Story Changes Quotes

Though the Grimms kept about 100 of the tales from the first edition, they changed them a good deal.

The first draft of 'Ex Machina' is extremely different than the finished film. That would be like 10% of the original draft stayed into the shooting script.

Every animated film that I've worked on - whether it was as a story artist or as Head of Story or even as director - where we originally started out with our story and where we eventually ended up were often very different places.

When you're tied to one show, you are very much at the mercy of the writers, so you can suddenly get a script where you have a heart attack and die.

I very rarely read a script that I don't feel I want to change a lot.

What happens often is the script is written and once the director comes on board you have lots of conversations and it mutates again.

It's a Samurai story [47 ronin], so if we change too much Japanese audiences will have strong against feelings to the film. It's not good.

I was disappointed with 'My Friend Pinto.' Everyone put a lot of effort into it but the final product was something no one was ready for. The story was altered and a lot of scenes were edited. I got a lot of flak for my performance.

Gerald's Game,' we could not have made it at a studio without substantive changes to the story.

Literally, the piece at the end is where the universe is cracked apart, it's a big moment. Basically, they, the filmmakers, have directed the story earlier in the book. It happens, it's called adapting a book, you have to make decisions about things. It's not unusual having to cut out scenes.

All films created by Walt Disney at the time of his major outpouring of work were carefully crafted to fit scenes, characters, moods and situations. If these elements changed in any way, songs - no matter how good they were - were discarded. Others were written for the new scenes. Many times, character songs were dropped because characters were dropped...sequences were dropped etc.

I can't tell you the number of stories I've told with a female protagonist don't get bought, or they do get bought and get changed drastically. Or, I will literally write into the script different races, and they get cast all-white. I hope that stops and it opens the door for more voices to be heard in movies.

Steven and I have worked together a lot and I'm far ahead of the curve than most people in knowing what he wants, but he knows far more than I know about what's important for the story. So, most of the changes he will make will involve story changes.

With 'Crucible,' any big changes I wanted to make I only had to run by Lucasfilm, not other authors whose stories I might affect.

A lot of directors will do a certain amount of storyboarding and pre-vis, and yet when they get on the set, everything starts to change, and they have new ideas.

I can certainly be surprised by turns a story takes, but usually not once I'm actually in the writing/drawing stage. In the plotting stage, anything can happen. That's why I try to finish that part before I start writing. I may be exaggerating here - I'm sure there are times when I think of something part-way through that changes the story, but the ultimate outcome doesn't change. Or not yet. It could always happen.

'Fargo,' man, with so many actors playing so many great characters, and then they do another season, and it changes all over again? It's wild.