Big Eyes: The Screenplay

WITH AN INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET KEANE

The full screenplay by award-winning Ed Wood writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for acclaimed director Tim Burton's film Big Eyes, starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz.

A rare close-up look into a corner of the 1950s and '60s art world and a perfectly observed account of a dysfunctional marriage, Big Eyes tells the true story of Margaret Keane, an artist who lived and worked in virtual slavery while her husband, Walter, gained fame and fortune passing himself off as the creator of his wife's wildly popular paintings. The story of their toxic relationship would culminate in a Hawaiian courtroom, as Margaret ultimately fights to save her name and reclaim her art, during a heated public court battle. 

This edition, illustrated with photos throughout, contains the complete screenplay, an afterword by the screenwriters, and an interview with Margaret Keane, the real-life subject of Big Eyes, by Tyler Stallings.

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski met as freshman roommates at USC's School of Cinematic Arts. On a whim, they wrote a screenplay during their senior year, which sold a week after graduation. 

They are best known for writing very unusual biopics with larger-than-life characters. They first worked with Tim Burton  on the highly-acclaimed Ed Wood (1994), for which they were nominated for Best Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America. They followed this with The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), for which they won the Golden Globe fore Best Screenplay, as well as a special Writers Guild award for civil rights and liberties. They also wrote the extremely postmodern Man on the Moon (1999), the life story of Andy Kaufman. All their biopic scripts have been published in book form. 

Otherwise, Alexander and Karaszewski are quite eclectic. They wrote the hit Stephen King adaptation 1408 (2007). They produced the Bob Crane biopic Auto Focus (2002), and they wrote and directed the comedy Screwed (2000). They have also written numerous family films, including Problem Child (1990), Problem Child 2 (1991), Agent Cody Banks (2003), and the upcoming Goosebumps. Their next project is the ten-hour miniseries American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, which will air on FX.