From Austin Film Festival, On Story is a radio show that takes a look inside the creative process with today’s leading writers and directors.
On today’s episode, Planet of the Apes and Jurassic World screenwriters Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa. And later in our program, filmmaker Danny Boyle.
Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa are the screenwriting duo responsible for rebooting the Planet of the Apes franchise. Silver got her start in the industry as an executive assistant at Tri-Star and Paramount Pictures before enrolling at University of Southern California, where she received an MFA in Screenwriting.
The screenplay for the 1992 film The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was Silver’s thesis script at USC.
Silver co-wrote the script for the film Eye For An Eye with her husband and partner, Rick Jaffa. That was soon followed by the screenplay for the film The Relic.
Jaffa began his entertainment career in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency, and after rising through the ranks, he helped package films as diverse as Robocop and The Trip to Bountiful.
Jaffa conceived the reboot for the Planet of the Apes franchise in 2005 and went on to co-write the screenplays for both Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The two are credited with the screenplay for this summer’s Jurassic World, and the stories for Ron Howard’s film In the Heart of the Sea, to be released later in 2015, as well as two coming films in the Avatar franchise.
This conversation was moderated by filmmaker Fred Strype at the 21st Austin Film Festival in 2014.
Silver and Jaffa recount the inspiration for their reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise, including an incident gathered from current events regarding chimpanzees kept in captivity as pets. They close the first half of our program describing the challenges inherent in writing a movie whose protagonist is a non-speaking primate.
Academy Award-winning director Danny Boyle needs little introduction, with a filmography including Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire. Most recently, Boyle is the executive producer and co-creator of the Channel 4 comedy/drama Babylon, and his next film is slated to be the Steve Jobs biopic starring Michael Fassbender. This conversation was recorded in 2008 at the 15th Austin Film Festival and was moderated by film critic Christopher Kelly.
