âForrest Gumpâ
âThe Insiderâ
âAliâ
â
âThe Good Shepherdâ
âThe Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonâ
These are some of the films that Eric Roth has written, and theyâre some of the reasons why Iâm a really big fan of his work.
So when I was offered the opportunity to speak with him for an exclusive interview late Sunday afternoon about his new movie âThe Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonâ, I jumped at the chance. Also, I havenât read too many interviews with Eric and I thought this might be one of my only chances to sit down with the great screenwriter.
Thankfully, the interview came out better than I couldâve hoped and sometime next week Iâll have the entire transcript online. If youâre a fan of Ericâs or you just want to hear how an A-list screenwriter works, I promise you itâs an interview not to be missed.
Butâ¦I did manage to get some news thatâs not yet on the internet, and I figured youâd like to hear those highlights now.
The biggest thing that Eric told me was near the end of our interview. I asked if heâd ever want to do sci-fi and he gave me an answer I was not expecting, âThe big project Iâd like to do, I mean I think these other projects were big in some sense, but Iâm going to do a big spaceâ¦I donât want to say odysseyâ¦thatâs been done, but a space movie for Warner Brothers and I want to start like inâ¦I donât knowâ¦sometime next year.â
Needless to say, I pressed for more info.
Collider: Is it based on original material?
Eric Roth: Itâs an original idea I have, yeah.
Is it like an action film? Is it a drama?
Eric: No, I want it to beâand I donât know 100%--but I mean this is such a wide range, but I think itâs somewhere between the intelligence of â2001â and the mythology of âStar Warsâ, so I donât know where that leads you. But I donât want to make it so intellectual that itâs confounding, but on the other hand Iâm not so sure I can write the kind of wonderful fantasy that Lucas does, so maybe it would haveâ¦I donât knowâ¦I donât know. I canât answer that because theyâre going let me just sort of say fade in and see where I go.
I will say, as a fan, Iâm tremendously looking forward to this.
Eric: I think it will be great. I have an idea. Itâs a terrific idea, I know that. Whether Iâm able to be able to do it, I donât know.
Well, if Warner Brothers is down with itâ¦
Eric: Yeah, theyâre down with it.
Of course this news alone made my day. But we also talked about a few of the other things heâs working on and he said heâs just finished a script for âExtremely Loud and Incredibly Closeâ, heâs going to work on a rewrite of a script he did for Brad Pitt and his production company called âHatfield/McCoyâsâ (itâs a western, in case the names didn't clue you in), and heâs supposed to do a script for the book âDevil and the White Cityâ - which is about the Worldâs Fair in 1880 and a guy whoâs a serial killer.
While the sci-fi project is clearly the one Iâm most interested in, a movie taking place at the Worldâs Fair in 1880 also sounds great.
Hereâs part of the transcript where he talks future projects, again look for the entire conversation next week.
Collider: My other question isâ¦what are you thinking about tackling in the future. Are you working on anything?
Eric Roth: I am. I just finished a script for a book that was a best-seller called âExtremely Loud and Incredibly Closeâ. It was briefly a best-seller. Itâs about aâ¦itâs a complicated story but the simplicity of it is a little boy whoâs 10 years old. He has Asperger's affliction. His father died in 9/11 and itâs the boy kind of coming to grips with this but I think heâs one of the most amazing characters Iâve ever read. He has Asperger's and heâs sort of a tough minded kid and confused about all sorts of things like he gets his sexuality off the Internet and itâs a pretty brazen kind of piece and the kidâs voice is like Holden Caulfield to me or something. And itâs a Scott Rudin project so I think itâs something that might see the light of day.
I was going to say is it moving forward?
Eric: Yeah, right now everybodyâs very happy and I think we might have a director whoâs going to do it. So weâll see. And then Iâm doing âHatfield/McCoyâsâ. I finished that. Iâm doing a re-write. Itâs for Brad and Bradâs company, which I think is pretty interesting. Itâs a western of a kind.
I would love to see that.
Eric: Okay and me too. Then I was supposed to do a book called âDevil and the
I was going to say with the iconic films that youâve done in the past, I would imagine there is a tremendous amount of demand for your time, so how do you pick the project that you want to spendâ¦as you said you spent a year, a year and a half of your life on it. How do you, you know, decide this is what I want to do?
Eric: Well, I think you said it. In other words, how do I want to spend my time for the next year? And you feel itâs worth value to your time, in other words, what would be the end result? Iâm also sometimes pragmatic to some extent about I donât like to be foolish about what Iâm going to do. I want things to get made because they donât serve much purpose if itâs just an exercise for a year and a half of my life. I mean, I had a movie for instance that the strike kind of affected called âShantaramâ that Johnny Depp was going to do and it ended up that was the end of it. I spent like 2 years on it, so you know thatâs a disappointment, you know? I donât think it probably be done now, or maybe it could but it covers not the same storytelling but itâs about Bombay and a guy who lives in the slums so thereâs some Slumdog Millionaire equivalence, I guess.