10 Totally Confusing Hollywood Screenwriting Disputes

After the Eddie Murphy action comedy Beverly Hills Cop became the biggest hit of 1984, Paramount wanted to do a sequel. Highlander screenwriter Larry Ferguson came up with the “alphabet crimes” plot of the film and wrote the screenplay after Murphy liked the idea. Before the film was released, Ferguson found out the credits would read “Story by Eddie Murphy and Robert Wachs” and “Screenplay by Larry Ferguson and Warren Skaaren.” Ferguson didn't understand why three other people were sharing credit for a concept and a script he had developed himself, including Murphy’s manager Wachs, who had never been credited for writing anything in his life.

While famed script doctor Skaaren did a few days of rewrite work on the script, he was furious that Murphy and Wachs were receiving credit for the story when Paramount could produce no treatments or drafts to prove that they wrote anything. The easy assumption was that Murphy and Wachs demanded credit simply because they could. Ferguson sued the Guild, but the suit was thrown out on the grounds that as a member of the WGA Ferguson already agreed in principle to abide by the Guild’s decisions on screenplay accreditation.