This Month in Movie History – July 2020 Roundup

“The Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures.” That’s how screenwriter Ernest Lehman described the screenplay for North by Northwest, which debuted on this day in history in Chicago in 1959. It is now considered one of the greatest films of all time. Lehman and Hitchcock worked together on the main elements of the story, one of which was the idea of the hero being mistaken for a fake agent. That idea actually came from an American journalist who had told Hitchcock about spies creating fake agents during World War II. Hitchcock and Lehman bought that idea from the journalist for $10,000.

“Terminator 2: Judgement Day” debuted on this day in history in 1991, and is considered one of the best sequels ever made. It was written by James Cameron and William Wisher, who completed the first 140-page draft just one month before a shooting script was given to the cast and crew. That quick turnaround and a fast production schedule would allow the film to be widely released on July 4, 1991.

For “a show about nothing,” as it’s often described, “Seinfeld” sure left its mark on popular culture. The pilot was first screened on this day in history in 1989. As a popular comedian in the late 80s, NBC approached Jerry Seinfeld to write a sitcom, and so he turned to his friend Larry David for help. The pair decided to write a show about the minutiae of life, complete with a fictionalized version of Seinfeld and his friends living in New York City. As such, many of the episodes are based on the writers’ real-life encounters. T.V. Guide named “Seinfeld” the greatest show of all time in 2002. But, because its comedy is based on American cultural expectations and political incorrectness, it never reached the popularity around the globe that it did in the U.S.

Screenwriter Adam Herz wrote the screenplay for “American Pie” during a vacation in 1998, and it quickly moved to production for a summer 1999 release. The writer’s experience only included a few T.V. sitcom spec scripts, but his agent encouraged him to try a feature film. The teen comedy film was crass, but audiences loved it, and it was a huge box office success. Three sequels followed.

Before its massive success as an international T.V. franchise, “The Office” started as a relatively low-rated 14-episode sitcom on BBC Two. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created the series about the daily lives of office employees at a fictional company, but the themes and stories were so universal that the show was eventually sold to 80 different countries for broadcast, with some networks even localizing the show and its characters. It was the first British comedy to be nominated for a Golden Globe award in a quarter-century, and the first-ever to win the comedy category.

Jenji Kohan created “Orange Is the New Black” for Netflix based on the true-life memoir “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison,” written by Piper Kerman. A friend sent Kohan the book, and she set a meeting with Kerman to convince her to allow the adaptation. The show’s seventh and final season premiered in July 2019. To date, the show is Netflix’s most-watched series, winning several honors and nominations at the Golden Globes, the Emmy’s, the Writers Guild of America Awards, and a Peabody Award.

Stanley Kubrick hired screenwriter Frederic Raphael to co-write the adaptation of the novella, “Traumnovelle” by Arthur Schnitzler. Kubrick first bought the rights to the novella back in the 60s but didn’t start writing the script until hiring Raphael. Some changes to the story were made, including moving the location from Austria to New York City. Kubrick passed away just six days after he showed the final cut of the movie to Warner Bros. Pictures.

“The Dark Knight,” written by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, debuted on this day in history 12 years ago. The treatment and first draft were written by screenwriter David S. Goyer, who is given story credit on the film. It was the second film in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, preceded by “Batman Begins,” and followed by “The Dark Knight Rises.” The film received a ton of attention ahead of its wide release after Heath Ledger – who played the Joker – died from an overdose. It became the highest-grossing film of 2008 and won many awards.

“Inception,” written and directed by Christopher Nolan, debuted on this day in theaters in 2010. The complicated nature of the film delayed its sale; Nolan completed an 80-page treatment for the movie in 2002 but shelved the idea. After several years of working on the script here and there, Warner Bros. purchased it in 2009. Shooting began just four months later.  

Happy birthday to filmmaker Jared Hess! Hess turns 41 today. He and his wife Jerusha Hess are best known for their work on “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre,” which they co-wrote and Jared directed.

Matthew Weiner received critical acclaim for his T.V. drama series, “Mad Men,” which debuted on this day in history in 2007 and aired on AMC until 2015. The show follows the goings-on of advertising agencies in the 60s and the changing social norms over that time period. Weiner’s pilot spec script landed him a writing job on HBO’s “The Sopranos” after it impressed the show’s producer. Weiner pitched his script to HBO and Showtime before AMC picked it up as its first original series.

The animated film “Spirited Away” was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli. The film debuted in Japan on this day in history and became the most successful film in the country’s history. It was rewritten in English by screenwriters Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald H. Hewitt to allow the English dialogue to match the character’s Japanese language lip movements. Walt Disney Pictures bought the North American distribution rights. In the U.S., it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “it’s so bad, it’s good?” The sentence is commonly used to describe Edward Wood’s film “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” which follows an alien plot to stop humans from building a weapon that could destroy the universe. Though the film was independently created, the script seems to be written as an epic, which would have required a lot of money to produce from a big studio. But, critics say that was the beauty of Wood’s work: even if he couldn’t afford to make the movie the way he wanted, he tried anyway. His efforts resulted in a film that bordered on absurd and terrible, and “Plan 9” has become a cult classic.

“High Noon” is a Western film written by Carl Foreman. In its first year in existence, the U.S. National Film Registry selected the movie for preservation, and the storyline and ending scenes have inspired countless films since. The movie debuted during the second Red Scare and the Korean War, and Foreman was blacklisted from Hollywood and sold his share in the production before the film was released. Foreman admitted to being a former member of the Communist Party, but he wouldn’t identify other members when the House Un-American Activities Committee questioned him.

The world first met Bugs Bunny on this day in history in 1940, when the character first debuted in “Wild Hare.” Tex Avery and Bob Givens are credited with creating the animated cartoon character with the Brooklyn accent and flippant attitude. Bugs Bunny has since appeared in hundreds of films, T.V. shows, comics, video games, commercials, and the Warner Bros. logo, and he’s even got his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Did you know that the film “Alice in Wonderland” was initially going to be a live-action film mixed with animation? Walt Disney first tried to adapt the story, based on Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” books, in the 30s, but shelved the idea until 1946 after Paramount released its own version of “Alice in Wonderland.” The first theatrical release of Disney’s version was a big failure, so Disney aired the film on T.V. as one of the first episodes of “Disneyland.” Audiences there loved it, and the film went back to the theaters a second time, where it was a huge success.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring” was published on this day in history in the U.K. in 1954. It was the first volume in the three-volume epic, “The Lord of the Rings,” and went on to be adapted as a film trilogy, which is one of the most successful trilogies of all time. Tolkien’s stories, including “The Hobbit” and “The Silmarillion” are connected through their fictional histories, languages, and tales about Arda and Middle-Earth. His books are credited with bringing the fantasy genre back to life, and he’s widely known as the “father” of modern fantasy.