(Part 1 of 2)

Writing across genres, Josh Olson has twisted a few rules on his path to success. After writing and directing the horror flick "Infested," he sold Paramount his spec "Three Gun Blues," a modern-day tribute to Richard Lester's "Musketeers." Olson's adaptation of John Wagner and Vince Locke's graphic novel by the same name, "A History of Violence" (New Line), brought Olson a nomination for an Academy Award, the BAFTA, the WGA Award, the Edgar, a Chicago Film Critics Association Award and more. He recently adapted the Lee Child best-selling novel "One Shot" (Paramount Pictures) and penned the sequel to L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz" titled "Oz" (Warner Bros. Pictures). Currently, Olson is developing the pilot for "Meanwhile," a television series he sold to producer Peter Chernin and the Fox Network. In addition to having a day job that he loves, his passion project is the film adaptation of "Mystic River" author Dennis Lehane's compelling short story "Until Gwen," for which Olson wrote the screenplay and is slated to direct.

Olson has also worked with children and pre-college students in making movies, and will be teaching a mentor class at the upcoming Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe (www.scsfe.com). In part one of this two-part interview, Olson discusses how he broke into the industry and how interest from his Village Voice blog piece, "I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script," brought new opportunities that boosted his career.

Q: How did you get started working in entertainment?

A: After about a year of film school I came to the realization that I could probably get paid to learn the same stuff I was paying people to teach me. I moved out here in the mid-eighties and got a job as a PA [production assistant] on a movie and spent close to ten years working crew. That was my film school experience.

I started writing seriously in the early nineties. A couple years after that, I started making a living at it. I was writing straight-to-video stuff -- low-budget, indie fare. I broke into the studio system in 2002 when I sold a spec script to Paramount.

Q: And that was "Three Gun Blues"?

A: Yes.

Q: In building your career as a screenwriter, was there an event when you made a change to your writing or in the way you were marketing yourself that caused your career to move forward?

A: There were a lot of things along the way, but there was a key moment for me that I think was very important -- a realization that eventually everybody comes to. I had gotten stuck in the straight-to-video world and was hating it and this was after having probably the worst script I'd ever written get produced. I came to the realization that this was not what I'd come here to do. I took some time off. I didn't have a lot of money, but I made some shorts. I shot them on video from stuff I wrote. My only goal was to make little films that would entertain me; no goal of an audience; no idea toward making money; my only motivation was to entertain myself.

For the first short that I did, the budget was $35. We had two actors and shot it. I didn't even know this, but my friend that worked the camera submitted it to the Los Angeles Film Fest and it got in. That led to a producer I knew seeing it, liking it, and liking an idea I had for a low-budget horror film. He offered to finance it before I even had the script written. I ended up writing the script in a couple weeks. We went off to New York and made it. That became "Infested."

The lesson was, you have to entertain yourself first. You can't think about what other people are going to like. You can't be trying to please an audience you don't know. Every time I've done something for myself -- I've made myself the focus as the audience -- it's worked out well for me.

Q: I'm guessing you have good sensibilities.

A: No one is unique. (Well, Jeffery Dahmer, I guess, is unique.) You'll hear somebody who's perhaps not very good at their job say, "Well, I get it, but will an audience get it?" Who do you think you are? You are the audience. My general attitude is, if I enjoy something, there's going to be a million other people that will enjoy it as well.

Q: At what point did you get representation?

A: I had an agent pretty early on. I was writing with a friend, Randy Frakes -- a wonderful writer/mentor, and we wrote a script together. His agent liked it and recognized that it had a different feel to it than the stuff Randy wrote on his own, and he said, "If you ever write anything on your own, I'd be happy to represent you." He repped me for about a year before he died. Nothing much ever came from that. Ironically, I sold my first script about a month after he died.

About six months to a year after that, I'd been sending e-mails to agents. I knew a producer at a company that had a deal over at Paramount and who was a big fan of my work (she'd read my scripts). She made a list of agents she knew that she thought would click with my material and I sent out letters and scripts to a bunch of them. About six to eight months later, I finally heard back from one.

Q: Six to eight months?

A: It was crazy. This was with a recommendation letter from a producer who had produced movies that had totaled billions of dollars gross for Paramount. And it took six to eight months to read my stuff.

I ended up with an agent, Matt Bedrosian at Paradigm, who hip-pocketed me for years -- we just really clicked. He believed in me. I was working -- doing a lot of low-budget, indie stuff, so I was bringing in money, just not a lot.

He was a great agent and the best guy. He retired a few years ago at the ripe old age of forty, deliriously happy to be out of the business, but he kicked ass and worked really hard for me and helped me shape my career to the place I am now. He told me afterward that he'd held off on his retirement for about a year. He was going to get out and then "The History of Violence" happened. He got to come to the Cannes Film Festival with me and I got him tickets to the Oscars, so he got out on a win.

Q: He left on a high note.

A: Yeah. That was amazing.

His assistant at the time had opened up the envelope and read my script and said, "You have to meet with this guy." His name was Cale Boyter ("Wedding Crashers"). Cale went on to be an executive at New Line Cinema and was responsible for bringing me in to meet on "The History of Violence."

Q: You wrote a sequel to the "Wizard of Oz"?

A: Yep.

Q: And you've written crime, action, drama and some horror?

A: And a couple westerns.

Q: And a couple westerns ... Did you know you were breaking a rule that screenwriters are often encouraged not to break?

A: Which is?

Q: To specialize in a genre.

A: I have my areas. If I controlled the universe I would write one film noir and one western every year. The nice thing about something like history is that it's a not strict, straight-up genre film. It allowed me some latitude. "The History of Violence" is a dark, grown-up, crime film that was based loosely on a graphic novel. If you adapt a small-print, black and white, crime graphic novel, you might get called on "Transformers." There's a lot of leeway there. If I planned it, I probably couldn't have planned it any better.

Q: You've been very lucky!

A: It's something that I've been very happy with. If I had done romantic comedy, it would've been a lot harder to branch out and do this other stuff.

Q: Is "I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script" going to grow into a book?

A: Maybe. I've talked about it. I got a literary agent off the thing in New York.

The response to it was incredible. It was this ridiculous thing I had written in about half an hour. I made one phone call to a well-known screenwriting magazine. One of the editors over there is always asking me if I want to write something for them and I thought, "Oh, here's a piece. Maybe this will do." I don't know what the hell I was thinking -- I sent it off to him. He was very polite, but clearly hated it. There was no way they could print this thing and if they did, essentially, in his mind, I'd be telling the majority of their readership to go fuck themselves.

Q: I didn't get that at all.

A: Some got that from it. My friend Tony Ortega is the editor of the Village Voice. We couldn't come up with a New York angle that would justify publishing it in the magazine, but he decided they could put it on their blog. I thought, "Sure. Why not?" Two million hits later, everyone I knew had gotten it sent to them within a day.

What was interesting to me was that the responses on the Internet were about fifty-fifty, which for the Internet is incredibly positive. The professional response was almost entirely positive. I got love letters from huge writers and filmmakers. [Chernin Entertainment Producer] Peter Chernin wanted to meet me off the thing. I ended up going in to meet with him and sold him a TV show during the meeting. Apparently, there are a couple jobs that I'm up for with people saying, "We gotta' work with this guy." And I'm thinking, "I got nominated for an Oscar and you didn't call." (both laugh)

So, yes, there is talk of a book. The idea is to interview people; to start with writers and then move on to other folks; to get people to tell their worst horror story about the time they read something for someone and ended up paying a terrible price, or the time they said "no" to somebody and ended up paying a terrible price; and to get across the main idea, which is NOT that people shouldn't help other people, but that there's a way to go about getting that help. Buttonholing people you barely know at parties and demanding you read their screenplay is not the most effective way.

Q: And it probably won't get the reaction the writer is hoping for.

A: Exactly. It's bad enough that they want you to read something for no reason, but their sense that all it's going to take out of you is the time it takes to read it [is incorrect]. If you're going to be serious about the request, that's work they want from you; to take advantage of your professional experience for, in most cases, nothing.

The thing that got me the most about the responses on the Internet was how many people did not get that that is inappropriate with comments like, "Oh, yeah, he's just forgotten that somebody read his stuff." Those were people who offered to read, or agents that I was soliciting, whose job it is to open up a letter and go, "Oh, I'll read this script or not." I never in my life cornered anybody and I had plenty of opportunities. I've worked in the film business for years and have been in rooms with people that you'd imagine in your childhood fantasies that would take you under their wing and make you a star. Never in a million years would it occur to me to go up to somebody I barely know and ask, "Hey, would you read my script?"

Q: The request is putting them in an awkward position where they have to say "no."

A: My goal was to get people to understand that in just asking the question, you've kind of ruined the relationship.

Q: I loved it. To me, it was a fresh way to make the point and I found it humorous.

A: Well, I HOPE! (both laugh)

Q: And you're going to teach a class at the Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe?

A: There will be a class and I'll read some fucking scripts. (both laugh) I'm actually looking forward to it. It's great when you find people who are really into it and working hard. To me there's nothing better than going in and giving them what you can. None of us would be here if it weren't for others taking the time to help out. Some of my best experiences have been in working with high school kids and grade school kids making movies. It's a lot of fun. They're not encumbered by preconceived notions. They haven't read a lot of books to tell them how things work and how it ought to be. They have crazy ideas.

Q: They're free of the rules.

A: Exactly.

In part two of this interview, Olson discusses writing adaptations and how he came to adapt Dennis Lehane's short story, "Until Gwen," which Olson is also slated to direct.