“Every year, about 50,000 screenplays are registered with the western division of the Writers Guild of America, with nonmembers paying $20 and members paying $10. Only a few hundred of those are bought or optioned by studios, producers and production companies – usually for relatively paltry sums. Of the screenplays that find a home, a mere fraction end up as finished motion pictures and then, more often than not, only after they have been eviscerated and rewritten by a succession of writers known as script doctors. Nevertheless, an industry has blossomed around the notion that anyone with a good idea and the right skills can rack up a hit.”