Good scripts are difficult to come by in the industry, especially if you are an outsider.
You read a script and its based on 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction', and it goes right in the bin.
I will never unravel the mystery of how a script gets into the hands of certain people.
Unfortunately scripts don't chase me. I chase them. I struggle, battle, discard, pick it back, struggle further, plead with it, curse it, cajole and try to be clever. But it is invariably the script that rules.
Howard Minsky had gotten the script to her agent prior to my involvement.
I get a trickling few scripts that I'm lucky enough that some of them are great. I don't get loads of scripts.
Hundreds of people who've never written before send in 'Dr. Who' scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is.
I've read many great samples, both of existing shows I liked and original pilots, and definitely hired the writers - or, at least, tried to!
I sent some scenes from 'Life on Mars'... and then I didn't hear anything for about 48 hours, and I was sure that I wouldn't get this. Then I got a phone call saying, 'They want you to take the role of Jim Shannon on 'Terra Nova,' and would I be interested!
In TV, writers generally are the show runners, and they have enormous control over everything. In feature films, very often the writer will turn in a script and never be heard from again.
I had the advantage of reading the book, and when the script was first submitted to me, it was just another gangster story - the east side taking over the west side and all that.
The difference is this: If you write a good book, it'll get published. If you have a great screenplay, there is no guarantee.
I read every screenplay that was being sent to the other directors. None were being sent to me, but I was reading what others were choosing and what the best writers were writing.
I do get a fair amount of scripts; I got 'Frozen River' kinda just that way. I have a hard time turning my back on anybody who says they have something for me.
Trying to get somebody to read your script and you're a musician? That's the last person whose script you're gonna read!
The 'Pan' script made it to the Black List in 2013.
'Hardware' came about because I had written quite a few scripts and hadn't had any luck getting them made.
It's not like I have boxes of scripts arriving at my door.
Some people, especially literary people, they think, 'I'll write this original script, and it will be full of ideas. I'll submit it, and they'll hire me for television.' That's not the case.
Most of the scripts that land on my desk are stuff you read and go, 'Is someone really gonna make this?'
Despite the digital age, there is a very large number of venues and spaces that are looking for plays, and many of them are looking for new plays.
I think if you get your fifth script made, that's the fast track. But there's no guarantee any of them will get made.
It's nice to finally get scripts offered to me that aren't the ones Tom Hanks wipes his butt with.
The absolute base-level thing that you do as a new screenwriter is send out query letters. Literally, you just say, 'Hi, Mr. So-and-So,' and you give them a one-sentence description of one of your scripts. You send it out to a list of people you found on the Internet.
I don't have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, 'Has Bob read ours yet?'
