An attitude that’s hard to swallow

Let’s face it -- there are hundreds of reasons why Hollywood makes so many bad movies. But last week’s Oscar nominations offered one especially telling explanation, tucked away in the best original screenplay category: All the nominated scripts were from independent or foreign films. In fact, over the past three years, the major studios have largely been shut out of the academy’s original screenplay category. Pickings were so slim last year that two of the five nominated scripts weren’t even written in English -- “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and “Talk to Her.”

In today’s Hollywood, if you’re talking about serious drama, the original script is almost as extinct as a woolly mammoth. On the rare occasion when a studio ventures into dramatic territory, it insists on some kind of prestigious source material, usually a bestselling novel, as ballast. As a result, nearly every studio Oscar contender this year -- “The Lord of the Rings,” “Seabiscuit,” “Mystic River,” “Master and Commander,” “Cold Mountain,” “Big Fish” and “House of Sand and Fog” -- was adapted from a novel.

The future for original material looks bleak. Warner Bros., for example, has 21 more films due out this year. Seven are from original scripts, including two biopics and a Hilary Duff movie based on the Cinderella story. The other 14 are sequels or are based on an old film or TV show, comic book, novel, children’s book, musical or, in the case of “Ocean’s Twelve,” a sequel to a remake. Warners is hardly alone. According to top agents who cover the studios, MGM has four priority development projects: “Foxy Brown,” “The Bellboy,” “The Pink Panther” and “Basic Instinct 2,” all based on old movies. Universal had 15 films at the top of its development slate. One project derived from an original script; the others were sequels or based on comics, old films and TV shows, nonfiction books and novels.

The studio reliance on recognizability has changed the shape of American screenwriting. The great films of the 1970s, overwhelmingly, are original scripts: “Five Easy Pieces,” “Klute,” “The Candidate,” “The Sting,” “American Graffiti,” “Chinatown,” “Shampoo,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Network,” “Rocky,” “Star Wars,” “Annie Hall,” “Coming Home” and “The Deer Hunter.” Yet the vast majority of produced scripts from today’s go-to screenwriters -- Steve Zaillian, Scott Frank, David Koepp, Eric Roth, Akiva Goldsman and Steve Kloves, to name a few -- are adaptations, not originals.

“Right now an original script is a very scary thing for a studio,” says Brian Helgeland, who just earned a second Oscar nomination, for his adaptation of “Mystic River.” “If it’s your original story, you have the sense of authorship -- they can’t change it as freely. But the studio would rather be in the driver’s seat. They’re a lot more comfortable with a project based on a book, where they can have more input -- where the studio is the author.”

Though he’s considered an elite screenwriter, when Helgeland recently went out to studios with a gritty original drama -- with two hot young actors attached -- he got a chilly reception. “It was ‘no’ everywhere,” he says. Helgeland is convinced that if his script had been a popular novel, it would’ve received a more enthusiastic reception.

Writer-director Gary Ross, whose adaptation of “Seabiscuit” is up for best picture, has vivid memories of a multitude of directors passing on his original scripts for “Big” and “Dave” before those films were finally made. “Because they were original scripts, there was a chilling effect -- they hadn’t been validated by the culture. If ‘Seabiscuit’ had just been a work of fiction, I don’t think it would’ve gotten made. Having a book, especially a bestseller, makes it a more comfortable decision. You already have an indication that the material resonates in the culture.”

Writer-director Audrey Wells, who recently adapted “Under the Tuscan Sun,” is in constant demand for assignments. But she’s had no luck selling an original script she wrote with Will Richter about the making of the Golden Gate Bridge. “If we were adapting a bestselling novel about the Golden Gate Bridge, the movie would be in production today,” she says. “But because it’s an original script, the story is always open to debate. When it’s a novel, there’s a consensus that there’s something of value on the page. But with an original script, everyone gets to question who the characters are and what happens to them.”

Today’s studios are tiny slivers of giant conglomerates whose primary business has little to do with movies. So studios, by and large, aren’t making movies, but youth-oriented leisure-time entertainment. On the rare occasions when studios make films aimed at discerning adults, they are looking to squeeze every possible risk out of the equation, either by finding a project with some brand-name awareness -- hence the popularity of bestselling novels -- or by teaming up with other studios (“Master and Commander” and “Seabiscuit” each had three different backers).

“It’s very hard to get an original script made when the buyers -- the studios -- tell us over and over that they don’t want to make them,” says writer-director Phil Alden Robinson, who has spent years trying unsuccessfully to get a studio to make “Age of Aquarius,” a romantic adventure tale set in war-torn Sarajevo. His most recent film was a Tom Clancy adaptation, “The Sum of All Fears.” “It used to be that a studio would ask, ‘Is this a really good movie?’ Now the studios ask, ‘Does Wall Street think this is a good part of its film division’s business plan?’ ”

Literary adaptations offer a comforting safety net. Someone has already organized the material, created the characters and proven there’s an audience interested in the story. “It’s pre-researched material,” says producer Brian Grazer, who says his Oscar-winning 2001 film “A Beautiful Mind” would’ve been a tough sell if it hadn’t been based on a book. As for “Apollo 13,” his Oscar-nominated film from 1995, he says, “It wasn’t an especially well-read book, but it had a great subject -- the space program -- and its writer, Jim Lovell, had really gone into space, so it had authenticity. When you have a book, it just makes subjects easier for people to grasp.”

The studios aren’t the only ones to blame for movies’ woeful lack of originality. Many executives and agents say -- usually in a hushed whisper -- that today’s elite screenwriters, who often make $2 million a film, have taken the path of least resistance. They prefer the cushy economic lifestyle that comes with a studio payday over the anguish of writing something from the heart that might never see the light of day. Too often, the typical career trajectory for a successful screenwriter involves writing an arresting original script, then being recruited by studios, and encouraged by their agents, to do increasingly lucrative adaptation work.

“Screenwriting has become a means to an end instead of an art unto itself and it’s killing the movies,” says Scott Frank, who recently adapted “Minority Report” for Steven Spielberg. “Writers, myself included, are doing scripts to make money, get a chance to direct, change their reputation or enjoy the security of pre-validated material. We’re not writing a script because we have an idea in our head that we can’t stop thinking about.”

Writers are human -- they like to see their work up on screen, something that is far more likely if they’re involved with a project that is a top studio priority. “You can show your unpublished poems to your wife and kids, but with a film, it’s really hard to have a soulful ownership of something that didn’t get made,” says Akiva Goldsman, who won an Oscar for adapting “A Beautiful Mind.” “With an adaptation, the studio has more of a psychological and fiscal investment in the project, so everyone is more likely to keep going till they get it right.”

But something important is lost when originality is replaced by marketability. Too many of today’s films have become impersonal and conventional. Despite their expert craftsmanship, “Seabiscuit” or “A Beautiful Mind” are simply not as singular or personal as films from original scripts, like “Lost in Translation,” “Adaptation,” “Memento” or “Almost Famous.” But unless writers direct their original scripts, as M. Night Shyamalan, Paul Thomas Anderson and Cameron Crowe do, they are faced with a daunting struggle.

“Everyone knows success in Hollywood is a short ride and you have to make the most of it while you’re in the game,” says Wells. “But for a writer, original material is who you are. It’s what gives you a voice. And if you’re just doing other people’s materials, you might forget what your real voice is.”

“The Big Picture” runs every Tuesday in Calendar. If you have questions, ideas or criticism, e-mail them to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.