COVER STORY : How Much Are Words Worth to Hollywood? : That’s always been the burning question for screenwriters and the answer has always been: ‘Not much.’ Even those million-dollar scripts haven’t made the writer a major player.

-- Audiences don’t know anyone writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along. --Screenwriter Joe Gillis in Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard,” 1950 -- I’ve yet to meet a writer who could change water into wine--but we have a tendency to treat them like that. One million dollars, $1 1/2 million for these scripts--it’s nuts. . . . There’s a lot of time and money to be saved if we came up with these stories on our own.

--Studio exec Larry Levy in “The Player,” Robert Altman’s film version of Michael Tolkin’s novel, 1992

The money is better, but not much has changed. Screenwriters, or “schmucks with Underwoods,” as movie mogul Jack Warner used to call them, remain Hollywood’s favorite whipping boys and girls--an essential but seemingly disposable part of the Hollywood machine:

* One-third of all writers have been shelved by the time shooting begins.

* Two-thirds are history by the post-production and marketing period. Writers are often fired when the mere suggestion of trouble erupts and, until recently, were even overlooked when screening lists were made up.

* Of the 11,000 writers in Writers Guild of America, about half are out of work at any given time.

* Only 3,900 of the 7,800 writers in WGA West reported earnings in 1991--and only 1,800 of them from the big screen.

“Writers are in a tough spot,” explains Michael Tolkin, who co-produced and wrote the script for “The Player,” a much anticipated, darkly humorous portrait of a back-stabbing, BMW-driven movie industry that relegates screenwriters to the status of Hyundais that is scheduled to open in Los Angeles on Friday. “They’re an embarrassment, a reminder to everyone that the project--’it’--didn’t start with them.”

Observed playwright Arthur Miller in his review of “Barton Fink,” another depressing portrayal of the Scribe in Filmland: “The only thing about Hollywood that I am sure of is that its mastication of writers can never be too wildly exaggerated.”

Morale was lifted a bit in 1990-91 when studios engaged in some much-publicized bidding wars, forking out millions for original, or “spec,” scripts. But, as those writers who cashed in on the phenomenon soon found out, creative rights weren’t part of the package:

* “Radio Flyer” writer David Mickey Evans received a total of $1.2 million from Stonebridge Entertainment and Columbia Pictures for his first produced screenplay, including $200,000 for his directorial debut. Two weeks into the shoot, however, the studio fired Evans, closed down the set, swallowed a reported $10 million in pre-production costs and hired director Richard Donner (“Lethal Weapon”). Action-adventure director Donner’s film was said to lack the intimacy of Evans’ script. And, after disappointing screenings, the downbeat finale was considerably tempered.

* “Medicine Man’s” Tom Schulman, in the wake of his “Dead Poets Society” Oscar, was paid nearly $3 million for the screenplay--the tale of two scientists (Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco) in the Amazon rain forest. The script to which the actors committed, a disappointed Bracco has said, bore little resemblance to the one that was shot. That’s not surprising: After Schulman did several drafts, according to one source, a “famous, uncredited writer” did another, director John McTiernan and Connery built up the action-adventure elements and writer Sally Robinson was brought in to develop Bracco’s part.

* “Basic Instinct” screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (“Jagged Edge”) commanded a record $3 million for his tale of a Bay Area cop investigating a brutal murder. But, after clashing with director Paul Verhoeven over plot points and sexual explicitness, he and producer Irwin Winkler walked off the project and asked to buy back the script. Eszterhas later returned . . . only to find Verhoeven, Carolco and TriStar unwilling to make fixes he suggested when gay protest groups objected to the film’s portrayal of bisexuals and lesbians.

“To write a screenplay and not be admitted to the psychiatric ward at Cedars, it helps to be emotionally secure as a human being and have no attachment to the outcome,” says Anna Hamilton Phelan, who wrote “Mask” and “Gorillas in the Mist.” “You get pregnant, gestate the baby, go through a live birth, cut the umbilical cord and have to let everyone--including wives, lovers, aunts, uncles--take the baby and do what they want with it.”

Undeterred, more and more aspiring screenwriters head west, increasing WGA membership by 5 to 7% annually. “Thirty years ago writers headed to Greenwich Village to write the great American novel,” says George Kirgo, former head of the WGA West. “Now, they head to Hollywood to write the great American screenplay.”

Still, according to industry analysts, studio executives, WGA officials and screenwriters approached by The Times, the picture is not unremittingly bleak. Median income for working screenwriters rose from $25,000 in 1984 to $32,000 in 1987 to an estimated $40,000 in 1991. (In comparison, median income for working actors rose from $11,000 in 1987 to $12,000 last year.) Earnings have doubled since 1986-87. And artistic rights--traditionally bartered for the big bucks screenwriters earn compared to playwrights or novelists--are finally being put on the table.

As documented by such diverse observers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Gregory Dunne and, more recently, Bruce Wagner in “Force Majeure,” the relationship between the writer and the industry has always been problematic.

“There’s either an inherent conflict--or an approved one,” says Brian Walton, WGA West executive director. “Writers don’t do what they do unless they believe in the art; companies don’t do what they do unless they believe in the business. What you need is a capitalist who believes in art or an artist who believes in commerce.”

A legal system that assigns copyright ownership to the person who pays for material rather than the one who creates it reduces a screenwriter’s leverage even more. In continental Europe and Canada, the author of an original screenplay or musical score is protected from unauthorized mutilation of his work and collects royalties as long as the piece is exploited. In the theater, a playwright can close the show down if one word is changed without his permission. But since 1935, when they gained a union and lost their independent-contractor status, American screenwriters are creatively at the mercy of the studios.

Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg accepted the co-chairmanship of the industry-union committee on artistic rights partially as a way of making amends for the posture he adopted during the 1988 writers’ strike, when Disney and Universal were the studio hard-liners. Still, he resists any easy comparisons between Hollywood and the Continent.

“Hollywood is about the marriage of art and commerce--with the accent on commerce,” he says. “European filmmaking is about art. Period. What we’re after isn’t empowering writers with the final say, but giving them more of a voice.”

In the end, most agree, it’s a trade-off. “You don’t see American writers flocking to France to get a smaller paycheck,” one screenwriter points out. “No one is holding a gun to our heads.”

American screenwriters may be paid a vast multiple of what their European counterparts earn, but--with the exception of certain A-list writers--they still command substantially less than top actors or directors.

“In reality, a script is 90% of the movie,” says producer David Matalon, former head of TriStar Pictures. “The perception, however, is that it’s only 20%. It all boils down to box office. It’s the star--and a few directors--who sell tickets.”

For a brief moment in time, however, writers became stars, as fees for their original scripts soared into the stratosphere. During 1990 and part of 1991, Warner Bros. bought Shane Black’s “The Last Boy Scout” for $1.75 million; Callie Khouri received $1 million for her first feature, the Oscar-winning “Thelma & Louise”; Michael Crichton got $1.5 million (plus an additional $500,000 for the screenplay) for his dinosaurs-on-the-loose tale “Jurassic Park.”

Each of the deals was reported as the dawn of a new age. In fact, they were outgrowths of the old one. The bidding wars arose out of the climate of fear that traditionally envelopes all but the most secure studio executives. “No one wanted to lose the next ‘E.T.,’ so they gambled,” says Kirgo. “The numbers stemmed from the need of new buyers such as Sony’s Columbia to establish themselves in the marketplace and fill their empty pipelines.”

They also arose out of the determination of such independents as Cinergi, Carolco, Largo and Imagine--without the backlog of 150 or so films on which studios are able to draw--to rope in new projects. Spec scripts were not only ready-to-go but, theoretically at least, didn’t require expensive rewrites.

“Agents couldn’t set up ‘pitch’ meetings,” says Lynda Obst, who co-produced “The Fisher King.” “No one wanted to spend $50,000 to $60,000 on an idea when the next week they may be bidding on a major concrete script which comes already packaged and may be rushed into production.”

The deals, however, weren’t as juicy as they seemed. Figures, often hyped by agents to advertise their clout, represented “end” numbers--contingent on a number of variables. Carolco’s $2-million check for “Cutthroat Island” was worth only $500,000 to the writers unless the film got made.

“I watched with bemusement--and some consternation--from the sidelines,” says Casey Silver, president of production at Universal. “Because of the pressure to go with a script you’ve paid that kind of money for, a lot of stuff was made--and made badly.”

Whatever its merits, the controversial “Basic Instinct,” released March 20, has grossed a whopping $35 million in its first 10 days of release. “Medicine Man,” which opened to mostly negative reviews, has recorded a respectable $41 million in box-office receipts during its first two months. “Radio Flyer,” however, is a hands-down flop. Since its Feb. 21 opening, the movie has taken in only $4.5 million.

Some of the spec scripts were never made at all. “The Cheese Stands Alone,” for which Kathy McWorter received $1 million, has been put into turnaround twice at Paramount--up for bids to any studio willing to pay back what the studio has invested in it.

Though Universal’s Silver did agree to pay Richard Price (“Sea of Love”) $1 million (plus $900,000 for writing the screenplay) for the detective yarn “Clockers’ this past October, he’s convinced that internal development is the way to go.

“The lifeblood of a studio is development,” he says. “It’s expensive, but if you’ve got 20 great writers churning out scripts, you’ve got a good chance of getting movies you want to get made. Times are tough right now, but A-level writers aren’t feeling the pinch--it’s the middle level that’s getting squeezed.”

Recessionary times have also led other studios to make course corrections: drawing on their current inventories instead of opting for new product, curtailing development deals with lesser-known writers and buying more conservatively, generally from brand-name authors. Still, say the experts, they’ll fork out the cash for a script they can’t resist.

Says a top agent: “Though the frenzy is gone, if there’s a good script out there, someone will pay--and pay well--for it. There’s no top or bottom anymore. It’s all based on supply and demand.”

The spending spree is history, acknowledges Charles Slocum, who tracks industry figures for the WGA. But the plight of the writer has improved nevertheless. “Though only a dozen people can get $1 million for a script,” he says, “there are more in the $500,000 and $750,000 range.”

Older writers, however, haven’t shared in the bounty. “In the past couple of years, there is a whole generation of writers for whom employment has stopped, some as young as 40,” says Frank Pierson (“Dog Day Afternoon”). “That’s a result not only of the general youth thrust in the industry, but also of working for 30-year-old executives. If they don’t like your second draft, how do you fire ‘Dad’?”

Everything is relative, however. In the early days of Hollywood, writers were under contract to the studio, 9-to-5 employees arbitrarily assigned to projects with little regard for individual strengths or preferences. Director Michael Curtiz (“Casablanca”) called them “Wednesday bums,” an allusion to the day of the week their paychecks were issued. Censorship was rampant--and a far cry from the self-imposed variety endemic to commercially minded writers today. “One or two ‘hells’ was considered OK, so I’d write 20 of them and bargain,” recalls Julius Epstein, who co-wrote the screenplay for “Casablanca.”

In the ‘30s and ‘40s, studios looked to novelists and Broadway for material. Dorothy Parker wrote 15 screenplays, Clifford Odets 8, William Faulkner 6, John Steinbeck 4, Raymond Chandler 5, F. Scott Fitzgerald 1. It was far from a marriage made in heaven.

“To guys like Fitzgerald and Odets, Hollywood was a way to get laid and make a lot of money,” says Pierson. “Then they’d go back to New York to write snotty articles about how awful it was. It didn’t help the image of screenwriters for those most respected to affect an attitude of condescension and trash the craft. And besides, most weren’t terribly good at it.”

The thought of a union was anathema to the studios who, in the early 1930s, not only opposed the first screenwriters guild, but claimed it was communist-inspired. A studio-backed conservative union, the Screen Playwrights, was formed in 1936, only to be dislodged the next year when the National Labor Relations Board backed the writers’ secret ballot vote for a union of their choice.

It took three years for the studios to grant recognition and, in the late ‘40s, ideological rivalries surfaced again when congressional committees and self-appointed witch hunters took aim. A handful of Hollywood’s more prominent screenwriters were sent to jail. Many more had to put their careers on hold.

For a long time, directors, too, were regarded as hired hands, even excluded from the editing room. Director Elliot Silverstein didn’t see a cut of his 1965 film “Cat Ballou” until the studio sat him and the producer in a screening room and asked them to give notes.

Two developments--the breakup of the studio system and the introduction of the auteur theory--gave directors a much-needed boost. When the influence of movie moguls began to wane, an Alfred Hitchcock or a Howard Hawks moved in to fill the vacuum. And in the wake of “auteurism”--imported from France in the 1960s--movies were seen as personal statements in which style and technique superseded story line.

The status of writers, as a result, took a dive. “Possessory credits” (an additional credit, usually preceding the title) were increasingly assigned indiscriminately, not just reserved for masters of the craft. As Kirgo puts it: “Now a hotshot out of UCLA Film School gets a possessory credit--’A Skippy Horowitz Film’.” As ads trumpeting “Franco Zeffirelli’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ ” or “Roman Polanski’s ‘Macbeth’ ” testify, it’s the rare writer--Neil Simon or Stephen King, for example--who comes out on top.

“Writers are getting less than their due primarily because directors are getting more than their due,” says one studio chief. “If ‘Fisher King’ succeeds or fails all the credit--or blame--is given to director Terry Gilliam, who carried out the vision. Not to Richard LaGravenese, who sat in front of the typewriter and dreamt it up.”

Though some directors such as Rob Reiner, Ron Howard, Arthur Hiller and Steven Spielberg encourage writers on the set, the practice is not common.

“There’s an unfortunate adversarial relationship set up between directors and writers,” says Tolkin, who has had one foot in both camps since his 1991 directorial debut with “The Rapture.” “It’s a combination of the writer’s jealousy of the director getting all the attention and control and the director’s fear that the writer with his history and perspective on the project knows better what the thing is about.”

One of the primary complaints of writers over the years is the trend toward “serial writers.” It’s a policy that often results in multiple credits on scripts, and occasionally in litigation.

“A writer hands in a first draft and if he doesn’t get it in the first two or three, they hire another,” says attorney Peter Dekom. “Fifteen to 20 drafts aren’t uncommon, nor are five or six writers on a film. It’s reprehensible, a confused mess.” Dustin Hoffman brought in his own writer, Malia Scotch Marmo, to beef up his role in the Jim Hart “Hook” script. On TriStar’s “Sleepless in Seattle,” a romantic comedy to be shot this summer, screenwriter Jeffrey Arch was rewritten by David Ward (“The Sting”), who was rewritten by Nora Ephron, who is also directing. One version by Larry Atlas, who was hired to rewrite Arch, was thrown out entirely.

Some studios are guiltier than others. Though Disney maintains it’s now giving writers more rope, its hands-on reputation will be hard to shed. “Disney is making a conscientious effort to return a sense of corporate authorship to the script,” counters Frank Pierson. “It’s a ‘Disney picture.’ They’re saving money by not hiring the highest-priced writers associated with a particular style. And by using serial writers on a picture, they can more successfully control a concept. You can either get one writer for $100,000 or 10 for $10,000.”

Katzenberg acknowledges the problem. “In the past two years, our studio has earned a bad reputation for dealing with writers. There were unreasonable reams of notes and meetings, and no air in the room for anyone to breathe, let alone have a difficult point of view. A conscientious initiative has been undertaken to clean up our act.”

Writer-director James L. Brooks (“Terms of Endearment”) is still smarting from the time he was fired as the writer of “Starting Over” without being told. (“I can take off my shirt and show you the whip marks.”) As a result, he says, his Gracie Productions is firmly committed to staying with a writer. “I’d feel really bad if anyone but the original one was on a project,” he asserts. “With five writers, you get the worst, not the best of everyone. We just keep going until we get it.”

Things are improving, though. In the wake of the 1988 negotiations, writers of original screenplays have to be informed why they’re being taken off a film and are entitled to first crack at a rewrite. And since a top rewriter can cost $100,000 a week, economics--if not principle--have resulted in better treatment. “This is a double-edged sword, however,” Kirgo observes. “Many of us make a living being rewriters, so it’s a trade-off.”

Writers also complain about the number of bosses to which they have to report. A dozen or so executives may be assigned to a project--each of whom must have a say. “It’s no longer just a Jack Warner or a Louis B. Mayer but everyone from the head of the studio on down,” says Anna Hamilton Phelan. “You get notes from 12 people, 13 different opinions. As Billy Wilder says, ‘You can be kissing the wrong backside for months.’ You know as you write, there’s an 80% chance that, no matter how good, your words will be rearranged or eliminated. It’s gut-wrenching.”

According to screenwriter Roger Simon (“Enemies, a Love Story”), envy must also be factored in. “Everyone is jealous of the fact that writers make up the story,” he asserts. “That’s a power that’s beyond power. They can’t do what I can do. Can a studio executive write a movie? I’d faint over backwards. Can a writer be a studio executive? Just put a phone in his ear.”

Producer David Matalon, though sympathetic to the plight of the writer, finds some justification in the process. “A writer sits in a room with me--someone who’s not able to write--telling him how to write,” he says. “I feel so bad for them I want to cry. But I have the right to ask for--and get--the image I want to make. When a script is the foundation for a $30-million, $40-million creation, that gives you the right to interfere.”

Not all writers, it must be pointed out, are treated equal. While a few at the very top can state their terms and preclude unauthorized tampering, the rest, depending on a number of variables, find themselves at the mercy of the system. If a writer has written the material on spec--on his own time and at his own risk instead of on assignment from the studio--chances are better he’ll be treated well. Though an alliance with a major agency, producer or director provides another leg up, nothing beats directing the movie yourself to maximize control.

The legendary Preston Sturges, who headed for Hollywood after a series of Broadway flops, discovered that the hard way. Frustrated with the mangling of his material, he sold Paramount his script for $1 in exchange for the right to direct. “The Great McGinty” not only won him an Oscar for best screenplay but paved the way for other aspiring writer-directors down the road.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, writers Robert Towne (“Personal Best”), Colin Higgins (“Foul Play”), Lawrence Kasdan (“Body Heat”) and James Bridges (“The Paper Chase”) went into directing. John Patrick Shanley, Rob Reiner, Frank Pierson, Ron Howard and Paul Schrader, among others, followed suit.

Even for the lesser names, however, things are looking up. The WGA voted in January, 1991, to extend the contract to 1995, predicated on the condition that talks about contractual matters will be ongoing. Writers are meeting with directors on the union level to discuss the issue of creative rights. A committee on the status of writers (consisting of studio chiefs, top network creative executives and writers) was formed in the wake of the June, 1988, writers’ strike and is about to issue guidelines regarding writer-management interaction. Among the areas being discussed: the number of drafts expected of a writer and the extent of play writers get in promotional press kits.

Jim Brooks even detects a grudging respect. “There used to be a theory that the voice of the writer has no place in a movie,” he says.”Now there’s the realization in the studio and among people in the seats that it can enhance a film.”

So the writers keep coming, banking that they’ll be one of the lucky ones. “False hope springs eternal,” says one who’s been knocking out unproduced screenplays for 10 years. “Isn’t that what Hollywood is all about?”