Creative Screenwriting Magazine spoke with prolific screenwriter Scott Rosenberg about his writing career. He spoke about writing the newly minted Marvel Comic offering, Venom and what it took to get it to the screen.
When asked how he became attached to Venom, a lesser known character in` the Marvel Universe, he replied, “I had subscriptions to Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Daredevil. Those were my guys in the 70s. I actually worked on the original Spider-Man with Sam Raimi as the second writer. I was part of the casting of Tobey Maguire, which I’m very proud of. But, I was not fully aware of Venom because he came later.”
The fictional character Eddie Brock first appeared in Marvel Comics cameo in 1986 thanks to creators David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane. Two years later, the character of Venom was integral within the world of Spider-Man.
In addition to the new Venom film, Scott Rosenberg has writing credits on movies like Beautiful Girls, Con Air, High Fidelity, Gone in Sixty Seconds, and the recent Jumanji reboot and its sequel. Thanks to Jumanji, the studios actually offered Rosenberg and his writing partner Jeff Pinkner the chance to work on Venom.
“There was one major obstacle in writing Venom. We set out to make a Spider-Man movie without Spider-Man, which is challenging,” added Rosenberg. “We familiarized ourselves with the book and came out with a take that the producers were delighted with. I was surprised no one had thought of our take [symbiote] before.”
Scott Rosenberg
Writing A Marvel Adaptation
According to the official description of the film, “When Eddie Brock acquires the powers of a symbiote, he will have to release his alter-ego Venom to save his life.” For Rosenberg and Pinkner, this led to Eddie Brock having conversations with the symbiote inside him, which was “serious actor bait” for the lead, Tom Hardy.
This is essentially the first time the actor isn’t playing two separate roles, such as Bruce Banner and the Hulk. Instead, he’s Eddie Brock talking to Venom. The studios loved the Jekyll and Hyde take on the Marvel IP (Intellectual Property) and then director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Gangster Squad) soon signed on to direct.
“With something like Venom, who’s such a popular, dark character, it’s sort of a new story. He’s a villain, so the burden was to make him the bad guy while trying to find the humanity in him. Our biggest demand was writing two flawed main characters that were also heroic. Eddie was a flawed character and Venom came down to destroy the world,” said the screenwriter.
“By virtue of one taking over the other and spending time together, they both end up changed for the better. Venom finds the goodness in humanity and Eddie finds the goodness in himself. That was our thesis,” he added. In the movie, there was an ongoing tightrope to walk, but the key was finding this North Star.
Once the writers created the premise, the studios were essentially fully on board. “It’s very sound: how do you make a villain a hero? You start him in a bad place and then he finds redemption. Essentially, it’s a buddy movie where one guy is decent, but messed up, and the other guy is bad. By the end, they’re both better.”
“When you’re writing a comic book movie, simplicity can be a tremendous virtue. I think the ones that work have a basic idea. They don’t complicate themselves—at least for the central thesis. It was just fun—that idea of conversing with the uncontrollable apsects that live inside you. It’s a great set-up.”
Are All Blockbusters Based On Intellectual Properties?
“You can’t name a movie that was made for more than $60 million dollars that wasn’t attached to an IP, other than Christopher Nolan (Inception, Dunkirk). This has benefited me, but it’s also a bummer. I came up writing Jerry Bruckheimer movies like Con Air and The Rock that we wouldn’t be able to get made today.”
Rosenberg added, “It’s depressing that they’re not making these movies anymore, but when you say a movie must make a billion dollars at the box office, it’s all about an emotional jumping off point. No one expeceted Jumamji to be as big as it was. I will tell you that Black Panther—at its core—it was a very visceral movie. But that’s what has always been great about the movie business, you just never know what the audience will pay to see.”
According to Rosenberg, there’s no Moneyball-like ticket to success, or program to make a billion dollar film at the box office. “Sometimes you will see someone put a restaurant in a location where there shouldn’t be a restaurant. But, it’s a success. You know what it is? They’re making good food. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. People want to have a good time at the movies, but they need an emotional connection most of all.”
Genre Of Venom
Rosenberg and his writing partner noticed that each Marvel movie somewhat paired with a genre already in existence. For example, Captain America is somewhat of an espionage movie. Guardians of the Galaxy is a sci-fi romantic comedy. Each movie is different than the other movies within the Marvel universe.
“Each movie feels different even though they’re under the umbrella of Marvel. Guardians is science fiction, but I wouldn’t say that Iron Man is science fiction. With Venom, I think we led with a horror movie. Initially, we wanted to make the character scary and make the audience more fearful of Venom.”
For Rosenberg, it’s all about character, but he also knows how important it is to focus on plot and structure in a blockbuster film. “Knowing the rhythm of a movie is so important. If I could write one of these movies and never include an action scene, I would be delighted, but no one would come,” he joked.
Venom & Tom Hardy
Choosing His Next Project
“I’ve been doing this for twenty years and the business has changed a lot. In the old days, I would take a job if the idea was so good that I would have written it on spec. That was barometer for me, but now there is no such thing as original ideas, so it’s more about books I loved as a kid or which people I want to work with.”
When Rosenberg took on writing Venom, it was because the studios were dead set on making some sort of Venom movie. When he signed on for Jumanji, he didn’t expect to spend years working on the film and its upcoming sequel. He was somewhat surprised it worked so well, but he knew it was going to get made. Makeability is key in choosing his next project.
“In the first ten years of my career, I got to make 8-9 movies. In the next ten years, I don’t think I got one movie made. I never stopped working. I sold pitches and scripts, did rewrite jobs, but I went on a long time selling specs that didn’t get made. It’s such a critical part of the job. Screenwriters must be prepared for this.”
For the screenwriter, he knows that there is nothing trendy about good characters and good dialogue, but this what actors and directors want and those factors are the people that drive movies to get made. Within this formula, he tries to find a story that he can work on to make it as good as it can be.
“The thing about staying relevant is not losing sight of the big picture and not living in a bubble. All of your friends should not be in showbusiness. Experience life through the lens of your audience. One big pitfall is that a lot of screenwriters hit a certain level of success and they’re no longer picking up their dry-cleaning or booking their table at a restaurant. They find themselves in this rarefied air where their stories no longer connect. You have to be relevant to be relevant.”
Career Advice To Screenwriters
“The whole business is so publicized that if some 23-year-old kid just sold a script, it’s not just on Deadline, it’s on USA Today. But, anyone who gets in this business just to make money is an idiot. Statistically speaking, you have a better chance of inventing a spaceship than selling a screenplay. They don’t understand it’s a calling, not a job.”
“There’s no guarantee that you’re going to rise in the ranks and there’s nothing to fall back on. You might be 26 years old with no resume and no experience and fail. You do it because you love it and you feel the need to tell stories. You come here in the first place because there are stories you want to tell.”
Essentially, there’s also no one-way to capture ideas as a screenwriter. At this point, there are several ways to make a movie, but the most common is to pursue some sort of IP. Rosenberg fell in love with a book, asked a studio to purchase the rights to it, and then created several drafts that never got made. In another example, an idea came to him while driving. Let the ideas flow through you and write every day.
“There are many unproduced screenplays on my desk because at the time the idea really spoke to me. I knew the characters. It doesn’t take a long time to write a screenplay and I knew I wanted to finish it. It doesn’t mean I was going to sell it for $2 million dollars, but it felt good writing it and every time you sell a script, you become a better writer.”
Rosenberg never accepted the concept of having “luck” in the business. Instead, he grabbed onto the quote from director Steven Soderbergh: “Luck equals talent plus perseverance.” the screenwriter mused, “To be here, you have to be talented to remain. There are guys who sold a great idea, but couldn’t deliver a great screenplay and washed out. There were very talented people who gave up after three years and moved back home. You need both and then you create your own luck.”
As for Rosenberg’s outlook on the business, he’s mainly optimistic, but he’s also joked that his biography about a screenwriter in Hollywood would be called, A Whore in a Haunted House. Can’t wait to see that on the big screen.
