executive producing with Jerry Bruckheimer Films at Disney. The script is great. Next step is to get a director. That discussion is just beginning.

I get more comments and suggestions about this project than any other. So let me clarify what I know, and what I don’t know. First, the movie is much more like The Sands of Time than Warrior Within. Second, we have no idea who will star in it, nor where we will shoot it. Third, that’s all I know. Or at least, all I can say.

Ops
This is the Fox TV show that Jordan and I set up last year about two guys who work as private military contractors. For various reasons, we didn’t end up shooting the pilot during the usual production schedule. Instead, Jordan and I ended up writing an almost entirely new pilot script which we (and Fox) are a lot happier with. Now there’s talk about shooting the pilot outside of the normal schedule, which would be fine with us. Or it could go away completely. That’s show business.

The Eye
I did a few weeks’ of work on this thriller at Paramount, an American remake of the Pang brothers movie. I’m happy with the work I did, but it’s not my movie in any creative-ownership sense.

Father Knows Less
I rewrote Father Knows Less ((May 3, 2011 Update: IMDb listing now inactive)), set to star Dustin Hoffman as a second-time dad, for New Line. Director Shawn Levy left the project, so I suspect they’re looking for a replacement. (Actually, I know they are, because I’ve talked to two friends who were sent it.)

Untitled Broadway Musical
I’m writing the book for a Broadway musical currently in very, very early stages of development. It’s been interesting adapting to the challenges of storytelling on the stage. No, I can’t say what the project is, or whether it will ever happen. Based on the very busy schedules of everyone involved, it could take years.

How to Eat Fried Worms
This project, an adaptation of Thomas Rockwell’s book, was the very first script I was ever hired to write, way back in 1995. Originally, the project was set up at Imagine, then it migrated to Nickelodeon. I assumed the project was dead and gone, when suddenly I read that it was filming in Austin.

Bob Dolman, who was brought in to rewrite the script after me, is directing. Producer Mark Johnson called to tell me filming was going well. I haven’t read the shooting script — or any script at all — so I don’t know how much resemblance it bears to the movie I wrote so many years ago.

★ FINISHED ★

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The movie is now out in almost every market, and looks to be closing in on $200 million domestic box office. I’ve seen the special features for the DVD, which are quite cool, although I don’t know the exact release date for the disc. But something tells me it would be a great stocking stuffer. Hint.

When I did Q&A’s for the film, many people asked if we were going to make a sequel, such as Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. As far as I know, no. That was never in the plans. Tim and I have never talked about it.

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
The film is now finished, and ready for its debut at the Toronto Film Festival. I’m really happy with how the film turned out. I didn’t originate the project — I came on board after they had started filming — but I enjoyed working with the team to figure out how to get it in its best shape. In addition to shared screenwriting credit (along with Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler), I share lyric credit on several of the songs.

Charlie’s Angels
I keep getting questions about whether there will be a third one. I doubt it. I love the characters, and I love the people involved, but we’re all off doing other things now. I don’t foresee getting back together to make another one.

★ LIMBO ★

Tarzan
My modern-day, pan-African adaptation of Tarzan is in a (permanent?) holding pattern at Warner Bros. Last year, we started to go out to directors, but now it’s not clear what the next step is. There’s disagreement about many things, including my basic take on the entire movie.

It’s frustrating, because Tarzan is one of the best things I’ve ever written. It’s certainly one of the most difficult. You have a hero who grows from an infant to a man, and doesn’t learn how to speak until page 40. A lot of it plays like a silent movie, yet it has big Joseph Campbell-y hero themes that I generally avoid, but which work great for a film like this.

I really wanted this to be a trilogy. Now, I’d settle for a mono-gy.

Untitled Zombie Western
Largely due to readers’ terrific suggestions for a new title, I’m seriously considering dusting off this long-buried spec. Not that I think anybody’s itching to make a zombie movie after the disappointing returns for Land of the Dead. But I’ll at least add it to the Library section once I get it cleaned up.

Fury
There’s been some discussion about turning this unsold spec — the most violent thing I’ve ever written — into a graphic novel or a videogame. Both ideas make sense; the story is sort of a cross between Grand Theft Auto and The Terminator. But there are other projects that require my immediate attention, so I may just let this back-burner for a while.

★ QUESTION MARKS ★

Alice
This adaptation((May 3, 2011 Update: IMDb listing now inactive)) of American McGee‘s videogame was looking pretty dead, when it suddenly sprang back to life with the announcement that Marcus Nispel would be directing, with Sarah Michelle Gellar in the title role. The Hollywood Reporter article lists Erich and Jon Hoeber as the screenwriters.

Back in 2000, the project was set up at Dimension, with Wes Craven attached to direct. I wrote a long treatment — not a full script, as the Hollywood Reporter article states — and left the project under less-than-felicitous circumstances. But I’ve kept up with American McGee, who’s a friggin’ rock star.

I have no idea whether the movie will incorporate any of the material from my treatment, or if the current incarnation even has the applicable rights. If you’re interested in tracking the progress on the project, American’s site is your best bet.

Barbarella
Oh, sweet Barbarella. This adaptation of the French comic book series about a sexually-liberated space explorer was set to star Drew Barrymore, but a tangle of rights issues got in the way. It was tremendous fun to write. Of all my unproduced projects, it’s probably my favorite.

There were rumors recently that Lindsay Lohan was going to play the part. I think that was just fanboy fantasy. Although, honestly, last-year’s Lindsay (the nice girl who was in Mean Girls) would have been great.

My agent got a call a few months ago from a producer who claimed to have the rights to Barbarella. I doubt he had all the right he thought he had, and he certainly didn’t have the right to my script, which is co-owned by Fox and Warner Bros. So I don’t see this getting made any time soon. (Although I would have said the same about How to Eat Fried Worms.)

★ PRESUMABLY DEAD ★

Thief of Always
An adaption of Clive Barker’s novel. The first project I was ever fired off of.

Untitled John August Thriller
This Sony project was intended to be a big summer event movie, but a competing project suddenly roared to life. I never ended up writing the script. In many ways, that’s good, because I don’t think our movie would have gotten made anyway.

Demonology
This Paramount thriller is about two prep school girls who have to save Manhattan from the Apocalypse. Sort of a cross between Clueless and Aliens, which is why it will never get made.

Fantasy Island
A big-budget feature adaptation of the classic TV show. My version was a lot like Lost, except that Lost is a lot better than my movie would have been.

Fenwick’s Suit
Based on the book by David Small, a family comedy about a guy whose suit develops a life of its own. The studio gave up on it, but I think it could have worked.

Bad Hospital
An HBO dramedy about a terrible hospital. Not haunted, not evil, just really crappy. It was created by Julie Siege; I was executive-producing. Ultimately, we never made it out of development, but Julie landed a spot on Invasion.

When should a writer become a corporation?

Film Industry, QandA

questionmarkMy writing partner and I have sold a few projects, with, hopefully, a few more to come. The question is, at what point should we incorporate into a film company? Before we’ve sold the next project or after? Once we’re more established as a team? When we start making greater than a certain amount of money per year? What are the perks and drawbacks to making such a move?

–Dara
Los Angeles

Most screenwriters who find themselves making a living at the craft end up incorporating at some point — as do actors, directors, and other relatively well-paid professions in the film industry. I became a corporation shortly after Go.

The idea is that the studios don’t hire you directly. Rather, the studio makes a deal to “borrow” your services from a corporation that you’ve created. These one-person corporations are called “loan-outs,” because loaning out your time and talent is all they really do.

What’s the point? Well, there are two main advantages.

The first is financial. Because the studio is paying you as a corporation, rather than as an individual, it’s easier to deduct business expenses, such as office space, assistants and computers. Your corporation can set up a pension plan for its sole employee: you. You can also avoid paying personal income tax on the money for a longer period of time. (Though you do eventually have to pay it.)

The second advantage is liability. Let me first invoke my I’m Not a Lawyer Disclaimer — so don’t bank on what I’m saying. But the corporation can help shield your personal assets (your house, your car, your toothbrush) from lawsuits that might come up relating to your screenwriting career. If I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, it’s because I never, ever want to be sued.

The only real drawbacks of incorporating is the expense and the additional paperwork — quarterly statements and such. Although some writers manage to keep up with it themselves, I couldn’t imagine doing it without a business manager and an accountant. (Which are not-insignificant expenses.)

As for what point it makes sense to incorporate, the rule of thumb I heard was when your annual income consistently exceeds $200,000 per year, it’s time to form a loan-out. But that was 1999, so who knows what the current figure is.

My suggestion would be to talk with your attorney, and get his advice. He’s the one who would actually be filing the paperwork with the state to get it all set up.

Also, if you’re living outside the U.S., all bets are off. You’ll need to find someone familiar with the specific rules of your country. For instance, Ireland has amazing tax breaks for writers. I suspect becoming a corporation there would be a terrible idea — but you’d need an expert to tell you.

What’s the difference between Hero, Main Character and Protagonist?

QandA, Story and Plot

questionmarkI have a supporting character that seems to fill a far greater purpose
than I originally anticipated. The supporting character fits
Wikipedia’s definition of Hero. However, your definition says hero and main character are synonymous.

In my story, the protagonist is the main character; it’s his story. But everything is affected by this supporting character’s possession of “character far greater than that of a typical person.”

Is it wheels off to have a main character and protagonist not be the hero
in the end? Do you think the audience will feel cheated by a decision
like this?

— Trey
Dallas, TX

We’re venturing into Dramatic Theory 101, so if you’re the type who begins squirming in your seat when professor-types talk about Joseph Campbell and character arcs, you can save yourself a lot of frustration by stopping after the following sentence:

In most cases, “Hero,” “Main Character,” and “Protagonist” are the same character.

Seriously, you can stop reading now. Here’s a nice article about raising orphaned squirrels.

Now, for readers who are still with me, let’s try to come up with more specific definitions for these three terms, and explore why they may apply to different characters in certain stories.

Hero
My incredibly-simplified definition: this is the character who you hope to see “win.” While it’s fine to think of Superman, or Aladdin, the hero doesn’t have to be noble, or courageous, or especially talented. As long as you’re rooting for him, that’s what matters.

Main Character
Just what it sounds like: this is the character who the story is mostly about. Confused? Often his or her name is in the title: Shrek, King Arthur, Tootsie, Citizen Kane.

Protagonist
The character who changes over the course of the story, travelling from Point A to Point B, either literally or figuratively. She learns and grows as the story progresses. Generally, Protagonists want something at the start of the tale, and discover they need something else.

Now, remember, most times, one character is all three of these things. For example, Ripley in Aliens is clearly the Hero (fighting the monster), the Main Character (the story is mostly about her), and the Protagonist (she reluctantly joins the trip, but ends up descending to the depths to fight for her “daughter”).

The same triple-aspect applies to Cher in Clueless, and John McClane in Die Hard. And it’s fine for movies to have “teams” of characters fulfiling these roles; in Charlie’s Angels, Dylan, Natalie and Alex are each Hero, Main Character and Protagonist.

However, in some stories, the Hero, the Protagonist and the Main Character are not all the same person. One very current example is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

There’s no question that Charlie’s the Hero. You want to see him win that Golden Ticket, and for only good things to happen to him. Likewise, he’s also the Main Character — though Wonka’s a close second. While Charlie recedes into the background a bit during the factory tour, he’s still the main focus of the movie’s storytelling energies. When the Narrator talks, it’s mostly to fill in details about Charlie.

However, Charlie is not a classic Protagonist. Charlie doesn’t grow or change over the course of the story. He doesn’t need to. He starts out a really nice kid, and ends up a really nice kid.

In terms of Classical Dramatic Structure, that leaves us one Protagonist short, which leads to the biggest change in the screenplay versus the book (or the 1971 film). In our movie, Willy Wonka is the protagonist. He grows and changes. We see his rise and fall, along with his nervous breakdown during the tour. Charlie’s the one who’s always asking — ever so politely, in the Freddie Highmore Whisper(TM) — the questions that lead to Wonka’s flashbacks upon his rotten childhood. (In Classic Dramatic terms, that makes Charlie an Antagonist. Not to be confused with a Villain. Are you sure you don’t want to read about some squirrels?)

As I pitched it to Tim: Charlie gets a factory, and Willy Wonka gets a family. It’s the whole want-versus-need thing. Charlie doesn’t need a factory. Wonka really needs a family. Otherwise, he’s going to die a giggling misanthropic weirdo.

Assigning labels

Playing “spot the protagonist” can be a good intellectual exercise — up to a point. As I started writing Charlie, asking “Who’s the protagonist?” led to some important decisions about the storytelling. But trying to pin firm labels on the characters in Go or Pirates of the Caribbean would only prove frustrating.

If a story works, it works — regardless of whether characters are fulfilling their archetypal roles. So be wary of trying to wedge characters into defined classes, simply because that’s how they “should” fit.

Is that how the line was supposed to go?

Go, QandA

GainesSomething that’s always bothered me about Go. When Ronna is in Todd’s apartment she says “Todd, I would never fuck you like that.” And he says, “How would -you- fuck -me-?”

Like, how would a nothing like you ever screw over a big drug dealer like me? But he just explained how she could fuck him: twenty hits is intent to distribute. Did you mean for the line to be read like “How -would- you fuck me?” As in, why should I trust you? And if so, how did the director fuck that up so badly?

— Rebecca
Los Angeles

Actually, the intent behind the line is completely different — and this is an example of how acting choices and editing room decisions can impact a scene. If you download the original script, you’ll see that the scene in question actually reads:

  • GAINES
  • You come here out of the blue asking for twenty hits. Just so happens twenty is the magic number where intent to sell becomes trafficking.
  • RONNA
  • Todd, I would never fuck you like that.
  • GAINES
  • How would you fuck me? Would you strap it on?
  • He climbs over the sofa to a dresser. In a drawer, he digs down through a pile of socks to find a wide-mouthed bottle. And an empty Tylenol bottle. Blows out the dust.

The “Would you strap it on?” line makes it clear that he’s sort-of-joking, in a very sexual way. Unfortunately, on the night we shot this scene, the energy was all wrong.

The producers and I still talk about that bad night, because Timothy Olyphant, who completely nailed the role of Gaines otherwise, was not finding the right rhythms. That’s incredibly frustrating as a writer on the set, because you can hear in your head just how the line should sound, but nothing you do can get it to come out that way. And this isn’t a criticism of Tim or director Doug Liman. Everyone has bad nights; they’re usually not captured on film for posterity.

In fact, the next night we ended up re-shooting Gaines’ side of the later Claire scene, when Tim suddenly had a breakthrough and really figured out how to play the moments. Those are some of my favorites moments in the movie, and it’s all credit to Tim’s acting.

That still left us with some challenges cutting together the Ronna scene. Ultimately, the version that worked best dropped the “Would you strap it on?” line. But you’re right: the inflections in the previous line don’t really make sense. I cringe a little when I watch it.

The other reason I miss the strap-it-on reference is that it played into Ronna having balls. In an earlier scene, Ronna said she’d go straight to Todd, because buying through a middle man would cut her profit: “That’s like, a hundred dollars I’d be pissing out my dick.” I love that Ronna sees herself as hard-boiled, even when she’s terrified.