How Hollywood Slammed Door in David Mamet’s Face

Andrew Klavan’s screenwriting career took off in the 2000s.

The celebrated novelist enjoyed steady work, finding his name up on the big screen with films like “Don’t Say a Word” (2001), “One Missed Call” (2008) and Clint Eastwood’s “True Crime” (1999). He also got paid for other writing-related Hollywood gigs, even when a story didn’t reach the big screen.

And then he dared to speak his mind about politics from a right-leaning perspective.

“Of course my phone pretty much stopped ringing … It was a substantial hit to my income to lose,” he told the Leadership Program of the Rockies in 2017.

Klavan was canceled before “Cancel Culture” became part of the lexicon. Then again, Hollywood has been canceling conservatives for some time. The Hollywood Blacklist 2.0 is real, raw and unrelenting.

It’s one reason David Mamet’s name isn’t on movie theater screens these days, either.

Mamet, one of Broadway’s sharpest voices, took his talents to Hollywood with titles like “House of Games,” “The Untouchables,” “Heist,” “The Edge,” “Wag the Dog” and, most memorably, “Glengarry Glen Ross.” He collected two Oscar nominations for his screenplay work.

And then he penned an essay in 2008 entitled, “Why I am No Longer a ‘Brain Dead Liberal.’” The piece proved more nuanced than its clickbait headline, but the damage was done.

His Hollywood career dried up. It extended beyond Tinsel Town, though. He shared how the theater processed his shift in a new interview with The Washington Examiner.

“I had a lot of time on my hands because I wasn’t writing plays anymore. People wouldn’t put them on if you still put them on Broadway. But the regional theaters, which always did my plays and always accepted my new plays, decided not to,” he said.

Canceled.

He had the “wrong” politics, so his brilliant dialogue and probing morality yarns were suddenly shelved.

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Mamet has worked sporadically since then. He penned HBO’s “Phil Spector,” the 2014 biopic with Al Pacino as the tortured music impresario. He also wrote 2023’s “The Penitent” and directed “Henry Johnson,” based on his previous play.

The latter enjoyed a microscopic release weeks ago. Neither Box Office Mojo nor The Numbers has ticket sale figures for the movie.

Is that any way to treat a legend?

Mamet is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright, director and screenwriter, but he’s no longer allowed to flex his skills in Hollywood.

Worst of all? No one in the industry’s power structure is the least bit outraged by this. At least not publicly.