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The Aviator: A Screenplay

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Presents the screenplay depicting the life and times of aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, the eccentric billionaire industrialist and Hollywood film mogul famous for romancing some of the most beautiful women of his time.

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

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About the author

John Logan

156 books83 followers
Logan was a successful playwright in Chicago for many years before turning to screenwriting. His first play, Never the Sinner, tells the story of the infamous Leopold and Loeb case. Subsequent plays include Hauptmann, about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and Riverview, a musical melodrama set at Chicago's famed amusement park.

His play Red, about artist Mark Rothko, was produced by the Donmar Warehouse, London in December 2009, and on Broadway, where it received six Tony Awards in mid-June, 2010, the most of any play, including best play, best direction of a play for Michael Grandage and best featured actor in a play for Eddie Redmayne. Redmayne and Alfred Molina had originated their roles in London and brought them to New York for a limited run ending in late June.

Logan wrote Any Given Sunday and the television movie RKO 281, before gaining an Academy Award nomination for co-writing the Best Picture-winner, Gladiator in 2000. He gained another nomination for writing 2004's The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese.

Other notable films written by Logan include Star Trek: Nemesis, The Time Machine, The Last Samurai, and the Tim Burton-directed musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, for which he received a Golden Globe Award.

Logan's most recent feature films include Rango, an animated feature starring Johnny Depp and directed by Gore Verbinski, the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes, and the film adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret directed by Martin Scorsese. Logan co-wrote the scripts to the James Bond films, Skyfall and Spectre.

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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Profile Image for Asbah.
74 reviews1 follower
December 1, 2018
Rumors coming from a lonely airstrip
out in Van Nuys.


Sources whisper that young
Texas industrialist Howard Hughes…


...won't stop pouring money
into his war epic.


And do we mean epic!
Profile Image for John Yelverton.
4,432 reviews38 followers
April 4, 2015
This book was a very interesting read. I'm always fascinated by what is included and what is left out of a film from the original screenplay.
Profile Image for Realini Ionescu.
4,049 reviews20 followers
July 6, 2025
The Aviator by John Logan, directed by Martin Scorsese http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/05/t...

10 out of 10





This is the second time that I watch The Aviator and find it even better than when seeing it as it launched, the formidable figure of Howard Hughes aka Leonardo Di Caprio is more than impressive, formidable



Howard Hughes, The Aviator, had many irritating, even loathsome aspects -take what today would be called the grooming of an underage girl, who was not just young, but incredibly so and the way he misbehaved, abused others.

In fact, now that I went down this path, perhaps I should let the extraordinary talents of The Inventor and Film Maker for later, and say that he was overpowering, had people fired on a whim, and because of his condition



The Aviator suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder aka OCD and we could see him breaking down over time, feeling that someone is giving him the eye, hence dismissing him, washing his hands with fury…

In one scene, he is in the bathroom, and a man with crutches asks for a towel and Hughes says ‘sorry, I cannot give it to you’, just as he is a few millimeters from the stash, but his anxiety prevents him from contact.



When he pilots his airplanes, he has cellophane on the wheel, something observed by Katharine Hepburn aka Oscar winner Cate Blanchet, when she invited to…pilot the aircraft, as The Aviator is looking for milk

When Errol Flynn takes a piece of his stake, in a restaurant, Howard Hughes would not continue to eat from his plate, rises up and leaves with Katharine Hepburn, his lover for some time, and also an outré character…



Some of the tension, the awkwardness of the woman transpires from some of her movies http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/07/t... and we see that she was different.

She says so to Howard Hughes, as they have a tumultuous relationship, somehow a wonder that they got along for the time they did, given their strong personalities, large egos…they would clash, spoiler alert…



When The Aviator is invited to the Hepburn estate, he is on a very different page from her family, the mother says ‘they do not care about money’, to which Hughes replies rightly, ‘that is because you have it’

When invited to elaborate, explain, he says that they have always had the means, they did not have to work for it, as he did, he has had a quite intense business activity, and this if surely the time to say something nice about the man’



It is rare, and specific to the Renaissance, a man that is successful in various domains, indeed the name of Leonardo Da Vinci comes to mind, who was both an artist of immense standing and an engineer, adept at inventions

Leonardo was one of the three or four geniuses http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/11/t... and probably Howard Hughes does not rise to the same level of magnitude



Indeed, Milan Kundera http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/11/t... if I am not mistaken insists that we can only say Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Einstein and this is it, if we do not want to devalue the term genius

Howard Hughes was the brilliant filmmaker that gave audiences spectacular motion pictures, Hell’s Angels and others, but he was also a phenomenal businessman, and an outstanding inventor, builder of airplanes.



He would face a Senate commission, led by a corrupt senator -the name of Lindsey Graham comes to mind, who is so abhorrent as to defend monstrous Trump, yet again, just as the idiot had boxes of secrets in his bathroom and ballroom, and then showed them to hoi polloi in a disgusting manner, just as those documents have demanded sacrifice from thousands of people, and may lead to the death of more…

The senator played by Alan Alda is on the payroll of the competition, the CEO of Pan Am is portrayed by wondrous Alec Baldwin, and wants to maintain a monopoly on international flights for Pan Am, preventing Hughes from flying outside the US



Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se



As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Profile Image for RJ Brown.
51 reviews
August 18, 2024
Good screenplay for a great movie. Proves how much a performance can elevate a movie.
Profile Image for Daniel.
Author 3 books1,277 followers
December 14, 2007
Very, very, very good.

Hughes had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

It's only been diagnosed in the last ten years.

No one knew about it when Hughes had it!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews

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