The Drama of Spelling Bees and the Origin of Akeelah and the Bee: Spellbound helped make audiences aware of the drama of spelling bee competitions. Writer/director Atchison also credits ESPN with bringing spelling bees to the public. “I think probably when ESPN decided to start telecasting the Bee back in 1994, which is when I first saw it, it became pretty clear that the Spelling Bee is inherently dramatic,” explained Atchison. “When I saw it, I was just changing channels and I came upon it and I thought that it had all the drama and tension and entertainment value of a sporting event, of a basketball game or football game. That’s when I had the idea for the film.
It took me a while to get around to writing it. I had the idea in ’94 but I actually didn’t write the screenplay until 1999. I was putting the story together in my head and trying to decide whether I was actually the right person to tell this story. I decided, ‘Well, no one else is so I’ll do it.’ I was consumed by it and cared deeply about the issues in it. I knew it would be a very entertaining film. I wrote it in ’99 and it won the Nicholl Fellowship in 2000, and then because I stubbornly decided I was going to direct it – and because nobody had ever seen a movie like this before - it took us five years to get it made. So in that long period a couple other people got the idea late in the game that this could maybe be something that a movie could be about.”
Atchison continued. “My screenplay was out there a long time ago but we decided to make a movie about this particular girl and nobody had ever seen a movie like this before, so it was tough to get made.”
Atchison’s Not the Most Obvious Person to Take on This Subject: “Ostensibly, if you look at me I’m nothing like Akeelah. I’m a 6’4” white guy from Phoenix, Arizona. I went to USC Film School, which is in South LA and that’s how I got to know the neighborhood. I have tutored and mentored at a youth center down there called A Place Called Home, which is a wonderful place.
Every interview I do where I sit down, the first thing that’s out of their mouth is, ‘Oh, you’re white…’ because so many people look at things through a racial prism, which is exactly what Akeelah’s up against. She doesn’t consider herself the right person to go for the Bee until she learns that in fact she is the person to go for the Bee. That’s the struggle that I went through in writing this. I ultimately just surrendered to it because it was so all-consuming. I deeply cared about it and wanted to tell the story, and so I did.”
The First Draft to the Final Shooting Script: Atchison says that his original idea for the story wasn’t that much different from his final script. “The things that changed were the characters of her mom and her mentor, Dr Larabee. They changed a bit. Akeelah’s journey was always pretty much the same.
I didn’t write anything down until ’99 and at that point I popped out a 5 page treatment. I went and read that treatment again recently and it is amazingly similar to the final film. In the original version, Akeelah’s father was still alive but estranged from the family. He had a bigger role than the mom, but I ended up developing the mother character quite a bit more. In the original draft Dr Larabee was a lot older. He was 72 and his backstory was different than what it is now. There were a lot more characters in the original version. I ended up paring it down and focusing it more. But the structure of Akeelah’s journey, the steps she goes through, the friends she’s got, those were always the same.”
On Writing and Directing Akeelah and the Bee: “Well because I went to film school, the notion of writing something and letting somebody else direct it is pretty foreign. You’re writing something down so that you can direct. You’re letting people know what the movie is in your head that you’re then going to direct. Hollywood has bifurcated these disciplines, which I think are much more closely related than people admit.
It was not even a question of directing it when I’m writing it in my head, unless I’m writing with the specific idea in mind that I want to sell this and make some money. I had done that a few times. But, generally, if it’s something that I deeply care about like this, of course I’m going to direct it. I just don’t think about another option. The idea of somebody else directing this was abhorrent to me. I didn’t even entertain the thought.”
Page 2: On Keke Palmer, the Shooting Schedule, and Working with the Scripps National Spelling Bee