‘Mask’ screenwriter visits Melnitz

‘Mask’ screenwriter visits Melnitz

Film success story Mike Werb returns to his alma mater

By Michael Horowitz

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

"Every parking attendant in town is writing a screenplay,"
declares Mike Werb, who writes screenplays for a living and doesn’t
park any cars except his own.

"I’ve driven out of my dentist’s office, I’m handing over my
non-validated ticket, and I’ve got a screenplay on the passenger’s
seat," he starts. "This has happened three times at different
places over the past year. ‘Are you a screenwriter? Me too!’ and
then they start telling me their story and cars are honking in the
background."

Another day in the life of a screenwriter in Los Angeles. But
Werb is hardly your typical struggling screenwriter. It’s been
seven years since he finished UCLA’s Graduate Film program and he’s
now working on A-list scripts and turning away countless offers.
The difference ended up being an adaption he hammered out called
The Mask.

Tonight he returns to Melnitz to speak following a screening of
the hit summer comedy. Werb feels lucky to be appreciated for his
work, because after all, respect and admiration aren’t often
lavished upon screenwriters.

"If I meet people at a party," he says, "I’m still totally
reluctant to say I’m a screenwriter. If I say I’m a screenwriter,
there’s an immediate turnoff from the other person. ‘Well, nice to
meet you,’ and then they go off and do their thing."

"People in Hollywood respect ‘the grosses,’" he says without
undue weight on the word ‘grosses.’ "I have this six-month period
where people remember that the Mask made over 200 million worldwide
and that seems to be important to them, and I suppose at parties it
makes a difference if somehow it gets brought up that you wrote a
hit movie, but I still get embarrassed."

Werb plums the depths of his psyche to come up with the reason.
"Maybe it’s because my parents and people don’t really consider
writing to be a serious job, i.e. it’s not a real job, therefore
maybe I don’t take it as seriously either," he says. "Only lately,
the last two or three years, can I say, even to myself in the
mirror, ‘I’m a professional screenwriter.’ How did that happen?
That’s great!"

How it happened was a series of bad movies made with small
amounts of money, minor stars, and stories at least partially by
Mike Werb.

The first was a giant-rats-attacking-humans horror flick called
Food of the Gods, Part II. Werb wrote a script he liked and the
filmmakers argued it was much too funny. They wanted pure horror.
It was a conflict never to be resolved, and Werb reversed his name
on the credits to read "Ekim Brew."

His second writing assignment to hit the big screen was The
Secret of the Ice Cave, a feature so bad Werb didn’t even have a
chance to reverse his name on the credits. "It’s supposed to be a
teen-age Romancing the Stone," he laughs, "and it looks like I lit
it, it looks like I shot it also. You can’t even see some of the
scenes it’s so washed out. It shows on Showtime."

Werb went three for three with Human Shield, a Michael Dudikoff
action adventure about a boy framed for drug possession in
Malaysia. He actually liked his story this time, but when the
filmmakers moved the movie to Israel for tax reasons and decided to
incorporate the Persian Gulf War when the conflict broke out,
Werb’s work went down the toilet.

It’s not like Werb doesn’t have his problems with The Mask. The
director rewrote some of his dialogue for the antagonists. He was
never invited to the press junket. And now he’s hunted in Hollywood
to adapt other comic books. But compared to the B-movies Werb has
worked on in the past, this experience was nirvana.

For all of the hardships and obstacles it has created for Werb,
The Mask is his first true success. He hastens to add that he
doesn’t want it to be his legacy, but the film has served as a
career milestone. "I went on opening weekend," he says, "and every
time my credit came up, I had been waiting so long for that, I
glazed over."

He pays it a screenwriter’s biggest compliment: "It’s the first
movie that looks anything like what I wrote."

FILM: The Mask. Free screening at Melnitz Theater tonight. For
more information and free required passes, please call
825-2345.