Posted by Gringo_Nino at lucre.tcom.purdue.edu on March 23, 2001 at 17:11:39:
In Reply to: Re: Read this.... posted by TravisBickle on March 23, 2001 at 13:08:11:
sorry, NT
: : From an interview with William Goldman.
: : I brought up the section of the book where he dispels the GOOD WILL HUNTING rumors in pretty hilarious fashion, and I asked if he is often called in to look at young writers' work and offer advice, or if that was a fairly unique situation.
: : "Well, I read a lot of scripts. If someone knows me and would like me to read it, I read it. In the case of GOOD WILL HUNTING, I work for Castle Rock on occasion, and it was their script at the time. They asked me to read it. The one thing in the world I can do, and I wrote this in the book, is I love to spitball. You know, just sitting around, throwing out ideas. The script that I read, the one that Rob Reiner told them to change, was filled with the government trying to kill the Matt Damon character or kidnap him. I can't quite remember which it was. It was just filled with this, though, a very different movie. It was the movie that I'm sure these two young inexperienced writers did to try and make it quote commercial, wedging some action scenes in there. The only thing I know after all these years is that you can't just make something commercial. That's why I get crazed in THREE KINGS when Clooney reverts not to character, but to something that I suspect somebody forced on him. The only reason they do that shit is because they want to make their movie commercial. We all want to have our hits, but we don't really know how to do that. The public tells us what they want. One of my favorite Hollywood stories this year… and you guys are deeply involved over at Ain't It Cool with word of mouth and what's going on… there was a movie this Christmas that was wildly expensive, way over budget, over $100 million. It was testing miserably, and I was told that knives were being sharpened for the studio executives that okayed the movie, right? It was going to be one of the great disasters. Guess what? It was STUART LITTLE. Nobody thought THE INSIDER would do as badly as it did. Nobody knows anything. I still believe it."
:
: Exactly. He did a rewrite. The changes he made are fundamental shifts in the story, not "doctoring." He never wanted to expose this, if he did he would have screamed and cried for screen credit. All I am saying is that movie (1) would have never been made and consequently (2) never would have won a s/play oscar. I rest my case.