14 replies to this topic

[Shrublands]

On returning to London, he would start on a rewrite of the forthcoming James Bond movie...

...It was early September, and Butterworth, who divides his time between London and a farm in Somerset, had spent the week in conference with Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig, tweaking story lines for the new Bond movie. (He hates corporate limos and had been conveyed every morning to Pinewood Studios, outside London, on the back of a motorbike.) This was Butterworth’s second Bond; he worked on “Skyfall,” too, making the kind of script changes that his twelve-year-old self, watching the movie at the St. Albans Odeon, would be pleased to see. “You know, like Bond doesn’t have scenes with other men. Bond shoots other men—he doesn’t sit around chatting to them. So you put a line through that.”

 

 

http://www.newyorker...11/10/nothing-2

[Matt_13]

Still unsatisfied with the script from the sounds of things. This is all very interesting, I'm curious what could have possibly been so problematic with Logan's draft to neccessitate such extensive rewrites. Again, this sort of thing happens to movies on this scale all the time, but still, at the outset it very much seemed as though Logan would be taking the lead on script writing duties. Who is this guy, anyway? Anyone heard of him?

 

That being said, the '" Bond doesn't chat to other men" line may be telling. Maybe Logan's script was too talky?

 

Just looked briefly had his filmography. He had script writing duties on Edge of Tomorrow (which I quite liked) and appears to have some background in theater. Very interesting news, Shrublands. Good catch.

[Shrublands]

He is probably best know as a playwright, his plays Mojo and Jerusalem are very highly regarded.

I saw Mojo in London last year at the Harold Pinter Theatre - Ben Whishaw played the lead. 

[tdalton]

Interesting, although certainly not good, news.  I wonder just how bad the original script was if they're still in the process of overhauling it all these months later.

[Mr Ashdown]

Interesting, although certainly not good, news.  I wonder just how bad the original script was if they're still in the process of overhauling it all these months later.

 

Rewrites are pretty routine on any big-budget movie.  Logan's been re-written many times, and has re-written the work of others many times - it's all in the service of getting a good movie made, and rarely does it have anything to do with drafts being "bad".

[SecretAgentFan]

The thing is: every major studio film, really EVERY SINGLE ONE, has the script re-written countless times by multiple writers which go uncredited.

 

The reason: everybody involved - director, producer, actors, studio heads want to contribute and be the one who "saved" the project. 

 

Of course, it´s easier to say "Ah, no, I still think the script needs work" than to say "It´s perfectly fine".  Because if you say a script is fine and the film flops people will point at you and say: "Hey, the director/producer/actor or studio head said it was fine - so it was his fault all along!"

 

Especially with a film that follows a major success like SKYFALL, everybody is out of their mind.  They want to replicate the success.  That´s why they tinker with the script again and again.  Which is very often not helping at all.

 

In the end, this may still turn out fine.  Business as usual.

 

But I´m telling you from my experience: perfect scripts were ruined by this process.  And still the responsible people get celebrated afterwards for saving the film.

[Harmsway]

So he worked on SKYFALL? Interesting.

I wouldn't worry too much about ongoing rewrites.

[Vauxhall]

I never knew he'd also worked on the SKYFALL script. If that's the case, sure it's a fairly minor job on the BOND 24 script, and he won't even be credited.

[Shrublands]

Yes, I'd say this is an edit and dialogue polish. He's a rather respected name, it should benefit the quality of the script and it seems it's just the same job he did on Skyfall in the run up to the start of shoot.

[Vauxhall]

Interview from last year where he alludes vaguely to his script tweaks: http://www.theartsdesk.com/print/71913

 

You’ve done a lot of script-doctoring. Is there any reason to do it other than it pays well?

Yeah there really is. You get to work with... it comes back to the thing that I said. Your average film takes seven years from beginning to end. It’s just so long. I love the fact that I can basically go on holiday to other people’s films, get all of the excitement, and all of the pressure, all of the angst and the how do we solve this and how do you really make this story work? But I can do it for two weeks rather than seven years. I love it. I get excited showing up to do it. I find that it is such a respite being given a different set of problems to deal with and one that you’ve got technique to play. And those techniques are hard-earned, you learn them over a long long period of time, and you can really apply them like a doctor. Literally it’s called script doctor. You turn up and you can tell what’s wrong.

 

Is it always to do with structure or are you sometimes just asked to come in and sort the dialogue?

Yes. It really depends. It depends how late you come in. If you come in very late then often the structure’s defined. You can still do a tremendous amount. Like you can do something in three seconds of a screenplay that changes the entire meaning of the thing. I absolutely love it. I adore doing that. It never ever feels like drudgery. I was a terrible actor and it’s close to a performance. It’s like you go in and the lights go up and you’ve got to deliver. It’s like taking a penalty.

 

It’s a cameo role.

Yeah it is, and if it was all I did we wouldn’t be talking to each other.

 

Is that as close as you want to get to blockbusters?

Yes, and it’s a brilliant place to stand. It’s great fun. I would have gone to see those films when I was 14 years old and I would have been sitting there thinking, this scene could be better. You wouldn’t have said that. If I’m driving to the airport out of New York and I’ve done a play in New York, the further you go out to the airport you’re thinking, these people aren’t going to the theatre, they’re watching the films. They’re going to go and see Snow White, they’re going to go and see the James Bond. I feel better the further I go out there, because I’m doing that as well. I’m rewriting all of those films.

[Orion]

This is very common. You basically have a writer on call to any last minute re-writes that become necessary due to things outside your control or any problems that only come apparent during filming. On Quantum of Solace it was Daniel Craig and Marc Forster who had to do those sort of re-writes, as the writers strike meant they couldn't hire a professional writer. The writer who does that job is rarely given credit, as they wouldn't have written enough of the script to allow for one. The Dark Knight trilogy and The Avengers are the only big productions in modern history I can think of where I know such a writer wasn't hired, and those where PURELY because the respective directors were the primary writer on those scripts anyway, so could easily do any modifications themselves should they be needed. 

[x007AceOfSpades]

Just saw this on twitter and was about to post it, but Shrublands beat me to it.... By several hours (I need to step my game up!)

Rather interesting that he worked on Skyfall, never would've known that. Rewrites happen all the time, on practically every major blockbuster. There's always going to be something one writer does, that doesn't bode well the rest of the creative team, so they bring another one in to do touch ups/polishing and to do what is necessary.

Having said that, after I rewatched Skyfall last month (lovely on Blu Ray btw) I'm convinced that the overall story came of Mendes and P&W, and Logan just did some work to make it a little more than a Bond film. Probably dialogue and such, maybe pacing, who knows. So with Logan, at the time, being sole writer on this film and having his script being re-written, I'm sure it's probably because of it not being "Too Bond" if that makes sense. And something keeps telling me because of action sequences. Purvis & Wade came on for the "more wit and humor" which also makes me think that Logan's script was too serious and not, again, "too Bond". Butterworth is probably doing a dialogue and possible action scene/pacing re-write, or whatever work he did on Skyfall, which I am now curious to find out.

Like I said, and like SAF has stated, it's not unusual to have a major film's script re-written. If Bond 24 turns out to less than stellar, is it Butterworth's fault? Purvis & Wade's fault? Mendes' fault? No, all the fingers point directly to Logan and his original script which was being re-written and there's the infamous article that stated his script was "in bad shape", so who knows what's going. This can be another Skyfall where it's a complete success all around and just well made film, or it can be another Quantum Of Solace, where it's just been re-written to death. Granted Quantum Of Solace had the writer's strike issue, but there overall plot of the film I just found to be abysmal. Not to mention it had six people working on the script: Paul Haggis, Purvis & Wade, Daniel Craig & Marc Forster (doing on-set re-writes on the fly) and eventually Josh Zetumer did some stuff as well.

Well I feel like I've been babbling on and on for far too long and running around in a complete circle and overthinking something, so go ahead and have a chuckle at me. The absolute worst thing that can happen is Bond 24 turns out to be another Die Another Day. I guess we'll know in about a year or so.
 

[SecretAgentFan]

Hey, no sweat about babbling - this is a message board!

 

And you´re completely right: the multitude of writers on a blockbuster film can go either way.  It´s just weird that the credited screenwriter always gets blamed when in reality credits are a very complex thing, rarely reflecting the truth.  And all the ridiculously high paid script doctors who go uncredited... well, they are often only there because they are pals with the director/producer/studio head.  It happens again and again that after a script doctor has worked on something, the original script has to be re-instated because the script doctor made everything worse.

 

Talking about it:  John Logan´s work as the second writer on GLADIATOR actually was not a success at all.  Whole parts of the original script he had cut were put in again.  And in the end the original writer was called back to finish the job.

 

Still, people talk about GLADIATOR as proof for Logan´s wizardry.

 

No wonder Purvis & Wade at first balked at returning for BOND 24.  They probably said: Let them see whether Logan can pull it off.  And then they will call us back.

 

They did.

Edited by SecretAgentFan, 06 November 2014 - 08:55 AM.

[tdalton]

 

No wonder Purvis & Wade at first balked at returning for BOND 24.  They probably said: Let them see whether Logan can pull it off.  And then they will call us back.

 

They did.

 

They definitely were wise to sit Bond 24 out in the early going.  Between what we've heard about Bond 24's script, as well as what we've seen of Penny Dreadful and the overrated nature of the Skyfall script, I think it's certainly reasonable to wonder if Logan is the great screenwriter that he's often advertised as being.  I'd still be perfectly happy if EON just completely cleaned house in terms of the writing staff and found a good, solid screenwriter with experience writing thrillers, but at least they figured out that the script wasn't up to par and set out to fix it rather than go ahead with it anyway.  

[agentbug]

Following on from x007AceOfSpades’s comment, I was inclined to think that when Purvis and Wade were brought in to add ‘wit and humour’ they were essentially making it, yes, more Bond but also more British – Logan being American.

As for the rewrites, at the end of the day the producers have money to burn and if them paying writer number x a ton of money to potentially add even a slight improvement to what they already have and are probably really pleased with, then why would they not?

My concern then becomes that they have good a script and let someone come in and do something stupid, for example, removing scenes where Bond is speaking to a man... I mean, what does that original quote at the beginning of this thread even mean? Maybe it’s slightly lost in translation but if seems a short-sighted thing to say...

The producers do seem to make good choices, on the whole, though. I know the script for TND was taken completely apart and changed a lot then they asked the original writer back to put his work back together again and they ended up rejecting most of what was written in by the rewriters.