The Writer Who Killed the Dog — and Lived to Tell the Tale

If you were to create a superhero alter ego for Akiva Goldsman, you could do worse than the Master of Multitasking. The writer/producer/sometimes director has spent decades juggling a half-dozen projects at a time, with his lengthy list of credits — including The Client, Batman Forever and The Da Vinci Code — amassing more than $4.73 billion in global ticket sales, a tally worthy of Titan status. On television, he has been a key force in Paramount’s Star Trek universe as co-showrunner of the fan favorite Strange New Worlds, which bows season three July 17.

Today, Goldsman, 63, keeps working at a dizzying pace at his Weed Road banner, with sequels to I Am Legend, Practical Magic and Constantine set up at Warners, while at Mattel he’s penned a Major Matt Mattson movie for Tom Hanks — based on the astronaut toy figure — and is producing a Monsters High movie, which has cast Kim Kardashian. But, of course, the breakthrough that opened so many doors was his 2002 screenwriting Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, a script so revered for its elegant portrayal of schizophrenia that its plot twist centered an episode of Seth Rogen’s The Studio.

Ron Howard vividly recalls how Goldsman’s idea of having Russell Crowe’s John Nash see imaginary people opened up the movie he and producer Brian Grazer had been trying to crack. “It was truly an ingenious leap forward for the screenplay because it immediately accomplished so much,” Howard tells THR. “It gave the movie a strong narrative twist and, more importantly, it gave the audience empathy for anyone struggling with mental illness and its destabilizing impact.”

Will Smith, with whom he made I, Robot, I Am Legend and Hancock, tells THR he considers Goldsman his “individual, greatest cinematic collaborator.” Director Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend was a particularly daunting acting challenge, as Smith’s scene partner for most of the film is a just a German Shepherd. Then Goldsman gave Smith a tip that unlocked the role for him.

Smith recalls Goldsman saying: “We know we have spectacular special effects, and we’re going to have action sequences and Francis is going to do wonderful things with zombies and all of that. I need you to forget about it all. If we were making a stage play and we didn’t have all of those things, how would you keep your performance interesting?”

It’s advice Smith has used on every subsequent role. “When you’re making these big sci-fi movies, sometimes we can get lost in the spectacle,” says Smith. “Akiva refused to allow that to happen.”

Margaret Atwood, E.L. Doctorow and Russell Banks were teachers of yours yet you struggled with short stories. What clicked when you started writing screenplays?

I could figure out how to write a pretty good sentence, but I could never figure out the structure of a short story. So, I took this Robert McKee course. Suddenly I realized that just like all mannequins basically have two arms, two legs and torso and a head, most screenplays have a set of acts. And now, if I understood what the body looked like, it was just about how to design the clothes.

You made two John Grisham movies and two Batman movies with Joel Schumacher early on. How did you get on his radar for The Client?

I wrote a spec that went around. Joel called me over to his house and we sat and talked about story and life. I was living in a one-room apartment in Venice. I used to just write in a bathrobe and eat cold tuna. I got home, and there was a message on my answering machine that Joel wanted me to take the job. He was like, “Here’s the book. We’re throwing away the script. We’re starting in 12 weeks. Go!”

Most directors don’t have a writer on set. But it sounds as if he gave you a real education.

I lived on set for four movies in a row with him. He would send me into the trailer and say, “Susan [Sarandon] has some notes,” or “Tommy Lee [Jones] hates this.”

Recently there was an attempt to screen Joel’s original cut of Batman Forever, but Warners shut it down. Will it ever get out there?

After Joel died [in 2020], I reached out to Warners and said, “There’s a darker version of this movie.” We found it. It exists and it’s incomplete, but more complete than you would think. Today there would be giant sections where the VFX wasn’t done. In those days, so much of it was miniatures and practical effects — they were done. We were trying to dust it off, and then everybody stopped caring. But I lobby for it.

What were some of the differences?

Bruce is having these recurring visions of a red book, which turns out to be his father’s diary. There’s an entry that says, “Martha and I want to stay home tonight. Bruce wants to see a movie, so we’re going to take him out.” So he holds himself responsible [for their deaths]. There’s a section in the movie where he actually is hit in the head. He doesn’t remember that he’s Batman, and he goes back into the cave. There’s this now rather famous Rick Baker bat that he faces.

Batman Forever was a hit. Two years later, Batman & Robin was an infamous bomb. Were you doubting yourself after that?

When movies don’t land, when they’re publicly excoriated, or when you feel you have let the object down, it hurts. “Wrap a baseball bat in a blanket and hit your head for two hours. This is preferable to the experience of watching Lost in Space, which can be laid at the feet of writer-producer Akiva Goldsman, who has replaced Joe Eszterhas as the definition of failing upwards in Hollywood.” That’s Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal.

That movie came out in 1998. That review has been in your head for almost 30 years?

Seared!

But just three years later, you win the Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, which has a Sixth Sense-style reveal that’s almost as iconic.

I had just finished the script when I saw The Sixth Sense and instantly knew because of the tricks [such as characters not making eye contact with Bruce Willis].

Where did the conceit of John Nash seeing imaginary people come from?

One of the very first group homes for mentally disturbed children was in my home when I was a kid. My parents founded it in Brooklyn. I shared space with a lot of folks who had various diagnoses you wouldn’t group together today, including childhood schizophrenia and childhood autism. I always believed there was an internal logic to what other folks thought was madness. Then I read this beautiful biography that Sylvia Nasar had written about John, and it was all his outer life. And then I was like, “If I could smush up the inner life in there and make it as convincing an experience for the audience as a delusion is for somebody who’s suffering it, then that would be compelling.”

The movie did well during awards season but lost most of the awards leading to the Oscar. Did you figure you were out of the game?

I’m losing to Memento just day in, day out. At the Golden Globes, I go out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette, and Matthew Perry is there, and my wife Rebecca’s there and he goes, “Oh, yeah. We lose all the time [on Friends].” He said to Rebecca, “[When they read the nominations] lean over and whisper into Akiva’s ear. And Akiva, lean back and laugh.” So we do it, and I win, but I don’t notice because I’m too busy doing the shtick. And Russell [Crowe] grabs me, and he looks at my eyeballs and he goes, “Get up there and enjoy it.”

What were your early takeaways from working with Ron Howard?

I was on set and Russell was saying a thing, and I had written a different thing, and I said to Ron, “Do I say something?” And he looked at me and he said, “If it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other, the way you wrote it or the way they want to say it, do it the way they want to say it. They’ll do it better.”

You then get into the Will Smith business with I, Robot and I Am Legend, the ending of which test audiences famously rejected.

I Am Legend never tested well because we killed Sam. People walk out when that dog dies. And I get it. I love dogs. Never more walkouts in anything I’ve done than when that dog died.

Will Smith shared his own memories of deciding to kill the Sam with THR, recalling that his Ali trainer Darrell Foster pitched the idea that Smith’s charater should strangle the dog in a mercy killing after she is infected.

“We had to pitch it to the studio. We went to go talk to Alan Horn, who was the head of Warner Bros. at the time. We walk in and — almost like from a sitcom — Alan Horn has four giant pictures of the most gorgeous German Shepherds behind his desk. He loves dogs. And he is telling us the story that he just lost one of his German Shepherds. We’re like, ‘Oh no. Oh no.’  Akiva says, ‘Alan Will has something he wants to pitch you,’” Smith recalls with a laugh.

Continues the star: “And Alan Horn is in tears, he’s crying, holding a picture of his German Shepherd and he says, ‘Guys, I promise you, your lead actor cannot choke a dog to death in an American movie.’ That seems like a fair assessment! But Akiva said ‘stage play.’ And what happens in the shot is you just pan off, and the whole scene is just played on my face. You hear the sound of the paws, the nails scratching on the floor until they slow down and stop. It’s super painful, but the audience doesn’t have to suffer it. … [Akiva] figures out how to find that sweet spot in the middle artistically and creatively that lands the idea without destroying the audience with it.

Was it heartbreaking to lose your original ending, which allowed Will Smith’s character to live, but was more thought-provoking in that you then learn empathy for the movie’s monsters?

No. We liked them both so much that right up until two weeks before the release, we were committed to trying to release both cuts theatrically and not tell people. We would have people in conversation go, “How about when he died?” “What!?” And finally, we were dissuaded.

You have sequels to your Francis Lawrence movies Constantine and I Am Legend in the works. Which one is in poll position now, or more likely?

For different reasons, I think I Am Legend [script] is more finished, and I think Constantine is more likely.

You had grand plans for Stephen King’s Dark Tower, movies, TV shows, etc. But the film we got didn’t work. What happened?

We didn’t live up to that opportunity. The original plan that Ron [Howard] and I had was really ambitious and really extraordinary, and there was a version of the first movie that was at Universal that we ultimately weren’t able to make that I think would’ve been something. There are books upon books upon books, binders about the movie. We worked on that universe for such a long time — for naught.

How did you move into television with Fringe?

I introduced J.J. Abrams to his wife, and I call this favor in constantly, as you will notice by seeing me in several J.J. movies. I said, “I want to direct a television show.” I had directed one episode of something called Kings, and I was like, “Now I want to direct Fringe.” And he was like, “You have to write it. And I said, “I don’t want to write it, I just want to direct it.” He said, “No, you have to write.”

You were an Oscar-winning screenwriter. Shouldn’t it be easy to write a teleplay?

Jeff Pinkner was running Fringe. And he sent me back to outline nine times because it turns out I had no fucking idea how to write a TV show! Finally, I wrote and directed it. And I stayed three and a half years, and I was like the drunk uncle. I was paid virtually nothing. The job description, it said, “Job requirements: none.” Literally in my deal. But I loved it.

And Star Trek comes calling. You’ve been a lifelong fan, so was that an easy one to say yes to?

Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman wrote the pilot for Fringe. Years later I get a phone call and Alex says, “Well, I’m in London directing [2017’s The Mummy], and we’re about to start Star Trek [Discovery] and there’s been a change. Bryan Fuller is leaving [as showrunner]. Could you just go kind of help be drunk uncle on the pilot?”

Strange New Worlds is the most beloved of the new Trek shows, thanks to the bright tone and because it’s easy to jump into a random episode.

My whole journey on Star Trek has been trying to get to Strange New Worlds. I started pitching it early on. I had my sight set on this from the moment somebody opened the door to Star Trek for me, because the original series was magic. It was magic because it believes in this future that is inclusive, smart, kind and daring. It jumps a genre and people never noticed that. And so that’s what we’ve been doing, and I have loved it.

Do you see a role for AI in the screenwriting business? One idea is AI could read a script and point out plot holes, give feedback.

There’s a rule in screenwriting around point of view. A Beautiful Mind is a movie with a single point of view. It’s a singular experience on the part of a protagonist. Same with Sixth Sense, same with Shutter Island. You can’t break point of view. It’s a rule. But I do. We cut to Jenny [Connelly] at a mailbox just one time in the whole movie. It’s absolutely not allowed. But it works great. I don’t want to find ourselves in a place where we are less creative because the standards of creativity have lowered to what it is the machine can do.

Do you still recognize yourself as the young, hungry guy who wrote all day in his bathrobe in that one-room apartment?

When I was younger, I wrote all the time, sometimes to the exclusion of life. I wanted it so desperately. I just wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. So I just wrote my way there. Ten, 12 hours a day. Too much. Slowly over the years, I get more work with less hours. Now, I get up in the morning and I write about four to five hours, and then I start producing.

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5 Akiva Goldsman Secrets to Success

1. At some point during the writing of your script, it will become clear to you that what you have written makes no sense and that you cannot actually write at all.

Don’t panic. This is part of the process. Write through it.

2. Writing is a job. It’s a great one, but it’s still a job.

Do not wait for inspiration. Do not wait for your muse. Just get up and write.

3. I try to work out structure first.

It’s like building the walls of the sandbox. Then I write bad scenes inside that structure really fast. That’s shoveling in the sand. Finally I start rewriting — it’s only then that I have any hope of making a castle.

4. Your words matter. Not just the dialogue.

You’re building a movie in the reader’s mind. Be thoughtful, economical and evocative in your sentences. Welcome them into the world you’re creating.

5. What you feel when you’re writing a scene is what the reader will feel when they’re reading it.

It makes no sense but it’s true. It’s a kind of magic. Commit your emotions to the page.

A version of this story appeared in the July 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.