It's a living.

December 25, 2004 10:22 PM

Unproduced screenplays,including Edward Ford, written by Lem Dobbs (The Limey) and one (pdf) by Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine..., Adaptation, Being John Malkovich). The Dobbs script is often cited as one of the best (if not the best) unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. The site also has scripts by Al Jean and Mike Reiss (Simpsons, Sledge Hammer!), Adam Fierro (The Shield), T. S. Cook (The China Syndrome), Nicholas Kazan (Homegrown, Reversal of Fortune, Frances), John Kamps (Charley Varrick, Madigan) and others.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy (12 comments total)

Entire screenplay in PDF format ... *cringe*

Some fun stuff to read though.
posted by menace303 at 11:06 PM on December 25, 2004

Wow, I had no idea that my favorite artist's son had written what's considered the best unproduced screenplay ever. Thanks.
posted by interrobang at 11:08 PM on December 25, 2004

Entire screenplay in PDF format ... *cringe*

I don't understand the cringe factor. PDFs are standard for screenplays online. You print 'em and they stay in proper format. You can read some other scripts at Drew's Script-O-Rama... many in html or RTF format, including Dobbs' terrific Limey script and Andrew Kevin Walker's (Se7en, The Game, Fight Club) fantastic 8mm (which was butchered by Joel "the hack" Schumacher).
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 11:20 PM on December 25, 2004

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"
posted by emf at 11:36 PM on December 25, 2004

Edward Ford is a great script. Unfortunately, it seems to be based on Dobbs' own experiences hanging out with Ed Wood, and it never made it into production before the Tim Burton movie trumped it. That was a fun movie, but it's too bad Edward Ford didn't get made -- it could've been an amazing film, if they found somebody with the balls to play the title character who was "bankable" enough to get the movie made.
posted by luckywanderboy at 2:14 AM on December 26, 2004

I don't understand the cring factor. PDFs

Perhaps menace303 is on a Mac. I am, currently, and PDFs make them sad, which in turn make me sad. Lots of things make me sad when I am using a Mac.

Eternal Sunshine is a beautiful, beautiful movie. I wish all of Kaufman's work was like it, but perhaps that is hoping for too much. One masterpiece is lots.
posted by blacklite at 5:50 AM on December 26, 2004

all this talk of unproduced screenplays and no mention of harrow alley? for shame, people. for shame.
posted by pxe2000 at 7:35 AM on December 26, 2004

(PDFs make Macs sad? At the risk of derailing the thread, that doesn't make any sense. The whole 2D Quarz rendering system in OS X is based on the PDF standard, and PDFs look great and are perfectly usable on my Mac and any Mac I've ever used.)

It's interesting that one of the links mentions Intolerable Cruelty as one of the 10 greatest unproduced scripts; when that finally made it to theaters, didn't it get a pretty lukewarm reception? I wonder what the writer of that article thought of the finished product a few years later.
posted by bcwinters at 9:01 AM on December 26, 2004

bcwinters, I have a Mac (OS X) and have no probs with PDFs. The only thing that makes my Mac sad is Flash.

Also, I have no doubt that IC is probably a great read. The movie was poo, however, which I think has much to do with the very poor casting choices all-around. There are other scripts on that list (it was written in 2000 I think) that have been produced and turned into crap, most notably Entrapment.

Plenty of great scripts get turned into shit-ass movies.

pxe2000, I've read Harrow Alley and indeed, it's a good read. (I think Scenario published it in the late 90s).
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:14 AM on December 26, 2004

This is a fascinating read. Great post...and thanks for sharing!
posted by runningdogofcapitalism at 10:27 AM on December 26, 2004

PDFs make macs sad? how odd... I use pdfs absolutely constantly on my macs.

Oh, and good post, you've killed an hour of my morning, with a bookmark to return and kill some more!
posted by mosch at 10:29 AM on December 26, 2004

Why any of you is surprised at great scripts getting turned into trash puzzles me as writers have been ranting about this since before movies added sound.
posted by billsaysthis at 11:49 AM on December 26, 2004