Screenwriter David Steinberg was invited last fall by a producer to pitch his idea for a rewrite of a “high-concept comedy” about an adult slacker for a major studio.
Steinberg figured he had a good shot at the assignment with credits like “American Pie 2″ under his belt, even though he heard there were many other [...]

Melissa Rosenberg already had a healthy career in features (”Step Up”) and television (”The O.C.,” “Dexter”) when Summit Entertainment hired her to adapt a vampire romance novel called “Twilight.”
Four years, three scripts, two movies and one billion dollars later, she is entering the home stretch of her wildly successful “Twilight” run and finally starting to think [...]

Everyone knows that screenwriters get no respect in Hollywood. But that goes double — or maybe triple – for the screenwriters who work on Jerry Bruckheimer movies. Whenever you read a batch of reviews about the latest Bruckheimer picture, as you will later this week when “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” hits the theaters, [...]

Justin Theroux has a long resume as both a cult actor (”Muholland Dr.”) and screenwriter (”Tropic Thunder”). Through a key connection and his own point-of-view, he was hired to write “Iron Man 2,” the sequel to one of the biggest blockbusters ever.
Theroux is best known as an actor, especially in films for director David Lynch [...]

The duo who wrote the upcoming “Predators” reboot have been brought aboard a project based on Mattel’s “Masters of the Universe” toys.
Columbia Pictures picked up movie rights to the 1980s property in the fall, when Mattel and Warner Bros. parted ways over creative differences.
The addition of rising scribes Mike Finch and Alex Litvak is the [...]

The following takes place in real time:

09:35:05.36 …
The California sun is shining as I stop at the gate outside the warehouse where the show “24” is written and filmed. My first day on set, baby! I’ll admit I’m excited. I’ve heard that some writers have no interest in Hollywood. In my experience these creatures exist [...]

The idea of Australia’s Joel Edgerton being an actor on the rise has been brewing for many years, but it probably couldn’t have been clearer than on Tuesday, when he received his very own Star Bond on the Hollywood Stock Exchange.
Before that, Edgerton had already appeared in two of the “Star Wars” prequels, Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, [...]

David Mills, a veteran television writer who worked on the award-winning series “ER” and “The Wire,” died after collapsing on the set of his latest production. He was 48.
Mills died Tuesday night in New Orleans, said HBO spokesman Diego Aldana. Doctors at Tulane Medical Center said he suffered a brain aneurism, according to a statement Wednesday [...]

Writer Peter Hanson recently interviewed dozens of screenwriters and gleaned some valuable lessons for writers looking to break in:
Sitting down for intimate conversations with dozens of Hollywood’s best writers was a transformative experience. Although I’ve been a professional screenwriter for many years, most of my work has been in the independent realm, so collecting material [...]

The last time filmmaker Martin Scorsese delved into the world of terror, it was for his 1991 remake of the 1962 thriller Cape Fear starring Robert De Niro. Over eighteen years later, he’s exploring some of the same territories of fear and suspense in Shutter Island, his adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel.
The eerie film reteams him with [...]