The worst screenwriters thread

You prefer The Shadow over JP and Spider-Man. :huh: It had such a cheesy screenplay. And Baldwin didn't help it. I was surprised to see Koepp was attached to it.

No I like JP and The Shadow his Spiderman script was so so:o
 
Zak Penn comes to mind. He is mediocre at best, and still manages to write screenplays for big films.
 
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer



These 2 need to step away from a keyboard....


The critical reception of Friedberg and Seltzer's movies has consistently been almost entirely negative.[22][23] Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans were rated the two worst films of 2008 by The Times newspaper.[24] Additionally, every film they have directed has made it into Rotten Tomatoes' "Worst of the Worst" for the 2000s, only scoring one spot outside of the bottom 25.[25] The duo received a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Screenplay for Epic Movie at the 2007 Razzies[26] and were nominated for Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for both Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie at the 2008 Razzies,[27] as well as nominated for 'Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel at the 2011 Razzies for Vampires Suck. The pair appears on noted British film magazine Empire's fan voted top 50 worst movies of all time more often than any other person. Almost all of their movies appear with a rank, and all are mentioned in the full review text.[28]
Critic Josh Levin of Slate commented that "Friedberg and Seltzer.. are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline..."[29] Josh Rosenblatt of the Austin Chronicle said that "Writer/directors Friedberg and Seltzer are a scourge. They’re a plague on our cinematic landscape, a national shame, a danger to our culture, a typhoon-sized natural disaster disguised as a filmmaking team, a Hollywood monster wreaking havoc on the minds of America’s youth and setting civilization back thousands of years."[30] Korey Coleman of Spill.com has claimed that he is "bothered" by the duo's films, as he believes they are dumbing down the film industry and popular culture in general.[21]
 
No one has brought up Orci and Kurtzman? They've completely homogenized the summer months.
 
No one has brought up Orci and Kurtzman? They've completely homogenized the summer months.

They don't constantly deliver c**p on a regular basis. The Bayformers movies and The Island, yes. But they've done a nice job on Star Trek and hopefully next year's sequel. And when you have them behind Transformers Prime (which managed to be everything the live-action movies weren't) and the Hawaii 5-0 reboot... they deserve a pass.

As for consistently bad screenwriters... John Rogers has quite the track record for bad movies. He shares story credit on the first Transformers (which I hated). He also had a hand in co-writing The Core and the atrocious Catwoman. Then there's the Project Greenlight writers Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan -- their output is terrible as well.

I nearly forgot Tyler Perry. He's worse than Rogers, if you just count the number of movies he's written, directed, and acted in.
 
I wouldn't call them crap. They wrote Star Trek. But the rest of it, is so bland.
 
I think they're good with character interaction and dialogue. the know how to inject fun into a script. and the transformers movie they wrote was the best in the series, so I hardly think they're to blame for it.
 
Anyone mentioned Akiva Goldsman? F**k him.
 
Kurtzman and Orci. It doesn't get any worse. The Star Trek reboot was one of the worst movies ever written.
 
Kurtzman and Orci. It doesn't get any worse. The Star Trek reboot was one of the worst movies ever written.

There's always a preference, but HYPERBOLE TIME. Let me do the Hyperbolic Dance! BOOM!

If we're gonna talk about them, let's ignore Transformers 2 or Cowboys & Aliens shall we ;)

Regardless what you think of Star Trek (reboot), it was a fun movie that many liked. It's not the best nor does it, but it captured more excitement than any of the Star Wars prequels in my eyes. If all else, even with some of the logic problems of the film, it worked. Mostly thanks to JJ.
 
On the contrary, I dislike them, but even I can admit Star Trek may have been that summer's best film (Not counting The Hangover).
 
I don't care how many people liked ST09, or if people found it better than the Prequels, but those screenwriters have done much worse stuff.
 
Meh I liked Star Trek.

Paul Anderson comes to mind. And definitely the guys behind the MOVIE spoofs.
 
I liked ST09, too, it actually made me a fan of the franchise. It's just that I don't care how many people like or dislike a movie in general.
 
I think 09 Star Trek is probably Orci and Kurtzman's strongest work in terms of summer blockbusters at least.

Nothing else they've done though really impressed me though. But I do enjoy Hawaii Five-0. Doesn't seem like they really work that much on Transformers: Prime these days.
 
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Seth Grahame-Smith is pretty bad. Dark Shadows was a total mess and suffered mostly from a stupid script.
 
You guys forgot a duo that should be in the top 3 of this list: Brancato and Ferris.
 
Even though he wrote The Ring which I loved, Ehren Kruger is the first that comes to mind after the 3 Transformers abominations, and what he did to the Scream series on the last two installments (last one especially).
 
Anyone mentioned Akiva Goldsman? F**k him.

I don't think Goldsman's output is uniformly terrible. Sure you have atrocities like Batman & Robin and Lost In Space, but then A Beautiful Mind and The Client were decently written.
 
Movies need a script first of course but unlike novels or comic books isn't the director partially more in control than the writer when it comes to movies? After all the director is putting on screen what's written and there can be revisions all through out production.
 
I don't think Goldsman's output is uniformly terrible. Sure you have atrocities like Batman & Robin and Lost In Space, but then A Beautiful Mind and The Client were decently written.

Plus, he's been involved with Fringe for several years, so y'all can just step off of Goldsman. :o
 
Well, I think A Beautiful Mind was a terrible bubblegum of a movie (right up Howard's alley, of course), so yeah, still gonna hate on Akiva.
 

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