
DAVID DIAMOND and DAVID WEISSMMAN'S partnership is rooted in a thirty-year friendship that dates back to their high school days together in Philadelphia. The partners sold their first spec script, THE WHIZ KID, to 20th Century Fox in 1994. They followed with a series of original ideas for comedies, including their first produced credit in 2000, Universal Pictures’ THE FAMILY MAN, starring Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni. Collaborations with producer-director Ivan Reitman and producer Andrew Panay followed, yielding Diamond and Weissman’s next feature credits, the Dreamworks Pictures sci-fi comedy EVOLUTION, and Disney comedies OLD DOGS and WHEN IN ROME.
The team sold their first television pitch to 20th Television and CBS in 2005. More pilot sales followed for both half-hour comedies and one-hour dramas. Together, Diamond and Weissman have sold pilots at every major network, and conceived and contributed to over a dozen movies with a combined box office gross of over a billion dollars worldwide.
We spoke recently about their brand new book, BULLETPROOF, from Michael Wiese Productions, why their books is crucial now, and their favorite cinematic moment.
Order Diamond and Weissman's book here. They will also discuss their book at Book Soup in L.A. on May 21st.
Dave Watson: First, congratulations on a wonderful book, the quintessential snapshot of how to get scripts written, read, and made. How did the book come about?
David Diamond: For over twenty-five years we’ve had hundreds of conversations with aspiring writers trying to break into the business. We find ourselves saying pretty much the same thing in each conversation, based on our decades of experience writing movies, so we finally decide to write down what we do and why we do it that way in one place.
Watson: Why this book now?
David Weissman: It was hard to get films made from original screenplays in the ‘90s, now it’s much much harder. We hope this book helps.
Diamond: All of us screenwriters have a common dream: to tell a story and get extremely compelling offers from folks who want to buy and make that story into a movie. A lot of people have to put their reputations on the line to make that happen. This book is about taking each of those people into consideration as you’re writing your screenplay.
Weissman: It’s never been easier to make films. You can do them on your phone, but if you want to get a studio movie made, there are important steps you must take along the way.
Diamond: It’s so much easier to do filmmaking on your own. But if you don’t have a complete and fresh idea, compelling characters, and a structure that works, all that autonomy and opportunity isn’t going to get you very far.
Watson: How did you come up with the Bulletproof idea?
Diamond: It was the natural conclusion we came to based on our own experience. This is a collaborative business. You can’t sell and make movies that directors, producers, actors, and financiers don't sign on to. The bulletproof screenplay is the fully realized execution of an idea that entices the necessary creative and financial partners to get involved and invested.
Weissman: The Bulletproof idea started as we experienced a sea-change in the industry. Right around 2005, movies, particularly comedies, became set-piece driven. Basically studios needed films to be highly promotable, and for that they needed big moments in the trailer. Set pieces. Trailers were run by marketing departments, and their voice actually became a growing presence in creative decision making. Hollywood adapted to that and trailers and marketing are still incredibly important.
Watson: What’s next for you guys?
Diamond: We’re just wrapping up a negotiation on a comedy spec that we wrote while we were writing Bulletproof. Now we’re developing an animated comedy and we’re onto our next spec, which is a more personal movie to us.
Weissman: We’re also working on promoting Bulletproof through the end of the year.
Watson: What is or are your favorite cinematic moment(s)?
Diamond: Probably the first act break in Tootsie. Sydney Pollack plays Dustin Hoffman’s agent and at the end of the last scene in act one he says, “No one will hire you!” They cut immediately to a crowd shot and Tootsie emerges from the crowd.
Weissman: It's so economical. There’s not a moment wasted in the film. There’s a challenge to the main character and boom, we go right into the action.
Clip: Tootsie
Founder and editor of Movies Matter, Dave Watson is a writer and educator in Madison, WI.
The team sold their first television pitch to 20th Television and CBS in 2005. More pilot sales followed for both half-hour comedies and one-hour dramas. Together, Diamond and Weissman have sold pilots at every major network, and conceived and contributed to over a dozen movies with a combined box office gross of over a billion dollars worldwide.
We spoke recently about their brand new book, BULLETPROOF, from Michael Wiese Productions, why their books is crucial now, and their favorite cinematic moment.
Order Diamond and Weissman's book here. They will also discuss their book at Book Soup in L.A. on May 21st.
Dave Watson: First, congratulations on a wonderful book, the quintessential snapshot of how to get scripts written, read, and made. How did the book come about?
David Diamond: For over twenty-five years we’ve had hundreds of conversations with aspiring writers trying to break into the business. We find ourselves saying pretty much the same thing in each conversation, based on our decades of experience writing movies, so we finally decide to write down what we do and why we do it that way in one place.
Watson: Why this book now?
David Weissman: It was hard to get films made from original screenplays in the ‘90s, now it’s much much harder. We hope this book helps.
Diamond: All of us screenwriters have a common dream: to tell a story and get extremely compelling offers from folks who want to buy and make that story into a movie. A lot of people have to put their reputations on the line to make that happen. This book is about taking each of those people into consideration as you’re writing your screenplay.
Weissman: It’s never been easier to make films. You can do them on your phone, but if you want to get a studio movie made, there are important steps you must take along the way.
Diamond: It’s so much easier to do filmmaking on your own. But if you don’t have a complete and fresh idea, compelling characters, and a structure that works, all that autonomy and opportunity isn’t going to get you very far.
Watson: How did you come up with the Bulletproof idea?
Diamond: It was the natural conclusion we came to based on our own experience. This is a collaborative business. You can’t sell and make movies that directors, producers, actors, and financiers don't sign on to. The bulletproof screenplay is the fully realized execution of an idea that entices the necessary creative and financial partners to get involved and invested.
Weissman: The Bulletproof idea started as we experienced a sea-change in the industry. Right around 2005, movies, particularly comedies, became set-piece driven. Basically studios needed films to be highly promotable, and for that they needed big moments in the trailer. Set pieces. Trailers were run by marketing departments, and their voice actually became a growing presence in creative decision making. Hollywood adapted to that and trailers and marketing are still incredibly important.
Watson: What’s next for you guys?
Diamond: We’re just wrapping up a negotiation on a comedy spec that we wrote while we were writing Bulletproof. Now we’re developing an animated comedy and we’re onto our next spec, which is a more personal movie to us.
Weissman: We’re also working on promoting Bulletproof through the end of the year.
Watson: What is or are your favorite cinematic moment(s)?
Diamond: Probably the first act break in Tootsie. Sydney Pollack plays Dustin Hoffman’s agent and at the end of the last scene in act one he says, “No one will hire you!” They cut immediately to a crowd shot and Tootsie emerges from the crowd.
Weissman: It's so economical. There’s not a moment wasted in the film. There’s a challenge to the main character and boom, we go right into the action.
Clip: Tootsie
Founder and editor of Movies Matter, Dave Watson is a writer and educator in Madison, WI.