Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office, and You Can, Too! is the funniest book I’ve read in sometime.  Oh yeah, it’s also happens to be about Screenwriting, easily making it THE FUNNIEST BOOK ABOUT SCREENWRITING - EVER.  Period.  Authors Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon are the jack-wagon yay-hoos responsible for the delightfully demented Reno: 911, and the surprisingly diggable Night At The Museum flicks. Yes, you need an agent.  And to get one these days, you must be creative.  Simply sending out your script unsolicited is about as appealing to agents as a cold call from a discount butt sandwich company. Now, before you go out and pick up this book and L-O-L to the M-A-X, realize this is targeted at writers who want to sell scripts to studios.  This is not for writers who only write cuddly, inaccessible Arthouse films, it’s for those who want to make money as a Screenwriter, and (God forbid) even make a career out of it. Let’s put it this way: Do you like movies that challenge and confuse you?  We do.  Sometimes.  Eraserhead is great.  But not every night.  Can you take your in-laws and their kids to see Eraserhead?  Can you pop Eraserhead into your Blu-ray when your family is over for Christmas to shut everybody up for two hours?… Don’t get us wrong, we love Eraserhead.  But 95 percent of Americans, if you forced them to watch Eraserhead, would want to punch that movie in the face and would punch YOU in the face for making them watch it.  If you want to make movies like that, make an indie.  Make a movie with people who don’t care about box-office receipts. Some chapters merely exist because the authors were most-likely drunk off their asses while writing them: L.A. has the best Mexican food in the world.  MUCH better than Mexico.  Plus, unlike in real Mexico, you won’t get your face sliced off and sewn onto a soccer ball! which, of course, precedes a list of their favorite Mexican restaurants in town. However!  There are many nuggets of wisdom here, ripe for the taking.  Seriously, there’s actually some fantastic advice within (especially when detailing finances between studios and writers, the development process, etc.)  Read about all of this and more in the book which has a chapter called, “Why Does Almost Every Studio Movie SUCK Donkey Balls?”* *True story.

Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office, and You Can, Too!
is the funniest book I’ve read in sometime.  Oh yeah, it’s also happens to be about Screenwriting, easily making it THE FUNNIEST BOOK ABOUT SCREENWRITING - EVER.  Period.  Authors Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon are the jack-wagon yay-hoos responsible for the delightfully demented Reno: 911, and the surprisingly diggable Night At The Museum flicks.
Yes, you need an agent.  And to get one these days, you must be creative.  Simply sending out your script unsolicited is about as appealing to agents as a cold call from a discount butt sandwich company.
Now, before you go out and pick up this book and L-O-L to the M-A-X, realize this is targeted at writers who want to sell scripts to studios.  This is not for writers who only write cuddly, inaccessible Arthouse films, it’s for those who want to make money as a Screenwriter, and (God forbid) even make a career out of it.
Let’s put it this way: Do you like movies that challenge and confuse you?  We do.  Sometimes.  Eraserhead is great.  But not every night.  Can you take your in-laws and their kids to see Eraserhead?  Can you pop Eraserhead into your Blu-ray when your family is over for Christmas to shut everybody up for two hours?…
Don’t get us wrong, we love Eraserhead.  But 95 percent of Americans, if you forced them to watch Eraserhead, would want to punch that movie in the face and would punch YOU in the face for making them watch it.  If you want to make movies like that, make an indie.  Make a movie with people who don’t care about box-office receipts.
Some chapters merely exist because the authors were most-likely drunk off their asses while writing them:
L.A. has the best Mexican food in the world.  MUCH better than Mexico.  Plus, unlike in real Mexico, you won’t get your face sliced off and sewn onto a soccer ball!
which, of course, precedes a list of their favorite Mexican restaurants in town.
However!  There are many nuggets of wisdom here, ripe for the taking.  Seriously, there’s actually some fantastic advice within (especially when detailing finances between studios and writers, the development process, etc.)  Read about all of this and more in the book which has a chapter called, “Why Does Almost Every Studio Movie SUCK Donkey Balls?”*
*True story.

Notes

  1. mrgregfrancis said: Totally enjoyed this book. some great advice -some things I take with a grain of salt. But hard to argue with success… :)
  2. micahmoss posted this