Sydney Pollack: Tootsie
When films are usually credited with more than two writers,
there’s a consensus that something is fishy. The idea that a script needs three
or four or sometimes even five writers usually doesn’t bode well for the
quality of the film. Generally it is believed that the more writers the film
has to its name, the more troubled the process was of getting it ready to
shoot. I mean, just look at something like Armageddon:
here is a film that many would agree is one of the absolute worst films of the
‘90s; it had more than five writers. Lethal
Weapon 4 supposedly had 12 writers; The
Flintstones – rumors have it – had over 60 (!) writers take a stab at the
screenplay; and Pirates of the Caribbean:
On Stranger Tides – one of the worst films in recent memory – had more than
four writers to its name (some simply getting credit for “adapting” due to WGA
rules). The point? Well, in 1982 Sydney Pollack would try his hand at making
sense of the oft-bounced around script for what would become Tootsie. Everything about the film’s
pre-production would point towards it being a failure; however, Pollack – the
old pro – would piece together the scraps that were left from all of the
previous writers who tried their hand at making the script work. Prior to its
release, there was no way of predicting that Tootsie would be the second highest grossing film at the box-office
(behind E.T.) and would be one of
Pollack’s most popular and successful films.
