your comparison of the movie industry to politics is silly. we elect politicians into office, and they serve the public. the film business is completely private; they offer a product not a service.

furthermore, you\’d be surprised how *often* a screenplay, as creatively approved by a writer, makes it through production untouched. contrary to fanboy belief, akiva goldsman has only written *three* screenplays that\’ve made it through production without the guild or execs fucking him over. that\’s why he\’s a producer now. on batman and robin, they had six writers brought in a week before principal photog. all the way through the shooting. akiva wanted a story credit, but the guild completely fucked him over.

this is more or less the case with about 95% of all major hollywood productions. to assume that a writer\’s work, as executed by the millions and millions of dollars afloat some creatively contrived execs, is overrated *is* naive.

these folks can write all they want about who\’s overrated, or who\’s not making the box office, etc. but that\’s all they are cut out to do, is talk about a business they legitimately have no fucking clue about. the people who think they\’re aesthetically significant because of their taste are just as untalented as the people who utilize tumblr as some sort of aesthetic outlet.

truffaut realized the aesthetic insignificance of his career as a critic, and did what most should do: stopped talking about it, and did it. if you have no urge to make a movie and to just sit around and talk about them, find another profession ( is blogging a profession? ). you\’re embarrassing yourself.

What the hell are you talking about? It\’s perfectly legitimate for someone to call a writer overrated, if you\’ve really looked at the work in question and found it to be so. It has nothing to do with being in the business or not.

That\’s like saying you\’re not allowed to have a political opinion unless you\’re a politician. My earlier qualm was simply on the writer calling someone overrated who didn\’t seem to be rated very highly in the first place. Then again, as Peter suggested, maybe Mr. Loeb\’s work really is high-quality but simply gets diminished as everyone else gets their hands on it after it\’s sold. Who knows. (With the consistently low level of quality of the films with his name attached, I find that a tad hard to believe, but I obviously don\’t know for sure.)

The truth is, those in the business who know Allan Loeb, find his work to be great and find him to be a very good writer to work with. What happens after he hands in the script, is not his fault.

The studios are greenlighting his work and they get made by directors and actors who change things and what-not. The truth is, name one writer whose scripts all turn into blockbuster hits that everybody loves. Most writers, if they\’re lucky, get five or six credits during their careers, yet may find success with only one of them.

Most movies today aren\’t liked by moviegoers and certainly not internet writers who hate nearly everything because they\’re jealous and bitter.

Unless you\’re Steve Kloves, who writes nearly every \”Harry Potter\” film, then your track record at the box office will be poor. That\’s just the nature of Hollywood today.

For example, I find the highly decorated and respected Peter Morgan extraordinarily overrated.