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Gary Whitta completed first draft of Star Wars spinoff, moves on

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jb1234

Member
This is pretty typical. He did what he was contracted to do (write the first draft) and then moved on. What the producers decide to do with that draft is up to them.
 
Why are people sad about this? He's a horrible writer.

EDIT: Wait he's a gaffer? Huh. Makes sense for the sad posts, cause otherwise I don't see the problem.
 

Cipherr

Member
Uu7bMRV.png
I liked Book of Eli.


Haters gonna hate I guess.
 
I didn't think Book of Eli was a bad film. It just could have been a good film with a handful of changes.

After Earth I have yet to see.
 

Cheebo

Banned
With all the malice in the "good" posts in this thread... its highly probable scenario sadly.
Lucasfilm knows of his old posts no way it impacted this choice though.

I saw people link it to Lucasfilm people over Twitter when the thread was made that showed his original posts and called out him for trying to delete them.
 
Spin off pre-production has already moved into Pinewood and started and they are going to start shooting after Spectre (Bond) finishes shooting. Also makingstarwars thinks that Edwards co-wrote the script and will be the one making further changes. Whitta is already moving on to his next project (meaning this was planned), and since shooting is starting soon there's not much time to make changes anyway. When Ardnt was taken off of SW7 there was still 7 months until filming started.
 

Ridley327

Member
Spin off pre-production has already moved into Pinewood and started and they are going to start shooting after Spectre (Bond) finishes shooting. Also makingstarwars thinks that Edwards co-wrote the script and will be the one making further changes. Whitta is already moving on to his next project (meaning this was planned), and since shooting is starting soon there's not much time to make changes anyway. When Ardnt was taken off of SW7 there was still 7 months until filming started.

Yeah, it's a completely different situation from what went down with Ep7. At worst, he'll get a "story by" credit, which still has a lot of cachet on its own for a screenwriter.
 

duckroll

Member
Arndt probably won't due to them seemingly completely tossing his script.

Whether a script is tossed or not doesn't matter, especially if we're talking about "story by". Unless the script here changes radically, Whitta will probably actually get a screenplay credit, not "story by". See: Jon Spaihts for Prometheus.

Even if a script is completely tossed and changed radically, as long as there is evidence that a writer contributed to the development of the writing process which became the film, you can get arbitration from the Guild to get credit. One example I can think of would be Mark Protosevich's Thor script. He developed that years before the movie was ever made, and it was a full fantasy adventure with Asgard and Thor being banished into Earth in Viking times. It's clearly completely different from the movie which ended up being made, but he still got a Story credit. Straczynski who didn't even write a script, just a development outline of the story which the screenwriters built from for the actual movie, also got a Story credit.
 

entremet

Member
Lucasfilm knows of his old posts no way it impacted this choice though.

I saw people link it to Lucasfilm people over Twitter when the thread was made that showed his original posts and called out him for trying to delete them.

Damn, people are haters.
 

Cheebo

Banned
I am curious to see if Lucas gets story by on Episode VII. He wrote the story outline that Ardnt used to write his first draft that was later tossed and rewrote by Kasdan and Abrams.

Lucas has gotten story by credit on films he has only done the outlines for previously (namely Indiana Jones films).
 

duckroll

Member
I am curious to see if Lucas gets story by on Episode VII. He wrote the story outline that Ardnt used to write his first draft that was later tossed and rewrote by Kasdan and Abrams.

Lucas has gotten story by credit on films he has only done the outlines for previously (namely Indiana Jones films).

Probably. Lucas will also be credited regardless because he created the world and characters.
 
For everything this place gets right it always disappoints me to see some people trip over themselves to be shitty towards the guy.

There are a ton of industry-specific things that people on Gaf know absolutely nothing about - particularly in gaming. Doesn't stop people from making ill-informed statements on a regular basis.
 

Cheebo

Banned
Probably. Lucas will also be credited regardless because he created the world and characters.
The whole Star Wars created by credit yeah. But curious to see if he gets the full story by credit due to his outline. Should be interesting to see.
 
I am curious to see if Lucas gets story by on Episode VII. He wrote the story outline that Ardnt used to write his first draft that was later tossed and rewrote by Kasdan and Abrams.

From what I understand, he didn't write an outline. He had notes - from that, Arndt wrote an outline, then a treatment, and that's what got him the Episode 7 job.

on Rebels, they're giving him a "based on" credit.
 

Machine

Member
I think he's like Candyman. You need to say his name three times to summon him.

Gary Whitta Gary Whitta Gary Whitta
 

Cheebo

Banned
From what I understand, he didn't write an outline. He had notes - from that, Arndt wrote an outline, then a treatment, and that's what got him the Episode 7 job.

on Rebels, they're giving him a "based on" credit.
I thought he wrote a treatment? I remember Lucas talking about having to hand over his sequel trilogy treatments to Disney prior to the sale and was uncomfortable about it.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
I thought he wrote a treatment? I remember Lucas talking about having to hand over his sequel trilogy treatments to Disney prior to the sale and was uncomfortable about it.

The initial script was based on that, but word is that Abrams had it completely thrown out and brought in Kasdan to start over from scratch, which is one of the reasons it slipped to December rather than the traditional May release.
 
I really hope him saying that the prequels were crap didn't have anything to do with it. Would be a terrible shame, as people who know the prequels were crap should be the people trying to make the most out of the new Star Wars.
Why would that opinion matter? That's the universal opinion everyone has on the prequels. It's basically set in Hollywood stone. Just like how the Godfather trilogy is only 2 movies long.
 

Cheebo

Banned
The initial script was based on that, but word is that Abrams had it completely thrown out and brought in Kasdan to start over from scratch, which is one of the reasons it slipped to December rather than the traditional May release.
Yeah I know it got scrapped for the Ksadan and Abrams draft, was just curious to see if it still warrants him a story by credit.

If you're referencing the BusinessWeek article, I believe that was just notes.

edit: they're called both "treatments" and "rough sketches" in the article, actually.
I have read before that Lucas's outlines before are much more detailed than the average outline. Going more into shot by shot detail descriptions numbering well over 50 pages. Although this was in reference to how he did his story treatments for the Indiana Jones films.

I guess it is just one of those things we will never know how detailed his treatment for the sequel trilogy was at least for till someone writes a book about it years down the road.
 
Isn't it part of a director's job to get the best performances out of his cast? :p

He also failed at this (even worse than Godzilla) with Monsters.

In fact, I believe although he has a writers credit on that film - it was almost entirely improvised.

If Edwards is in fact "taking over" on the script from Whitta, that "taking over" could possibly mean he's just going to use whatever Whitta handed in as a sort of jumping off point for riffing, like he did on Monsters.
 

inm8num2

Member
Thanks to the mod who changed the title, as the new one better reflects the situation. Apologies to everyone, as I kind of copied and pasted that opening line from THR's article without thinking too much, which may have given certain impressions about Whitta's departure.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
Yeah I know it got scrapped for the Ksadan and Abrams draft, was just curious to see if it still warrants him a story by credit.

It might, but it will depend on how Lucas and Disney want to present it to the WGA. Since Lucas is an avowed hater of the Guilds (the DGA never really forgave him for breaking their rules and not putting his director's credit at the beginning of the original Star Wars in favor of the title crawl), and fiercely independent of them, it's entirely possible that the only credit he will get or wants is the "Created by" or "Based on" one that all Star Wars material from Disney is accompanied by.
 

btrboyev

Member
The initial script was based on that, but word is that Abrams had it completely thrown out and brought in Kasdan to start over from scratch, which is one of the reasons it slipped to December rather than the traditional May release.

It slipped to Decemeber because there was no way Disney would release the Avengers and Star Wars in the same month let alone the same summer.
 
This is completely standard. He will get a screen credit. He will continue to get work. He will continue to get irrationally shit on here. I've never understood the Whitta hate. He was never an asshole on GAF. He wrote a movie that some people liked, and some people didn't like. That hardly makes him some GAF villain. I think him editing his posts was silly; I'm sure it's okay to tell Disney executives you disliked the prequels.
 
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