Revisting: Myth to Movie: Pygmalion By Ken Atchity

The wish-fulfillment archetype —the dream become flesh—finds perennially poignant expression in stories based on the Pygmalion myth.

A Cyprian sculptor-priest-king who had no use for his island’s women, Pygmalion dedicated his energies to his art. From a flawless piece of ivory, he carved a maiden, and found her so beautiful that he robed her and adorned her with jewels, calling her Galatea (“sleeping love”). His became obsessed with the statue, praying to Aphrodite to bring him a wife as perfect as his image. Sparked by his earnestness, the goddess visited Pygmalion’s studio and was so pleasantly surprised to find Galatea almost a mirror of herself she brought the statue to life. When Pygmalion returned home, he prostrated himself at the living Galatea’s feet. The two were wed in Aphrodite’s temple, and lived happily ever after under her protection.

Though it was never absent from western literature, this transformation myth resoundingly entered modern consciousness with Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, which enlisted it to explore the complexity of human relationships in a stratified society. My Fair Lady, based on Shaw’s retelling, took the myth to another level of audience awareness.

The obligatory beats of the Pygmalion myth: the protagonist has a dream inspired by encounter with an unformed object (“Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter!”), uses his skills and/or prayers to shape it into a reality; falls in love with the embodiment of his dream, and lives happily ever after, or not.

Essential to the pattern is that the dreamer-protagonist is rewarded for doing something about his dream, for turning it from dream to reality with or without a dea ex machina. Thanks to the infinite creativity of producers, directors, and writers, Pygmalion has generated countless wonderful movie story variations: Inventor Gepetto, in Pinocchio (1940--with numerous remakes), wishes that the wooden puppet he’s created could become the son he never had; a department store window dresser (Robert Walker), in One Touch of Venus (1948, based on the Ogden Nash/S. J. Perelman musical), kisses a statue of Venus (Ava Gardner) into life— trouble begins when she falls in love with him. In 1983’s thenEducating Rita (from Willy Russell’s play), a young hairdresser (Julie Walters), wishing to improve herself by continuing her education, finds a tutor in jaded professor (Michael Caine), who’s reinvigorated by her. In a reverse of the pattern, as quickly as she changes under his tutelage he resents the “educated” Rita and wants her, selfishly, to stay as she was.

Alvin Johnson (Nick Cannon), in 2003’s Love Don’t Cost a Thing, a remake of Can’t Buy Me Love (1987), comes to the rescue of Paris (Christina Milian) when she wrecks her mother’s Cadillac and can’t pay the $1,500 for the repair. Alvin fronts the cash with his savings and, in return, Paris has to pretend to be his girlfriend for two weeks; Alvin becomes “cool” for the first time in his life, but learns that the price of popularity is higher than he bargained for. In She’s All That (1999), the pattern is reversed as Freddie Prinze, Jr., is a high school hotttie who bets a classmate he can turn nerdy Rachel Leigh Cook into a prom queen but, of course, runs into trouble when he falls in love with his creation. In The Princess Diaries (2001), Mia (Anne Hathaway), a gawky Bay Area teen, learns her father was the prince of Genovia; the queen (Julie Andrews) hopes her granddaughter will take her father’s rightful place as heir, and transforms her from a social misfit into a regal lady but discover their growing love for each other is more important than the throne.

Pretty Woman (1990) is my second favorite example of the tirelessness of the Pygmalion myth. Taking the flower-girl motif of My Fair Lady to the extreme, Vivian (Julia Roberts) is a prostitute (albeit idealized) and Edward (Richard Gere) a ruthless businessman with no time for real love. As he opens his credit cards on a Rodeo Drive shopping spree, we experience a telescoped transformation-by-money accompanied with the upbeat music that reminds us that we love this highly escapist part of the Pygmalion story, the actual process of turning ugly duckling into princess swan.

My favorite example is La Femme Nikita (remade as Point of No Return, 1993, with Bridget Fonda), because it shows the versatility of mythic structure, taking Pygmalion to the darkest place imaginable as it fashions of street druggie Nikita (Anne Parillaud), under Bob’s merciless tutelage (Tcheky Karyo), a chameleon-like lethal sophisticate whose heart of gold allows her to escape both her unformed past and her darkly re-formed present.

So popular is the Pygmalion myth with audiences that it crops up in the most unlikely places. In Pao zhi nu peng you (My Dream Girl, 2003), Shanghai slum-dweller Cheung Ling (Vicki Zhao) is thrust into high society when she encounters her long-lost father, who hires Joe Lam to makeover his daughter to fit her new status. In Million-Dollar Baby (2004), the unformed matter (Hilary Swank) reports for duty and demands to be transformed. Instead of falling in love, the boxing instructor (Clint Eastwood) is reborn, reinvigorated, re-inspired, learns to feel again—thereby revealing the underlying emotion that drives the Pygmalion myth for both protagonist and the character he reshapes: rebirth into a more ideal state of being.

First published in Produced By, the official magazine of the Producers Guild of America

Most Important Lesson Every Screenwriter Should Learn: Don't Wait

 Every project has its own clock!

~ Ken Atchity

In 2015 I, and my dear producing partner Norman Stephens, produced a sweet little Christmas movie called Angels in the Snow for UPnetwork. I had only been trying to get that movie produced for twenty years! I sold it to TNT once and came close to a deal at Hallmark another time. My client Steve Alten’s Meg after twenty-two years, finally premiered in 2018. What was I doing for the last twenty years? Not Waiting!

A Screenwriter's Life in the Waiting Room

How long can I wait?

Screenwriters ask me that all the time, becoming impatient and anxious that their script is taking so long to make it to the screen.

My answer surprises them:

Don’t wait at all.

Waiting is a massive waste of time and can lead to depression and/or existential despair, and who knows what else. Write something while you wait. Plant another seed, cultivate it, and train it to grow straight. And while it’s taking its sweet time to bud and then bloom, do something else. Start a new spec script!

Back in my own “waiting room” in the sixties, I reviewed a great book by Barry Stevens: Don’t Push the River, It Flows by Itself. I translated Stevens’ Zen advice to Hollywood where every project has its own clock and will happen when and only when that clock reaches the appointed hour. Other than keeping that project on track the best you can by responding when asked to or when appropriate, there’s nothing much you can do—other than financing it yourself (a serious option, by the way) to speed up that project’s clock. By the nature of things, the project clock is invisible, which means extra frustration for the creator—unless you refuse to wait.

In 2015 I, and my dear producing partner Norman Stephens, produced a sweet little Christmas movie called Angels in the Snow. I had only been trying to get that movie produced for twenty years! I sold it to TNT once and came close to a deal at Hallmark another time. My client Steve Alten’s Meg after twenty-two years, finally premiered in 2018. What was I doing for the last twenty years? Writing twelve scripts and producing other films for television and cinema, managing hundreds of books, writing and publishing ten of my own, playing tennis, traveling, having a wonderful life. Not waiting.

Waiting makes writers neurotic. If I allowed myself to express my neurosis, as many writers have not yet learned not to do, I would drive those involved in making my or my clients’ stories into films crazy—and risk losing their support or return calls. The question I personally hate hearing the most, “What’s going on?” is one I have to force myself to refrain from asking. Your job, when it’s your turn to move your story forward, is to “get the ball out of your court” as efficiently, as well, and as soon as possible. Then, on that particular project, you have to wait for it to be returned to your court. Very few actual events requiring your help occur along the way, leaving a huge gap of dead time in between them, like super novae separated by vast time years of space. But it’s not dead time if you use it for something else creative.

If the glacial pace of the Hollywood creative business fills you with dread, you’re in the wrong business or you’re dealing with it the wrong way. Don’t wait. Do. As the great photographer Ansel Adams put it: “Start doing more. It’ll get rid of all those moods you’re having.”

Writer/producer/literary manager and former professor Ken Atchity’s most recent book for writers is Sell Your Story to Hollywood: Writer’s Pocket Guide to the Business of Show Business (to accompany his online course realfasthollywooddeal.com. This article is adapted from that book.

Contact Inktip

 

Newtown screenwriter creates her own path to success, markets her own work

Daina Ann Smith, of Newtown, is a screenwriter who got her start right from her kitchen table. Most recently, she had two of her original feature scripts brought into development. Smith also is working as a creative lead at an audio storytelling company. Photographed on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, in Newtown, Conn.  H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media

NEWTOWN — When Daina Ann Smith first sat down at her kitchen table nearly a decade ago to work on screenplays, she said she was in “steep student loan debt.”

And now, the first screenplay she completed, called “Student Loans,” is in development to be made into a full-length feature film with the producers of “Sonic the Hedgehog” and “Magic Mike.”

“Student Loans” will hit theaters sometimes in 2026. “It’s been an eight-year-long journey,” said Smith, who works from home as a creative lead at Pocket FM, an audio storytelling company.

In 2018, she began working with “The Meg” producer Kenneth Atchity, who took one of her scripts into development. In 2021, Smith signed a contract for another original feature screenplay.

To get noticed by Hollywood producers, Smith said she looks for those involved in similar types of projects as the one she’s pitching, and emails them her queries.

Over the years, Smith said she has sent out thousands of emails and built an “amazing network.”

Her advice to fellow writers? Don't become obsessed with getting someone to represent your work.

“It’s very hard to get an agent,” Smith said. “You have to have a proven track record of selling work.

“Instead of focusing so much on that, I will continue to write and continue to build relationships," she said. "Don’t think that it can’t be you.”

Read full interview via The Register Citizen

Georgia OKeeffe on Being an Artist

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant — there is no such thing, making your unknown known is the important thing — and keeping the unknown always beyond you.” 

Georgia O’Keeffe counseled Sherwood Anderson in her 1923 letter of advice on being an artist.

 

Famous Author Mentorships: William Faulkner and Sherwood Anderson

Anderson, an established writer in New Orleans, encouraged Faulkner to focus on novels and write about his native Mississippi region, leading to works like The Sound and the Fury.

 

Faulkner reflects on the most important thing Anderson taught him about being a writer:


"I learned that, to be a writer, one has first got to be what he is, what he was born; that to be an American and a writer, one does not necessarily have to pay lip-service to any conventional American image… You had only to remember what you were."

Decades later, Faulkner would remember Anderson as his sole important mentor in a beautiful 1953 piece originally published in The Atlantic as “Sherwood Anderson: An Appreciation.” 

Produced BY: Mentoring Matters by Kia Kiso

 

Mentoring Matters - Developing A Career: Learning To Identify The Story You Want And Go After It

By Kia Kiso,

I have more than 90 credits as an AC/Loader, Telecine Colorist and VFX Coordinator, but eight years ago I heeded my lifelong calling to produce. Since then I have shepherded award-winning videos, promos for CBS and launched two feature documentaries on Netflix. In 2013 I joined the PGA because I knew of its many benefits, and I wanted to be part of a community of like-minded creatives. Currently I have focused on building my production company to develop fictional content, with an aim at creating compelling and unique stories in order to make the world a better place.  When I applied to the 2016 PGA Mentoring Program, I had just walked away from the option on a book into which I had put a lot of time and resources. I was disappointed and wished I could have saved the project. The experience led me to realize that development was an aspect of producing I was less familiar with. I was looking for expert advice on how to assess opportunities, set up a project for success, handle relationships with authors, lawyers and talent, and run a production company. Thankfully the PGA Mentoring Program paired me with producer Ken Atchity. I was thrilled to be matched with Ken for a lot of reasons, among them his industry experience and teaching background. However I admit, I was especially attracted to his philosophy—“I believe in the power of stories to change the world.” Our first connection was an in-person, 90-minute meeting, in which he gave me feedback on a particular project of mine. Ken had some great advice about pitching—if a project tackles potentially controversial or delicate issues, Ken advised weaving some well-researched statistics or facts into the pitch to send the message that the material wouldn’t suggest a problem for the network and lead to a premature no. He wrapped up the meeting saying I could contact him about the project at any time, even after the mentorship ends. Very generous. Since that first meeting, we’ve had a pivotal phone conversation during which he suggested I was in a great position to go after an option I was very excited about, helping me to design a strategy on how to move forward quickly—starting with enhancing my relationship with the rights owner. He’s been ready to answer any questions by email. Even as recently as this morning, we were in touch to discuss a lunch I was preparing for with a writer who wanted to work with me.   Ken has been wonderful. He celebrates my triumphs and brainstorms solutions to my challenges. I am very grateful for his willingness to participate in the Mentoring Program and to the Producers Guild for providing it

Justin Price Wins The One Voice Award!

BIG Congratulations to the talented Justin Allen Price Voice Over WINNER of the One Voice Award for best performance of an audiobook/fiction for his narration of Story Merchant Book's Talmadge Farm by Leo Daughtry - Author - Talmadge Farm!

You can now LISTEN to Talmadge Farm on Audible!

Get your audiobook on Amazon Now!!