jjsemp raises a good point. Hollywood execs do employ good writers, they just ignore them when the present good - or most sinful of all - original ideas. Take a look at the history of Alien 3 (which I mention because it's troubles are pretty well documented now). The situation with Hollywood has been insulting for a long time now. There is a lot of great film talent in the States that just doesn't get seen because Hollywood execs seem to think that all audiences are stupid. Strangely, they think that most of Americans, making patronising changes such as: License to Till had been License Revoked - they didn't think that their audiences would know what revoked meant! The Madness of King George III lost the III because they thought that their audiences would wonder what happened to parts I and II! Insulting! You would think that they would look at how well the subtitled foreign language films sell. Even here in the sleepy town of Worthing (UK), DVD stores keep about 15-20% of their stock foreign language. A huge change from 15 years ago when the world cinema first began to creep toward the mainstream. What's more frustrating is that every now and then I come accross a excellent film from the States that just didn't get a proper disribution. They've been remaking foreign films for a long while now, and messing it up every time. The Vanishing, Les Diaboliques, Nightwatch, The Birdcage, Taxi, The Assasin, all come to mind. I read somewhere that last year cinema attendence was down something like 20%, with the big films no longer bringing the quite the same big bucks they were just a little while back. Sadly, I think the execs are too stupid to understand the message.