THE director of “The Hangover” is steamed at the Writers Guild of America, accusing the union of improperly denying the man who turned the original script into a smash hit a screenwriting credit.
“I’m not a big fan of the Writers Guild,” Todd Phillips fumed to Ain’t It Cool News, calling it “The WGA — the Whiners Guild of America.”
Phillips says he had Jeremy Garelick do substantial rewrites of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore‘s original concept about a Vegas bachelor party gone horribly wrong. But the WGA balked at including Garelick’s name in the credits.
“The Writers Guild has these insane rules . . . you have to prove this insane amount of work — and they have very nebulous rules about what that work is,” Phillips told Ain’t It Cool. “Jeremy did a massive amount of work. And the [bleep]ed-up part is it’s not even the fault of the original writers. They even agreed [to share credit]. But the Writers Guild was like, ‘No, no, you’re being pressured by the director, so we’re not going to stand for this.’ It’s just astounding.
“If you look at the original script . . . Mike Tyson was not in the movie, there was no tiger, there was no baby, there was no cop car . . . We’re not talking about tweaks, we’re talking about massive rewriting.”
Guild rep Gregg Mitchell said, “The Guild doesn’t comment on credit arbitrations.”
Phillips also fumed, “Judd Apatow did a massive amount of rewriting on ‘The Cable Guy,’ which a lot of people don’t know about.”
Garelick, who co-wrote Jennifer Aniston‘s “The Break-Up,” told Page Six: “Jon and Scott wrote a fantastic spec script . . . I feel very lucky to have such a great relationship with Todd that I could help him shape their brilliant concept.” He’s now writing “Murray at Large,” which “I’m hoping will be Todd’s next film.”
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