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William Monahan | |
|---|---|
 Monahan in October 2006 | |
| Born | (1960-11-03)November 3, 1960 (age 65) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Alma mater | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
| Notable awards | Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (2007) Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (2007) |
William J. Monahan (born November 3, 1960) is an Americanscreenwriter andnovelist. His second produced screenplayThe Departed (2006), an adaptation ofAndrew Lau's 2002 gangster filmInfernal Affairs, earned him aWriters Guild of America Award andAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Monahan was born inDorchester, Boston. He attended theUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst, where he studiedElizabethan andJacobean drama.[1] He moved toNew York City and contributed to thealternative weekly newspaperNew York Press and the magazinesTalk,Maxim, andSpy.[2][3] In 1997 Monahan won aPushcart Prize for his short story "A Relation of Various Accidents Observable in Some Animals Included in Vacuo".[4] Monahan was an editor atSpy during the magazine's final years, where he would come in at the close of the monthly issue to rewrite articles and improve jokes.[2]
In 1999Talk magazine debuted, and Monahan contributed a travelogue onGloucester, Massachusetts, to the first issue.[5] In 2000 Monahan's first novel,Light House: A Trifle, was finally published, and it garnered critical acclaim;The New York Times proclaimed, "Monahan's cocksure prose gallops along" andBookPage Fiction called Monahan "a worthy successor toKingsley Amis."[6][7][8] In the second half of 2001 Monahan wrote a fictional column at theNew York Press under the pseudonym of Claude La Badarian, which ran for 13 weeks.[9][10]
Warner Bros.optioned thefilm rights to the novelLight House: A Trifle.[11][12] The screenplay adaptation has not been produced.Light House was released in 2000. A few years later, he bought back the rights and took the novel off the market.[11][13]
In 200120th Century Fox bought Monahan'sspec scriptTripoli, aboutWilliam Eaton's epic march on Tripoli during theBarbary Wars, in a deal worth mid-six figures in American dollars, with Mark Gordon attached as producer.[14] The script was given toRidley Scott to direct. Monahan met with Scott to discussTripoli, and Scott mentioned his desire to direct a film about knights. Monahan suggested theCrusades as a setting, reasoning that "you've got every conceivable plot imaginable there, which is far more exotic than fiction". Scott was captivated by Monahan's pitch and hired him to write the screenplay forKingdom of Heaven.Tripoli was eventually shelved, but Monahan retained ownership of the screenplay and therefore the right to consider new offers at a later date.[15][16]
Monahan steadily secured work in the film industry throughout the 2000s.Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B, hired Monahan to write an adaptation of Hong Kong directorAndrew Lau's gangster filmInfernal Affairs. Monahan respunInfernal Affairs as a battle between Irish American gangsters and cops in Boston's Southie district, andMartin Scorsese directed the completed screenplay under the titleThe Departed for Warner Bros.[17][18] Monahan's work on the film would later earn him two Best Adapted Screenplay awards, from the Writers Guild of America and the Academy Awards.
Kingdom of Heaven was the first of Monahan's screenplays to be produced into a film. Monahan had negotiated aproduction write-through contract forKingdom of Heaven, which allowed him to be present on the movie sets to make modifications to theshooting script during production.[citation needed] It was poorly received by critics when it was released in theaters in 2005.Kingdom was critically reappraised when it was released on DVD in the form of adirector's cut that contained an additional 45 minutes of footage previously shot from Monahan's shooting script.[citation needed] Some critics were pleased with the extended version of the film.[19]
Monahan's second produced screenplay wasThe Departed, an adaptation of theHong Kong action filmInfernal Affairs.Jack Nicholson, one of the leads in the film, influenced the screenplay. "I had written the role as a post-sexual 68-year-old Irishman. Jack is post-sexual exactly never," Monahan said later. "What Jack did is great. Did he change the words? Not any of the good ones."[13][20] Monahan received considerable praise from critics when the film was released in theaters, in 2006, and was applauded for accurately depicting the city of Boston. Monahan used his intimate knowledge of the way Bostonians talk and act, learned from his youth spent in the manyneighborhoods of Boston, to create characters thatThe Boston Globe described as distinctly indigenous to the city.[21]
By the end of 2006The Departed had won many critics' prizes. Monahan was honored byThe Boston Society of Film Critics with the award for best screenplay, by theChicago Film Critics Association for best adapted screenplay, and by the Southeastern Film Critics Association with another best adapted screenplay award.[22][23][24] Monahan took an unusual route for a screenwriter and hired apublicist to run a campaign promoting his screenplay during awards season.[25] Monahan ended up winning two Best Adapted Screenplay awards forThe Departed, from theWriters Guild of America and theAcademy Awards.[26][27] He received an award for his writing in film at the US-Ireland Alliance's second annual "Oscar Wilde: Honoring Irish Writing in Film" ceremony.[6]
 | This article'sfactual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(October 2012) |
In 2006 Monahan negotiated afirst-look producing deal with Warner Bros., which gave the studio aright of first refusal on any films produced by Henceforth, the production company he started. In return Henceforth received the film rights to produceJohn Pearson'strue crime bookThe Gamblers, a property which Warner Bros. had previously acquired.[28]
In 2007 Monahan was hired to work on two film projects: an adaptation of the Hong Kong filmConfession of Pain and an originalrock and roll film,The Long Play. Monahan was initially assigned toexecutive produce and write the adaptation forConfession of Pain, under production byLeonardo DiCaprio's company, Appian Way, for Warner Bros. Pictures.[29] It would represent his second adaption of anAndrew Lau andAlan Mak film. Monahan's other assignment was to rewrite a screenplay about the history of the rock music business calledThe Long Play, the brainchild ofMick Jagger, lead singer ofThe Rolling Stones, which had been incubating at Jagger's production company, Jagged Films atDisney. Martin Scorsese became involved while the film project was at Disney and subsequently negotiated aturnaround deal to bringThe Long Play to Paramount.[30] However, neither of these projects were completed.[verification needed]
Monahan's directorial debut wasLondon Boulevard, released in 2010, which he also produced. An adaption of aKen Bruen work by the same name, it was received with both criticism and praise, withThe Hollywood Reporter stating that as director he "sashays winningly" into the premise of Bruen's "stylish line in mean-streets poetry", further commenting the film as "adapted sharply".[31] Others adjudged the film as unfocused, complaining of "a surplus of plot threads that don't have space to play out, and accordingly com[ing] across as clichés",[32] that he "ended up with more than he can chew for his first time in the director's chair".[33]
A few years later, a version ofThe Gambler was finally generated, as written and executive produced. The film received mixed reviews, with some people complementingJessica Lange's performance,[34][35][36] while others, includingPeter Travers fromRolling Stone, calling the film's unclear character motivations "wearying".[37] This remake also suffered from comparison and contrasting with the original film on which it's based.[38]
His most recent directorial and producer credit was the filmMojave, which he also wrote.[39] Announced on March 22, 2012,[40] and cast between December 4 until well past principal photography began,[41][42][43][44][45] production was stalled until September 27, 2013.[41][44][46] The film was released onDirecTV Cinema on December 3, 2015, prior to opening in alimited release on January 22, 2016.[47] TheRotten Tomatoes consensus for the movie is that it "has no shortage of talent on either side of the camera; unfortunately, it amounts to little more than a frustrating missed opportunity."[48] Sean Burns ripped into the movie, calling it "elliptical and at times preposterously entertaining, [a movie] that both sends up and embraces every chest-beating trope in that old alpha 'He-Man of letters' tradition", and dances with the idea that some of the movie "is Monahan indulging in a bit of sardonic self-flaggelation [sic] for all his success in the industry".[49] TheObserver's Rex Reed labeled it "gibberish with guns and phony literary pretentiousness about two thugs in a duel of weapons and words that goes nowhere fast", contending that his high-quality work onThe Departed was inexplicable, as he had "written nothing of value since". Continuing, he said that "as a director he evokes gales of guffaws".[50]
Novel
Film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Kingdom of Heaven | No | Yes | No | |
| 2006 | The Departed | No | Yes | No | Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay -Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay -BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated |
| 2008 | Body of Lies | No | Yes | No | |
| 2010 | Edge of Darkness | No | Yes | No | |
| London Boulevard | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| 2014 | The Gambler | No | Yes | Executive | |
| 2015 | Mojave | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2021 | The Tender Bar | No | Yes | No | |
| 2022 | Marlowe | No | Yes | No |
a terrific Jessica Lange
