By Helen Ehrlich, Staff Editor
Tobias Iaconis is a screenwriter and member of Haverford’s class of 1993. Iaconis joined Bi-Co students virtually on Friday, September 24 to discuss his career. He has worked as a screenwriter for many years. His catalogue includes feature films such as Five Feet Apart (2019) and the upcoming Dirty Dancing sequel.
After graduating from Haverford in 1993 with an English literature degree (creative writing emphasis), Iaconis left the Main Line for California. He said, “I moved to Los Angeles to chase this sort of crazy movie making dream that I [had].” Nearly 30 years later, he’s working in his goal field. While he didn’t directly study film at Haverford, Iaconis said he had the background he needed for the story-writing aspect: “I began to appreciate the foundation that I had from my time at Haverford…Pretty much every story has been told…and studying those stories at Haverford, studying the craft…was invaluable to me.”
Once in LA, Iaconis connected with a group of writers: “When I got to LA one of the most valuable things I did, and one of the things I accidentally did, was find a community. A screenwriting group.” He was intrinsically motivated to locate a support system, similar to what he found in the Bi-Co. “Community was a huge part of the ethos at Haverford,” he said. “It was a huge part of the ecosystem there.”
Despite knowing he would not directly get to work as a writer, Iaconis got a job as an assistant in the entertainment industry and eventually got promoted into computer work for the company. He took screenwriting classes at UCLA and read scripts from friends at large agencies. He continued to write and work within the industry. He explained, “…[W]hile you’re creating relationships, you’re also mastering your craft…”
This work in computers got Iaconis his first job writing a direct-to-video film for Universal, a sequel to Timecop (1994). Though it was ultimately never made, Iaconis said it helped open the door to future work. A former boss of Iaconis’ became president of Universal Television and remembered him working with computers, so she made a character reference call on his behalf. Many years in the industry brought Iaconis to the current point in his career, which he greatly attributes to the support system of his community and the value of learning to work with others. He stated, “My very first theatrical film was released in 2019, which was exactly 25 years after I came from Haverford…” Iaconis said that he got to that point “having that community of fellow writers and friends, walking alongside me.”
The “last” part of his journey was finding his writing partner, Mikki Daughtry. Iaconis said it was a “lesson in humility” for him. They had met in their writing group roughly 10 years ago and began by casually writing and sharing scripts with each other. “When I met Mikki, I learned that I was not a complete package as a screenwriter, and I probably never would be,” said Iaconis. They formally created the partnership in 2013. They wrote a horror-romance film, “Elsewhere,” which did very well at the Austin Film Festival, one of the highest-profile film festivals in the U.S.. This screenplay got them noticed by an agent, manager and attorney, and the script became their writing sample. It was used to display their voice and their strengths.
The pair got their first studio film job, The Curse of La Llorona (2019), a year later after a series of dinners with studio execs and a pitch to New Line Cinema. Iaconis laughed, “If I knew how important pitching was when I came to LA, I probably would have quit on the spot. I hate pitching.” He said that’s part of the importance of having a partner, since she’s able to use her “southern charm.”
New Line “didn’t like the pitch at all,” but they loved a distinct scene of a girl being drowned in the bath. The studio liked that scare-sequence so much that they told Iaconis and Daughtry to rewrite the rest of the pitch and come back. The pair did so numerous times. “I’ll never forget this phone call,” Iaconis said. “A week before Christmas in 2014, I got the call that we were hired to write the script.”
Getting the contract typically includes payment for the first draft and a timeline of how long it must take, as well as parameters for the second and sometimes third. Iaconis and Daughtry wrote the first draft and got criticisms from the studio. “Unknowingly, we learned the process of collaboration…We didn’t realize that the writing community we had been a part of for so many years would prepare us for this aspect,” Iaconis explained. “Being part of the writing group, but also being part of the writing team…was a fantastic training ground…”
Once New Line felt the script was ready enough, they proceeded with finding the director for Iaconis and Daughtry’s script, which led to more rewriting. The movie was filmed in 2018 and came out in 2019. The pair had two movies released within weeks of each other: The Curse of La Llorona and Five Feet Apart. Their latest project is Nightbooks (2021), which is streaming on Netflix now. Their upcoming project is the highly anticipated Dirty Dancing sequel: “The idea for our dirty dancing movie is that it takes place a couple of decades after the original movie. Jennifer Grey returns to the resort that the original movie takes place in,” Iaconis said.
Patrick Swayze, the star of the original, also meant a lot to the industry as a community, which Iaconis said they intend to honor. “One of the things that Mikki and I wanted to do with our sequel is say goodbye to him and his character. It is partially a goodbye and a love letter to him.”
Iaconis described the kind of work it takes to adapt a story that’s not initially his own. “We want to maintain the essential truth of the original…It’s a difficult line to walk because you want to be respectful to the original movie, but the original was also made for a different time,” he said. “You have to walk this line between honoring the past and also crafting a story that contemporary audiences will respond to and find appropriate and right for the time now…We didn’t know this would be one of the challenges we faced as we write this story, how to find this happy medium…It’s definitely hard when you’re adapting or building upon another’s work.”
Streaming has changed Iaconis’ line of work considerably. He initially worked in direct-to-video production, but the market has shifted within the last 10–20 years. “There’s good and bad things about the industry today,” he said. “A significant amount of consolidation has happened over the last few years…” There used to be close to 30 entities that would look to purchase films, but “today there’s well less than half of that. It’s a bit less of a dynamic market.” Netflix alone is making 162 movies this year, “When I first came to LA, I think there were 40 major movies being made each year,” he continued. “More content is being made, but by less people. It’s sort of a blessing and a curse. The blessing is if you bring something to Netflix and they like it, there’s a high chance they’ll make it. The curse is, if they don’t like it, there are less places to go.” He said this has shifted the way stories are framed, emphasizing “how important it is to…write to a global audience.” Because streaming has opened up films to a more international audience, the industry is no longer primarily dictated by viewers from the U.S. “It’s a newer concept and creative challenge for many writers to no longer solely focus on creating stories for American audiences and having other audiences be forced to follow suit,” Iaconis said.
Much of Iaconis’ story centers around collaboration, which he reiterated was an integral element of his collegiate experience at Haverford. Furthermore, the basis of his writing skill as a literature major provided him with the technical skills necessary to develop such stores. Iaconis said, “Over time, you begin to appreciate the gifts you were given when you were young.” Iaconis’ main piece of advice to people interested in going into entertainment is to “get a job in the entertainment industry doing whatever, and be good at that job. It can help in many unexpected ways,” he said. “Be a good member of the community that you’re in.”
Featured image credit: Helen Ehrlich
