When Nick Schenk wrote the screenplay for the 2008 movie "Gran Torino," he said that star and director Clint Eastwood didn't change a word — a highly unusual occurrence in the land of endless rewrites.
The Minnesota native had a different experience with "The Judge," a courtroom drama opening Oct. 10 that pairs two big Hollywood Bobs — top box-office draw Robert Downey Jr. and heavyweight elder Robert Duvall. Downey plays a hotshot Chicago defense attorney estranged from his family who returns to his small Indiana hometown for his mother's funeral, and stays to defend his judge father (Duvall) on a murder charge.
Schenk wound up sharing credit with another writer brought in after the first draft, but most of his original story remains, and the end result "exceeded my expectations," Schenk said.
The seed for it began when the mother of the film's director, David Dobkins, had recently died, and Schenk's mother was also dying, "so we were both in that frame of mind," he said. "You only get one mom. They're the hand grenade holding families together, and when they die, that pin gets pulled out, and the pieces fly."
When they first pitched the idea to Warner Bros., they went in "knowing they don't make 'em like this anymore," Schenk said. "There aren't any werewolves or zombies or comic-book heroes. There were only two guys who could've gotten this made, Downey or Tom Cruise, so I've got to hand it to Downey."
Schenk didn't spend much time on the set — writers usually don't — but calls Duvall "a national treasure. He should be on our money."
He was also impressed at how closely Downey and his wife, producer Susan Downey, worked: "They were connected like Legos, and you've never seen a nicer, sweeter guy."
Schenk, 48, went to Columbia Heights High School and Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He lives with his wife and two small children in Los Angeles' tony Silver Lake neighborhood, "but instead of skinny jeans I still wear cargo shorts to work every day. That's a win in my book."
