The Fempire: Lorene Scafaria, Diablo Cody, Dana Fox

Interesting article in the Toronto Star about screenwriting pals Lorene Scafaria (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist), Diablo Cody (Juno), and Dana Fox (What Happens in Vegas):

They’re calling themselves “The Fempire,” and if it sounds like a joke, then they’re laughing all the way to the bank.They just might be the most successful female screenwriting team ever.

Scafaria and Fox cheered on Cody when Juno launched at TIFF ’07 to acclaim (and a subsequent screenwriting Oscar for Cody). Scafaria and Cody were rolling for Fox this past summer when What Happens in Vegas became a surprise hit.

Juno, released last fall, grossed more than $143 million (U.S.) at the domestic box office and scored a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, among other laurels.

What Happens in Vegas, released in May, grossed more than $80 million. Both films have also done boffo business on DVD.

Now Cody and Fox are looking for a hat trick for the final member of the Fempire.

“We got to experience Juno with (Cody), then we got to do What Happens in Vegas with Dana and now they get to be here with me,” Scafaria said.

The three really do work closely together, congregating in various locales in L.A., where all three live.

“We actually write in the same room together. We ask each other if (the screenplays) are funny or offensive enough.”

“They’re just here to support me. It’s amazing,” Scafaria said. “It’s a completely non-competitive relationship among women, which is fairly rare to come by.”

It was Fox who first ran into Cody, at a writer’s workshop roundtable. Fox and Scafaria, already friends, had been looking for another writer to buddy up with.

“She came home and goes, `I think we’ve found our third’ … And, of course, who knew then that everything else would sort of take off?”

Hey, writing is a lonely profession and screenwriters have been known to hang out together and support each other since the heydays of the studio system. In fact, the Fempire reminds me of the “Pad O’ Guys.” Back in the 80s, a bunch of aspiring screenwriting dudes lived together in a sprawling old house in LA. In New York Times article, one of the original Pad members, screenwriter Fred Dekker talks about the experience:

Mr. Dekker, 42, was among a group of aspiring screenwriters who graduated from U.C.L.A. film school around 1982. They roomed together in a house they called the ‘’Pad O’ Guys’’ in Los Angeles. They epitomized the growing cult of screenwriter as star.

Among them were Shane Black, Ryan Rowe, who went on to co-write ‘’Charlie’s Angels,’’ Ed Solomon, who wrote ‘’Men in Black,’’ James Herzfeld, who wrote ‘’Meet the Parents’’ and Gregory Widen, who wrote ‘’Backdraft.’’

‘’We thought we could rule the world and no one was telling us we couldn’t,’’ says Mr. Dekker. ‘’We got all this press calling us the ‘Young Turks.’ ‘’ Another roommate from that time, Ethan Wiley, 41, a co-writer of the cult horror film ‘’House’’ (1986), recalls that almost all of them got agents and were selling scripts not long after graduating. ‘’The phones were ringing off the hook,’’ says Mr. Wiley. ‘’We totally took it for granted. We just thought, ‘Hey, we’re good at this.’ ‘’

Another resident, Shane Black, reminisced about the pad in this interview:

No, no. This is post Pad O’ Guys. Pad O’ Guys went off and got married. They went off and left me. They abandoned me. They betrayed me. We used to have a sign in the window: “Open 24 Hours.” There was always someone at that house. You’d drive by at four in the morning. The lights were on. The sign was lit. Someone was in there making a short film, or having an argument about Preston Sturges, or whatever. But now, they all went off and had the unmitigated gall to have wives and disappear from the Pad O’ Guys. So now I’m the only one left with the “24 Hours Open” sign. I run this little hotel here where people come in and out of town to stay, otherwise I’m alone here with my dogs. But yes, I had financial solvency. But in a way, I wish I hadn’t. There was a bit of resentment engendered for having made such a large sum of money, for an action script (The Long Kiss Goodnight,1996) number one, which people almost universally disdain, but secondly, one that bombed and everyone had a chance to go “Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha!” I didn’t mind that part as much, but the anger that people felt when I sold that script for that amount of money. Even my good friend Peter Bart, who runs Variety, wrote a full page column on what a schmuck I was, and how horrible it was that I sold this script for that amount. I had never seen people made quite that angry before.

The Pad O’ Guy sounds like it was a bit more competitive than the current Fempire gals. But you do whatever you need to do to survive and get better as a writer. If you’re not part of a writer’s group, consider it.

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