Interview: Joshua Golden

A graduate of the DePaul University writing program, Joshua Golden wrote the spec script “Road to Oz” which was not only a finalist in the 2014 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition, it sold in September to New Line. From THR:

New Line Cinema has preemptively scooped up spec script Road to Oz, written by hot rising talent Josh Golden.

Recently I interviewed Josh and learned how he had taken an interesting proactive approach to marketing “Road to Oz,” something from which all writers can learn.

Here are links to the five installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “I had a terrific English teacher who knew I loved writing, and loved film, and she kind of came to me and was like, ‘You know, there are people that do this thing for a living. They write movies.’”

Part 2: “A big part of it was wanting to tell this story about this man that a lot of people really don’t know anything about. You’d be surprised how many people don’t even know the Oz books came before the movie.”

Part 3: “I knew that was the way in which I wanted to tell the story. I wanted the audience to see the world how Frank sees it and how Dorothy sees it, with the help of Frank.”

Part 4: “ I knew one of the first things he was going to see was the hot air balloon taking off into the stormy sky. I knew the way he was going to be welcomed to Aberdeen was going to be reflective of how Dorothy is welcomed into Munchkin Land when she arrives in Oz.”

Part 5: “I’m a big proponent of theme and character. That’s the place I usually start from. The concept, of course, has to be original. But if you have strong characters, the rest will follow.”

Josh is repped by ICM and Heretic Literary Management.

Twitter: @joshmgolden.