SCREENPLAYS SUCCESS STORIES

Sylvester Stallone was living in utter poverty when he saw an unknown boxer last nearly 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali. The idea for Rocky was born. Stallone wrote the script in just three days and the rest, as they say, is Hollywood history as the movie became one of the most successful of all time and made Stallone an international superstar.

Kevin Williamson and a friend were reminiscing one night about popular 1980s horror movies. The conversation spawned the idea for what would become the opening scene in Scream with a stalker quizzing his victims on horror movies of the past. Williamson wrote Scream in just four days.  The script created a hot bidding war and made Williamson one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood. 

And then there’s Joe Eszterhas. He came up with the idea of a beautiful crime novelist becoming the suspect in the case of her boyfriend’s murder.  Eszterhas sat down, with no clue how the story would end, and wrote Basic Instinct in just 10 days.  When he was finished, he shipped the script to his agent and sold it three days later for $3 million.  That means Eszterhas went from having a simple idea to having $3 million in the bank in just 13 days!


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