Material First, Never the Package

"From the beginning of my time at ABC, everything for me had been “What’s it about?” or “What’s the story?” or “What’s the material?” not “Who’s the hot person of the day?” or “What was the last hit?” My focus had always been the idea, the story, the concept. I strongly believed that at Paramount we had to concentrate on developing scripts from the beginning rather than going backward and being dazzled by all the promoters with stars and packages, which was the way movie studios were then run."

"That process applied to every aspect of what we began to do. How we conceived projects, how we developed the material, how we controlled it was how we differentiated ourselves from everyone else. We weren’t interested in packages, already formed elements presented to us, with actors, director, and writers pre-identified. We wanted to control the idea itself and go from there. When the script that emerged was worthy, we would attach elements we deemed appropriate. Nothing and nobody was forced on us."

"It was a shock surprise to the industry, this solid hit from nowhere, but it was emblematic of how we were changing how movies got made. Kevin McCormick, a young producer working for Robert Stigwood, saw Nik Cohn’s *New York* magazine article “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” and bought it. That article became the loose basis for *Saturday Night Fever.* We heard about it, thought it was simply a great and original concept, and started to develop it—no stars, no pedigree, no package, no nothing—just a *good idea*."

"There was no such thing as process at Paramount or anywhere else I could see in movieland. For the life of me I couldn’t figure what rigor was employed to choose making this or that picture. It was all about what worked before, who was hot, and what the package was (meaning agents would put together all the elements and then put that “package” up for auction). It didn’t make any sense to me. Everyone was hustling to get their picture made with whatever movie studio would say yes. It all seemed catch-as-catch-can: agents pitching, producers pitching, all of them selling against whatever you were doing in order to replace it with their own project."