by Angela Guess
You may not know screenwriter Jeremy Garelick (@mrgarelick) by name, but I guarantee you know his films. His first big script (along with co-writer Jay Lavender) was The Break-Up, which he followed up with an uncredited rewrite on The Hangover. The first script he and Jay ever sold, originally titled The Golden Tux, is set to come out early next year under the new moniker The Wedding Ringer (#WeddingRinger). Jeremy has been building his reputation in Hollywood over the last decade and is now a successful triple threat: writer, director, and producer.
During our conversation, Jeremy and I discussed sleeping scripts, the secret to a great writing partnership, and why The Hangover was such a successful script.
LA Screenwriter (LA): How’d you get your start as a screenwriter?
Jeremy Garelick (JG): I wrote a script with my writing partner at the time, Jay Lavender, that got into the hands of an agent at William Morris at the time. They wanted to represent us and actually sold the script back in 2002. That’s the script that I actually just finished directing, The Wedding Ringer, so it took thirteen years to make the movie that allowed me to become a professional screenwriter.
LA: What’s the story behind that? Why did it take so long for this to happen?
JG: You know, I think there are a lot of stories like this where there’s a project that is always kind of fighting, and different people are attached to it at different points in time and you’re doing rewrites and rewrites… But you know if it’s a good idea, then it just fights to stay alive, and then it’s timing. When it’s supposed to happen, it happens. So a project is never dead, a project is just sleeping.
LA: How much has that script changed since you originally sold it?
JG: Very little, to be honest. We sold it, and then we did a draft with Todd Phillips and Vince Vaughn. So their input changed the draft, but since that second draft, very little has changed, even thirteen years later, which is pretty amazing.
LA: Was that the first script you’d ever written?
JG: No, it was probably the seventh or eighth script that I wrote.
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