The Oscars: Fresh story ideas a tough sell in Hollywood

David Seidler first sparked to the idea of writing a movie about the life of King George VI in 1980. A stutterer himself, he found the real-life narrative of the English monarch's struggles to overcome a debilitating stammer moving and profoundly relatable, but Seidler understood that it wasn't going to be easy to see his script turned into a feature film.

First, he had to wait for the Queen Mum to die; he had asked the royal matriarch for her blessing to tell her husband's story, and she had requested that he wait until after her passing, since the memories of that time were still too painful. And then, the 73-year-old Seidler explains, there was another, possibly even more significant hurdle: "It was the subject matter.

"If I had gone into any executive office in Hollywood to pitch a story about a dead king who stutters, I would have been out of there in 30 seconds," he said. "They would have thought I was out of my mind."