From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters and this is The Business.

Screenwriter Drew Goddard is Over the Moon with Project Hail Mary, his second adaptation of an Andy Weir book.

Goddard previously collaborated with the author on his debut novel, The Martian, which sold to Fox while Weir was still working a day job as a computer programmer.

It was fun because I used to call him and he was like, I can't take work calls at my desk. Hang out, I'm going to go to the conference room. And then at a certain point, like once Matt Damon said, I was like, Andy, you don't have to take calls in the conference room. Matt Damon said, yes, you can quit. And this is why Andy's so sweet. He's like, oh, I like my job.

Drew Goddard tells us how his early days, as a writer on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias and Lost, trained him to move fast, as he did when he had to come up

with a script for Cloverfield after Paramount Greenlit the project based on an outline. And he talks

about being hired to rescue World

War Z, which meant reconceiving and reshooting the entire third act. Plus, he tells us the

advice he gave Andy Weir about a potential Project Hail Mary sequel. But first we banter. Stick

around. It's the business from KCRW.

I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt.

Hi there. So I will just note that Jeff Schell is out as president of Paramount. I have previously written about this. This, of course, has to do with the gambler and whistleblower R.J. Shibriani,

who accused Shell of leaking sensitive company information to him,

which I strongly suspect he did. And the question would be what would possess him to do something

like that, but it has cost him dearly now. He's out. I questioned before, you know, that Redbird, which is a big investor in Paramount, had there Jerry Cardinal had been involved in bringing Jeff Shell into first Redbird and then at Paramount after Shell had been fired for cause from Universal for sexual misconduct.

So, you know, it's not common for a public company to hire an executive who's been fired for cause from another public company.

And this is kind of a case study of why.

I just think that was not a smart move.

And I don't really understand above all why, if you're giving him another chance after he's been fired at NBCU,

why do you make him president and a member of the board, give him all that exposure?

It's just such a bad idea and it is now blown up and he's only been there less than a year.

Yeah, I mean, you do it because you think this is a talented executive and an experienced operator and someone that could bring a level of expertise to a company that, frankly, does not have a lot of experienced media operators in that C-suite.

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