HOLLYWOOD DREAMS MADE REAL: IRVING THALBERG AND THE RISE OF M-G-M – Q&A with Mark Vieira

Author and photographer Mark A. Vieira (right), who’s been a friend for a number of years, has recently written no less than two books on Irving G. Thalberg, the young MGM mogul whose high-quality productions earned him both a reputation as Hollywood’s "Boy Wonder" and a special place in Oscar history as the name attached to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Memorial Award given to “creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.” Thalberg even inspired a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, the unfinished The Last Tycoon.
Now, Mark’s two books may cover the same ground in terms of subject matter, but they’re radically different in terms of approach to same:
Hollywood [...]

Eric Roth on the Making of THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Merrick Morton/Paramount Pictures
In the London Times, screenwriter Eric Roth discusses "The curious case of the making of Benjamin Button" with Kevin Maher:
"’In 1922 F.Scott Fitzgerald had a baby girl,’ continues the 63-year-old Oscar-winner Roth (Forrest Gump). ‘And when she was three months old he wrote a short story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.’ The tale, about a man who was born at 70 and slowly aged backwards towards infancy, reflected Fitzgerald’s newly altered views on mortality, Roth says, adding: ‘But it was very broad and whimsical.’ However, the basic idea would eventually evolve into the story of an 86-year-old man, Benjamin ([Brad] Pitt), who is born as a wizened homunculus [...]