THE FAN SITEWho really wrote "Poltergeist?"
Disclaimer: Steven Spielberg, Michael Grais, and Mark Victor are the credited writers of the film. While I cannot prove there were also other writers involved, the following information is interesting nonetheless.
Perhaps not as well known as the controversy over who really directed the film, the story of how the script came to be written is equally fascinating. Contradictions, accusations, rumors, and incomplete information abounds. The official story goes something like this: "Poltergeist" and "E.T." began originally as "Night Skies," which was to be the sequel to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" at Columbia Pictures. Steven Spielberg had the idea of a farm family who is terrorized by a group of evil aliens, with one of the aliens who becomes friendly with one of the family's children. A script was written by John Sayles, and an SFX artist even began work on the alien creatures. Columbia later decided they didn't want the project, so Spielberg pitched it to MGM. He would produce, and find someone else to direct. At first Spielberg offered "Night Skies" to Tobe Hooper, but Hooper felt the alien aspect wasn't really his thing and said he'd like to do a ghost story instead. Spielberg, perhaps influenced by his 1972 TV movie "Something Evil," agreed with the idea.
Hooper claims to have pitched Spielberg on an idea he had been developing off and on for the past eight years at Universal. He'd happened to get the old office of director Robert Wise, who made "The Haunting." Hooper found a book about poltergeists in Wise's desk, and thought the idea would make a good movie. Supposedly, according to Hooper, he worked with William Friedkin to try to get Universal interested in the project. The idea was to use the studio's surround sound process for the poltergeist effects. He and Spielberg collaborated by mail on a treatment while Spielberg was shooting "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Hooper claims to have come up with the idea of a family situation, people who were next door neighbors to a cemetery, but that his version didn't have an ending. He claims that the idea of the ghosts kidnapping the child didn't come until late in the development process, and that the idea was both his and Steven's.
Spielberg's 11 page treatment, then called "Night Time," was dated March 31, 1980. This treatment did not list Tobe Hooper as co-writer. Spielberg further revised this draft over the next five months, adding 15 pages of amendments by August 18, 1980, and then a further 5 pages on August 23, 1980. By this time, the story was called "It's Night Time."
Elements of the story that were there from the very beginning included the Freelings, the suburban setting, the TV set, the dead bodies in the newly dug pool, Tangina, and the paranormal researchers. Things that didn't make it into the finished script included the neighbors turning against the Freelings, the family being composed of four kids instead of three, and the bodies under the house actually being the bodies of white settlers killed in the early 1800s by Indians. The amendments to the treatment changed this to a cemetary that had the headstones relocated but not the bodies.
Elements NOT in the treatment at all were: the tree, the clown, the house imploding, bodies exploding up from under the house and yard, toys floating around the bedroom, and the closet turning into a mouth and sucking things in. And in this early version, Carol Anne is never "kidnapped" by the ghosts (rather, she gets possessed by one of them; the family then flees the house, leaving her behind).
First Spielberg approached Stephen King to write the script, but King's agent wanted too much money. Spielberg then met with co-writers Michael Grais and Mark Victor about possibly writing a remake of "A Guy Named Joe" (Spielberg would later do this as "Always" in 1989, without Grais and Victor). Grais and Victor were more interested in Steven's ghost story, however, and soon they got the job of turning the "It's Night Time" treatment into a full length screenplay. Ultimately, though, Spielberg was not happy with their draft. Rumors would later allege that up to eight uncredited writers did re-writes at various points. Finally, over a 7 day period (after the film had already been scheduled for production and as a writer's guild strike loomed), Spielberg (supposedly by himself) did a wholesale re-write, churning out over 100 pages with the help of Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall at his house (along with Tobe Hooper, who "hung around" as Spielberg worked on that draft). This official first draft (at 115 pages) was dated February 9, 1981, and was renamed "Poltergeist." The film began shooting three months later.
In 1982, two young writers named Paul Clemens (who also starred in "The Beast Within," "Death in Canaan" and "Promises in the Dark") and Bennett Michael Yellin would allege that in January of 1980, they submitted, via their agent, a script treatment called "Housebound" to Spielberg's production company, Amblin'. Spielberg's office denied ever receiving the manuscript. Clemens had auditioned (with Debra Winger) for Spielberg on "1941," but did not get the role. Clemens liked Spielberg, and admired his movies. "Housebound" had been registered with the Writer's Guild West on September 7, 1979. It was a haunted house story about a family (consisting of a mother, father, older daughter, middle son and young daughter) who live in a new suburban house which traps the family. The youngest daughter ends up being kidnapped by the house, and hidden somewhere inside it. As the family attempt to get her back, they can hear her voice calling out somewhere within the house for help. It's discovered that the home was built on top of a swamp where people had died under mysterious circumstances, and at the climax, the bodies of those who drowned in the swamp come crashing up from beneath the home's floorboards and through the grounds of the property. Also part of the treatment were a murderous, "living" tree that sticks its branches through a bedroom window, and a closet that takes on a "throat like" appearance as it "swallows" the contents of a room (featuring "saliva" dripping from around the edges of the door frame and an interior of smooth, glistening pink flesh which was described as a kind of "well" going into the depths of hell). Clemens and Yellin said they never heard anything back from anyone at Spielberg's office after their treatment was submitted.
In late 1981, Paul Clemens first became aware of the similarities between "Housebound" and "Poltergeist" while at a party at the home of "Alien" producer Ronald Shusett. He'd been in conversation with one of the "Poltergeist" actors, who had just completed shooting on the film, as Clemens had also just finished his horror film "The Beast Within." Clemens had become friends with another "Poltergeist" actor previously-Dominique Dunne-since the two of them had auditioned together on "Ordinary People." As Clemens and the other "Poltergeist" actor (not Dominique) traded stories, Clemens realized with surprise how similar the storyline of "Poltergeist" was to "Housebound." He decided to obtain a copy of the "Poltergeist" script as soon as possible. Once he and Bennett Yellin read it, they got it to Clemens' attorney/business-manager, and then it quickly found its way to the desk of the barrister/solicitor copyright infringement specialist team (that became their lawyers on the case). The legal team agreed to take their case solely on a contingency basis, as they felt it was that strong. The $37 million suit would be filed in federal Court on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles after the release of the film. The defendants named included Steven Spielberg, MGM/UA, Lucasfilm (since ILM designed the visual effects) and Warner Books (which published the novelization of the script).
"We think there's clear story misappropriation," said Clemens' and Yellin's attorney, Derrick Fisher. "Spielberg might defend his story against copyright infringement by claiming it was an 'independent creation.' Well, you can have independent creation in maybe one of these plot elements, but there are so many of them which are almost identical." In 1981, Clemens had obtained a first draft copy of the Poltergeist script, but was counseled by his attorney to wait and see what similarities remained in the finished movie. The first draft had prompted author/director Frank DeFelitta to protest a scene he felt was lifted from his film "The Entity" (to be released by 20th Century Fox next spring) in which a mother is literally raped by a ghost. In that case, the script was changed. The plaintiffs have already lined up two expert witnesses, magazine editor Forrest J. Ackerman and author Ray Bradbury, who have agreed to go over each story and render their own professional opinions as to similarities in plot and structure. Ackerman also served for the defense in the Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Wars lawsuit, and Bradbury read Clemens' original story when asked back in 1979 for his literary advice. Clemens insists he has no personal animosity towards Steven Spielberg. "I like Spielberg," he said. "I've met him twice and he was enourmously gracious to me. I love his films. This is just a specific case. I'm not out to 'get' Spielberg. But look at the evidence! He's the only person we sent this script to and he makes this movie."
Here's an excerpt from "Fangoria" Issue #24:
It is not the policy of Spielberg or his offices to comment directly on such lawsuits. But, as one Spielberg associate said, "It is amazing to see the amount of material that gets dumped on the man every day. It's put into mail sacks-unopened-and sent to the Writer's Guild [Presumably, the Writer's Guild sees that submissions made by their members are returned] It's something the man has to do to protect himself, because every time a film makes over $100 million, these people come out of the woodwork."
"Certainly that would not be the case with an agented manuscript," says Mark Kalisch, one of Clemens' attorneys in the case, and Paul's agent [Tom Korman of Korman Contemporary Artists] only sent the script to one person, and that was Spielberg."
"I was raised around the film business," says Clemens, whose mother is actress Eleanor Parker, "so I have a pretty good idea of how things work. I'm going ahead with this with some reluctance; I did have to consider the possibility of being blacklisted. And I've always been a great admirer of most of Spielberg's work-I still admire his work."
In addition, "Housebound' didn't have a number of elements: the TV, a character like "Tangina," the clown, the house imploding, or the toys flying around the room, so those elements were original to "Poltergeist."
After the release of the film, suspicions were also raised that Spielberg had used much of the plot from Richard Matheson's short story and later "Twilight Zone" episode "Little Girl Lost" in "Poltergeist." In fact, in an interview with "Twilight Zone" magazine, Matheson stated that Spielberg had once shown an interest in adapting that story as a film. Matheson did feel that "Little Girl Lost" was "borrowed" from -- more than it was in "Housebound" actually, where the daughter was literally INSIDE the house, rather than in another dimension. But in "Housebound" people could hear the young girl from time to time as they were desperately trying to locate her (it was as though the house itself had devoured/abducted her and was hiding her away as bait as it then played games with the other characters trapped inside it).
For more on "Little Girl Lost," see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Girl_Lost_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29. In addition, it was later rumored (but not confirmed) that Matheson was hired to write the "Twilight Zone" movie (and given a percentage of that film's box office) partly in an effort to head off any potential suit over "Poltergeist." In an article in "Cinefantastique," it was also speculated that Spielberg may have been influenced by another, lesser known Matheson short story called "Through Channels," in which an hysterical teenage boy details how his family was killed by a group of creatures which emerged from the family's television set.
This is from a Cinefantastique, 1986 article about "Poltergeist II:"
A lawsuit pending against Steven Spielberg and POLTERGEIST's co-writers could, meanwhile, prove more than tiresome. Spielberg and associates still stand accused of having appropriated substantial portions of a script written by actor Paul Clemens and Bennet Michael Yellin. The script, they maintain, had been forwarded to Spielberg's office in January 1980. Its protagonists underwent a fate which would sound more than vaguely familiar in the context of POLTERGEIST. The case could reach the courts during the next few months, Clemens told us, although he's been instructed by his lawyers not to discuss the case. MGM, the distributor of POLTERGEIST II, also had no comment on how the outcome of the case could affect their release.
The plaintiffs had a respected, award-winning genre writer lined up to be an expert witness should the case go to trial. The defendants had an even more well-known award-winning genre writer prepared to testify on their behalf. The plaintiffs' expert witness would have focused not only on what he felt were the many points of similarity between "Housebound" and "Poltergeist," but would have used his extensive knowledge of genre literature to point out what he believed was the originality of "Housebound." On the other side, the defendants' witness would have tried to discredit those points. Forrest Ackerman was never going to be an expert witness in the trial, but was only a consultant -- along with Ray Bradbury -- earlier on in the four year journey toward a court-date.
As I researched this topic, I did receive a statement from a source with knowledge of the lawsuit, further confirming that the suit was settled:
That case was settled around 20 years ago [1986], just prior to the commencement of trial, following many days of deposition testimony given by the plaintiffs, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Tobe Hooper and Stephen King and experts retained by all parties. The terms of such settlement were requested by the defendants and agreed upon by the plaintiffs to remain confidential. As such I am not in a position to comment about either the nature of or the terms of the settlement.
A side note: Several years ago, an unknown person claimed on the (now closed) Spielbergfilms.com message board that the Clemens/Yellin lawsuit was settled for a "not particularly large" sum of money (at least according to today's standards).
Another source told me:
"I did get to look at the similarities the plaintiffs said were stolen from their treatment, and I have to say, I was not impressed. Most of it looked like standard haunted house stuff to me, things it would be easy to dream up if you were writing a story in that genre. Spielberg struck me as a completely honest guy, and already on the roll he was on, why would he bother stealing something like that? Much easier just to pay them for the idea, if he saw it and wanted it that much. I also know the screenwriters, Mark Victor and Michael Grais, and can't imagine literary theft from them, either. If there was any crossover of ideas, it would have been with Richard Matheson's 'Twilight Zone' episode, 'Little Girl Lost' - but I don't think that notion was particularly original with him, either, and in any case I'm pretty sure Spielberg and Matheson were friends. The notion of 67 similarities is ridiculous, and even the seemingly significant similarities, like the little girl sucked into the house in a different plane, who everyone can hear but nobody can see, was conceived first by Matheson. So why isn't that theft by the plaintiffs from Matheson's idea? Because ideas emerge from our subconscious minds, which are influenced by cultural mythologies and stories and dreams and it's just not reasonable to go around suing people for coming up with similar manifestations of shadow archetypes."
However, in 1997, Robert "Bob" Martin, the original editor of "Fangoria" magazine, made a post on the old Usenet bulletin board. In the post, he discussed, jokingly, how he knew enough to write a "dark side of Spielberg" book. After discussing the "Twilight Zone" film, he moved on to "Poltergeist:"
Another cool chapter would be about the committee of eight writers who wrote -- and, for many scenes, outright *stole* from multiple sources -- the Poltergeist script credited to Spielberg and two writers. MGM even shut down production on a TV movie because there was a set-piece, involving a ghostly hand emerging from a television screen, that the writing committee wished to incorporate into the Poltergeist script, but other appropriations were not so above-board. Spielberg was unaware that his "ghost writers" had sticky fingers until the lawsuits hit. Veteran fantasy writer Richard Matheson and actor/screenwriter Paul Clemens were paid off. Spielberg has, wisely enough, not taken a bogus writing credit since. (Another chapter might play compare and contrast between Spielberg's many pronouncements on "artist's rights" and his role as 800-pound bear producer on other director's films).
Paul Clemens confided in me about his case against Spielberg when I met him on the set of "The Beast Within." I never wrote about it in FANGORIA because I had established a policy of not treating the familiar stories about who stole what as news, since there were so many people writing to me about their "stolen" ideas, most of it baseless or trivial. I believed Clemens, but I didn't feel that was sufficient to make an exception. As a guy who grew up in Hollywood, Clemens knew how things go well enough that he wouldn't sue at the drop of a hat (Clemens himself pointed this out to me when we spoke about this).
When Tobe Hooper claimed to me that he was being shut out of creative credit for Poltergeist, I reported that in Fango because it *was* news. I never had it confirmed that Clemens was paid off, I heard it as a rumor. The case simply disappeared, which itself suggests that someone traded their silence for wads of cash.
I used the term "committee" loosely, in that there were never 8 people working on the script at once; but there were uncredited writers working on the script after Grais and Victor, after it had been scheduled for production (causing a great rush to get the script in shape; this is when I believe there were unauthorized borrowings). My source for this sort of info was a number of personal friends who were on Spielberg's payroll at the time, who spoke in confidence.
One fascinating aspect to me is the fact that a ghost-themed TV movie
that MGM had in the can was never broadcast because some
elements of the script were wanted for Poltergeist. My source for this
named the TV movie in question, and I was able to confirm its
existence and late-term cancellation.Since I never wrote about all
this, I have no record of the name of that project.
My best estimation of the number of writers on the script, total, is
eight. This is not including Tobe, who told me flat-out that the basic
story and concept were his. I don't discount Tobe as readily as
everyone else in the world does, but I've despaired of convincing
anyone else of his truthfulness.
You can quote me exactly on any of this, including the Usenet posting,
but please be clear that I name no sources nor do I claim any high
degree of reliability for these anonymous sources.
But I nevertheless do believe I have a better grip on how Poltergeist
was put together than the vast majority of people.
In any event, without having access to the draft that Grais and Victor wrote (before Spielberg-and his apparent ghostwriters-re-wrote it), it's difficult to construct an accurate timeline of when certain elements of the story were added. For example, who originally came up with the "monster tree" element, if it wasn't taken from the "Housebound" treatment? Spielberg has implied in interviews that he did, but so, separately, has co-writer Michael Grais. Assuming the two aren't contradicting each other, perhaps it was added to the script because both Spielberg and Grais had the same childhood fear. In conclusion, some things might always remain a mystery. As Tobe Hooper was quoted in a "Fangoria" interview with Bob Martin:
Below, some scans of the film's script:
