PUNISHER:WARZONE:SCRIBE AMENDS *

So, I have this little SutterInk blog. I have a thought, a gripe, a gratitude, I jot it down, let it go. I get maybe 15-25 hits a week. Mostly my Shield guys and a few Facebook friends who read it. I joke about my seven readers, but that's the ballpark I've been playing in. Last week, when I updated my friends about the Punisher project, I got 3500 hits in less than six hours. If I'm doing the math right, that's almost five years worth of readers between lunch and dinner. I forgot how big the marvel fanbase is. They live on the internet. I should have remembered. When Thomas Jane distanced himself from the project using my draft as the reason, my name was on hundreds of blogs. I was suddenly covered with the stink of past Punisher movies. As the Punisher 2 project moved forward, I was the writer probably most associated with the script. So when I read the shooting script and realized that not only wasn't I going to get credit, but it was a script I didn't want to be associated with, I took a proactive step. I pulled my name from the arbitration process. I emailed the producers, thanked them for the opportunity and let them know I was not seeking credit. I should have stopped there. On my blog, I listed the reasons why I didn't want credit. In my opinion, this script is dry and formulaic. It's a traditional comic book movie. Which I added, is not a bad thing, it's just not the kind of movie I would write. I know the producers went back to the script before my rewrite, which was Nick Santora's draft, and passed that on to the next team of writers. My comments made the presumption that the final draft was the work of the two guys that came after Nick and I -- Marcum and Holloway. In my entry, I said "the story was simple and the dialog was very obvious". That's the truth. Now if someone said that about my writing, I'd probably stab them in the throat. So when I heard from inside sources that Matt and Art did not have the final pass on the script, I realized that I owed these guys an apology. Although I know that scripts have many writers that come in at the end, the presumption in my blog was that Matt and Art were responsible for what I read. Apparently the writer responsible for the less than organic dialog has not been submitted for arbitration. So I apologize to Matt and Art for the presumed disrespect. I've got no problem rattling a cage with the truth, but I don't want to ever be accused of maligning someone with lies and half-facts. * I should also say that Nick's draft was a rewrite of an earlier script. Don't know who the original writer was. So the script I rewrote wasn't necessarily all Nick's. I know this, but I realized that most of my readers did not. I just want this movie to come out, do well... and go away. We've all been punished enough.