This is one for the Ya Can’t Win Dept. UK screenwriters are saying that UK film execs are so aggravating to work with that they’re being pushed into the very medium that so many writers in the U.S. bitch about – television. As another U.S. TV writer who also did a movie or three would say, “case in point:”
by Dalya Alberge
Three of Britain’s Oscar-nominated screenwriters say that an increasing tendency among film studio bosses and directors to “mutilate” film scripts is forcing top writers to either direct their own work or write for television, where they command greater respect.
Jeffrey Caine, William Nicholson and Steven Knight – whose acclaimed screenplays include those for The Constant Gardener, Gladiator and Dirty Pretty Things respectively – told the Observer that writers were often sacked without warning from the studios and would then discover that their original work has been altered beyond recognition by a production line of writers.