William Monahan is a novelist and Academy Award-winning American screenwriter. Monahan went to work in Hollywood in 1998, when Warner Bros. bought the film rights to Light House: A Trifle, which had not yet been published, and contracted him to adapt it to the screen for director Gore Verbinski. In 2001, 20th Century Fox bought Monahan's spec script about the Barbary Wars called Tripoli, with Ridley Scott, who was to become Monahan's primary collaborator, attached to direct. Monahan, immediately successful as a screenwriter, has since worked with Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, among other filmmakers. His first produced screenplay, Kingdom of Heaven was made into a film by Ridley Scott and released in theaters in 2005. His second produced screenplay was The Departed, a film which earned him a WGA award and an Academy award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Monahan prefers that screenplays should be written by one writer rather than a collaboration of multiple screenwriters writing competing drafts. Thus far he has followed his scripts through production, and is one of very few sole credit writers in the film business.
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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1791: The Polish Constitution of May 3, one of the earliest codified national constitutions in the world, was adopted by the Sejm. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_May_3%2C_1791)
1808: The Swedish fortress Sveaborg was lost to Russia during the Finnish War. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suomenlinna)
1939: Subhash Chandra Bose formed the Forward Bloc of the Indian National Congress. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Forward_Bloc)
1945: World War II: German ocean liner Cap Arcona, left to float defencelessly in the Bay of Lübeck with thousands of prisoners from various concentration camps on board, was attacked and sunk by RAF Typhoons. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_Arcona)
1947: A new Constitution of Japan went into effect. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Japan)
_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:
The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be. -- Pete Seeger (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pete_Seeger)