Shaula Evans at 2012-09-07 20:07:08:

I have really enjoyed this Q&A series. Thank you to Scott and Leonard both for making this happen. Leonard wrote: > Illuminate some major truth about love and human courting that we either take for granted or have never really considered. No small task. And yet, when I look at romantic comedies, or any love story on screen, I see nothing that reflects my personal experience of romance. So on one side, it can be hard to come up with new when one starts from the perspective of storytelling, but I think sometimes if we come at it from a starting point of truthtelling, it's easier to find untold stories and new storytelling possibilities.

BillieJeanVK at 2012-09-07 20:41:45:

Follow up question to the RomCom and business answers. If I have someone like Melissa McCartney in mind for a rom com can I say the character is more than a few pounds over weight? It's not a focus of the character it's just that it's her I see in the role. I've heard that describing your lead actress as anything but hot/gorgeous/beautiful makes your script unsellable. Is this true?

Jason Warner at 2012-09-08 10:01:30:

My question for Franklin (and apologies for how long it is -- feel free to try and condense or shortened it if needed!): Recently there have been a few articles or opinion pieces written online in regards to "why movies suck" today. Some say it's because Hollywood and Co. only care about making money and not the quality of any given project; some say it's the fault of audiences who continue to go out and pay to see seemingly anything that is playing or put in front of them; some say say it's the development-by-committee process practiced at most studios or how marketing has taken such hold of everything; others say it's because the people who are in charge of things now are no longer movie lovers but former Wall St. and corporate professionals with the same chief goals and mindset. Not many can seem to agree on the why(s), but as someone who has worked in the business for quite a while now I was curious to know, in your opinion, are movies collectively worse or worse off now then they were ten, twenty years ago? Are unique, challenging, daring and emotionally as well as intellectually stimulating films harder than they ever were before to get made, or actually has it always been this way and people are just looking back at the past with "rose-tinted glasses" on or are being too influenced by nostalgia and not remembering the industry's past clearly? Yes, there have always been bad movies, but are there perhaps more of them being bought as scripts and then made into films today than before?