Who really wrote "Poltergeist?"
Disclaimer: Steven Spielberg, Michael Grais, and Mark Victor are the credited writers of the film. While I cannot prove there were other writers involved, the following information is interesting nonetheless.
Perhaps not as well known as the controversy over who really directed the film, the story of how the script came to be written is equally fascinating. Contradictions, accusations, rumors, and incomplete information abounds. The official story goes something like this: "Poltergeist" and "E.T." began originally as "Night Skies," which was to be the sequel to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" at Columbia Pictures. Steven Spielberg had the idea of a farm family who is terrorized by a group of evil aliens, with one of the aliens who becomes friendly with one of the family's children. A script was written by John Sayles, and an SFX artist even began work on the alien creatures. Columbia later decided they didn't want the project, so Spielberg pitched it to MGM. He would produce, and find someone else to direct. At first Spielberg offered "Night Skies" to Tobe Hooper, but Hooper felt the alien aspect wasn't really his thing and said he'd like to do a ghost story instead.
Hooper claims to have pitched Spielberg on an idea he had been developing off and on for the past eight years at Universal. He'd happened to get the old office of director Robert Wise, who made "The Haunting." Hooper found a book about poltergeists in Wise's desk, and thought the idea would make a good movie. Supposedly, according to Hooper, he worked with William Friedkin to try to get Universal interested in the project. The idea was to use the studio's surround sound process for the poltergeist effects. He and Spielberg collaborated by mail on a treatment while Spielberg was shooting "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Hooper claims to have come up with the idea of a family situation, people who were next door neighbors to a cemetary, but that his version didn't have an ending. He claims that the idea of the ghosts kidnapping the child didn't come until late in the development process, and that the idea was both his and Steven's. Now, how credible this version of events is remains unclear.
In any event, Spielberg completed his treatment, then called "Nighttime," in March of 1980. This treatment did not list Tobe Hooper as co-writer. Spielberg further revised this draft and by August of 1980 it was called "It's Nighttime." First Spielberg approached Stephen King to write the script, but King's agent wanted too much money. Spielberg then met with co-writers Michael Grais and Mark Victor about possibly writing a remake of "A Guy Named Joe" (Spielberg would later do this as "Always" in 1989, without Grais and Victor). Grais and Victor were more interested in Steven's ghost story, however, and soon they got the job of writing what eventually was called "Poltergeist." Ultimately, though, Spielberg was not happy with their draft, and over a 5 to 7 day period, decided to re-write the script, churning out over 100 pages with the help of Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall at his house.
That's the sort of official story. And now for what some of the other claims and rumors are.......
Much of the following I originally posted on a thread at the SpielbergFilms.com discussion board. The full original thread can be read here:
http://www.spielbergfilms.com/showthread.php?t=1877
(unfortunately this link doesn't exist anymore because the whole site was taken down by its webmaster)
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I found the following comment on an archived Usenet posting. I also found the archived web site of the author, a guy named Robert Martin. I think he might have some credibility considering what is on his resume. Pay special attention to his claim about the writing of "Poltergeist" below. In his usenet posting, he didn't give his name, but he did include a link to his then web site (http://flixman.home.ml.org). It's down now, but still up via the Wayback Archive. On that site, he listed his real name and contact info.
His old web site and resume:
http://web.archive.org/web/200003060...022/resume.htm
from: 1997
http://groups.google.com/group/bit.l...61643fc2ba99c9
Spielberg already proved his Teflon status when his role in Vic
Morrow's death was completely paved over (by powerful Hollywood
interests in connivance with the major media) while he left John
Landis to twist slowly in the wind. That's a story only 4 or 5 people
could tell in detail, and none of them are talkng because, in the
immortal words of Mel Brooks, "Gentlemen! We have to protect our
phoney-baloney jobs!" -- but I know more than most people do. I'd
spill here, but frankly, the "dark side of Spielberg" book is way
overdue, and this would be a good tale to save for such pages, if I
ever grow spiteful enough to write them. (Note to DreamWorks: if I had
a *job* I might be *too busy* to think about stuff like this.)
(Another cool chapter would be about the committee of eight writers
who wrote -- and, for many scenes, outright *stole* from multiple
sources -- the Poltergeist script credited to Spielberg and two
writers. MGM even shut down production on a TV movie because there was
a set-piece, involving a ghostly hand emerging from a television
screen, that the writing committee wished to incorporate into the
Poltergeist script, but other appropriations were not so above-board.
Spielberg was unaware that his "ghost writers" had sticky fingers
until the lawsuits hit. Veteran fantasy writer Richard Matheson and
actor/screenwriter Paul Clemens were paid off. Spielberg has, wisely
enough, not taken a bogus writing credit since.) (Another chapter might play compare and contrast between Spielberg's
many pronouncements on "artist's rights" and his role as 800-pound
bear producer on other director's films.)
More info on Mr. Martin's self written bio on the IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0552979/bio
Robert Martin was the original editor of "Fangoria", the magazine of horror and exploitation film. Martin steered the publication from 1979 to 1986 -- the slasher-film boom years. Martin's so-called "acting" was a by-product of his career as a journalist, and included a prominent role as a wheelchair-bound geek in "Madhouse", the first video made by the band Anthrax (who were Fangoria readers), directed by Amos Poe. A collaborative relationship with writer-director Frank Henenlotter resulted in two produced screenplays, with Martin writing initial drafts from Henenlotter's detailed outlines. In 1994, Martin, under the name "Ed Flixman" became editor of "Sci-Fi Entertainment", the "Official Magazine" of the Sci-Fi Channel, and continued in that capacity through October of 1996. His column of film news continued to run in that magazine, until an argument with the editor regarding remarks in his column that the new editor feared might incur the wrath of the Sci-Fi Channel. In December of 1996, Martin relocated from his native New York to Los Angeles, where he mostly worked as an Internet techie, but also wrote press materials for a few films, most notably "The People vs. Larry Flynt," in which his description of Flynt as "the last champion of the sexual revolution" stirred the wrath of Gloria Steinem, generating considerable press for the film. (In Martin's original, the phrase had been "the last champion of a failed sexual revolution.") As of January, 2006, he is working as a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas.
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Blockbuster films draw legal action like a honey pot draws flies. Poltergeist has been hit by a $37 million suit by actor Paul Clemens (who starred in The Beast Within, Death in Canaan and Promises in the Dark) and Bennett Michael Yellin. Clemens and Yellin claim that substantial portions of a script their agent submitted to Steven Spielberg's office in January of 1980 found its way into Poltergeist. Spielberg's office denies ever receiving the manuscript. The story Clemens and Yellin wrote involved a strange house which traps a family (consisting of a mother, father, an older daughter, middle son and a young daughter) and hides the youngest daughter somewhere within its structure, while the family can hear her ethereal voice calling for help. Clemens and Yellin registered their script with the Writer's Guild West on September 7, 1979 and it bears some striking similarities to Poltergeist, including a murderous tree that comes to life, and a room with saliva dripping from around the edges of a door frame, and an interior of smooth, glistening pink flesh resembling a throat which Clemens described as a kind of "well" going into the depths of hell. In Clemens and Yellin's finale, bodies of people who have drowned in the swamp on which the home was built-come violently up out of the water and break through the floor-boards of the house. "We think there's clear story misappropriation," said Clemens' and Yellin's attorney, Derrick Fisher. "Spielberg might defend his story against copyright infringement by claiming it was an 'independent creation." Well, you can have independent creation in maybe one of these plot elements, but there are so many of them which are almost identical." In 1981, Clemens had obtained a first draft copy of the Poltergeist script, but was counseled by his attorney to wait and see what similarities remained in the finished movie. The first draft had prompted author/director Frank DeFelitta to protest a scene he felt was lifted from his film "The Entity" (to be released by 20th Century Fox next spring) in which a mother is literally raped by a ghost. In that case, the script was changed. The plaintiffs have already lined up two expert witnesses, magazine editor Forrest J. Ackerman and author Ray Bradbury, who have agreed to go over each story and render their own professional opinions as to similarities in plot and structure. Ackerman also served for the defense in the Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Wars lawsuit, and Bradbury read Clemens' original story when asked back in 1979 for his literay advice. Clemens insists he has no personal animosity towards Steven Spielberg. "I like Spielberg," he said. "I've met him twice and he was enourmously gracious to me. I love his films. This is just a specific case. I'm not out to 'get' Spielberg. But look at the evidence! He's the only person we sent this script to and he makes this movie."
The above was from
Volume 13, No 2/Vol 13 No 3 by the way (November-December 1982) "Krull" was on the front cover.
The plaintiffs have already lined up two expert witnesses, magazine editor Forrest J. Ackerman and author Ray Bradbury, who have agreed to go over each story and render their own professional opinions as to similarities in plot and structure. Ackerman also served for the defense in the Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Wars lawsuit, and Bradbury read Clemens' original story when asked back in 1979 for his literay advice.
This link mentions a further connection between Forest J. Ackerman and writer Paul Clemens:
http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2...-birthday.html
Not mentioned in the article above but claimed by someone on the now closed Spielbergfilms.com message board, was that another alleged similarity in the "Housebound" treatment/script was a scene in which a Hulk Hogan toy rides a flying plastic horse, which as you'll recall was a scene from the finished film (though I'm not sure what the source of that claim was or if it's true). Someone else on the board also claimed that the Clemens/Yellin lawsuit was eventually settled for a "not particularly large" sum of money (I was able to confirm that the lawsuit was settled; see below).
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Counterpoint from Steven Awalt, former editor of the now closed fan site SpielbergFilms.com:
Matheson also worked on "Twilight Zone" and "Amazing Stories" post-"Poltergeist," so if he felt Spielberg had ripped him off, I'd be really surprised...
About "Little Girl," doesn't the girl fall in a crack in her room, and then communicate through the television with her parents? If I'm remembering it right, the similarities are certainly there, but again, Matheson didn't feel they were paramount, at least from what we know on the record (i.e. — no suit).
Also, if that's truly Bob Martin who posted those thoughts (in what dfurtney posted above), he's an opportunistic, uninformed schmuck. I remember Martin from when I was a kid who read "Fangoria" religiously, and while he was loose in his editorial style, I'd be dismayed if he actually said these things. He's obviously misinformed about the events surrounding "Zone," and those are some big friggin' charges to make against a man since the accusations are about the deaths of three human beings that Spielberg had no connection with. Further, how serious of a source is someone when they more or less try to bribe a party to buy silence with employment over something he likely knows jack about. He can write any damned thing he wants, but that doesn't make anything he says well researched, accurate or purely true.
Finally (and this is just my opinion), I don't think I'd call Forry Ackerman as a star witness to discern story structure in a screenplay. Bradbury is credible, since he's an author and a screenwriter. Still, "star" is the key word here, since a copyright suit like this should be easily discerned by a judge versed in copyright law. You don't need an author or a screenwriter to be able to study the similarities and differences in creative works, nor do you need third parties to present facts about how each work was created and drafted.
One last thing: This is the first I've heard about eight authors having a hand in "Poltergeist." It flies in the face of what we've heard from Spielberg, Grais, Victor, and Hooper (who has his own discrepancies in regards to the screenplay). I'd be interested to hear more of why Martin claims this.
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A lawsuit pending against Steven Spielberg and POLTERGEIST's co-writers could, meanwhile, prove more than tiresome. Spielberg and associates still stand accused of having appropriated substantial portions of a script written by actor Paul Clemens and Bennet Michael Yellin. The script, they maintain, had been forwarded to Spielberg's office in January 1980. Its protagonists underwent a fate which would sound more than vauguely familiar in the context of POLTERGEIST. The case could reach the courts during the next few months, Clemens told us, although he's been instructed by his lawyers not to discuss the case. MGM, the disbributor of POLTERGEIST II, also had no comment on how the outcome of the case could affect their release.
contact me. I'm right here. You can reassure the guy at Spielbergfilms.com I never seriously considered writing a book about, or being employed by, Spielberg. One tends to say some nutty things when you find yourself unemployable at the age of 40 and too much computer time on your hands.
post:
Paul Clemens confided in me about his case against Spielberg when I
met him on the set of "The Beast Within." I never wrote about it in FANGORIA because I had established a policy of not treating the familiar stories about who stole what as news, since there were so
many people writing to me about their "stolen" ideas, most of it baseless or trivial.
exception. When Tobe Hooper claimed to me that he was being shut out of creative credit for Poltergeist, I reported that in Fango because it *was* news.
rumor. The case simply disappeared, which itself suggests that someone traded their silence for wads of cash.
I used the term "committee" loosely, in that there were never 8 people
working on the script at once; but there were uncredited writers
working on the script after Grais and Victor, after it had been
scheduled for production (causing a great rush to get the script in
shape; this is when I believe there were unauthorized borrowings). My
source for his sort of info was a number of personal friends who were
on Spielberg's payroll at the time, who spoke in confidence.
One fascinating aspect to me is the fact that a ghost-themed TV movie
that MGM had in the can was never broadcast because some
elements of the script were wanted for Poltergeist. My source for this
named the TV movie in question, and I was able to confirm its
existence and late-term cancellation.Since I never wrote about all
this, I have no record of the name of that project.
My best estimation of the number of writers on the script, total, is
eight. This is not including Tobe, who told me flat-out that the basic
story and concept were his. I don't discount Tobe as readily as
everyone else in the world does, but I've despaired of convincing
anyone else of his truthfulness.
You can quote me exactly on any of this, including the Usenet posting,
but please be clear that I name no sources nor do I claim any high
degree of reliability for these anonymous sources.
But I nevertheless do believe I have a better grip on how Poltergeist
was put together than the vast majority of people.
Update: January 15, 2009-I received this statement from someone involved with the Clemens/Yellin lawsuit:
That case was settled around 20 years ago, just prior to the commencement of trial, following many days of deposition testimony given by the plaintiffs, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Tobe Hooper and Stephen King and experts retained by all parties. The terms of such settlement were requested by the defendants and agreed upon by the plaintiffs to remain confidential. As such I am not in a position to comment about either the nature of or the terms of the settlement.
Below, some scans of the film's script:
