Culture

If the modern day film industry mimics Shakespeare’s King Lear then the screenwriter is Edmund, the unloved bastard child, underappreciated but still vital to the plot. As Sunset Boulevard’s Joe Gillis said, “audiences don’t know somebody sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along.” As a writer, it grinds my gears how little the art of screenwriting is appreciated in the movie-making business. While every actor from Daniel Day-Lewis to Vin Diesel gets swooned over, you probably couldn’t tell me who wrote last year’s biggest blockbuster, The Avengers (Joss Whedon). Sure, I don’t know every movie’s scripter, but I know who wrote my favourites and I have favourite writers, traits that put me in the company of very few moviegoers.

Though they may be part of probably the most lucrative business around, screenwriters really are the black sheep of the movie family dynasty. A glance at the Writers Guild of America’s statistics found that, on average, a working writer makes between $40,000 and $110,000 per year. To put that into perspective, a director would earn $10,000 to $15,000 a week – that’s right, a week – on a similarly budgeted film. Meanwhile, an actor or actress would probably earn 10 times that. It’s just ludicrous (incidentally Ludacris probably made more for his “acting” than Paul Haggis did for writing Crash).

Writers don’t get much awards love, either – “Best Screenplay” tends to get handed out as some sort of consolation prize. You half-expect the recipient to receive their award and then shuffle off into the night so the “real” stars can carry on their party. It’s unbelievable that no writer has won more than three Oscars. Even Quentin Tarentino, arguably the greatest screenplay writer of our time, has only won twice. Why has there been such a lack of recognition, you ask? Well, long before Day-Lewis was Lincoln or Meryl Streep was Sophie, someone spent months, nay years, writing their movies. When you think, “wow, that movie was heartbreaking or funny or weird,” the actors wouldn’t have been any of those things if some poor schmuck hadn’t slaved away at a typewriter (I told you I was nostalgic) to give the glorified puppeteers something to say.

Writers need some love, too, but they don’t get it. They slave away on draft after draft, in the full knowledge that they are looked upon as the bums of Hollywood. So next time you see a writer, give them a hug. Let them know that you appreciate all that they do. At the very least, tell them you know Olympus Has Fallen wasn’t their fault and buy them a cup of coffee. They’ll like that.