Article about Rawson Thurber in the June issue of Premiere
The June issue of Premiere magazine — on newstands now! — has a nice article on Rawson Thurber, who longtime readers will recall was my faithful assistant from ‘99 to ‘02. He wrote and directed this summer’s DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY, which I’ve seen twice and highly recommend. If you watch television, you’ve already seen his work; Rawson created the Terry Tate: Office Linebacker series of ads for Reebok.
DODGEBALL, which unfortunately couldn’t keep its original-and-better title of UNDERDOGS, began as a spec script Rawson wrote while he was working for me. In stark contrast to all the advice I give on this site, he wrote it specifically for Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. Since he wanted to direct it himself, he had the foresight to create a funny and award-winning commercial campaign (Terry Tate), so that people would take him seriously as a director. He got an agent, got the script to Stiller’s production company, and within a year had a movie in production. It’s a helluva story.
This same issue of Premiere also features the annual Power List, which is always entertaining. So pick up a copy.
Articles
May 13th, 2004 at 8:29 pm
John, congrats on making Premier’s top five writers in the same issue. Apparently, screenwriters are so cool that instead of being included in the Power 100, they have their own mini-list.
It is also interesting that both you and Eliot & Rossio also have (or had, in their cases) very helpful websites. Karma clearly works out well in Hollywood.
Speaking of, does anyone out there know what happened with wordplayer.com?
May 13th, 2004 at 9:14 pm
Wordplayer.com is still up. What’s weird is that for some reason it completely refuses to load in Safari for OS X. You have to use Internet Explorer or Firefox.
May 14th, 2004 at 9:24 am
I’ve been lamenting wordplayer’s demise for months. Sadly, I never put together the (supposed) end of wordplayer with the upgrade of my mac.
Thanks.
May 16th, 2004 at 5:06 pm
Hey John,
I’ve been working at Fox in the office that is doing Rawson’s flick. I’ve heard nothing but great things about DODGEBALL. Most everyone in the office is extremely excited for this movie this summer. It’s inspiring to hear a story like Rawson’s, especially for someone like myself whose trying to break in as well.