09-25-2008, 02:29 AM
guitarist wrote:
Trivia: I read that Sorkin's original script for "The American President" was hundreds of pages, way too long to fit into a shootable movie. Sorkin had more to say, and shopped his idea to the networks. The material leftover from "President" became the framework for the series he pitched, some of the pages of the script went directly into the storylines of "The West Wing."
He went even further and recycled one scene almost whole from "American President" to "The West Wing". It was the one about a proportional response to an attack on the U.S. The "President" in both the movie and TV show pondered why we couldn't have a disproportional response and just kick the sh!t out of the attackers.