ARNDT: But it's very difficult if you're a first-time writer.

YAMASHITA: Yeah.

ARNDT: When the script [for "Little Miss Sunshine"] was at Focus, the producers were committed to the script, the directors loved the script. I mean, I'm the writer, and I thought the script was pretty good. The script was in development for three years and I ended up getting fired off the project, just because it wasn't moving forward and the easiest way to make a change is to get rid of the writer and just bring somebody new in.

ARRIAGA: Writers have been disrespected everywhere. Not only in the States.

ARNDT: At the end of the day, films do feel like they are a director's medium. "Little Miss Sunshine" was a 120-page screenplay, but [co-directors] Jonathan [Dayton] and Valerie [Faris], they were there through the development of the script, through the shooting of the movie and through the editing. I do feel like screenwriting is this awkward, bastard form, and we'd all like more respect and we'd all like to have our voices taken seriously. . . . But the reality is, at the end of the day, one or perhaps two people need to be making the decisions as to who's gonna be cast, what music you're gonna use, what choices you're gonna make in the editing room. . . .

Why is it different with film, though, just because it's a bigger budget? Because writers in TV have much more control --

DEL TORO: No, no, no -- I'm gonna say something, because this can lead to the most byzantineÖ discussion that can last for weeks. I seriously think that there is a point at which we have to agree it's on a case-by-case basis. If Stephen Poliakoff ["Close My Eyes," "The Tribe"] writes a screenplay and it's directed by an itinerant director it will still be very strong. Sometimes, if a bad screenplay is well directed, it will survive into a movie with interesting moments. . . . The problem we have is that in Hollywood, everybody says, "It's a director's medium." Sorry, dude. It's a star medium. [Laughs] I think that entrenching these two positions, truly entrenching them, seeking for a general truth, is an absolute waste of time, unless you are willing to accept that for someone to claim full authorship on a film, he has to write it and direct it.

MORGAN: I think we all agree it's a film by Guillermo del Toro.

[Laughter]

ARRIAGA: Acknowledging that it's just a director's medium, I completely disagree. . . . Tell me something, have you seen "Paris, Texas"?

ARNDT: Yes.

ARRIAGA: Who is the author, Sam Shepard or Wim Wenders?

DEL TORO: Or L.M. Kit Carson [who adapted Shepard's play.]

ARNDT: It's impossible to say.

ARRIAGA: You have been very generous to your directors, but I disagree with you.