Adventures in the Screen Trade

by William Goldman

Hiller wanted Mamet. Zanuck-Brown wanted Mamet. Mamet was hired. And that’s when the waiting begins for the producer. All producers (Sam Spiegel may be the exception) try and have a bunch of projects moving forward concurrently. Because once a writer starts to write or a script is sent to a star, there’s not a goddam thing to do but wait for the phone to ring. You can’t constantly call someone who’s doing a screenplay for you and beat around the bush before coming out with the biggie: When will you be done, when can we have it? When I do a job, I know the producer’s going mad, I feel that pressure, and it’s death when they call. All the up-front bullshitting about how the Knicks are doing or did you see Dream Girls is agony. And even though they say, “Oh, by the way, not important or anything, but how’s it coming?”—of course they don’t mean “How’s it coming?”—you’re bound to say, “Terrific, better than I’d hoped,” because if you said, “Horribly, I’m fucking it up beyond repair,” everyone would have cardiac arrest. When’s it coming? is the subject not under discussion. All a phone call like that does is increase your insecurity and slow everything down. Which is why good producers don’t call. In the case of The Verdict, the wait was not agonizing: Mamet delivered promptly and skillfully.