Christopher McQuarrie Has Blunt Advice For Screenwriters

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Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Mission: Impossible) took to Twitter to give budding screenwriters some advice. It’s fair to say that his advice comes with a trigger warning.  Are you currently writing a script? Have you pinned your hopes on getting that elusive spec sale? Well, brace yourself. McQuarrie likens the possibility of selling a script in Hollywood to “playing the lottery”. Since the probability of winning the jackpot is 1 in 13,983,816, the odds of banging out screenplays to try and break into Hollywood seems pretty unlikely. Before you get deflated, or angry, or cite numerous examples of screenwriters who broke in this way, remember thousands don’t.

I’ve received a lot of questions from writers asking where to submit scripts or how to sell them. Others ask how to sign an agent, attach directors or producers, etc.

…I spent seven years – AFTER winning an academy award – asking the same questions. My career stalled (and I still have scripts that no one will make despite subsequent commercial successes). In that time, I never stopped to realize that my own career didn’t start by blindly submitting scripts, nor did the careers of any of my writer friends. This is not to say it can’t happen, but the ODDS of just submitting your script and having it made are extremely slim.

With so many people trying to break into the business, McQuarrie suggests you do what so many screenwriters aren’t willing to do.

Just get out there and make films.

I have news for all of you writers who like to say writing is where the process of filmmaking begins:

Understanding the process of filmmaking is where the real screenwriting begins. Why wait?

This advice might frustrate many screenwriters who just want to write. But with spec sales at an all-time low, screenwriters need to adapt more than ever. This requires screenwriters get out of their comfort zone, and get behind the camera. Learn. Fail. Learn from your failures. It doesn’t matter. Just make films. to make films. And learning by doing.

“[Make] little films no one will ever see. The secret to knowledge is doing and failing – often and painfully – and letting everyone see.”

Basically McQuarrie is saying that screenwriters, like directors, are filmmakers first.

There’s this idea that budding screenwriters write, and newbie directors do, well, everything to get their first short films made. They direct, operate the camera, and more often than not, write the script. Directors make low budget short film after low budget short film and hopefully generate enough buzz from their work to get noticed by studios.

No screenwriters. You are filmmakers too.

But even with all your hard work, McQuarrie asserts, you STILL may not break in.

“This guarantees NOTHING. But it’s what I know.  And it’s better odds than the lottery. And there’s no waiting for permission. You are, in fact, living the dream. And if you think the dream relies on bigger budgets and a paycheck, brace yourself for profound unhappiness.”

It’s pretty blunt advice. But as budding screenwriters filmmakers it may be the tough love we need.

Below are some threads from Christopher McQuarrie ‘s twitter feed. You can read it in its entirety here.

 

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