Jerry Maguire & A Jerry Maguire Journal

by Cameron Crowe

Now available, the screenplay to the hit film in which, as Newsweek noted, "Cameron Crowe captures the venal high-stakes world of pro sports with deadly wit, and an ex-journalist's sense of detail. He fills every scene with a vivid, funny, richly specific sense of character and an adult understanding of how hard a transaction love can be."

Also included in this volume are Crowe's entertaining and insightful account of the making of the film as well as Jerry Maguire's twenty-two page Mission Statement, referred to throughout the film and penned prior to production by Crowe.

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, Media Tie In

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

Cameron Bruce Crowe is an Academy Award winning American writer and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes.

Crowe has made his mark with character-driven, personal films that have been generally hailed as refreshingly original and void of cynicism. Michael Walker in the New York Times called Crowe "something of a cinematic spokesman for the post-baby boom generation" because his first few films focused on that specific age group, first as high schoolers and then as young adults making their way in the world.

Crowe's debut screenwriting effort, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, grew out of a novel he wrote while posing for one year undercover as a student at Clairemont High School in San Diego, California, USA. Later, he wrote and directed one more high school saga, Say Anything, and then Singles, a story of Seattle twentysomethings that was woven together by a soundtrack centering on that city's burgeoning grunge music scene. Crowe landed his biggest hit, though, with the feel-good Jerry Maguire. After this, he was given a green light to go ahead with a pet project, the autobiographical effort Almost Famous. Centering on a teenage music journalist on tour with an up-and-coming band, it gave insight to his life as a 15-year-old writer for Rolling Stone. Also, in late 1999, Crowe released his second book, Conversations with Billy Wilder, a question and answer session with the legendary director.

Reviews

[Dasha Shevchenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jerry Maguire is one of my favorite movies. And I think the key to fully grasping/understanding the nuances of you favorite movies is in reading the actual screenplay. In this case, Cameron Crowe created a magnificent piece of work that I got to really dive deep into and experience for myself while reading all the camera cues and actions along with the dialogue, making me love this picture even more than I already do.

I really enjoyed Crowe’s recollections of the casting and filming processes as well as seeing his production materials and notes on the climactic “you complete me” scene, and I felt I understood the characters much better and more in depth when I read Crowe’s imaginings of the scenes. And it was really rewarding to read the cut out scenes, too, as well as Maguire’s entire Mission Statement (I’ve been wondering what it said for years now).

The screenplay is as readable as the movie is lovable.

[Penelope Marshall · Rating 1 out of 5]

seems like these characters are the product of a sexist screenwriter

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A jewell of the screenwriting world. Very well written. But some scenes are somewhat confusing, especially one that happens in the Dallas airport. Jerry is there talking to his girlfriend on the phone. She tells him she's flying to Chicago and then to New York but she can stop in Dallas so they can fly together to New York. On the next scene, though, Jerry's being driven to the LAX airport by Dorothy to take a flight to Dallas, while the reader would have thought he was already in the Dallas airport waiting for his girlfriend. It's possible that I might have read an earlier draft and that this scene was later rewritten, but if that's not the case, then as it stands, it is somewhat confusing. As are a couple more sequences: Dorothy supposed departure (we have a scene where Jerry gets into the car to say goodbye to Ray, followed by another scene where he does exactly the same thing but from Dorothy's POV) and then the wedding (in which the festivities seem to antecede the ceremony itself).

[Samantha Vamos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic screenplay and notes.