J.D. Shapiro wants the world to know he is very, very sorry.
The writer of the screenplay for the film “Battlefield Earth” took to the pages of the New York Post to apologize for the movie recently presented with the Razzie Award for "Worst Movie of the Decade.”
“It wasn't as I intended – promise,” Shapiro said in an open letter. “No one sets out to make a train wreck. Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn't really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.”
Shapiro, who also wrote the screenplay for “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and other films uses the letter to discuss how he came to write “Battlefield” which was based on the novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
“It was 1994, and I had read an article in Premiere magazine saying that the Celebrity Center, the Scientology epicenter in Los Angeles, was a great place to meet women,” Shapiro wrote. “Touring the building, I didn't find any eligible women at first, but I did meet Karen Hollander, president of the center, who said she was a fan of "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."
Shapiro said Hollander approached him a few days later about writing a film based on one of Hubbard’s books. The result, he said, was very different from what he intended.
“My script was very, VERY different than what ended up on the screen,” Shapiro said. “My screenplay was darker, grittier and had a very compelling story with rich characters.”
And for those who actually paid money to see the film, Shapiro feels your pain.
“The only time I saw the movie was at the premiere, which was one too many times,” Shapiro wrote.
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Lilith Cherry
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