River of Raging Rewrites

What Denis F. O’Neill caught on his fishing trip goes beyond a whopper. In fact, his fish tale is so big, it’s the kind Hollywood movies are made of: “The River Wild” (which unreels in theaters Sept. 30), to be exact.

O’Neill, 45, conjured up the idea for the movie’s script while on a fly-fishing trip along Montana’s Smith River, which flows through the Lewis and Clark National Forest. After a few shots of Irish whiskey with his pals, he began to fantasize about his camping and fishing trip on what they dubbed the “river of no return.” A few what-ifs in their storytelling began to scare the wits out of each other and eventually resulted in a 1989 article O’Neill wrote for Fly Rod & Reel magazine called “Diary of a Mad Floater.”

Producer David Foster, longtime partner of Lawrence Turman, loved the script and got Universal Pictures to option it in August, 1991, for their Turman Foster Co. to produce. Several script rewrites later, the tale was floating in front of Meryl Streep.

O’Neill had met Streep through her husband, the sculptor Donald Gummer. Gummer knew O’Neill’s wife Deborah McLeod, a contemporary art specialist, who had planned a showing of his work at the now-defunct BlumHelman Gallery branch in Los Angeles. The showing never happened, but O’Neill and Gummer became friends.

“The role was a great part for a woman in her early 40s,” which O’Neill said was culled largely from O’Neill watching his friend and river guide Sandy Colvard maneuver the Smith River in Montana. “Donald thought Meryl would be interested in reading it,” added O’Neill. “Truth is, I reworked it with her in mind.” But O’Neill was bumped off his script and, in typical Hollywood fashion, another writer--Robert King (“Clean Slate”)--was brought aboard to rework it. But that didn’t work out and O’Neill was brought back for a second rewrite.

It was at that time that the script fell into Streep’s hands. But it still wasn’t the version that Universal and Foster wanted. Curtis Hanson (“The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”) agreed to direct only if changes were made in the story.

The studio hired the writing team of Raynold Gideon and Bruce Evans (“Stand by Me,” “Starman”), who had a deal at Universal, to add their Midas touch. Then Hanson and writer/actress Carrie Fisher took a stab at it.

And that was the beginning of a long ride in the white waters of arbitration.

The Writers Guild stepped in because O’Neill was co-producer on the picture. Any time a writer carries executive credit on a picture, it automatically becomes a matter of arbitration over who gets screenplay credit. Because O’Neill originated the story and script, any writers other than O’Neill had to show the guild that at least 50% of their writing was up on the screen or their names would not appear in the credits. They all pulled the short straw except O’Neill.

“The thing is, Meryl was interested but still didn’t commit until she read our version of the script, which is what Universal greenlit for the movie,” says Gideon. “When we read Denis’ original screenplay we knew how to fix it.”

Fixing it, in Evans and Gideon’s view, meant ditching the opening scene that has Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly’s characters killing a co-ed at a car wash, stealing her car, then robbing a bank and being chased by a determined sheriff throughout the course of the film. O’Neill’s original ending was also changed.

“Denis wrote the original screenplay, the story and he got everybody involved. But we did the screenplay that got it made,” says Evans. Some scenes were altered. “We made one of the characters mute and Meryl’s character a history teacher who works in sign (language), which becomes significant later in the film.”

The writing duo never met O’Neill and they say they are not sucking on sour grapes over the Writers Guild’s decision to deny them screenplay credit. “This is the way it goes. We obviously would like to have credit, but we believe the rules are correct in saying the original writer should always be favored.” After all, they acknowledge, that rule could easily turn in their favor some day.”

That said, O’Neill is quick to point out that Fisher, and particularly Hanson, had a lot to do with shaping the script and tweaking plot points. Hanson says that neither he nor Fisher wanted credit, but felt O’Neill should get story credit and share screenplay credit with Gideon and Evans. “It was Denis who came up with the idea of a woman being the expert oarsman and that of course is the nucleus of the film,” the director noted.

But at the end of the day, O’Neill can dust off any discrepancies, settle back in his Beverly Hills writing perch surrounded with photos of past river rafting and fly-fishing trips and every trout gadget imaginable, and bask in what he calls his 15 minutes of fame, turning a $350 magazine short story into a $400,000 script called “The River Wild.”

“In retrospect,” he muses, “it’s the best fishing trip I ever took.”