Interview: Justin Marks — Part 1

Screenwriter Justin Marks has been described as the “most gainfully employed professional fanboy on the planet right now.” Understandably so given the fact Justin has written such projects The Raven, Super Max, Suicide Squad, Shadow of the Colossus, Hack/Slash and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo.

The Hollywood Reporter recently featured this guest column Justin wrote called “My Life as a Screenwriter You’ve Never Heard Of.”

Justin has written over 20 movie projects. This interview in 6-parts offers an informed perspective of the craft from Hollywood’s front lines.

Today in Part 1, Justin describes how he found his way to Hollywood as a screenwriter:

Scott: When did you first realize that there were people known as screenwriters?

Justin: I grew up with movies. My family moved to Texas because my father had a job down there. My mother didn’t know anyone and I was the oldest child, so I was the one who got dragged around with her. We used to go to movies. It was always the thing I knew I wanted to do.

Scott: What were some of the movies you remember from your youth that inspired you most?

Justin: I was remembering this on Twitter recently. Top Gun for me was one of those seminal moments. I had never seen a movie that sounded or looked or felt like that before. I saw it six times in the theater — probably because my mother wanted to see it six times also. It just left such a mark on me, in terms of what a movie could be, and how it’s not just a filmed stage play. You look at it now and it still feels like a contemporary movie.

Scott: How much fun is it for you to be working with Jerry Bruckheimer?

Justin: Really nice. In every project there’s a pinch‑yourself moment. Growing up, movies were the language I spoke. Every Thursday in elementary school, and middle school… I had a whole legal pad full of movies I wanted to rent for the weekend. I’m always reminded… not to sidetrack, but I think this is relevant… I’m always reminded how easy people have it now, being educated about what are the good movies to watch, who are the great filmmakers. When I was growing up, and I’m not even that old, the only source was this book at Blockbuster Video. It was a phone book‑sized thing. I would open it up and they would organize it like IMDB now organizes things, by director, by actor. That was it. You couldn’t organize by screenwriter. But I would go through it and write down these movies I had to see. Of course, Blockbuster carried none of the good movies. But then I would find other video stores in the area. Those would be my weekends. Movies were my friends. So now, working with the people who used to be just names in that book… it’s amazing.

Scott: I notice a number of short films on which you’re the credited writer including “Fast Forward,” “The Stranger,” “Unbroken.” What was your thought process or goal at the time on working on short films?

Justin: When I got to college I started to feel like maybe the film program…I went to Columbia University… I started to think that maybe the film program wasn’t the best way to pursue this career. So I studied architecture. I really love design, and it factors largely into things that I write. But because I was doing that, I was still bitten by the bug of making movies. So I started working in documentary houses, and I met other young filmmakers. Brad Furman is one of those guys. We made shorts together. We came out to LA together. He just wrapped on Runner, Runner with Ben Affleck. Before that he did Lincoln Lawyer. He’s actually largely responsible for keeping me motivated and keeping me hungry to pursue this dream.

Scott: Would you recommend that aspiring screenwriters get involved in writing and producing short films nowadays?

Justin: Oh yeah. Anything that a screenwriter can do to be close to production is the best film school they can possibly have. Look, I’ve only been doing the writing thing full time for less than a decade. I’d hardly consider myself a veteran. But having seen my work produced on a few occasions, the amount of learning you do in production, as opposed to what you do sitting behind your desk, it can’t compare.

Scott: It also sounds like not only just the learning experience of being on the front line of translating what’s on the page onto the screen. But in your case you actually worked with some people who moved up into the business themselves, so they become part of your network.

Justin: Yeah, it’s not luck, it’s designed that way. I never went to film school. Those shorts were my film school. You go to film school because the people you work with will be your peers in the professional community. It’s always great, you see another name or a director who sold a pitch or something — it’s like, oh I remember him. We worked on a video together back in New York. That’s how it works.

Survival in this business is all about holding onto the branch until you finally find your place. That’s what everyone’s doing. When you do that, you start to form these communities with the other people who are holding on next to you.

Scott: What was your first big break that led to an actual paid writing assignment?

Justin: I was working as an assistant for three and a half years. I worked in independent film at Single Cell Pictures. They did Being John Malkovich and Saved at the time that I was working for them. Through my boss, I met my first agent. There was this script that became what I guess was a calling card. This was before the days of the Black List, which has made it even easier to bring those calling card scripts into the world. My agent sent it around to a bunch of people and it got me those, whatever it was, six months of meeting everybody in town. Out of those meetings I met a producer who worked at the Mark Gordon Company. He said that they were working on a project called Voltron.

Voltron was something I knew very well from childhood. They were looking for takes. They had some really great ideas. This was before Transformers. At that time no one wanted to do a giant robot movie. No one knew what a giant robot movie would look like, which was fantastic, because I had no competition to get that job. Nowadays if I wanted to go do a giant robot movie I’d be competing with the top tier screenwriters. But I pitched Mark Gordon what my take was. I actually used my drawings from architecture school, showing how the visual aesthetic of Voltron could look in the real world. We took it around and we found an independent financier who paid me to write the script. WGA minimum, which was probably twice as much as I was making at my day job. I left my job, seven or eight years ago, and I’ve been writing ever since.

Scott: When did you cross paths with Adam Kolbrenner and Madhouse Entertainment?

Justin: Adam had actually been in my life since college. Brad Furman introduced us, when we were trying to peddle our scripts around. I came out to LA during spring break. I told my parents I was job hunting. Of course, there is no job hunting, you’re basically just meeting people. I came out to LA and he introduced me to Adam who liked the script that I had written. Because I was an architecture student, I didn’t have to write a papers. So I could spend a lot of time writing scripts with Adam instead. He’s the one who shaped me from somebody who wanted to write movies into someone who actually wrote movies.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Justin talks about Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun‑Li, adapting comic books and his work on “The Raven”.

Please stop by comments to thank Justin and ask any questions you may have.

Justin is repped by CAA and Madhouse Entertainment.