DC Cinematic Universe ( The James Gunn era)
- Thread starter Samurai8472
- Start date
And in the case of The Flash, even the director had to deal with constantly changing notes from the higher-ups. They filmed several different versions of Barry meeting Bruce at the courthouse at the end, because the studio kept changing their minds about which Batman they were going to continue, and that's just the most obvious example that we even know of.
Oh, that's not true at all. From the WGA Screen Credits Manual:
“Written by” credit generally will not be shared by more than two writers. In unusual cases, and
solely as the result of arbitration, the names of three writers or the names of writers constituting
three writing teams may be used. The limitation on the number of writers applies to all feature-
length photoplays except episodic pictures and revues.
...
Story credit may not be shared by more than two writers.
Irreducible Shared Story Minimum: In the case of an original screenplay, the first writer shall be entitled to no less than a shared story credit.
3. "Screen Story by"
If the writer is furnished source material of a story nature but takes from it only a springboard, a
characterization, an incident, or some equally limited contribution, creating a substantially new
and different story from the source material, the writer may receive "Screen Story by" credit, but
only as the result of arbitration. In such cases, the author of the source material may be given
credit that specifies the form in which such material was acquired -- for instance, "From a Play
by," "From a Novel by," "From a Saturday Evening Post Story by," "From a Series of Articles
by," "Based on a Story by," etc. There is no percentage requirement to receive this credit.
“Screen Story” credit may not be shared by more than two writers.
...
ii. Percentage Requirements
1) Original screenplay: The first writer on an original screenplay shall be entitled
to screenplay credit if such writer’s work represents a contribution of more than 33% to the final
shooting script. Any subsequent writer or writing team must contribute 50% to the final shooting
script. A subsequent writer who is a production executive, or a subsequent writing team that
includes a production executive, must contribute more than 50% to the final shooting script.
2) Non-original screenplay: Any writer, including a production executive, whose
work represents a contribution of more than 33% to the final shooting script shall be entitled to
screenplay credit.
Where a writer performs services individually and as part of a writing team, such writer’s
individual work may not be combined with work done as part of the team for the purposes of
assessing such writer’s contribution to the final shooting script.
There's a whole set of complicated rules for arbitrating which writers have contributed enough material to deserve one of the finite number of credits that are allowed. The whole point is to try to avoid cluttering up the credits with too many names. (Although evidently the producers' union doesn't have the same concern, given how many dozens of executive producers any given TV series has these days.)
That's not true. Plenty of writers have gotten screwed out of a credit, while others got credit for nothing.
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, two of the least creative people in the biz who made such reference movies (they don't tell jokes, they make references to other things) as Date Movie, The Starving Games and Vampires Suck and killed the parody genre, owe their entire career to being credited as writers on Scary Movie, which they had nothing to do with. They just happened to have a similar script in the pipeline at the time of Scary Movie, and a WGA decision credited six writers for Scary Movie including them.
In the actual credits, if you see names with an "&" between them, it means it's a collaboration. If you see "and" it means that person was brought in separately.
It's one of my favorite DC movies too.
Oh, I could have sworn I remembered hearing a story about how Joss Whedon was credited as a writer on a movie, even though the only like one sentence or part of a sentence was used in the shooting script from his draft. Buut since it was in the shooting scrip he had to get a writing credit, because there was a rule that if any amount of a draft is used, no matter how small, the person who wrote has to get a credit.
The only case I can think of where that happened was X-Men (2000), where the only surviving lines of Whedon's were "You're a dick" and the "toad struck by lightning" quip. But Whedon did not get credit for that film -- only David Hayter for the screenplay and Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto for the story. So that is definitely not true. The only thing that comes close to that is the "Irreducible Story Credit Minimum" I quoted above.
Or Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz, who wrote the final draft of Star Wars (1977) without credit.
Now that I think about it, the whole idea of limiting the number of writers who can be credited seems unfair, given how many hundreds of people get credited in modern movies. Why should the writers be shut out? At the very least, there should be an "Additional Writers" credit category in the end titles for people who work on a script but contribute less than the magic 33%, like how they have "Additional Music" credits.
One good reason for a writer not to be credited, though, is if they're a TV showrunner rewriting another writer's script. The showrunner gets a regular salary anyway, rather than being paid by the script, so most showrunners choose to eschew credit on the scripts they rewrite (which is every script) so as not to take money away from the other writers. I'm not sure there's an equivalent in movies, since directors and producers often do get script or story credit as well.
I think JD is thinking of the first X-Men film where Whedon worked on a large part of a script rewrite but only two lines were used.
Conversely, I didn't know Whedon worked on Speed.
Yeah, I guess I was misremembering that story, my mistake.
How different would The Beatles writing credits look like if they included everyone who contributed to the recording of the song, instead of Lennon/McCartney?
Similar threads
