Horton Foote--"To Kill A Mockingbird" at 46 and "The Trip To Bountiful" at 69.

Wow, great research for that list!

There wouldn't be personal reasons for this post, would there? ;)

Boy, you old people are cranky.

The utter lack of creativity is also shown by your prior post about "season of sequels." Can't think of anything original? Let's recycle some 70s dreck like Dukes of Hazard! Great Idea! I'm a heavy moviegoer but this year the only things I've seen have been Ridley Scottt's disaster and previously commented on German flick "Downfall". (non-Hollywood & outstanding) Looking at the release list for the year I'm not surprised Hollywood is worried -- they should be. Hey, I see another parallel (tongue in cheek). Which political party is out of power and ideas and just recycling the same old 70s crap? Is it coincidence that most Hollywood types belong to that party?

Planet of the Apes (original) Rod Serling 44

This goes a long way towards explaining the sorry product coming out of Hollywood in today's dumbed-down, youth-oriented market.

It's that cheap source called the Nickelodeon Farm Team...

Unfortunately, music can be filed under the same category, if not more so. A band comes out with a couple of hits, and they are expected to play with the same fervency within their 20-something image for eternity. The Rolling Stones are making another pass in their 60's, however, what new music have they put out lately? When have they taken all the years they put into music and put something new out that blew anyone's mind. People only want to hear what they played 30 years ago.

Without the maturity and experience of years of playing, we are left with 3 chords, bad hair, and 3 minute pop tunes.

Anyway, who's looking forward to the new "XXX" movie? Anyone....anyone....?

Hollywood is notorious for wanting something 'new' that's just like everything else out there. If you were pitching a movie, you would NEVER use the word original. And the remakes are terrible. Darleen is right, Serling's script for Planet of the Apes was brilliant, & the ending was his own invention. Compare that with the dreadful remake (with that charismatic leading man, Marky Mark)

When my GF moved to this country, she started watching all the American movies she could get her hands on. One impression she came away with was that there'd been a staggering decline in storytelling and character from the 70s to the present. Some honorable exceptions, obviously, but in general she thought major releases were a lot more simplistic and stupider than they used to be.

And one other thing: If Hollywood turns just one more forgettable Sixties sitcom currently running on Nick into a big budget picture, I will not be responsible for my actions. You have been warned.

I'm still suffering from the vapors as a result of the Bad News Bears remake -- even though it's Richard Linklater (which might be it's only saving grace; he tends to be respectful of the source material).

Been running a series of lists on my site of "movies people really should see before they can even address me socially" (or some such), and I've been astounded at how few people have seen. Thankfully, though, my readers tend to beminded and many of them have recently signed up for NetFlix or thrown big bucks at Amazon.

I should get a commission.

But re: the age thing... Yeah, I've heard about this for years -- originally, I think, in the context of Sex in the City, where the writers were older, Hollywood castoffs.

Hollywood movies and teleplays have certainly suffered from this youth turn. I was saying to someone yesterday that I'd much rather watch some bad 70s movie (like, say, Orca) than most of what comes out today (insert name of live-action film based on TV show here).

I was just watching a good documentary about Coppola's American Zoetrope foray the other night (on the bonus disc to THX-1138) and either he, Spielberg, or Lucas noted that before "Easy Rider" blew things wide it was rare to find anyone on set who was under 40. Old guys were everywhere. When Coppola was filming Finian's Rainbow for a big studio, he befriended his insulting rival George Lucas who was hanging around the set simply because he was the only other 'young' guy in sight.

David Duchovny just wrote, directed (and I think may have financed but I'm not too sure) his vanity project House of D. In fact, he claims he wrote it in 6 days.

The reviews aren't going too well.

Some current, employed writers:

Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) 52 -

Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind) 46 -

Brad Bird (The Incredibles) 48-ish -

Mike Leigh (Vera Drake) 52 -

Alexader Payne (About Schmidt, Sideways) 44 -

Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunset) 44 -

David Magee (Finding Neverland) 42-ish -

Patrick Marber (Closer) 40 -

Denys Arcand (The Barbarian Invasions) 43 -

Brian Helgeland (Mystic River) 44-ish -

Jim Sheridan (In America) 56 -

Peter Hedges (Pieces of April) 42 -

Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her, Bad Education) 55 -

Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) 44 -

Ronald Harwood (The Pianist, Being Julia) 70 -

David Hare (The Hours) 57 -

Could it be that those other writers just suck?

Of course there are writers of all ages writing in Hollywood. But the Writers Guild survey suggests there's something else going on, which doesn't surprise now that MBAs are running the business & the whole industry is tilted towards a young audience. I'm not a sucker for class action suits or conspiracies but this one's been kicked around for a while & seems credible to me. The people running the business don't put much value in the craft of writing, so why not get a young model that's 'hip' to the latest singer, soft drink, clothing line, jargon, etc. It's probably worse in TV than the movie studios

Pay 'em a lot less to be 'hip', too.

Oh thank you, thank you, thank you for this post: I just turned 45 and this makes me want to say "WooHoo!" instead of, "Oh no. I'm getting old." BTW, I don't watch too much TV these days as it is so vapid. Cheers, SF

I still feel underaccomplished when I realize that Orson Welles was 26 when Citizen Kane came out, and Kenneth Branagh was 29 for Henry V, and Benchley and Spielberg were 35 and 29 respectively for Jaws.

It's all relative. Tolkien was 45 when he published his first book

Sparky Anderson was like, 90, when he won his first World Series with the Reds.

Well, he looked like he was anyway....

While we're on the topic of age, I have turned my 76 year old mother onto your 'blog.

I hope she's not . . . sensitive.

I'm not so sure that hipness is the explanation. I suspect it's more that the powers that be have their eyes focussed on world-wide distribution. Things like smart dialogue and interesting plots typically don't translate well. Sex and violence do. And they don't require much writing.

I suspect that trends in acting theory have something to do with it, too. “The method” and Mamet-style acting (and dialogue) tend to encourage improvisation which, in turn, de-emphasizes written dialogue.

I think the attitude, esp in TV, is 'we want the hip young audience, so we need hip young writers'. Which makes no sense because any writer worth their weight can write about anything, & writing with a contemporary eye is no different than writing a period piece, only the attitude & details change.

I wrote a post about teenage girls, League of Mean Girls, & people thought I knew a lot about teen girls. But I knew NOTHING about them. I just went to a couple of teen forums, read what people were talking about, & made up the rest.

It's also true what Dave says, in film the emphasis is movies that can play overseas, so you want more action & less pesky dialogue.

My belief: dialogue is not a big part of screenwriting. The critical parts are the story arc and the characters, and those don't change if actors improv some of the dialogue. Story is key irrespective.

I agree that the business has been taken over by MBAs; my husband tells me they don't understand the entertainment industry as being different from any other business. "For the most part," he explains, "they could be making widgets." (There are some exceptions, of course: a friend of ours just got a job at one of the big studios, armed with an MBA from University of Chicago. But she'd worked in the business before, and at least has an understanding of how the creative process unfolds.)

I disagree with the notion that "hipness" isn't part of the issue: the idiots who run the studios do have a sort of romance about how young people will be more abreast of pop culture and have a "fresher" approach.

And you're right: writers are supposed to be able to observe cultures and absorb the details they need to do their work. And the older they get, the better they are at it.

But, again: studios are run by studio execs. Very unfortunate, for the creative people involved and movie/TV consumers.

My favorite story about the young idiots who run Hollywood: Natalie Schafer, who played Mrs. Howell on Gilligan's Island, went to an audition after decades in the business and was interviewed by a twenty-something whod the discussion with "so. What have you done?"

Ms. Schafer smiled and replied, "you first."

Hey, don't forget my hero, Alvin Sargent, over 70, who wrote lots of great films, like Spiderman 2 (which is why it was good).

If my rejection letters keep coming for another couple years, I can be some studio's token old person!