GREGORY ALLEN HOWARD, INC.
WESTON, FLORIDA

However, at Princeton I fell in love with history, American history. I didn’t know what my path would be, but it had to involve reading and writing history. I knew my destiny when I was 18. I wasn’t sure of the career, but it would, I hoped and prayed, be something where I could spend my time doing my newly found passion. Once in Alexandria, I found a city so totally integrated that it seemed “unusual” and unique. In investigating and questioning the locals, I was told that “a high school football team, the TC Williams Titans, integrated this city in 1971." After doing further investigation, I found the former coaches and key players. I acquired their life rights fully confident that this amazing story would spark interest in Hollywood. was sent out as a “spec script.” Everyone passed again! Fortunately, Chad Oman, production president of Jerry Bruckheimer Films, called about the script. He read it, loved it, and passed it on to Jerry who also loved it so much he bought it out of his discretionary fund the following Monday. 17 months later in October 1999, the film went into production with Denzel staring in the pivotal role of Coach Herman Boone. There was really no development per se. I just did some polishing, but the script didn’t change 10% from the first draft to the finished film. , the Harriet Tubman story which I am doing with producer Debra Martin Chase. We hope to be shooting in 2015. And recently, I rebranded myself as an action writer, selling the spec, In the movie, a new coach, played by Washington, is reluctantly put in charge of a football team at a freshly integrated high school. He’s the school’s first black coach, and finds himself suddenly in charge of black players as well as white — and the white players are predictably hostile. There’s lots of resistance to his way of doing things, and he’ll be instantly fired if he fails. It’s a high-wire act of will in a high-pressure situation — football is bigger than Christmas in Virginia, as an opening voiceover explains. was released. The company was failing and in internal disarray. Jobs streamlined the company, cutting both products and staff. He revamped the org chart and more or less scrapped the product lineup and started over. But Apple was just six months from bankruptcy, and he was afraid he could very publicly fail to turn the company around. In the movie, Washington quickly asserts his authority by desegregating the buses taking the team to summer camp. It’s his first act of authority, and the beginning of his breaking down the entrenched way of doing things. He quickly changes the way the team does everything — blocking, tackling, running and passing — and relentlessly drills the team in the new way of doing things. Likewise at Apple, Jobs had to assert his authority (firing people in elevators!) and set to work reorganizing people and products. He shook up everything, from design to engineering to marketing and sales. In the movie, Washington is hard-driving but also analytical. He studies the other teams and makes careful plans, but keeps it simple. He has a limited book of plays. Likewise, Jobs aligned Apple around a simplified matrix of just four products. It was a very risky strategy, because if any one product failed it could bring the whole company down. Washington counters that it’s for their own good; it’s essential to building character. The team members won’t be mollycoddled in real life — especially the black kids — and being nice is counterproductive. “You’re crippling them,” he says. “You’re crippling them for life.” Overall, the movie is about teamwork and leadership. It’s about creating a disciplined organization. It’s about studying the plays, making plans and executing. It’s about forcing individuals to overcome their prejudices and hostility to work as a team. Through leadership, the