Koppelman co-created Billions after a box-office flop and HBO firing
Brian Koppelman · #83 Brian Koppelman: What Really Matters · May 12, 2020 · at 42:51
Screenwriter and showrunner Brian Koppelman describes the career crisis he and writing partner David Levien faced before creating the hit series 'Billions.'
0:00 / 0:20exact quote · 20.7s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“David and I wrote a movie that completely bombed at the box office. It was a disaster on Rotten Tomatoes. We were involved in a high profile project that was going to be on HBO and it never happened. We got fired from it before it even begun. And we had a movie agent call us and basically tell us it's possible that our career was over. And it was out of that, that we started writing billions.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Brian Koppelman
Koppelman: Drastic life changes for creative goals are often self-sabotage
“I think sometimes sort of taking huge drastic action that's external to the actual project or external to the actual mission is dramatic, and it feels great in the moment, but it turns out to be another way of self-sabotage, right? I must quit my job in order …”
Koppelman: Film writing demands more original storytelling than television writers' rooms
“Being a movie writer, you really have to survive by your wits. There's nothing holding you in place. There's nothing there's sort of no safety harness. You're just floating out there trying to come up with the next good idea, trying to get hired, trying to sel…”
Koppelman: Giuliani and Christie exploited public office for personal political ambition
“Because the other thing we realized was a lot of these prosecutors, we looked around at people like Giuliani and Chris Christie, and we saw that There were people using these positions of the public interest for their own personal good. So yes, they would do t…”
Koppelman: Writing morning pages daily makes producing creative work easier
“Doesn't happen immediately, but after, after a month of doing this every day, even three weeks, you will find that not only is it easier to produce work, but you're just slightly lighter in the way you move through the world.”
Koppelman: Over half who completed The Artist's Way published previously blocked work
“I would say I've bought Cameron's book for a hundred people, Maybe 20 of those people actually took the time to do the book. Of those, more than half ended up publishing work that they'd been unable to produce before that.”