Screenplay Credits, Arbitration and Woodland Creatures

Since I studied screenwriting in college (which qualifies me to write this post) and have a number of acquaintances who are screenwriters, I hear all kinds of colorful and sometimes depressing anecdotes about film credits for screenwriters, Writers Guild of America arbitration, and who really worked on a certain screenplay. And now that some screenwriters are keeping blogs, I get to read even more of these stories. You hear these tales from all kinds of angles: the writer who originally was signed to rework the script for the remake of Movie X, but then a big-name director took over who rewrote the script enough to get the writer removed entirely from the credits of the film; the writer who doesn't quite understand why his name is still on the credits of Movie Q, since she knows at least three other people have worked on the script since she turned in a draft five years ago; the writer who has asked to have her name removed from Movie B, because it's so far removed from what she originally wrote, and the stink lines from the finished product radiate across the country.

David Poland of Movie City News recounts one such story for us in "Little Red Writing Hood Goes to Sundance." His fairy tale concerns the credits for the film Nanking, and Elizabeth Bentley's battle to get her screenwriting work recognized in the movie's writing credits. In Poland's version, Bentley is portrayed as poor little Red, who narrowly escapes being devoured by the big bad wolves: directors Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, who want to take all the writing credit upon themselves. It's a sad story, and as a former screenwriter, I want to sympathize most with Bentley. But as a cynical reporter who's been keeping an eye on the workings of the film industry, I want to hear what the directors and producers have to say about it, and I'm skeptical that this whole situation would fit nicely into a fairy tale with clearly delineated heroines and villains.

For example, look at Kim Voynar's interview with Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men. Kim noted that the film has five credited writers including Cuaron. Cuaron said that "except for Tim Sexton and myself, for me, all these other writers, it's just studio development work that I'm not even interested in discussing, because I don't know what they did, and I couldn't care less." Cuaron felt that actor Clive Owen, who spent a lot of time working involved in the writing process, was more helpful with the shooting script than the other three writers. I'd love to hear what those other three writers had to say about who deserved credit and for what work.

A quick tour of screenwriting blogs will provide you with more examples of how WGA rules about writing credits work (or don't work). Writer-director John August explains the difference between "and" and "&" in credits. The Artful Writer explains the credits development process for studio-produced films. And screenwriter Josh Friedman tells us about his determination to get credit for War of the Worlds. You can see that everybody's got a little bit of the wolf inside -- not a big bad one, but a little one who knows the value of credits on a finished film and how it can impact careers as well as movie marketing.

Meanwhile, our Cinematical correspondents at Sundance will not only review Nanking when it screens at the festival this year, but plan to interview the filmmakers and ask about the screenwriting credit situation. It's a rare opportunity to hear more than one side in a WGA arbitration situation. My guess is that the story won't include any wolves, woodcutters, or other fairy-tale inhabitants.