The feature film “50 Kisses,” which premiered at the London Screenwriters’ Festival in February 2014, was constructed using a fun creative gimmick. Its producers invited freelance screenwriters to submit whatever two-page scripts they wanted, provided they followed two simple rules: One, the script had to take place on Valentine’s Day, and two, it had to feature an on-screen kiss. That was it. Of the submissions, the 50 best scripts were strung together as a gigantic anthology film, with the producers writing their own 51st script as a bookend for the project. Each of the shorts also had a different director, so the movie’s tone and style varies wildly.
Although composed of 51 shorts, “50 Kisses” only runs 89 minutes. Talk about efficiency.
The result was, as the title promised, a marathon of 50 kisses. Because of its unique construction, “50 Kisses” has a very strange, and very long, list of credits. Across the 51 shorts, there were 46 directors. The film itself is credited to 51 screenwriters, a fact that attracted the attention of the Guinness Book of World Records. “50 Kisses” is listed on the Guinness website as holding the record for most co-writers credited on a single film.
Note that Guinness said “credited.” As most of us know, major Hollywood blockbusters tend to have multiple writers. On bigger productions, some writers rework the scripts entirely, while others are hired to provide “punch up,” by adding jokes or extra dialogue as needed. (Carrie Fisher had a whole side career doing script doctoring, even working on animated films like “Anastasia.”) It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that certain tentpoles had about 50 people tinkering with the scripts.
Because of contract deals, however, only a few screenwriters are ever officially credited on these productions. “50 Kisses” had no such stipulations, so all 51 of its writers were credited.
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50 Kisses is an anthology film with 46 directors and 51 screenwriters
A masked woman smoking a cigarette in 50 Kisses – Living Spirit Pictures
“50 Kisses” was a low-budget independent movie and didn’t receive a major release. Although most of the shorts are brief love stories, some of them are terse dramas or horror stories. To give full credit (something the Guinness website doesn’t do), the film’s 51 screenwriters are include:
Marc Lockier, Lloyd Morgan, Lawrence Diamond, Tina Lowe, Ross Aitken, Sarah Page, Rhys Howell, Phil Berard, Louise McCooey, Nathan Gower, Oliver Morran, Arron Ferguson, Anne-Marie Draycott, Charity Trimm, Kirsty McConnell, Jennifer Leigh Allen, Stephen O’Brien, John Thornton, Christopher Mueller, Emily Sinclair, Karina Satchwell, Jess Smith, Nick Grills, Mark Jones, Robert J. Burke Jr., Sue Whitting, Phil Charles, Nigel Karikari, Peter Carruthers, Nina Haerland, Andrew Turvil, Gabriella Apicella, Tracey Flynn, Mark Pallis, Vanessa Yardley, Jesco Puluj, Ryan La Via, Kulvinder Gill, Honor Flaherty, Jim Howard, Mac McSharry, Kenneth Lemm, David Griffith, Nathanael Bauer, Richard Green, Stephen Cooper, Sam Heydon, Rachel McAdam, Christopher Bacon, and Nick Luddington.
Other similar anthology projects have attracted huge numbers of screenwriters and directors by mere dint of their structure. For example, there are three films in the “ABCs of Death” franchise, each one featuring 26 shorts fashioned after the letters of the alphabet and gruesome deaths. The first film (from 2012) has 28 writer/directors, while 2014’s “The ABCs of Death 2” had 29.
2016 saw the release of a spin-off anthology, “ABCs of Death 2½,” that, like “50 Kisses,” was composed of shorts by amateur contest winners. You see, the creatives on “The ABCs of Death 2” had accepted short films from freelance filmmakers, hoping to find a newcomer to fulfill their “M” slot. 500 films were submitted, and Robert Boocheck’s “M is for Masticate” ultimately won. 26 of the finalists had their shorts featured in “2½,” a film that ultimately had 30 credited writers.
Still, “50 Kisses” beats them all. It’s hard to see its record being surpassed anytime soon.
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