Update: You do NOT have to live in L.A. to succeed as a screenwriter

Following up on this and this, from THR:

Michael Starrbury has been hired to rewrite Fully Automatic, an action movie from Silver Pictures set up at Warner Bros.

The project, set up as a spec by Randy Feldman in 2002, centers on two smart-mouthed rookie cops who team up with a female Delta Force operative to stop a mercenary who’s stolen a cache of weapons. The project is aimed to be in the tone of a classic buddy action movie but made for today’s audiences.

Joel Silver and Andrew Rona are producing with Silver Pictures’ Alex Heineman and Ethan Erwin exec producing.

The interesting aspect here is Starrbury who, unlike many other screenwriters, is ratcheting up a screenwriting career in his 30s and while living in Minneapolis, MN, as opposed to being in his 20s and living in a guest house in Los Angeles.

Look, I know it’s not the norm, but the simple fact is you do not have to live in L.A. to succeed as a screenwriter. Hell, if you read the rest of the article, you’ll see that Starburry has sold two TV projects in between dropping off his two kids at school in his Midwestern home… and the conventional wisdom about TV is you must live in L.A. to pursue that career.

Yes, there are advantages to living in L.A., no one is denying that. But just as there is no one way to write, there is no one way to succeed as a writer, and that includes where you choose to live.

For more of the article, go here.

[BTW I am interviewing a screenwriter who sold a big spec script this year who continues to live well outside of L.A., and I’m asking him specifically about the advantages / disadvantages to that arrangement. Look for that Q&A in the next few weeks.]

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