Screenwriting 101: Jane Anderson

“I wrote a spec script called Cop Gives Waitress $2 Million Tip. It later was turned into a film that they renamed It Could Happen to You. I went around pitching the idea to various studios before I wrote it. The idea I pitched was a cop can’t pay his tip at a diner, and he tells the waitress, ‘I’ll split my lottery ticket with you.’ He wins, they split the ticket, the cop and the waitress fall in love, and the cop’s wife is so furious about this that she sues them for everything they have — takes all their money away.

Originally, I said, ‘The cop and the waitress realize that even though they lost $10 million, they found love, and that’s where their true happiness was.’ I remember the executive at this one studio looked at me and said, ‘They don’t get the money?’ I said no. ‘You mean they walk away poor? Can’t they have some of the money.’

I knew that, as is, the idea wouldn’t sell, because these executives felt that in order for the film to be satisfying, the characters had to have money. So I thought to myself, ‘How can I have the cop and the waitress have money in the end, yet still relate what I want to say — which is that generosity of heart is what counts in this life?’ I gave it a different ending, which was: The cop and waitress lose all their money to the greedy wife who sues ’em for everything they have, and then every New Yorker who fell in love with the cop and waitress’s story hears that they’re penniless and every New Yorker gives them a dollar. They end up with $10 million again.

In that way, I was able to hold on to the integrity of my story and yet please a studio — thus the film got made.”

— Jane Anderson, taken from “Tales from the Script’