Screenwriters reveal dream scripts

Nominees hope to use exposure for future projects

By DAVID MERMELSTEIN

Tamara Jenkins
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WGA and Oscar nominations mean exposure, which in Hollywood means power -- even for writers who insist they have none. Yet because such fame fades quickly, nominees must maximize their closeups. The writers' strike prohibits studio power lunches, but nothing can prevent scribes, especially those nommed for original screenplays, from dreaming.

"I have many projects that I want to do," says Brad Bird, nommed for "Ratatouille," "several sitting in the dank, cobweb-filled vaults of studios that are now thinking differently of me. And then there are others I want to develop more before showing around."

Tony Gilroy can't help naming "Michael Clayton" as his fantasy, which is not surprising given that he's received both original screenplay and helmer noms for it. But when pressed, he names some projects that still remain dreams. "I have a Western I go back to when I don't know what to do next," he says. "I think most writers have half a dozen things under the desk they work on in between projects."

Maybe most, but clearly not all. "I don't have anything in the drawer, because 'Lars' is my first script," says Nancy Oliver, nommed for "Lars and the Real Girl."

Yet she has at least one fantasy script. "It would be a big action movie where lots of things blow up and there are lots of sequences of kung-fu fighting," she says. "I haven't thought of a name yet, but I've always wanted to do it. And after seeing some Stephen Chow movies, there might even be a dream ballet in there. It would be an anti-quirky dramedy."

And then there's the adaptation that got away, at least for the time being. "It's a little French book," she says, "a noir novel about stupid men being violent. But there's an angle that's really interesting."

Gilroy also mentions an adaptation that failed to take but which he's never entirely abandoned. "I tried really hard to do Robert Stone's 'Outerbridge Reach,' " he says. "There's an incredible film inside there. It's a tragic adventure story and love triangle and not cheap to make, because it involves a guy in a sailboat race circumnavigating the globe. You'd have to do it as we did 'Michael Clayton,' with talent that would work for free and own the move."

For Tamara Jenkins, nommed for "The Savages," a dream project is less about subject than about process. "I write with the intention of directing," she says, "and I've always had a fantasy of developing a screenplay in an improvisational manner, kind of the way Mike Leigh works. It would have a strong premise or conceit, but I'd create improvisatory assignments or exercises.

"So we'd have this little company of actors and build these very structured improvisations and then cull from that, and I'd write it and bring it back and keep refining over months and then seamlessly move into making it. It's something you could never do in the U.S.; it's definitely a European model."

Writing what you know seems to animate Diablo Cody, "Juno's" nommed scribe. "I was reared on Marvel comics, so I've always been obsessed with writing a comicbook movie with a decidedly girlie bent. I would have to develop some chops at writing action sequences, but it would be a passion project."

Then there's the horror movie she wants to direct, having already written one set to go before the cameras after the strike. But when it comes to horror, "I've got a few more in me," she says.

And let's not forget Cody's "actual literal dream project," a biopic about Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. "They're doing that without me," she grudgingly admits, adding, "I'm obsessed with him. He's a national treasure. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Brian Wilson."

She's also curious what her colleagues proposed. "What did other people say? 'I want to write about Darfur,' " she wonders.

No, but close, if you consider Bird's ultimate answer. "If you want me to name one dream project," he says in full rascal manner, "it's a multipart saga costing billions of dollars called 'Filmtasia,' with all genres rolled into one. The studios could market the various parts as sequels. The first 'Filmtasia' would be a historical drama, the next part a musical, the next sci-fi, part four a Western -- you get the idea."

That movie is probably not going to happen. But that's OK. If there's one thing that holds for all these scribes -- and probably all writers, period -- it's that the ideas just keep coming.

"If I did all my dream projects one after the other with no impediments," says Bird, "it would take care of me for the next couple decades. They're kind of stacked up like planes at O'Hare."

THE NOMINEES
Original screenplay, the WGA and Oscar nominees:
"Juno," Diablo Cody
"Michael Clayton," Tony Gilroy
"The Savages," Tamara Jenkins
"Lars and the Real Girl," Nancy Oliver
"Knocked Up,"* Judd Apatow
"Ratatouille,"† screenplay by Brad Bird; story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
*WGA nomination only
†Oscar nomination only