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UPDATES I Feel Your Pain Over Kurtzman And Orci
Whenever I mention Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci to bigtime screenwriters and producers who can’t get anything going now, a lot of teeth-gnashing and profanity-spewing ensues. And the last time I wrote about the writing team, the comments section spewed hate about what hacks they are. Because “The Boys Of Summer 2009″, as their flack gushes about them, wrote and produced Star Trek, scripted Transformers 1 and 2, and received exec producer credits for The Proposal, and have more movies in development or in production than any other Hollywood writers right now. So let’s pour more fuel on this fire. The scripters now have a fat new 3-year overall deal at 20th Century Fox TV. They’re already co-creators and consulting producers on Fox’s Fringe. So let the ragefest begin…
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Congratulations, guys. Looks to me like you’re living your dream. May we all do so positively and powerfully!
Completely agree. My only problem is that, from what I’ve been told, the majority of their work is ghost written…
To have writing credit on some of the biggest tentpoles, and not have typed more than a page? That IS truly living the dream!
I’m not going to do it. There are already too many jealous wanna-be’s that post here. I’ll congratulate them. I’m not paying them directy so what do I care?
Let me be the first to say that this Man Crush Hollywood execs have on these guys is slightly pathetic. Are these guys the only game in town? HARDLY. But it is the power of the Man Crush from higher ups competing with each other that fuels the desire for them. It is the Execs who are so talent illiterate. Transformers was so badly written. But it made money. Their dialogue and character work suck. But they have worked on projects that have high profile directors and are easy to market.
They are non threatening to guys like Michael Bay.
It’s a truly sad state of affairs when hacks like these guys get anointed over all the other talented writers in town.
Write better scripts, Bob.
@ Ron.
These guys are definitive proof that your scripts don’t have to be good.
Man you really followed Nikki’s narrative to a T, didn’t you?
I think they’re probably very nice people and are good to their mothers.
Good for them. seriously. it’s hard out there right now. but hardly because of them.
I dig ‘em. They’ve legitimized Sci Fi & made it marketable again on TV & film. More power to ‘em. May Star Trek 2 benefit from their current mojo & allow them to stretch the franchise creatively.
Haha. What a pair of proto geeks. Kurtzman looks like Squiggy (Or Hofstadter from Big Bang Theory). How can anyone hate those dork faces?
congrats! why all the hate. it’s a good thing when writers are elevated to producers and making overall deals. period.
Any rage would likely be jealousy. I like them, but then I’m a fan of many of their projects.
I talked to them when I wrote for Creative Screenwriting, they’re good dudes, so there’s no envy on my end. There’s certainly far worse alleged screenwriters and directors to hate. If someone young’s getting over because they have talent and they bust their ass, good for them.
No reason for a ragefest. They’re receiving a 3-year deal at Fox is only logical. The dead horse must be bones by now.
The Star Trek references were unintentional.
To be fair and positive…
I think it’s great that they have all this success right now. It is a bit premature to write them off and envy is not a good reason to bash them.
But I will qualify my civility by suggesting that they no longer have a excuse for mediocrity after this year. Now that they have “arrived,” their next projects will be telling. Now is the time when they can tackle passion projects, show directing chops, or prove that they have the mettle to justify their paychecks.
And if they don’t deliver, then bring on the cynicism and hating. Let’s see what they do when stripped of the deleterious effects of Michael Bay, or the midas touch of Damon Lindelof and JJ Abrams.
But until then, let’s not hate them simply because they are succeeding. Even this very blog post seems mean-spirited and unjustified.
Now if somebody can just explain to me how that time travel scheme in Star Trek makes sense…
I’ll be the first to admit. The script for Star Trek made zero sense and sounded like the stupidest idea for a movie ever but with the exception of Tyler Perry’s cameo this was one of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen in years. I liked it so much I bought the DVD. Who buys DVD’s anymore?
Hate the game not the player.
Big fan.
Love their work.
Bob and Alex have the most in development because they’re the best. They also happen to be good guys, dedicated to nurturing new talent as producers while continuing to work on their own writing.
Nikki, you are so right! HOW IN THE HELL ARE THESE GUYS THE MOST SOUGHT-AFTER WRITERS in the business? TRANSFORMERS 2 was without a doubt, the single WORST picture of the last decade.
Can these guys just please take a back seat for a while and let the real talent float up to the top?
The real problem with Transformers was not the script..the story is stupid and used to be a 6 AM Sat morning cartoon..it can only be so “good”..then casting a dud like Megan Fox..the audience gets what it deserves.. dont blame the writers..they def did that one for the money- or I should say to make sure their kids get into prep school
Quit bashing Megan Fox – young people love her. SouthPark did an episode once about Britney Spears and how the SP townies sacrificed a young woman every year. The hating on young females is ridiculous – I don’t know how they handle it. For two years now, every time I’ve gone to the supermarket, the tabloids are still bashing Angelina Jolie on their covers.
I don’t understand it. Did Orci and Kurtzman make a pact with the devil? They have written some of the worst movies ever, and are two of the worst writers ever, but everyone keeps buying into their horseshit nonsense.
Really can anyone explain to me how these two idiots got in the position they are in? They went from “Xena: Warrior Princess” to becoming two of the most powerful people in Hollywood, all while putting out utter shit as their product.
Not exactly, It also have to do with the degeneracy of younger generations today (They only want XXX and big baysplosions). It a sad thing to see that the will to make a quick buck has replace hard work and the will (and talent) to create.
Notice that most movies recently have been reboots or “re-imagines” ( who the f*** came up with that mutant of a definition) and that’s really sad.
and for the lame excuse of a “summer film”. 1) the lower half of our planet was in winter at that time 2) the inclination of our planet’s rotational axis isn’t an excuse for laziness and poor writing. 3)
Hmm, don’t know much about these guys, so I won’t call them “hacks”, but the Transformers movies were terrible, and as a Star Trek fan, the new movie was disappointing to say the least.
I don’t get the griping about Transformers at all. It’s a movie based on the 80′s toy line — what was the script supposed to be like? If anything they added value to the franchise with their writing. Plus Trek was brilliant and they deserve a lot of credit for that. Not a Fringe fan but that show certainly justifies giving them more at-bats to create series. I’m very interested in seeing more work by these guys outside the JJ umbrella.
@ INterested
The “it was a cartoon” argument is facile. Pirates of the Caribbean was based on a theme park ride and it at least had some diverting characters and a servicable plot (plus Johnny Depp). Transformers didn’t suck because it was based on a cartoon, it sucked because Michael Bay is an asshole. I heard the producer of the inevitable sequel say out loud, just last week, that they were about to start production and didn’t have a finished script. Nobody cares about the script! These guys are probably average writers who fell into a good situation (J.J.) and were smart enough to smile and nod all the way to a few billion in B.O. revenues. Now they can have some guy with a MFA in Screenwriting from UC-Irvine peck out a rough draft on some studio lot while they smoke a bol through an Optimus Prime bong.
Aside from TF2, their writing is pretty solid. And I lay more blame for TF2 on Michael Bay than I do on them.
Whoever naysays against these two is simply put — a jealous hack. I challenge anyone to find two more generous, hardworking, and classy people in this town. They deserve all the success they get.
They KNOW that Transformers 2 sucked. They know that. Give them some credit. The Michael Bay ego needed to be fed. They were there. Maybe they are the only ones who will put up with Bay.
They are not without talent. If anything, they can be accused of being shrewd businessmen, perhaps at the expense of a their public image. But this all happened to them so fast. They will adjust… take into account their “golden child” status and try to live up to it.
They are good guys. They are probably reading this right now. And even though they are cashing in right now, they want the respect of their peers. There is a world of difference between blindly bashing them and say… disparaging some choices they made on a specific project. But even if you try to get them there be sure you know THEY are responsible for the thing you hate and not the fall guy.
It isn’t a zero sum game where Kurtzman and Orci win if we lose. And our win assures their destruction! No, that is utter nonsense.
I think this is fantastic news. they are now an entity unto themselves, expected to deliver. They are Cameron in that pre-Avatar phase, full of righteous anxiety of how to appease us.
Hell, don’t we all feel like we really aren’t meant to be here, and that any moment someone will discover our charade? Well they probably feel like that too, and they will be the first one to tell you how THEY would do it differently if it weren’t for the executives, or Bay, or (insert bad guy here).
Let’s all get over our collective hating of this duo. It was a good cathartic bout of indignation, but we have pages to get out.
And maybe, just maybe, those guys will hire us…
Now if someone can just tell me if Fringe didn’t jump the shark in the pilot…
“They are Cameron in that pre-Avatar phase…” No, they are not. The best thing I can say about this duo is that their scripts are the right number of pages.
Okay. Time to pause for poise and make sure we are laying the blame for TRANSFORMERS 1 & 2 in the appropriate place — at the (most likely pedicured) feet of Mr. Michael Bay. This dude’s like an inverse Midas. Everything he touches turns to shit.
And just as nobody is holding Randall Wallace responsible for the almost-worse-than-the-original-attack PEARL HARBOR, or crying out for Jonathan Hensleigh’s noggin on a platter for writing the first draft of the unbelievably vomitous ARMAGEDDON, so too should we all make allowances for whatever Kurtzman and Orci may have turned out during their shift in the Michael Bay crap factory.
Seriously. So what if Kurtzman and Orci share credit on both TRANSFORMER movies? They also wrote, and wrote very well, on ALIAS and STAR TREK. And this does not happen by accident.
Hate on Michael Bay’s movies all you want, but the cold green fact is, he does have the Midas touch where it counts – the studio’s bottom line.
Even a (relative to budget) underperformer like Pearl Harbor managed to reach the $200m mark domestically.
Go ahead hate on Bay. The dude Turns out hit after hit! Call it shit but the millions flock to the cinema’s. Don’t you all out here wish you could turn out hit after hit??
Well, hopefully you’re not a writer. Or if you are I can see why you’re jealous of successful writers.
“Millions flock to the cinema’s” – Which cinema’s what?
Millions also flocked to the Third Reich and the Chia Pet. I’d place Michael Bay somewhere in between. History’s arc of justice tends to ensure that we all meet the most popular kid in elementary school on that “long journey towards the middle.”
That said, I can’t quite bring Kurtzman/Orci hate. Almost, but they just don’t quite cross the Akiva Goldsman ‘bring the hackery hatorade’ threshold.
No complaints from me. Rock on, guys!
It is well known that Michael Bay sketched out what he wanted for Transformers 2 during the writer’s strike, and these guys basically just filled in the blanks, so don’t hold that against him. The Transformers movies are Michael Bay’s unique “vision” through and through.
Please, ‘blaming’ Bob and Alex for the sluggish script-market is like blaming Jim Cameron for doing 2 billion at the box office, while your film only does 16 million (I’m looking at you, ‘Imagine That’). They’re doing extremely well for themselves in a difficult market. Good for them.
Why are people still drinking the “difficult market” Kool-Aid???
Box office receipts in 2009 did not fall through the floor. DVD’s down a bit, but network television viewing is actually up.
Also, haven’t their media arms kept some of these behemoth multinationals from looking much worse to Wall Street over the past year or more???
It’s been difficult for BTL types in LA because the industry goes where the tax breaks are.