Script Notes: Ben Hecht, PORKY'S Remake, and a HEARTBREAK RIDGE
May 12th, 2004
This week marks 40 years since the death of one of Hollywood's most prolific and perhaps greatest screenwriter. Ben Hecht, first known as a playwright and then Hollywood screenwriter. Hecht, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, first rose to fame as a hardnosed journalist in Chicago. Many early screenwriters were frist newspaper men. He went on to coauthor the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "The Front Page" and became a Hollywood screenwriter, with credits that included the Oscar-winning "Underworld," "Gone With the Wind" and the first 'screwball comedy,' "Twentieth Century." Last month, "Twentieth Century" was revived on Broadway, starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche. During the course of his career, Hecht authored 25 books, 20 plays, more than 65 film scripts and hundreds of articles. Film critic Judith Crist called him "the most prolific multimedia child of this century."
Craig Moss and Steve Schoenberg have been hired to write the remake of puerile 80s comedy Porky's, which is being executive produced by Howard Stern. The original 1982 "Porky's" cost just $4m to make, but took more than $105m in the US and spawned two sequels. Moss directed the spoof war comedy "Saving Ryan's Privates". Schoenberg worked on the first film in the Austin Powers series as an assistant editor.
From Variety, Barry Sonnenfeld will direct DreamWorks' romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid, a loosely inspired remake of the 1972 film, written by Neil Simon and directed by Elaine May. The script was written by Scot Armstrong ("Old School"), with most recent drafts by Armstrong and Leslie Dixon ("Freaky Friday"). The story reportedly is about a man who hastily weds a local girl whom he thinks is perfect -- until he falls in love with another girl during the honeymoon.
Craig Moss and Steve Schoenberg have been hired to write the remake of puerile 80s comedy Porky's, which is being executive produced by Howard Stern. The original 1982 "Porky's" cost just $4m to make, but took more than $105m in the US and spawned two sequels. Moss directed the spoof war comedy "Saving Ryan's Privates". Schoenberg worked on the first film in the Austin Powers series as an assistant editor.
From Variety, Barry Sonnenfeld will direct DreamWorks' romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid, a loosely inspired remake of the 1972 film, written by Neil Simon and directed by Elaine May. The script was written by Scot Armstrong ("Old School"), with most recent drafts by Armstrong and Leslie Dixon ("Freaky Friday"). The story reportedly is about a man who hastily weds a local girl whom he thinks is perfect -- until he falls in love with another girl during the honeymoon.
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