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Twentieth Century Fox today announced the creation of an in-house program dedicated to the development of emerging writers, new voices, and varied motion picture concepts. It will report to President of Production Emma Watts. ”This initiative will be dedicated to the creation of original ideas (not rewrites of existing scripts or the development of library titles) from emerging writers,’ Fox said, noting that the program will hire the writers, coordinate relationships with producers, and supervise the development process of ideas generated. Fve writers in comedy and action/adventure will be hired initially. ”We have great hopes for this program,” Watts said in a statement. “The goal for this enterprise is to create a place where original ideas are generated and where new writers can feel supported to do their best work.” The initiative will be overseen by both Steve Tzirlin, former VP of development at Lucasfilm Ltd, who will spearhead action/adventure development, and Nicky Weinstock, formerly EVP of comedy development for the movie side of Chernin Entertainment, who will focus on laugher development.
Tzerlin was with Lucasfilm for the last five years, working directly with George Lucas and Rick McCallum on live-action television, film, video game, and animation projects. At Lucasfilm, Tzirlin focused on sourcing emerging writing and directing talent from around the world and as an entrepreneurial producer worked on projects in the works across various media.
But what I don’t understand is why the studio hired Weinstock. Anyone who knows Nicky knows he’s all talk and little action. And that he’s only in business for himself. He’s the kind of Hollywood annoyance who constantly is looking for the bigger and better so he can keep clawing his way up the Hollywood ladder by claiming credit for product that a lot of other people were also responsible for. So it comes as no surprise to me that only 19 months after he left Judd Apatow’s company to go to work for film president Dylan Clark at Chernin Entertainment, Weinstock is already moving on. Weinstock was Chernin’s speechwriter as VP of News Corp’s corporate written communications in NYC, and then was asked by Chernin to become VP of comedy development at 20th Century Fox Television. At the end of 2007, Weinstock left to run Apatow Productions with Judd. At Chernin Entertainment, Nicky was hired initially to head comedy development for movies and TV, but the small-screen component of his job lasted for a nanosecond. The only films he ever put into development there were Hawkwood, with Russell Brand attached to star and Jared Stern writing, Rehab with director Will Gluck attached and Sam Laybourne writing, and We’ve Got Your Girlfriend with Jason Mantzoukas writing.
Of course, Weinstock leaked the news early of his hiring by claiming he alone was in charge of the new Fox Studios writers program. As if that weren’t exaggeration enough, he also claimed he was personally wooed by Fox mogul Tom Rothman. Nope.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Nikki, I love you — but what do you have against Nicky Weinstock? He is truly the most generous and intelligent executive anyone could work with: ask anyone. He is the opposite of a climber: a total writers’ advocate. This is a hugely exciting thing. What a weird post.
You must not be a writer if you think this guy supports writers. I have had the misfortune of having two projects with him and have never worked with a more flim flam, non committal, non passionate and non supportive exec in my entire career. Thank god I’m not an emerging writer, that’s all I can say.
Gee, Fred, sounds like you definitely are NOT an emerging writer. I’ve worked with Weinstock three times on both the movie and TV sides and he’s an overwhelming pleasure: smart as hell, 100 percent supportive, and the most generous and creatively brave exec I’ve encountered in Hollywood. I know about a dozen “emerging” writers who would passionately say exactly the same. Sorry that your project didn’t work out for you, and that it left you so warped and bitter.
Whoah: this is 100 percent inaccurate. Weinstock didn’t leak a word about his hiring: everyone at Fox knows who did, and it was an honest mistake that had nothing to do with Nicky. This job is perfect for Weinstock’s skills, and the studio is incredibly lucky to have snagged him. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Let’s save our strange rage-filled outbursts for the douchebags in this town who deserve them.
A special program had to be created to incubate original ideas? If only they would just look around at the bountiful talent already creating original scripts just begging for attention. This is stupid, stupid, stupid.
Amen, starringtexas. We need original productions as well as original scripts.
“There is no shortage of talent in Hollywood. There is only a shortage of talent that can recognize talent.” — Jerry Wald
How about finding some ‘original’ thinking development people. Can that be a new program?
It’s brilliant idea… if you want to steal ideas which would be worth more on a open market.
BTW it’s probably not legal under the Guild but when you wreck the spec market, you can sell desperate people anything. Kinda like starting wars then shredding the Constitution.
Agree 100%, Weinstock is all about Weinstock. I was shocked when Judd hired him to begin with. It’s so painfuklly obvious he only cares about what happens to Nicky Weinstock. He’s the exact worst person to mentor and nourish emerging writers
Hmmm … you wouldn’t be the same Freddie/Fred who posted the nonsensical attempt to slander Weinstock above, would you? Man, you really must have pitched him some really terrible projects. Crawl back into your hole, please, and stop blaming others for your suckiness. Weinstock is a great guy and a great executive. I wish you better luck with your career in the future.
Wow. Don’t piss off Nikki. Even if you get somewhere, you’ll look like an ass in the process. That’s power.
Now we’re talking!!
A lot of us emerging writers, despite a sale, can’t get our agents on the phone. Can someone tell us how to apply, or make that a possibility, because if we ask our agents for help, they’re too busy (understandably) to give us any.
I’m serious. Please put up a tab on the relevant FOX site so writers of merit can apply to this thing. There are a lot of us out here who are Black List writers, who made some cash, but we’re young or old or whatever it is, and we don’t have the access that one would think, especially if we have prominent agents.
Seriously. If you want to do the program correctly, set it up where WGA writers can apply themselves.
This is actually why the WGA was formed; to stop studios from owning writers, which is what this idea plans to do.
And pay them far below scale. The irony is that they’ll start with “emerging” A-List writers just like Paramount did.
Exactly right. This is the old studio system for the next class of young writers
Sweetheart, this makes me want to gag! Go out and get an agent who actually invests in your career instead of sucking you dry when you hit on your own. What good is a “prominent agent” if you’re not a high enough priority on their list to actually use their reach? Go find a good agent out there (there are some) who will roll up their sleeves and DO THEIR JOB.
really? and what IS an agent’s job?
Agents can make sure everyone knows who you are and perhaps get them to read your material, but beyond that – it’s up to you. Yes – we can spin it – elaborate, exagerate, etc. on your behalf – but at the end of the day it’s still up to the client to make it happen. Sorry – but that’s just how it is.
And – there is no excuse for any agent that doesen’t return a clients call. If your agent won’t call you back – get a new agent. I’ve been doing this for a long time and there has never been a client that I don’t call back within 24 hours.
Having worked in the business for over fifteen years now, I’ve completed two indie features, written over twenty original screenplays, adapted a few from existing material, written some specs for tv: sitcoms and dramas; I’m currently in development of a documentary, and I can’t can an agent if my life depended on it. I haven’t “proven myself” according to one agent, even with my resume, recommendations and somewhat of a track record I’ve made for myself. Talent, drive, passion, and even knowing the right people get you nowhere in this town. Not anymore at least.
Just think about this story for instance. FOX creates a new division for “original ideas.” This is supposed to be a “creative” industry in the first place. Just the notion of this announcement is absolutely absurd. Now I’m not someone who’s against adapted material; my god no: Chris Nolan’s Batman films, Forrest Gump… all adapted material and remarkable stuff. But the idea that someone at FOX sat back in his chair (think Tim Robbins, THE PLAYER) and actually pondered the idea, “hmm, you know what, I think maybe we should start making films that are original.” Talk about a slap to the head.
And just think of all the thousands of screenplays purchased by the studios over the last fifty years or so, sitting in vaults somewhere collecting dust. If anyone at these studios had any real ideas, they would go back into their vaults and start combing over original scripts they already own. There must be some gems sitting in there worth making.
With that, I say forget this new fangled FOX thing, forget agents and managers and studio executives; go out and find private money (it exists) and make your own damn films, tv shows, web series. Agents will not help you, assistants will not help you, studio executives will not help you, actors will not help you. Well they will, but only if you’re in the top 1% of Hollywood (Entourage is strangely accurate in depicting this).
If you’ve made a sale or were on the Black List, you’ve had your bite at the apple and need to stand aside.
Why? Where does that logic even come from? How about “If you’ve been trying to write a salable screenplay for more than X years without a sale, you should give up.”
How do you like them apples?
That’s insane. Talented writers deserve to make their living writing. Bet you wouldn’t advocate stepping aside if you’d actually made a sale or the Black List.
“Writers of merit?” I’m sure you think that includes you. It sounds like you’re an accomplished yet inferior writer who would like to keep more talented writers from getting in and upstaging you.
I don’t want to sound like a dick but allow me to sound like a dick: saying you are a Black List writer really doesn’t mean all that much unless you are in the top 10. The rest of the list is just Jr execs and agents voting for their friends scripts and horse trading (you vote for my project and I’ll vote for yours). That’s not to say you’re not a good writer but gone are the days when saying you are on the Black List gets a call returned.
Every studio and big film fest has a screenwriting award or apprenticeship, but nothing guarantees success. Even major writers don’t have as long a rap sheet on IMDB as producers and actors. Writers have far fewer opportunities (we can take years developing a script that a director cranks out in a few weeks) so you should be writing novels too; it’s easier to get published than to get produced. Studios buy tons of books that they never produce. Writing the book gives you more legal rights than writing an assignment for some producer who then owns your baby in the basest of terms (check out antics of Kuzuis with the Buffy rights). Better to write the next Hunger Games or Game of Thrones or even Sahara than to wait cap in hand at the studio gate.
So let me get this straight. Basically this is a program that will pick the brains of five emerging writers, harvest the best ideas and ultimately make Weinstock a lot of money for doing very little himself. Hmm? Thought so.
Who’s heading up the talking animal division?
David Hill
The real mystery for me is this industry wide and ongoing love affair with Chernin — who is easily the luckiest man since Ringo Starr… Chernin did for FOX what Thomas Friedman did for the NYTimes; he was the beard that made all the right wing craziness palatable to moderate and liberal Hollywood… These guys are not only all old, they are all old school and all a part of the old boy network… New ideas out of this group? Fat chance.
Another great idea ruined by Hollywood nepotism. They need somebody with a proven artistic/original track record on this. I realize Scott Rudin is extremely busy but someone like him is needed.
Meanwhile, I have a bunch of original scripts sitting here that are ready to go and it’s so, so tough to get meetings. Sigh…..
This was handled with the same poor decision making as everything else as Fox, particularly since Emma Watts became captain of Tom Rothman’s broken ship. This will be even less successful than the last Fox “writers program” that was announced a year before the strike. That program was a total zero.
If you set aside Avatar…Fox’s performance in the last few years would have led to mass firings at any other studio. The fact is that the only good movies come out of Fox 2000.
Tom needs to go. His “destructive fingerprints” on everything from titles to marketing to scripts to casting has destroyed many good projects. He may love great movies but he has yet to make a single one at Fox. And no Tom, you didn’t make Titanic or Avatar.
Emma needs to go. She is way in over her head and has been since she became President. Hutch Parker was able to hide her failings before she pushed him out — now her poor decisions on everything are in the spotlight and you cannot argue with the numbers which consist of one bomb after another. Tom will throw her off the boat to buy himself two more years. That decision is coming, most likely after this summer.
Peter Kang needs to go. In 13 years at Fox, Peter Kang has never had a film gross over $50m domestic. He has failed upward at a place that consistently rewards failure with lateral promotions.
They think of themselves as Barneys but run their business like Sears. And not even the “new” Sears – the old Sears.
Good luck!
Too bad both of them were back up choices to the back up choices of Emma Watts. I wonder if Nicky is bragging about that? He’s no longer a starter, but reduced to a guy who comes off the bench when nobody else wants to play.
Nicky Weinstock wouldn’t recognize an original idea of it walked in and pitched itself to him. This “program” is obviously political cover for Rothman to show he’s trying to breathe life into a once-proud studio. When the program tanks, he’ll fire Emma and give Weinstock her job.
Meanwhile, Peter Chernin is one foxy Fox vet. Buckets of cash to make anything he wants, ocean view offices, and he just unloaded a bad exec onto his former colleagues. When “Terra Nova” shits the bed, I doubt any of it will stick to him.
20th makes the finest genre films in Hollywood. This is a fact.
The finest?
Have you not been the movies in the last ten years or so?
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE; THE FANTASTIC FOUR movies, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL remake; the Tim Burton PLANET OF THE APES remake; ALIEN VS. PREDATOR; AVP: REQUIEM; MAX PAYNE.
I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting.
And don’t give me the standard “it made such and such amount at the box office.” So what, it’s still crap. Just because McDonald’s made a shit-load of money, doesn’t mean it’s any good either. But this is Hollywood, it’s all about money these days, never the quality of the product.
Whoa-
Nikki, what’s the problem with Nicky? Smart, charming, very well liked by writers. And the three projects you mentioned are by great writers. He may have been a third wheel at Chernin, but
he’s a good egg, and I wish him well indeed.
I have several scripts in varying degrees of completion. I routinely knock on the doors of Hollywood, and look for opportunities like this one. However, the more I read this, the more it starts to sound like a “Who you know” affair than anything with real merit. *sigh* Back to door knockin’…
I never met him but I think as a grown man he should drop the ‘Y’ and simply go by Nick at this point.
This looks like a bozo idea that comes from a ‘brainstorming session’. Answers called solutions pop into people’s heads without taking the trouble (because it’s difficult) to identify the true nature of the problem.
I also smell a ‘not invented here’ philosophy emerging. That’s where creativity gets the committee treatment and where writers get universal beatings.
Wonder how many white male writers will be chosen?
Hopefully all. We are the most talented, after all.
That explains all those comic book movies like Sucker Punch and all those sequels clogging up the movie theaters. All that white male writer “talent”.
Jena — Lay off the martyr crap. Writing is black and white — ink and paper.
People aren’t going to read your script and go, “This is great! (then) Oh, wait. It was written by a woman (sigh). I’m afraid it’s written by a woman. We can’t use it.”
If you’re a good writer people won’t avoid hiring you because you’re a woman. In fact, if you’re a good writer, you probably have a better chance than a white male who is equally good.
It’s all subjective. If you want to complain that you’re a better writer than others who are doing better than you. That’s common and, also, cliche. But get off the cross. We need the wood.
Subjective? No. It’s a boys club. A white boys club. You’re naive if you think it isn’t.
Of all the industries / professions where race and gender play a role, you really think screenwriting is up there at the top?
You think people, before reading a script, scrutinize the writer’s name and try to guess gender/race?
If yes, try submitting your scripts under a (male) pen name and see if you get better reactions. My guess? Your writing just isn’t good enough.
Not to mention all the diversity programs at different studios/companies that allow NON-white male writers to get staffed based on factors other than the quality of their work…
@ really Let’s be real. Nobody has to guess a writer’s identity. Recent studies have demonstrated that a Raheem and a Harvard degree on a resume more often gets passed over for a Brad who went to SMU but who also pledged Kappa Alpha and also just “seems like a good fit.” People are the way they are. A “black” name prompts the reader to subconsciously attach whatever psychological baggage they may be carrying. Same with a woman’s name or a foreign sounding name. “An intimate drama about a neurotic rabbi dealing with his brother’s death? Quick! Get Deshaun on the phone!” It ain’t happening. That’s not racist it’s just ignorant. But that’s Hollywood.
As for “all the diversity programs” that are doubtless responsible for the sea change in hiring practices and explain the staggering numbers of non-white writers dominating television writing staffs and the bulk of WGA nominations year after year I’ll defer to your insight into the matter.
Can we at least admit that merit is nowhere near the top of the list of which scripts get made and why? Hell, I’ve had producers stand in front of me and explain how they’re starting a $200M production without a finished script. Hollywood is like every where else in America. Me and mine first and let the blacks/gays/women/hispanics what have you fight over whats left.
Hmm… then why did Pete Chiarelli go to all the trouble of selling his spec “The Proposal” under a female pseudonym?
Yeah, stopit, that’s right. All they care about is the writing. That’s why there’s no racial, gender or age discrimination in Hollywood when it comes to hiring writers. Yeah, right.
white guy, huh? typical.
First I’d like to say that I like Fox and I’m a big supporter of Fox, this is my constructive criticism and advise for FOX. I think it’s a great idea to build an in house writing staff so you can produce quality materials and also control the contents, subjects matter, it’s an excellent idea to do this. My suggestion is since I’m your big supporter and watch you mostly, from what I’ve noticed example: that all of youir female news anchors are all blonde and older, you have one black, one Spanish and they get the weekend shift, I do agree these two aren’t very good, but during the week I think you need to mix up your female news anchors to more than just blondes. You are a conservative network, but if everything is the same it seems one note…..the same goes for this new writing group, since you’re already know your style is conservative and you’re in control….why not hold a contest of submissions from all writers of every age so you can give other writers an opportunity to work with you, new writers will bring fresh ideas / writing, you can always tweak it to be more conservative view if you wis, but to follow the same approach as your news anchors all look the same and keep the door closed on others seem selfish and not too creative. A contest for best writers submission should be held to find the best, and may the best win, and not the who you know win….give other talented an opportunity to show you their work, they might just surprise you and this will encourage teamwork as oppose to playing favorites….let the real talents deliver their goods! The universe is big, be generous and good karma will come back! Everyone in the industry should be treated as a family member!
Because there is already a pool of established, produced or sold writers out there who are known quantities to the execs and can fill the program’s slots. They don’t need to be bombarded by 5,000 shitty amateur scripts from unknown writers who likely aren’t even near to the same point in their career or craft.
Am I the only one who noticed that this program’s two subdivisions – comedy and action/adventure – completely leaves out thrillers, as well as dramas? So much for finding the next Zaillians, I guess. The hunger for fart jokes and massive robot explosions must be served.
I think what would be more interesting is to start a program where you green light 25 films at 2 million dollars each and guarantee each at least 3 million for P&A, more if you feel you’ve got a winner.
So, give 25 writers and directors a shot. By definition any of these 2 mil scripts have to have great characters and dialogue since you ain’t spending it on special effects.
Then see what the total gross of these 25 films that you’ve spent 75 mil vs one of your block busters that you spend 150 mil. I bet you get at least 2 “Litte Miss Sunshines”, 4 “Kids Are All Rights” grosses and maybe one “Napoleon Dynamite”. And you haven’t leveraged the farm.
But here’s the rub: No developing — just straight to green light.
Again, you’re allowed to pump more P&A into any title you think we’ll break out, but at least 3 mil to give each title a chance.
Anyone have the guts?
Yeah, because you have infinite release dates and no opportunity cost.
how do you not “develop” a movie? Films aren’t just born, you know. So what, the director and writer are just supposed to argue it out? What about preproduction, figuring out the budget, how many shooting days you can squeeze…
You’ve never been on a film set, have you?
That’s a bingo!
Riiiiight – “incubating” is industry speak for “waste everyone’s time demanding free work and paying no money until we have developed the idea to death and then we’ll move on to the next sucker”. This could be just fine for people who are under-represented or unrepresented, but anyone else should run, not walk.