10 Movies Disowned By Their Screenwriters

7. Paul Rudnick - Sister Act

According to the credits of the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg comedy Sister Act, a writer named Joseph Howard wrote the screenplay. In actuality, there is no Joseph Howard. Playwright and novelist Paul Rudnick initially developed Sister Act in the late 1980s as a satire of wholesome 1960s musicals like The Singing Nun.

Disney bought Rudnick's treatment and both Rudnick and Disney envisioned the movie as a vehicle for Bette Midler. When Midler passed on starring in the movie, Disney executives had the script reworked by over a half-dozen screenwriters, including Carrie Fisher. Over time, the screenplay (and eventually the film itself) became the very type of movie it was supposed to satirise.

Because the movie was so dramatically different from his original screenplay, Rudnick asked the Writers Guild of America to credit him under a pseudonym. Since he saw the movie as a product of Disney's saccharine rewriting, he asked to be credited as "Goofy."

When that pseudonym was denied, he instead came up with the intentionally very fake-sounding "Joseph Howard." In a 2009 article he wrote for The New Yorker, Rudnick said he had never watched the movie.