Rick Reilly, who last year jumped ship from Sports Illustrated to ESPN, is one of America's most popular sports writers, and almost certainly its highest paid. But he's also done a little dabbling as a screenwriter: Along with fellow former SI scribe Duncan Brantley, Reilly co-wrote Leatherheads, the new George Clooney movie.
Now the reviews of Leatherheads are in, and the advice Reilly is getting is, "Don't quit your day job":
On Ebert & Roeper, film critics Richard Roeper and Michael Phillips agreed that the acting in Leatherheads was good, the directing was good, the score was good, but there was one problem.
"All the blame for me goes on the script," Phillips said. "The two Sports Illustarted guys who wrote this, they may know their football, but they do not know their funny."
Roeper agreed: "The weakness in this movie is the script. ... The script is weak, it does kind of meander, it needed a couple of re-writes."
At least Reilly has that $2 million ESPN salary to fall back on.
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Sorry, Rick Reilly: The Weakness of 'Leatherheads' Is the Script
Posted Apr 6th 2008 12:02PM by Michael David Smith
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-06-2008 @ 1:45PM
Tuffy said...
It *did* get a rewrite, MDS: George Clooney rewrote it into the pan you're frying Reilly in now. In fact, he felt so passionately about his involvement in the script that he just about quit the Writer's Guild over it.
Reply
4-06-2008 @ 5:33PM
bee said...
@ Tuffy: check the facts: George Clooney did not quit the Writer's Guild.
Reply
4-06-2008 @ 8:23PM
J-No said...
Bee,
Tuffy said almost quit.
Reply
4-06-2008 @ 11:44PM
Stuart said...
Ha...check out this interview with Reilly the Alligator, UFL's daily campus paper. Reilly's obviously trying to distance himself from the flick, which has "bomb" written all over it.
Money quote:
"I have no idea what the final product is going to be like. There's been like six different writers with their hands on this thing over the years. It's like having a baby and then having somebody whisk the baby away, and you haven't seen the baby for 16 years, and you have no idea how the baby has been raised or what it's been fed or what it's been through, and then suddenly the baby shows up running into your arms carrying a large check. You're just so happy the baby is alive, you're not real concerned with what clothes she's wearing."
Reply
4-06-2008 @ 11:45PM
Griseus said...
Forgot to include the link, dummy:
http://alligator.org/articles/2008/04/03/the_avenue/movies/080403_leatherheads.txt
Reply
4-07-2008 @ 1:43AM
Faramir said...
Hey, give the man some credit for breaking out of his comfort zone. But well, some things are not meant to be.
Fara - http://www.pickmeuptoday.com
Reply