Cinematical

jon, thanks for your comments. they are appreciated.

your list is a pretty good one but keep in mind that while those writers may not have had much feature experience, one had written for television (william broyles,jr.), were co-writing with others (carl gottleib, lawrence kasdan) and many of the films on your list were adapted from novels ("falcon and the snowman", "jaws", "apollo 13") so the story, characters, etc. were not original to the screenwriter.

plus, several of the films on your list were directed by people with a great deal of feature experience like richard donner on "lethal weapon", ron howard on "apollo 13", irvin kershner on "empire strikes back", john schlesinger on "falcon and the snowman", so that was a factor in the film's success.

as for the rest of your list, i'm sure rachel weinhaus is a nice person and probably a decent writer too but i have a hard time believing she has 1/100 (to use your term) the talent of the cohen brothers, PT anderson, darren aronofsky, richard kelly or steve zallian.

lastly, just because you watch others on a set doing something doesn't mean you will be any good at it. they are two completely different things. i spent a lot of time on sets over the last ten years but that doesn't mean i would be any good at directing -- especially if it was my first time.

that's it. thanks again for reading.

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I'm no fan of Noah Wyle. Most of his performances are pretty flat (he's like a less pretty TV version of Orlando Bloom). However, I'm even LESS of a fan of cynical remarks about first time writers and how that will translate into a "pretty good chance of failure". Either you're a frustrated screenwriter (who hasn't
just graduated for USC) or you're simply horribly jaded.

For the record, let's remember some other "failed" films whose writers were first timers with no previous feature credits:

"Falcon and the Snowman" Steve Zallian
"Apollo 13" William Broyles, Jr
"Donnie Darko" Richard Kelly
"Pi" Darren Aronofsky
"Hard Eight" Paul Thomas Anderson
"Bound" The Wachowskis
"Jaws" Carl Goettlieb
"Empire Strikes Back" Lawrence Kasdan
"Blood Simple" Cohen Bros.
"Lethal Weapon" Shane Black

It's almost ridiculous how many other films and
writers could be added to this list.

Not to mention the fact that some of these films
were directed by people who didn't have 1/100th of
the firsthand on set experience watching seasoned
directors like Noah Wyle has from ER.

So OF COURSE this film is going to be a failure.

Too bad you weren't around to write such insightful articles about the other wretched failures on the
list when they were announced.

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Thanks, Chris. And you are right about much
of the above. My only point is this -- give folks
a chance. Especially new writers and directors who
deserve a shot. I'm sure no one would have expected Emilio Estevez to direct something like "Bobby" (like it or not, it's a fine accomplishment).

It seems we look for any excuse to slam a film (or
upcoming film) just because of uncertain elements or
poor buzz. Less negativity, however impossible that may be for film and TV blogsters, would probably be greatly appreciated by most readers.

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