If you are an aspiring scriptwriter, or anyone seeking to break into a career field, it could be near impossible to get your foot in the door. Two writers decided to put a famous name on their script in hopes producers would read their script and take it seriously.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, writers Jonathan Witz and Jeremy Spektor wrote a screenplay titled The Kosher Nostra and placed the names of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg on the script instead of their own as a means to gain attention around Hollywood. Rogen and Goldberg have collaborated to write such films as Superbad, Pineapple Express, and Sausage Party. The story is about “a struggling screenwriter who drives for Uber to pay the bills and ends up working as a getaway driver for the Jewish mafia.” The script even got read by Will Ferrell at one point.
The idea of putting someone else’s name on a script reminded me of that one episode of The Simpsons where Bart and Lisa put Grampa Simpson’s name on their Itchy and Scratchy scripts because Roger Meyers didn’t take them seriously that they were kids.
This may seem like a great idea to get your work read but what exactly were these people expecting to get out of doing this? Think about it, the entire purpose is to get your script read and hope that producers love it. At some point, producers are going to figure out one way or the other that they aren’t Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. And I don’t know about you but I don’t really like being taken advantage of. Call me old fashioned but I would be pretty pissed off if I was a producer and someone did that to me. And unless it’s the next Animal House, I would probably boot them to the curb regardless of the script quality due to being so unprofessional.
This apparently didn’t impress Rogen as he sent a cease and desist letter demanding it stopped. Can’t blame Rogen for feeling that way. Your work is your reputation and if someone is using your name and it’s not as good quality as your standards, you can get an unfair reputation around Hollywood. Rogen is just protecting his brand.
Decades ago, it was a lot easier for someone to make up important people they knew in order to get a great job. Now, with everybody’s history available online, it’s pretty easy to get found out. Witz and Spektor were trying to get their foot in the door and they explained that they were fans of Rogen’s and Goldberg’s work so it seemed like they didn’t mean to do harm. But if these two are trying to make a name for themselves in Hollywood, this is a pretty terrible first impression. Maybe they can use this situation to write up a new screenplay.
