Writer Karl Gajdusek on OBLIVION and How THE NOVEMBER MAN Almost Didn’t Happen

Screenwriter Karl Gajdusek talks about writing big-budget flicks including the Tom Cruise action film Oblivion, and shares behind-the-scenes details about Pierce Brosnan’s The November Man, which he reveals almost didn’t make it to the big screen.

Gajdusek says he envisioned a spectacular $100 million movie when he first read the story of Oblivion, which was first conceived by Joseph Kosinski, who ended up directing it.

“The whole part in that movie up on the sky tower – where these three people wind up living in this weird, taut moment – to me is everything I love about theater and Pinter plays. And then the canvass, obviously, is giant cinema – so I thought this was perfect for me.”

So he went on to pitch Kosinski with his take on the story, but says he lost the writing job to Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan (The Departed).

Then about a year later he was recalled for project. “I sort of got to write what I had originally seen as what my version of Joe’s vision was, and that was a really exciting, heady time,” he said. “When I came on to it, it was like jumping on a moving train, and turning out dozens of pages a day, and just being strong like that.”

Gajdusek reveals that at the time, Tom Cruise was not yet attached to the film, but he’s convinced that his script helped persuade the star to take the role. He also recounts a story about Kosinski going to meet with Cruise on the set of one of the Mission Impossible movies, which was being filmed on multiple sets at the same time.

“So Tom was shooting this action scene, this love scene, and this other action scene, in the same day and just walking between sets – so they could crush budget. And Joe meets up with Tom and they talk Oblivion as Tom moves from set to set shooting.”

Addressing his beginning with The November Man, Gajdusek said he collaborated on the project with his good writer friend, Michael Finch. “We both knew we were screenwriters, but we were in San Diego and we used to surf together, but we would actually not talk about the industry, we just surfed.”

So after writing a couple of “really great B movies,” he said he teamed up with Finch – who already knew Pierce Brosnan – to work on the spy thriller The November Man. “So we came up with what we thought was a great story and we sold that story, and that was right before the Writer’s Guild of America strike. So we sold it and the strike happened and the whole thing fell apart.”

And then over a period of several years, after “stumbling around” trying to resell it, and Brosnan had moved on to other projects, but eventually they found a producer, Sriram Das, who at the time was taking his first steps in Hollywood.

“That’s one of those movies where we did all the due diligence, we did all the drafts, we worked, worked, worked – and then we really thought, it’s done, it’s just not going to happen. And there’s many, in any writer’s life, you write 20 and if you make two you’re happy.

“Then, literally the phone rang and they said ‘We’ve got the financing, we’ve got the stuff in place, we’re going to make the movie - very unexpectedly years after we thought that was done.”

He also explains that because of budget concerns, many locations were changed from the original concept to save money.

Watch the full interview to also hear Gajdusek discuss breaking into the business, as well as his take on the necessity of agents and managers for getting writing jobs.