Story Analyst

While working at 20th Century Fox in the early 1990s, story analyst Christine Culler was assigned a steady diet of romantic comedies and children’s books. Then, in 1995, a different …

‘Meet the Parents’ began life as a low-budget 1992 film of the same title. Through the years, assorted A-list directors flirted with the project without proceeding.

I’ve been a bookworm since I was a child, and I distinctly remember telling my parents that there were two professions I wanted to pursue as an adult.

We all want to be the hero of our own story. Such a wish is at the center of director Stephen Frears’ 1992 film ‘Hero.’

Maybe two-thirds of my job involves reading screenplays, novels, non-fiction books, plays, teleplays and treatments. I evaluate their potential as movie or television projects.

I discovered the animal called “story analyst.” These people were allowed to sit on their tuchuses all day to read. And some fool paid them to do this!

Analysts — always the first to see material submitted to a studio or network — spend their working lives trolling for their company’s next big hit.

We “cover” mostly screenplays, but also novels (some pre-publication), newspaper and magazine articles, plays — any potential source for a good story or lead character. We evaluate old movies for …

In a perfect world, what would be the Best Picture of 2009?