Sheldon Woodbury - Cool Million: How to Become a Million-Dollar Screenwriter

HOW TO BECOME A

MILLION DOLLAR SCREENWRITER

HOW TO BECOME A

MILLION DOLLAR SCREENWRITER

Cool Million 2003 Sheldon Woodbury

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

M. Evans and Company, Inc.
216 East 49th Street
New York, New York 10017

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Woodbury, Sheldon.

Cool Million : How to Become a Million Dollar Screenwriter / Sheldon

Woodbury.

p. cm.

Includes index

ISBN: 978-1-59077-018-4

1. Motion picture authorship. I. Title

PN1996.W64 2003

808.2'3--dc22

2003016425

Typesetting and graphics by Evan Johnston
Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To LuAnn and William, my wife and my son.
If our life was a movie wed all be sitting in the
theater watching a dream that suddenly came true.

&

To my parents, my heroes.

Its been a wonderful surprise how helpful and generous people have been in supporting this book from the very beginning.

First was D.B. Gilles, my great friend and writing partner, who helped in every way possible. A big thank you and deep appreciation also go to Jane Dystel and Stacey Glick, my agents. Stacey, especially, was instrumental in developing the idea and worked very hard finding Cool Million a home.

The amazing PJ Dempsey, my editor, was also responsible for improving Cool Million far beyond its original concept. Thanks also to Matt Harper for his smart and insightful suggestions, and Evan Johnston for his terrific book design.

I am also grateful to many others who helped along the way: Lydia and Joan Wilen, authors of How to Sell Your Screenplay; Lew Hunter, author of Lew Hunters Screenwriting 434; Howard Meibach of hollywoodlitsales.com; Robert Honor at New York University; Jeff Mehlman; Beth Uffner; Linda Hoffman at Warner Bros.; Glynis Lynn at Phantom Four Productions; and Noah Gallico at the Broder-Kurland-Webb-Uffner Agency.

I also want to thank all my colleagues and students in the Department of Dramatic Writing at New York University for creating a place where movies and screenwriting are treasured and loved.

Thanks also to my mythic and terrific brothers and sister: Marion, Frank, Spencer, and Alice. We grew up watching movies together in the basement of our house in Summit, New Jersey. It was our first blockbuster movie theater.

Lastly, I want to thank all the screenwriters and movie professionals who contributed their time and energy to be interviewed for this book. Without exception, they brought honesty, insight, and passion to every question that was asked. They all interrupted very busy schedules, simply because they wanted to help beginning screenwriters. Their contribution is the heart and soul of the book. I am enormously grateful for their participation.

Finally, to Natalie, Rudi, Mariel, Hunter, Bryson, Payton, Libby, Tate, Chelsea, Tyler, Tara, Noelle, and William:

I hope all your blockbuster dreams
will always come true.

So you want to be a million dollar screenwriter? If your answer is yes, then this book was written specifically for you.

Its also why Cool Million is so different from all the other screenwriting books that are availableits about both the art and business of becoming a successful screenwriter. Most screenwriting books focus only on the craft of screenwriting and leave it at that. They teach you how to write a well-constructed screenplay, then consider the job done.

But in the world of Hollywood screenwriting today, its a hard and inescapable fact of survival that you cant successfully practice your art without also knowing how the business works. Because the business of Hollywood will be the biggest influence on your screenwriting career.

Cool Million was inspired by my experiences as both a screenwriter and a screenwriting teacher. As a screenwriter, Ive come to realize how important it is to be smart and educated about how the movie industry works. If you want to write screenplays that get made into movies, its absolutely essential to understand why some movies get made and others dont.

As a screenwriting teacher in the Department of Dramatic Writing at New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts, I also work with some of the most talented young screenwriters in the country, and I see first-hand the pressures they have to face. Theyve decided to pursue an artistic career thats immediately filled with challenges. Their parents are usually less than enthusiastic, and their confidence level is usually a bit shaky, too. But like students in any other top-level college program, theyre not only smart and talented, theyre also ambitious. They want to be successful. They want to be the best. They desperately want their professional dreams to come true.

Thats why Cool Million is ambitious, too.

It wont just teach you how to write a screenplay; it will teach you how to write a screenplay that movie audiences and Hollywood will both love. The book is specifically designed to give you the knowledge and skills youll need to build a career as a million dollar screenwriter.

Interviews with a top Hollywood agent and studio executive will reveal exactly what the movie industry looks for in a million dollar screenplay. The book also includes in-depth interviews with eleven top million dollar screenwriters, who will share their insider secrets and give expert advice on all aspects of the business. The screenwriters were all unflinchingly honest, not holding back on revealing the highs and lows of being paid millions for whats inside their heads.

What youll learn from the interviews is that a million screenwriter can be anybody. One went to Stanford. Another is a college dropout. One started out writing jokes for the comedian Jimmy Walker in high school. Another wanted to be a homicide detective. One got his big break working as a chauffeur for a movie director. The screenwriters interviewed are all as different as the movies they write, but they all share one thing in common: success.

My only regret is that I wasnt able to include a female screenwriter in the book. I tried very hard. So if youre an aspiring female screenwriter, please dont let that diminish your ambition. There are many million dollar female screenwriters, but theres always room for more.

Finally, before we begin, lets all agree on a very important artistic belief thats another fundamental inspiration for this book.

Making a million dollars for whats inside your head is cool!

Cool Million is organized to be both easy-to-use and comprehensive in scope. For best use of the book, its also strongly recommended that you read it from beginning to end and not jump around and only read selectively.