November
26
Screenwriting Expo: William Goldman Talks Newman, Redford, Butch and Sundance
I get a kick out of William Goldman. The author of several film book classics (Adventures in the Screen Trade is one) and excellent novels (The Temple of Gold, Boys and Girls Together, The Princess Bride) has always been a candid observer of the movie business, especially the screenwriting trade. At the recent Screenwriting Expo, he was interviewed by writer Aaron Sorkin (who mercilessly teased girlfriend Beth Swofford, a top agent at CAA, with being eager to read everyone's screenplays), who like everyone else, admires Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, partly because it helped to invent the buddy comedy.
"Westerns are dead now except for Mr. Eastwood," said Goldman. "You could make the argument that unemployable in movies today would be John Wayne, Fred Astaire and Cary Grant." (I'm not sure I agree with him about Grant, who could do anything.) His point was the death of the genres these men dominated: westerns, musicals and romantic comedies. (But aren't musicals coming back?)
It's hard to believe that the eventual Oscar-winning popular hit Butch Cassidy was badly reviewed: partly, Goldman thinks, because he got paid so much for the script, a whopping $400,000 at the time. He was attracted to the story of Butch and Sundance and the Hole-in- the-Wall gang partly because they had a second chapter--they became legends again. "That moved the shit out of me," Goldman said. He worked on the script for eight years. When he was teaching at Princeton he wrote the script over his Christmas vacation in two weeks. It was initially rejected by every studio. After he rewrote it, they all wanted to buy it except one, who told him, "John Wayne doesn't run away."
He was lucky with the casting and with director George Roy Hill, Goldman said. He compares Paul Newman to Clint Eastwood. Both men were (and Eastwood still is) "terrific, not arrogant and nasty." He thinks that's because neither made it when they were young. Eastwood was digging swimming pools into his early 30s [actually, late 20s]; Newman was working off-Broadway.
Nobody wanted Robert Redford for the Sundance Kid. Steve McQueen didn't do it because his agent and Newman's agent got into a pissing contest and wouldn't give up first billing. Marlon Brando "disappeared and went to play with the Indians." Redford was considered a light comedian. The movie made him a star, and Newman became the biggest star in the world. The duo followed up with an even bigger Oscar-winning smash hit, The Sting. "Why they never worked together again I don't know," said Goldman. "I don't know if any studio would make Butch Cassidy today. They die at the end."
Here's the bicycle scene with Katharine Ross (accompanied by the hit single Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head):
Goldman admitted he turned down The Godfather and The Graduate because he didn't want to glorify The Mob and he didn't like either book. He also turned down Superman because "they said they needed a star," he said. "I knew they'd never get one. Warren Beatty was offered the role. He asked for costume and took it home and put it on and came running out, felt ridiculous and took it off and passed on it. If I'd known they'd go after an unknown I might have done it."
What made All the President's Men so tough--it only got made because Redford wanted to make it--was that "you could get sued," said Goldman. "It had to be dead-on accurate." It helped that Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were on hand to help.
Both Goldman and Sorkin admitted that they can't write super-power movies. "The studios are in the business to stay in business, " said Goldman. "They have to make movies that make money. Studio heads all have one thing in common. They get fired for making movies that don't make money."
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There is talent and there is quisy talent whether creatively in writing or packaging a business or a film for that matter. But where is it written that a film can make money only if zillions of people buy tickets?
And if one wants to talk percentages, a US$10 MIL. budget film or less with an extraordinary story and acting making US$50-$100 MIL. globally, generates more profit than a blockbuster and even stands the chances to become a continuum classic!
Posted by: Ralph Aldori | November 27, 2008 at 12:16 PM
Maybe you want to correct that bit about Eastwood digging pools in his early 30s. It was his early 20s. He started acting in 1955, the year he turned 25, with five bit parts that year in Universal films. By the time he was in his early 30s, he was starring in the hit TV western, "Rawhide."
Posted by: Brian | December 01, 2008 at 07:54 AM