5 Movie Critics Who Tried (And Mostly Failed) To Make Movies

5. Stephen Hunter

Stephen Hunter was chief film critic at The Baltimore Sun before joining The Washington Post in 1997 where he became the third movie critic ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for film criticism. However, before joining the Post and nabbing his prize, Hunter took a year off to move to Hollywood and attempt to become a screenwriter. Not entirely inexperienced in fiction writing, Hunter is arguably better known as a successful novelist than a film critic. He's written best-selling novels about Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger with titles like Point of Impact and Time to Hunt among other books. Hunter's breakout novel, Point Of Impact, hit shelves in 1993 and introduced the world to his famous hero. Hollywood quickly bought the movie rights as well as the rights to some of Hunter's older works like Day Before Midnight. Hunter left the Sun for a year to take a stab at adapting his own work. After the year of false starts and unsuccessful movie deals ended, Hunter headed back to reviewing movies and banging out best selling novels. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and Point Of Impact was finally turned into the movie Shooter in 2007. The reason for the 14 year wait? Hunter says his terrible screenplays delayed the project as well as stuck his other potential film adaptations in development hell.