Name: 【TED】Franklin Leonard: How I accidentally changed the way movies get made (How I accidentally changed the way movies get made | Franklin Leonard)
Uploaded: 2018-11-28T18:22:21.000Z
Duration: 16 min 21 s
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tens of millions of people in the United States

and tens of millions more around the world,

they'll get in their cars or they'll take public transportation

and sit down next to someone they don't know

and the lights will go down and they'll watch a movie.

They'll watch movies about aliens or robots,

But they will all be movies about what it means to be human.

millions will laugh and millions will cry.

and they'll reemerge into the world they knew several hours prior.

And millions of people will look at the world

a little bit differently than they did when they went in.

Like going to temple or a mosque or a church,

movie-going is, in many ways, a sacred ritual.

just like I was on most weekends between the years of 1996 and 1990,

about five miles from my childhood home in Columbus, Georgia.

The funny thing is that somewhere between then and now,

I accidentally changed part of the conversation

So, the story actually begins in 2005, in an office high above Sunset Boulevard,

at Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way.

And for those of you who aren't familiar with how the film industry works,

it basically means that I was one of a few people behind the person

who produces the movie for the people behind and in front of the camera,

whose names you will better recognize than mine.

Essentially, you're an assistant movie producer who does the unglamorous work

that goes into the creative aspect of producing a movie.

You make lists of writers and directors and actors

who might be right for movies that you want to will into existence;

you meet with many of them and their representatives,

hoping to curry favor for some future date.

You read novels that might become movies,

you read comic books that might become movies,

you read articles that might become movies,

you read scripts that might become movies.

And you read scripts from writers that might write the adaptations

of the novels, of the comic books, of the articles,

and might rewrite the scripts that you're already working on.

All this in the hope of finding the next big thing

or the next big writer who can deliver something

that can make you and your company the next big thing.

So in 2005, I was a development executive at Leonardo's production company.

I got a phone call from the representative of a screenwriter

that began pretty much the way all of those conversations did:

Now in this movie, that his client had written,

whose girlfriend, a local meteorologist, threatens to leave him

because his work contributes to global warming.

And this is a situation that's been brought to a head

by the fact that there's a hurricane forming in the Atlantic

that's threatening to do Maria-like damage from Maine to Myrtle Beach.

Leo, very sad about this impending break up,

does a little more research about the hurricane

and discovers that in its path across the Atlantic,

it will pass over a long-dormant, though now active volcano

that will presumably be whipped into some sort of chemical weapon

"So are you basically pitching me 'Leo versus the toxic superstorm

"Well, when you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous."

And I'm embarrassed to admit that I had the guy send me the script,

and I read 30 pages before I was sure that it was as bad as I thought it was.

Now, "Superstorm" is certainly an extreme example,

And unfortunately, most scripts aren't as easy to dismiss as that one.

For example, a comedy about a high school senior,

who, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy,

makes an unusual decision regarding her unborn child.

Two hundred and thirty million at the worldwide box office,

How about a Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums

wants to become a contestant on the Indian version

That's an easy one -- "Slumdog Millionaire."

Three hundred seventy-seven million worldwide,

of living with the legendary pop star Michael Jackson.

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【TED】Franklin Leonard: How I accidentally changed the way movies get made (How I accidentally changed the way movies get made | Franklin Leonard)

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