Originally posted on 7/27/06 at 06:39 AM

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Our JDR members are beginning to check in with their reports. I suspect we will have more coming as the day goes on. Enjoy!

Here is what Ted and Terry talked about:

Their career and how they got their start
Pitching POTC2
Shrek
Godzilla
Aladdin
Working together
Disney
The compass
The kiss
CJS
Johnny
and so much more


I went to the POTC 2 special screening that was followed by a Q&A with the screenwriters Ted & Terry. It was a a late evening since the movie was not over till 10:15 p.m. but Ted & Terry got on stage shortly after and did not rush or disapoint. The forum did not end till 11:30 p.m. and they then signed posters for some

They were very interesting to listen to. Ted talks a lot so it was hard to take notes on every thing he said as there was so much but here is what I got from it. Please note that some questions he answered in more detail then you see here. I did try to get the most important parts and ALL the Johnny parts.

The moderator of the panel Jeff took up most of the time with his questions and some of it was about other movies and their career. A few audience members asked about Shrek and Deja Vu so that took away some time from DMC .

Jeff asked how they met and start writing together. Terry said he was 21 and he always wanted to write so he gave himself a 10 year plan to get something going. He met Ted and they began writing together because 20th Century Fox was looking for a project and a friend told them about it.

Jeff asked how long it took them to break. They answered 5 years. So they look at it as being 5 years ahead of the 10 year plan and not that it took a whole 5 years.

Jeff asked Ted if it was true that he was once a spell checker for film critic Roger Ebert.
Ted said yes, he was hired by a company to proof read his copy (movie reviews) and said that it was the last honest job he has had.

Jeff asked how did he feel when Roger gives one of his movies a bad review. Does he call him? Ted said no and he doubt that Roger even knows who he is. Terry added that Roger always analyzes the screen plays but doesn't actually read them. They made a comment about it once and Roger came on their site to defend himself and explain it.

Jeff mentions their web site and compliments them or giving so much to the site. Ted said they do that because they need to do something besides write scripts. He elaborated more on the web site and dialogue but as I said Ted talks a lot so it was hard to get it all.

Jeff then asked how and when they pitched their script to Disney. They started to discuss how they got the opportunity. because of working on the screenplay for Aladdin. He mentioned that they had got a deal with Hollywood Pictures which at the time was a division of Disney. They became exclusive to the Disney family because without doing so it would place them 450th in line to push scripts. This way it would put them 3rd in line to push a script idea since they were considered staff.

Momosaninla originally posted her report on 7/27/06 at 05:30 PM

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I too was at the screening last night and I'd like to add my notes. Now I haven't had a lot of sleep for the last week so I don't know how coherent these are, but here goes:

Jeff Goldmith of Creative Screenwriting Magazine was the moderator for the evening. He began by asking how Ted and Terry partnered up. Ted was working for the News America Syndicate as a spell checker; specifically Roger Ebert’s column. When asked if he’d ever had words with Ebert regarding a review he’d done for one of their movies Ted replied that he didn’t think Ebert knew who he was having never met him. Terry interjected that Ebert had once posted on their site regarding criticizing shooting scripts as opposed to actual scripts. (Ebert says he never reads actual scripts.)

When pitching the idea for a supernatural pirate movie based on a theme park ride back in 1992 the first reactions were that it was “insane” and “inherently stupid.” Jeffrey Katzenberg had a thing about pirates. He thought they were morally ambiguous and he didn’t like things that were morally ambiguous. At the same time the writer of Dragonheart and The Fly, Charles Edward Pogue was pitching a straight pirate film.

Shrek took five years to make. Any Dreamworks employees who were assigned to Shrek acted like they were being sent to Siberia. Four of the five years were spent trying every possible story idea or animation idea. In the end, 5000 pages had been written for the movie. The average is 80 pages for an animated feature.

In 2002 they pitched the Pirates idea again. The scripts begun by Stuart Beattie and Jay Wopert had none of the supernatural elements in them and had gone so far as to name Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann. What Ted and Terry wanted was to push the Jack character, making him amoral, something not seen in American cinema.

Working for a producer like Bruckheimer shielded what was happening on the set from the studios.

They included the subtitle “The Curse of the Black Pearl” to the title in case Disney decided they did not want to release the film as a PG-13 Disney film but as a Touchstone film.

Jack’s entrance in the first film was a way to establish pretty quickly that you aren’t sure if he’s really good at what he does or just a big liar. Burt Lancaster in His Majesty O’Keefe (1954) and Vera Cruz (1954) as well as James Garner in Support Your Local Sherriff” (1969) were the inspiration for Jack’s character. They all create their own legends. “You are without doubt the worst pirate I have ever heard of.” “But you have heard of me.”

There were no plans for all three movies. They had put all the pirate elements they wanted into the first film simply because they didn’t think they’d ever have another opportunity to do another pirate movie. They knew right away that Jack would go down with the ship. Writing the second one was a little difficult to get into after Johnny had taken the character to a whole new level than what they had written. But knowing who the actors were also made putting difficult things in all right because they knew for instance that Keira would absolutely be able to play it the way it needed to be played.

There was great chemistry between Jack and Elizabeth on the first film. We’ve all experienced being in love with one person and being attracted to another person. And there were those that wanted to see them kiss. But for Elizabeth’s part that kiss would have to be a matter of life and death.

In the first film it was scripted that Jack’s compass only pointed to the Isla de Muerta but in the final cut that wasn’t revealed.

There were not a lot of solid stories regarding Davy Jones or the Flying Dutchman so they thought combining the two legends would be plausible. Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman was source material for the story.

The triple sword-fight climax was the perfect way to bring together the three storylines. Norrington reveals his motives and also reveals the third story thread of Beckett searching for Davy Jones’s chest.

The organ in Jones’s cabin is a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea reference. Jones is a villain with a broken heart, mourning his lost love, playing his organ alone, listening to his music box.

One of the letters in the Dead Man’s Chest is actually the lyrics to the song “Angie” written in Dutch.

Ted was disappointed a bit in Johnny telling everyone that Keith Richards was going to play his father. People switched thinking “what is Keith Richards going to be in the movie?” to “what’s the story with Jack and his father?” At this point they could just have Johnny walk past a portrait of Keith and have that be it. A part has been written for Keith and it has been scheduled. Whether he shows up and in what condition he shows up in remains to be seen.

Shooting begins in Utah in August.