Amy Holden Jones | |
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| Born | (1955-09-17)September 17, 1955 (age 69) |
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| Spouse | Michael Chapman |
Amy Holden Jones is an American screenwriter and film director best known for directingThe Slumber Party Massacre[1] and for creating theFOX medical dramaThe Resident.[2][3] She has edited various films and later began directing and writing. She currently works in television.
Jones was born on September 17, 1955, and grew up inFlorida. She lived inBuffalo, New York, during her high school years. She was interested in photography and wanted to study alongsideMinor White who was teaching atMIT at the time. Jones attendedWellesley College inWellesley, Massachusetts, majoring inart history, so she could also takefilm studies courses at nearbyMIT inCambridge, Massachusetts.[4]
Jones broke onto the festival circuit when she won first place at theAmerican Film Institute National Student Festival, whereMartin Scorsese was a judge, for her short documentary filmA Weekend Home (1975). A year later Jones was struggling to make ends meet living inBoston due to a lack of funding for documentaries. After she read an article aboutMartin Scorsese beginning to produce another film, she reached out and called him, asking "Do you remember this film? Would you advise me to move to New York?" Five days later he called her back and offered her a job as his assistant during the production ofTaxi Driver. It was there that she met her husbandcinematographerMichael Chapman. Martin Scorsese told Jones she was “too good to be an assistant” and got her in contact with film producerRoger Corman.[5] She went on to work for Corman editing Joe Dante's first film,Hollywood Boulevard, when she was 22 years old. She editedAmerican Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince for Scorsese,Corvette Summer for MGM, andSecond-Hand Hearts forHal Ashby.
After editing these films, Jones realized that she did not want to spend the rest of her life editing; she was frustrated with the fact that an editor can dramatically improve a film, however, it is not their film. Jones felt that she was being typed as a film editor. She was scheduled to editSteven Spielberg’sE.T — however, it was being continuously pushed back due toPoltergeist going over schedule. At this point she made a decision she has called crazy herself and decided to walk away fromE.T to direct her own film.[5] Jones promised herself she would only continue to be a film editor if she could not make her own movie. Ultimatum in mind, she approached Roger Corman about directing, asking “What would I have to do to become a director?” Corman professed that her documentary work did not show him enough of what he wanted, insisting “You have to show me that you can do what I do.” Having not written for the screen before, Jones went searching for an existing script. After scouring Corman’s library of scrapped scripts, Jones took special notice ofRita Mae Brown’sDon’t Open the Door. Jones was especially enthralled with the eight page prologue which included the holy trifecta of exploitation storytelling: a dialogue scene, a suspense scene, and an action scene.
After rewriting some of the scenes, Jones got together a group of short ends from prior shooting projects. Her husband, a cinematographer, worked behind the camera and her neighbor was a sound technician. Jones committed herself to special effects, and she cast students from theUCLA theater department to act in the film. Over three days, Jones and her team shot the first eight pages on 35mm film. Jones edited the short onJoe Dante’sMoviola after hours while he was editingThe Howling. Dante also assisted Jones with temporary music cues.
Jones dropped off the nine-minute reel for Corman, confident that its three-part structure would convince him that she could fulfill all of the tropes which make up an exploitation movie. Impressed by her limited budget of just $2,000, Corman granted Jones a mere $200,000 to direct a feature length version of the script, of which Jones had not read past the first eight pages. With her tight budget as a roadmap, Jones utilized her skills acquired as a film editor and documentary filmmaker to do an intensive rewriting of the script. But, before sitting in the director’s chair, Jones underwent acting lessons with blacklisted actorJeff Corey, a condition of all directors who worked for Corman. The shoot took 38 days across a school and two houses that were all side by side.
None of the original short made it into the final cut ofThe Slumber Party Massacre, because none of the actors were part of theScreen Actors Guild (SAG). But, as Jones noted, it was not needed.
Jones wanted to continue to direct, however, she struggled to find any opportunities because at the time women were not typically allowed to direct films. When pushed by Roger Corman to direct her second feature, yet another exploitation film, Jones convinced Corman to aim for theart house market instead. She insisted, having been a distributor ofTruffaut andFellini films, that Corman had an already impressive art house distribution network. Plus, given the rise ofhome video in the mid-80s, Jones eventually convinced Corman making a film both in the art house outlet and on home video would make back the money spent. After Jones’sspec script forLove Letters impressed Corman, he was on board.
Jones credits a lot of the idea behindLove Letters to her, at the time, long-distance relationship with her husband. Given that she was on the West coast, and he was on the East, letters were their primary form of communication. Jones wondered what effect those letters would have on her young daughter. Simultaneously, Jones had become fixated onAlan Parker’s 1982 family drama,Shoot the Moon, about the traumas of a married man in an affair. Citing it as a male character she had seen a zillion times, Jones wondered what a film from the other woman’s point of view would be like. By conjoining this concept with that of her daughter stumbling upon her and her husband’s letters,Love Letters was born.
When writing the script, Jones made sure the story took place in a limited number of locations for the sake of saving money and time. Jones utilized her own house as the main location of the film.Amy Madigan was in mind for the main role during the writing process, butMeg Tilly was Jones’s first choice when casting. After her falling out,Jamie Lee Curtis fell in love with the script and assumed the role, much to Jones’s pleasure.James Keach was a late replacement after the first choice for the role, whom Jones has never publicly disclosed, dropped out seven days before shooting.
Jones credits the screenplays ofHarold Pinter as her main source of inspiration for the film’s flashback structure.
Jones’s coming-of-age classicMystic Pizza is inspired by Mystic Pizza Shack inMystic, Connecticut. Jones envisionedMystic Pizza to be herDiner, a 1982 bromantic comedy film byBarry Levinson, citing it as the female version of that film. She had expected to direct it and wrote it for herself to direct.[6]
The film was optioned bySamuel Goldwyn Jr. who held onto it for years claiming that his $5,000 option gave him the rights to it for the rest of her life. As she dealt with this situation she rewrote and directedMaid to Order. EventuallySamuel Goldwyn Jr. madeMystic Pizza with a male director, however, her writing in the film received high praise for its dialogue, and she began to receive offers as a screenwriter since at the time women were more often given opportunities to write films, not direct.[4]
Her next big writing offer was forIndecent Proposal based on the novel byJack Engelhard, which made Jones a big-name screenwriter.[7]
Eventually Jones began being interesting in television and pitched a show titledThe Seventeenth Floor toABC,NBC, andCBS who all wanted to buy it, however, she ended up writing the script forCBS. Next, Jones wrote a pilot for the WB during its brand switch tothe CW aboutHarvard Medical School, entitledHMS. Although it was shot, it did not get picked up, even in light of it reportedly testing higher than any other show CW had. After this she worked on the short lived showBlack Box which was still early in her television career and as such, she admitted she still had a lot to learn.[4] Jones equates the show’s plunder to summer shows not doing as well as they once did, and the fact the show wasn't filmed at its home studio, ABC Studios.
Jones is featured in the first chapter of Julie MacLusky's bookIs There Life After Film School? as well as inThe First Time I Got Paid for It by Peter Lefcourt and Laura J. Shapiro.
Jones is one of the creators of the acclaimed medical dramaThe Resident which premiered in 2018 and concluded on January 17, 2023.The Resident is a response of sorts to other medical dramas on television that she claims she got tired of watching because they are all too similar and recycle the same plot lines.[4] She is known for accusing other medical dramas of copyingThe Resident, such asGrey's Anatomy[8] andNew Amsterdam.[9] In 2019, she signed a new overall deal with20th Century Fox TV.[10] Jonnie Davis, President of Creative Affairs, said about Jones, “She’s brimming with ideas, and we’re excited to have her continued services on our series as well as her development. She’s an important voice.” Coming from her deal with 20th Century Fox, she would potentially work as co-writer and co-executive producer for a new crime drama atABC.[11]
| Year | Title | Editor | Producer | Director | Writer | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Hollywood Boulevard | Yes | ||||
| 1978 | Corvette Summer | Yes | ||||
| American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince | Yes | |||||
| 1981 | Second-Hand Hearts | Yes | ||||
| 1982 | The Slumber Party Massacre | Yes | Yes | [1][12] | ||
| 1984 | Love Letters | Yes | Yes | |||
| 1987 | Maid to Order | Yes | Yes | [13] | ||
| 1988 | Mystic Pizza | Yes | [14] | |||
| 1991 | Saturday's | Yes | ||||
| 1992 | Beethoven | Yes | [15] | |||
| Indecency | Yes | |||||
| 1993 | Indecent Proposal | Yes | [16][17] | |||
| 1994 | The Getaway | Yes | [18] | |||
| 1996 | The Rich Man's Wife | Yes | Yes | [19][20][21] | ||
| 1997 | The Relic | Yes | [22] | |||
| 2007 | Indecent Proposal | Yes | ||||
| 2010 | H.M.S. White Coat | Yes | ||||
| 2014 | Black Box | Yes | [23] | |||
| 2018–2023 | The Resident | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Documentary appearences
Jones established herself in the documentary scene by winning First Place at theAFI National Student Film Festival for her short documentary filmA Weekend Home in 1975. Later on in her career, she would win theGolden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay forIndecent Proposal in 1994. In 2019, Jones would win a Sentinel Award forThe Resident Episode 220 “If Not Now, When?” alongside co-writersTianna Majumdar-Langham andChris Bessounian.[24]
