2 min read

Screenwriter: Benjamin August

A screenwriter's decades-long journey to overnight success.
Screenwriter: Benjamin August
The image is of the actor Christopher Plummer sitting in a chair with the screenwriter Benjamin August standing next to him. (Photo from an article in The Canadian Jewish News.)

"Sometimes it takes years for a person to become an overnight success." - Prince

From 2003 to 2007, Benjamin August worked in TV as a casting director, producer, and actor. In 2007, he moved to Vietnam to teach English as a second language. In simple terms, he was a struggling writer managing to support himself while writing spec screenplays.

August wrote a screenplay in Vietnam that generated interest. He flew to meetings in LA to polish the script while still living and working in Vietnam. That screenplay, "Remember," became the 2015 film produced by Robert and Ari Lantos and directed by Atom Egoyan.

This script won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 4th Canadian Screen Awards in 2016.

August's script gave Christopher Plummer the opportunity to deliver one of the best performances of his career.

The image is of the actor Christopher Plummer in his role as a man suffering from dementia on a bus as he tracks down the man he believes killed his family in Auschwitz-Birkenau in the film "Remember".

It is a fascinating film with a cult following. Plummer was supported in his star turn by other great actors: Martin Landau, Bruno Ganz, Jürgen Prochnow, and Dean Norris.

August's screenplay adaption of the book "The Billion Dollar Spy" by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author David E. Hoffman is now in pre-production. This is the true story of the spy who cracked open the Soviet military research establishment in the last years of the Cold War.

A trailer for the film is not yet available. I included a promotional video for the book.

This much-anticipated film will star Mads Mikkelsen in the lead. Amma Asante directs. It is scheduled for release in 2023.

August is also developing a TV series with Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla Productions and writer Mark Rosenthal about the first woman to seize control of a Hassidic sect.

Benjamin August is an overnight success who worked decades to get there and that is how it is done.

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