Posted by Smalls at syr-24-24-14-133.twcny.rr.com on January 14, 2003 at 16:44:51:
In Reply to: Re: GWHunting question posted by everkorn81 on January 14, 2003 at 16:16:12:
: he had nothing to do with writing it. he did bring the script to the desk of harvey weinstein, which was a major step in it getting made. kev and scott mosier were then given executive producer credits on the film.
The Good Will Hunting script was stuck at another production company, in limbo, either never to be made or to be made without Ben and Matt's involvement, depending.
During a time when the film could be legally bought from that company (I believe it was Castle Rock) Ben gave it to Kevin to read... and Kevin loved it so much that him and Scott passed it immediately along to Harvey Weinstein with high praise.
It had been read by Miramax before... but apparently by a lower-echelon type that just skimmed it, wrote it off as just a piffle written by two small-time actors, and hucked it.
Kev and Scott however took it directly to Harvey himself, he loved it and Miramax bought it... granted Ben and Matt roles in the film and the right to be the guys doing the preproduction rewrites. For Kevin and Scott's role in sheparding it over to The Max they became co-execproducers.
Golden took a look at the script at one point in the process (possibly when it was still at Castle Rock) as a favor to a friend, did no rewriting on it, simply passed along the advice to Ben and Matt: "You've got strong characters here and a strong story, don't try making it more actiony, it's strong as a character piece."
Because in some drafts, as they were shopping it, there was a lot more of a chase with the NSA and so forth... but it took away from the heart of the script, it's been said... I can't really say, though, I've only read the published draft just like nearly everyone else.
Rumours of Kevin and/or Golden writing it came simply from the fact that some industry wags refused to believe that the script was written by two handsome young up-and-coming actors... and so they cooked up a conspiracy theory in their own heads that one of the people who had hands in the development process ACTUALLY wrote it and just pinned it on Ben and Matt as a publicity stunt. Golden being a legend who gave a couple of brief notes on it, Smith being a close friend of Affleck's... the two of them being two of the best drama/comedy-mix writers in Hollywood, they became the two biggest "suspects".
Some people think we didn't land on the moon. Some people thinks Elvis is actually alive, some people think Andy Kaufman's actually dead. There'll always be conspiracy theorists popping up to try and disprove things when stuff that's absolutely amazing happens.
Mike