Thompson on Hollywood

A New Age of Original Content Needs Script Services: A Guide

Features

Hollywood is allergic to taking risks on the unknown. But not every young adult franchise or fairy tale retelling can be as uber-successful around the world as "Twilight" ($392 million), "The Hunger Games" ($691 million) or "Oz: The Great and Powerful" ($426 million to date). This year's "Beautiful Creatures" grossed $57-million worldwide, and $200-million "Jack the Giant Slayer" mustered a miserable global $158 million.

By Sophia Savage
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April 9, 2013 2:27 PM
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Sundance Institute and Black List Collaborating to Support New Screenwriters

News

The Sundance Institute and The Black List announce they will collaborate to source and support new screenwriters. This partnership will allow screenwriters to upload scripts to the Black List's site between now and April 15 and opt into consideration to receive a Black List referral...

By Sophia Savage
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March 5, 2013 1:27 PM
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WGA Lists Greatest Screenplays, From 'Casablanca' and 'Godfather' to 'Memento' and 'Notorious'

News

The Writers Guild lists the 101 Greatest Screenplays. Among them are many familliar classics, like "Casablanca," "The Godfather," "Chinatown," "Citizen Cane" and "All About Eve," which comprise the top five.

By Sophia Savage
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February 27, 2013 2:33 PM
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Oscar Predictions 2014

Awards

And so it all begins again. So far there's only one frontrunner for the 2014 Oscars: Sundance hit "Before Midnight," directed by Richard Linklater and written by him and his two stars, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

By Anne Thompson
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February 18, 2013 4:24 PM
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Obit: 'Night Moves' Screenwriter Alan Sharp, Memorial Planned

News

I had the pleasure of talking by phone to novelist/screenwriter Alan Sharp while preparing the production notes for the 1983 Sam Peckinpah movie "The Osterman Weekend," which was to be the director's last. While that film did not mark either man's finest hour, Sharp was one of Hollywood's most respected screenwriters; he specialized in muscular western noir. He died last weekend at the age of 78 after a long illness.

By Anne Thompson
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February 13, 2013 3:40 PM
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Academy Accepting Entries for 2013 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting Competition

News

The Academy is now accepting entries for its 2013 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition. Up to five $35,000 fellowships will be awarded in November. During the fellowship year participants will complete a new feature length script...

By Sophia Savage
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February 11, 2013 2:26 PM
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Screenwriter David Koepp Honored with Writers Guild's Career Achievement Award

Awards

The Writers Guild of America, East announces screenwriter and director David Koepp will receive the Ian McClellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement. The award, established in 1992, honors a WGA member for his or her body of work.

By Beth Hanna
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January 29, 2013 2:49 PM
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'Lincoln' Screenwriter Tony Kushner Honored with Writers Guild's Paul Selvin Award

Awards

"Lincoln" screenwriter Tony Kushner will receive the Writers Guild's 2013 Paul Selvin Award, in recognition of his script that "best embodies the spirit of the constitutional and civil rights and liberties, which are indispensable to the survival of free writers everywhere."

By Sophia Savage
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January 28, 2013 4:20 PM
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In the Works: 'Assassin's Creed,' Reddit's 'Rome, Sweet Rome' and Warner Bros' Sci-Fi 'Odyssey' Get Writers

News

Brit playwright Michael Lesslie ("Prince of Denmark") has been enlisted to write the script for "Assassin's Creed," starring Michael Fassbender and based on the Ubisoft video game. Two-year-old Ubisoft Motion Pictures is developing the film with New Regency...

By Beth Hanna
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January 15, 2013 12:29 PM
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Writers Guild Nominations 2013: Who's on the Road to Oscar?

Awards

The trick with parsing the Writers Guild nominees is to remember which of the ones in contention for the Oscar are not WGA eligible: that includes Brit productions "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" and Working Title's "Les Miserables" and "Anna Karenina," Weinstein Co.'s "Django Unchained" (Quentin Tarantino has never joined the guild), foreign imports "Amour," "Rust and Bone," and "The Impossible," and Fox Searchlight's "Beasts of the Southern Wild" among others. Animated players are usually not guild signatories. Oscar nominations are due today, so the majority of ballots have already been submitted; the announcement comes January 10.