Jordan and Aaron Kandell are identical twins, so it’s no surprise that they’ve been thinking many of the same thoughts since they were born.
They chose the same sports at ‘Iolani School, the same school clubs, too. They were roommates at the University of Southern California and took the same classes most of the time. Even now, because their Manoa homes are a half-mile apart, the 31-year-old brothers see each other so often that their children sometimes use the term Uncle Daddy.
So when Jordan and Aaron decided to become screenwriters, it made sense to write together. They view it as a perfect partnership, one that exists without ego — even in an argument.
"To an outsider it might look like we are two old people screaming at each other like an old married couple bickering about a comma," said Jordan Kandell, the older twin by four minutes. "We will get into intense debates, but it is never charged or mean-spirited. It is always in service to the story."
Aaron Kandell said he and his brother have an edge over other writing duos: "Ours is a very symbiotic relationship. We’re two parts of the same brain."
It’s not a gimmick, though, and the last 12 months are proof.
First the brothers sold a script called "The Family Tree" to RKO Pictures. They describe it this way: What if Indiana Jones married Lara Croft and had kids?
Then Warner Bros. hired them for a top-secret "tent pole" project they are not allowed to discuss. They bested a dozen other writers pitching scripts for the studio’s big project, a remake.
And last month their passion project, "The Golden Record," was named to Hollywood’s prestigious Black List, which names what film industry insiders consider the best unproduced scripts of the year.
Their story follows astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan as he leads the NASA mission to create a record for Voyager 1 and 2, the unmanned probes launched in 1977. Each spacecraft carried a 12-inch, gold-plated copper disc that contained sounds and images about the diversity of life and culture on Earth. As the records were being made, Sagan fell in love with one of his colleagues on the project, Ann Druyan.
Being on the Black List can open doors, said Jordan Kandell. Seven of the last 12 screenwriting Oscars have gone to scripts featured on previous lists. It is compiled from an annual survey of 250 top film executives.
"What the Black List has become for screenwriters is sort of the Holy Grail of recognition for unproduced scripts," he said. "Being on the Black List brings the attention of industry, producers, directors, actors, studio executives. All the people that matter in getting movies made read the Black List."
As a result, the brothers already have meetings scheduled in Los Angeles next month.
In 2010, when the Kandells first heard the story of how Sagan and Druyan fell in love, they fell in love with the story.
"It was one of those moments when you hear something or see something and every atom in your body resonates," Aaron Kandell said. "The idea to turn it into a movie came a little later. The more we thought about it, the more we realized there was some cinematic potential."
The twins saw parallels between the interstellar message Sagan’s team sought to create and filmmaking. And love, too.
"How do you decide what the human experience is and then boil it down and condense it?" Aaron Kandell said. "The same challenge is there for us making a movie. You have these characters who end up representing the human experience. As they are searching for that, they become the personification of the experience."
AND that’s a wrap …
———
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
