Christopher McQuarrie Says the Future Belongs to the Writer-Producer
How did his appearance on Scriptnotes change the way we think about Hollywood?
'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning'
As a writer in Hollywood, I have gotten too comfortable just shelling out screenplays and seeing where they go. But in the future, it feels like my job needs to be way more active than it is passive.
Especially when it comes to people reading and packaging my work. And doubly so when it comes to fighting the fight against AI and human ingenuity that will dominate the industry's foreseeable future.
That hustle mentality and fight was echoed by Christopher McQuarrie on a recent episode of the Scriptnotes podcast, where he said the future for writers will require a lot more producing.
Let's dive in.
Scriptnotes dives into Writer-Producers vs. AI
The rise of AI has a lot of writers asking questions about who we're competing with now when we come up with specs and what we can do to advance our careers in Hollywood.
Christopher McQuarrie's appearance on Scriptnotes underlines that idea, as you can hear in the video above. He talks with Craig Mazin and John August about AI and how we need to deal with it as writers, and how it will change our job.
In it, we get a discussion that sheds light on the evolving role of screenwriters in this new landscape, offering a compelling vision of the "writer-producer" as the key to future success.
The idea is that writers must not only craft compelling narratives but also take a more active role in the execution and delivery of their work.
Yes, more work is being put on the back of writers, but I think this is both true and a necessary part of the way Hollywood is changing.
The days of simply delivering a script and stepping away are numbered. In a world where AI can generate content at an unprecedented speed, the true value of a human writer will lie in their ability to "fix what the AI broke" and ensure the final product resonates with audiences on an emotional level.
AI is presented as a double-edged sword: both a competitor and a tool.
Studios, driven by the constant pursuit of faster and cheaper production, may be tempted to use AI for quick rewrites and content generation. This puts pressure on the industry's labor movement to champion the irreplaceable value of human creativity and establish that "only humans write stuff."
But there are inherent limitations of AI. While AI can mimic structure and form, it lacks the essential human qualities of empathy and taste that are the bedrock of compelling storytelling.
And that storytelling is what makes movies and TV connect with the audience.
The real danger is Hollywood not looking for AI to make Oscar movies, but to use it over and over for "cheap imitations," that they can then use to make money.
The discussion concludes with a powerful reminder of what makes human storytellers unique. The future, it seems, belongs to the writers who can not only write but also guide their stories from the page to the screen, infusing them with the empathy and the taste that no machine can replicate.
Summing It All Up
This is a difficult topic and one I wrestle with every day. We've done our AI vs. Human screenwriting challenge, and I won, but is the business not me winning, or just fixing what AI gives execs? I want to work, but I also want my original ideas to matter. To do that, I need to step up as a producer on my projects and push them over the top.
So I guess I'd better get back to work.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
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