Rule #1: The screenplay is the most important element of a film, yet it is the least expensive element of a film.*

Let that sink in for a second.

Rule #2: It is not possible to make a good film out of a bad screenplay.**

I mean it. No matter what you do, no matter how much money and resources you have at your disposal, there is absolutely no way that a good movie can be made from a crappy script. The world’s greatest actors, directors, cinematographers and editors can all try as hard as they possibly can, but it won’t make a difference if the screenplay is a train wreck.

Those two rules have been burned into my brain. I believe in them so strongly that the fear of not being able to write something worthy of them is almost paralyzing. The idea for ANOTHER JONATHAN occurred to me in October of 2008. I’ve spent over four years mulling it over, playing it in my mind, constantly tweaking, revising, adapting, and rewriting it, all without actually typing a single word of it. Because writing isn’t really writing, at least not for me. I’m not one of those people that wakes up, showers, has breakfast, sits in front of the computer and starts clackity-clacking X pages per minute (where X is an unspecified, though undoubtedly copious, amount) then prints out the pages and gives them a quick read, scribbles some notes on the margins with a red pen and starts again after lunch. No, writing isn’t writing. Writing is thinking. Pacing the room, trying to break the story. Connecting the dots from A to Zinc. Typing is easy. Three monkeys stuck in a room could type the script.

But imagining it, conjuring the idea out of thin air… that’s the magic. That’s the art. And I believe I am now finally ( ! ) ready to begin. Ready to make the leap from thinking to actually typing. And I’m terrified. I have the whole movie in my head, but staring at the blank page is torture. I look at the white, glowing rectangle that is my computer screen and all I can think of is a quote from the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby film ROAD TO RIO: “I hate you!  I loathe you! I despise you!” I admit it. I hate writing. I loathe writing. I freakin’ despise writing. But Rule #1 says that the script is king, and it’s a very cheap date. And Rule #2 tells me the script’s gotta’ rock or the movie’s gonna’ suck.  Since I can’t make my movie without a script, I’m just going to have to grit my teeth and do it right.

I want to make this film. I need to make it or I’ll go insane. And, so, let the cursing begin. I only pray the last four years of thinking were worth it.

* Some people will argue that there have been screenwriters who have been paid six or seven figures to write a movie script. This is true, but if a screenplay sells for five million bucks you bet your ass the movie’s going to cost many, many times that amount.

** I’m talking about straightforward, narrative, mainstream feature films. This rule doesn’t necessarily apply to experimental or abstract films, many of which may not even have a screenplay at all.