If you want to make a lot of money behind the camera in Hollywood, your best bet is to work as a so-called script doctor. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few days or weeks of work are not uncommon here. In 2016 the found that the industry’s most sought-after script doctors can command $400,000 per workweek. Prices have certainly not fallen to their peak since then. But what do script doctors actually do? And which famous names, some of which may surprise you, have already practiced the profession?
Script Doctor: Help in an emergency
The name explains a lot. It’s about the script and a kind of doctoring. Script doctors are usually used when time is of the essence. It’s about to be shot or the cameras are already rolling and it becomes clear that the script still has weaknesses. But maybe the original authors don’t have the time or you don’t trust them right now, because they are partly responsible for the previous problems. Then (nowadays several) script doctors are called.
They usually do not revise the entire script, but are regularly used selectively. Perhaps the dialogue here needs some freshening up? Or should an action scene be added or rewritten? Do we need more humor and better jokes?
Some of the greatest masterpieces used script doctors
The high salary of script doctors is not only due to the fact that they usually work under time pressure and only have days or at best a few weeks at their disposal. Normally they have to keep their work secret and sign non-disclosure agreements. It’s not just about wanting to avoid negative press, but also about the writers’ union’s complicated rules about who is mentioned and how in the credits of a film.
Script doctors usually don’t mention this, although there have been cases where their revisions were so extensive that they could subsequently claim script credits. Moreover, the transitions are smooth. There are also authors who are known to be good script doctors and therefore get hired early on and are officially on board with the project by the end.
Hiring script doctors is often initially viewed negatively, but this is not justified. The hiring doesn’t indicate that this is a “chaos production” or that something is going terribly wrong. After all, recognizing just in time that something can be improved is better than simply closing your eyes and moving on. There are also great classics such as ‘The Godfather’ or ‘Schindler’s List’ that have undergone such last-minute corrections. Many cases are probably not even known to us – see the confidentiality agreements.
The story of the script doctors
But who does these jobs? Often it is mainly younger screenwriters and directors who are currently between their own projects and may not have yet earned the big money to survive a years-long dry spell without their own film. But there were always authors who showed a special talent and put it into practice for a long time.
The legendary author is now considered the ancestor Ben Hecht, who worked with directors such as Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Ernst Lubitsch – although the term ‘script doctor’ did not really exist at the time. At that time it was still completely normal for authors to collaborate; often they were contracted together to studios and films were made in writing rooms. But Hecht, who hated Hollywood and spent only a few weeks there a year, was especially in demand when it came to makeovers.
Myths circulate about how many films he was involved in, in addition to his approximately 70 screenplay credits. Only a few titles such as ‘Gone with the Wind’ or ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ have been documented by historical letter finds. More conservative estimates suggest that he was involved in more than 50 additional screenplays, and some even consider it realistic that there were more than 100 titles.
But the term really became known Robert Towne. As a young author, he had just sold his second film script for a western (which would become ‘The Merciless Ride’ – without mentioning Towne, by the way). This ended up in the hands of Warren Beatty, who, as the lead actor in ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, was dissatisfied with the previous script. He asked Towne to lend a hand and then word spread around Hollywood that the young writer had saved the film, which had become a hit. After the success of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, Towne could not avoid similar requests and was soon asking six-figure sums for his work.
He was the script doctor on dozens of projects, including “The Godfather,” which we know because Francis Ford Coppola thanked him during the Oscar speech. Although he became one of the best and highest-paid screenwriters with works like “Chinatown,” he continued to work as a script doctor until at least the 2000s. Towne liked the flexibility and freedom of the job. He worked on his own scripts for months, putting a lot of heart and soul into it, and in the end may have had to watch it because it wasn’t filmed the way he had imagined due to studio and director interference. As a script doctor, he was able to pitch in for a few days, raise the money, and move on without any emotional attachment to the project.
Famous script doctors – a “Star Wars” star is there too
Anyone in Hollywood who shows a talent for writing scripts also gets offers to work as a script doctor. Therefore, no list can be complete; there are just a few example names here. For example, long before his success with the recent Mission: Impossible films, Christopher McQuarrie was considered the best man to call when an action scene needed to be improved or completely rebuilt. Even today, Tom Cruise involves him in almost all of his projects, unless he already does with McQuarrie. Quentin Tarantino – which should come as no surprise – was previously hired to improve the dialogue, a task that Aaron Sorkin also took on time and time again.
But there are also surprising names on the list. The “Star Wars” legend who died in 2016 Carrie Visser In fact, for years it was considered the best in its field, and studios literally fought over it in the early to mid-1990s. At the time, the actress once described herself as a “script nurse” and rejected the masculine term “script doctor.” She reworked ‘Hook’, ‘Lethal Weapon 3’ and ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith”.
She is not the only star who is best known as an actor with script doctor experience. Donald Glover (“Community”) and “King Of Queens” star Patton Oswalt were also successful in this profession for a while. Joss Whedon, Charlie Kaufman, Judd Apatow, Michael Arndt, Simon Kinberg, Chris Miller & Phil Lord and Shane Black are among the most sought-after script doctors of the past twenty years.
Anyone now dreaming of a career as a script doctor should be warned: in most cases, you would have already had to make a name for yourself within the industry with your own script (but it doesn’t need to be made into a movie) to even be on the radar of the studios to stand and get questions. And today there is an oversupply of talented young writers vying for these jobs.
It has become common, especially for medium-sized productions, to hire a number of even less experienced script doctors and only pay a fee if they are successful – in other words, only those whose changes are made get the money. Because only the really big names can demand $400,000 a week regardless of success, which is often paid, especially for big blockbusters.