As I said when I reviewed it earlier this week, the blame for what a sloppy train wreck of a movie that is Hancock is can be laid at the feet of the numerous rewrites the screenplay went through from its initial inception to finally hitting multiplex screens.
Now you can take a look at what writer Vy Vincent Ngo initially envisioned for this film. Jeff Wells over at Hollywood-Elsewhere has posted a copy of Ng’s original, undated draft entitled Tonight, He Comes. How different is it? I haven’t had a chance to peruse the entire screenplay, but a cursory examination does reveal that the original is indeed darker than what eventually shows up on the screen.
With Akiva Goldsman’s name on the film’s credits, it is easy to blame him for where the film falls apart. After all, this is the same writer who worked on Lost In Space, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, I, Robot and Smith’s last film I Am Legend. It’s a litany of titles that cause one to think that maybe his Academy Award for writing A Beautiful Mind may have been a fluke. (Hint- It was.) I would still like to see some other drafts the project went through to see if it was a gradual slide downhill towards a crappy film or just a big catastrophic failure once Goldman stepped up to the typewriter.
You might want to hurry in checking out the script, though. Last month, Frank Darabont’s draft for what became Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull showed up on line, but was quickly yanked under the threat of Paramount’s legal attack dogs. Will Sony do the same?
