Screenwriting 101: Jose Rivera

“I did a film for Disney. It was a one-word idea they had: ‘shadows.’ I said, ‘Okay, what about shadows?’They said, ‘That’s it. That’s the idea. Shadows. Do something with it.’ So I came up with this idea about a guy whose shadow is alive. The guy is really awkward with women, and he likes this girl that he works with. He doesn’t know how to approach her, but his shadow and her shadow fall in love, and they contrive to get the human beings together. It’s a very fanciful sort of thing, and I was happy with it.

I wrote the script, and Disney said, ‘Wow, it’s really good, but it’s a love story, and what we really want is a buddy film — like, imagine your shadow is Eddie Murphy.’ And I said, ‘That’s interesting. It’s completely not what I wrote.’ I’m used to getting notes where someone says, ‘Okay, act two needs some work.’ I’m not used to getting notes where they say, ‘Let’s change the genre.’ I just couldn’t swing with it. I couldn’t do it, and I was replaced.

That was a real blow, I have to say, but I felt it was a complete violation of the idea. I know, intellectually, that they own the idea, but I had invested so much in this magical love story that to turn it into a goofy buddy film…I just couldn’t do it. The irony is a good friend of mine ended up replacing me. She called me and said, ‘I’m rewriting you. I hope it’s all right.’ And I said, ‘Well, if anyone in the world is gonna rewrite me, I’m glad it’s you and not somebody else.”

— Jose Rivera (The Motorcycle Diaries), excerpt from “Tales from the Script”

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