Only in Hollywood: A screenwriter’s story
This is incredible. Per THR:
It’s the screenwriting equivalent of pulling the sword out of the stone.
Ed Whitworth, a script reader for Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Prods., has seemingly come out of nowhere to land the plum gig to write The Lost Years of Merlin, Warner Bros.’ big-budget adaptation of the first book of the fantasy series by T.A. Barron.
You read that right: A script reader for a production company lands a high profile screenwriting gig. The particulars are even more interesting:
Whitworth had studied at Oxford and worked as a journalist at the Times of London before heading west and enrolling in UCLA’s screenwriting program. He worked as a reader for ICM and, for the past year, for Harpo, which afforded him time to write in his spare moments.
Although Whitworth found representation at management outfit Circle of Confusion, none of his spec scripts seemed to take. Still, he continued to write. “If it didn’t work out, I’d move on to the next one,” he tells THR/Heat Vision of his 10-year journey: “I would just try to persevere. It’s something I really wanted to do, even when it got hard.”
Last year, Whitworth wrote a spec titled Powell, a biopic about now-retired General Colin Powell that mixed fact and fiction to tell the behind-the-scene dealings leading up to Powell’s United Nations speech making the case for the war in Iraq.
The script made the rounds this spring, generating notice in the development community, and six weeks ago Whitworth signed with WME. That led to a series of general meet-and-greets with execs (“generals,” in the industry shorthand), including one with execs from Warners and De Line Productions.
The two companies took to the up-and-comer, and when he pitched them a take that saw the first two Merlin books combined to make one movie, the gig was all but sewn up. On top of that, Whitworth bonded with Barron, also an Oxford grad now living in Colorado, who flew out for the final meeting.
As noted: Only in Hollywood. Three things:
* Whitworth nailed the story and conveyed that in his pitch.
* Even though “Powell” didn’t sell, it got Whitworth meetings. That’s another value of writing on spec: A script can work as a writing sample and calling card.
* “I would just try to persevere. It’s something I really wanted to do, even when it got hard.” What he said.
Great story. Congratulations to Mr. Whitworth, formerly a script reader, now a script writer.