I don't know if Bradbury was then a member of the WGA, or how much control they had, but it does seem to me that Bradbury should have been given a co-screenplay credit.  That would have brought him more money--which is probably the real reason U-I didn't list him with Essex as the screenwriter.
This is incorrect. It would not have cost Universal one dime more.  Had Bradbury received split credit for the screenplay rather than "Story by--" credit, the only thing which would have changed would have been the percentage of residual payments to Bradbury, and that, by inches. I'm unsure what the precise numbers may have been in 1953, but I think currently the WGA rules grant about 30% of residual writer income to the author of the original material, 2/3rd to the screenwriters, divided up over however many persons receive credit.  So in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE's case, that would mean, say, Bradbury would receive 30 cents for every dollar due to the collective writers, Essex, about 60 cents.  Had they been listed as co-writers, it would have been 50-50.  But the total amount would not have changed.  Universal would not have paid out anything more.

It makes sense to give this weight to the original writer, since the characters and story structure are the basic building blocks.  Usually, a story is much terser and less detailed, so the screenwriter only has a framework, a trellis upon which he/she grows the ivy.  In Bradbury's case, his elaborate stage directions and inferences of camera direction are beyond what was necessary for a screen story. 

When a studio determines what they believe is final screen credit, it is submitted to the Writers Guild.  At that point, the writers who have been involved have the option of arguing for greater (or, rarely, lesser) credit than the studio suggests.  If it gets arguable, an anonymous three-writer panel reads all drafts of the material without name attribution and comes to a consensus of what credit should go to whom:  Writer B gets story credit, Writer D and G should split credit, etc.  The Guild also factos in things like contracts-- what job was the writer hired for?  Creating an original story?  Adapting a novel?  Writing a full screenplay? 

Contractually, Bradbury was hired to write the story, not the screenplay, so that's the credit he got. 

To put this in perspective:  Bradbury went 'way beyond the call of duty and his contractual assignment by turning in an elaborate 111 page treatment.  It wasn't in the job description to provide camera angles, chunks of usuable dialogue, etc.  Had he, let's say, provided scene by scene sketch illustrations like a comic book or a storyboard, and had these been used by the art & camera departments to actually shoot the film, he would not have been granted "Designed by--" credit either-- because that wasn't what he was hired to do.  He did more than what he was paid for.

In the case of BEAST, on the other hand, I'd imagine the screenwriters were hoppin' mad that Bradbury received any credit whatsoever.  The screenplay was clearly not based on his short story.  There's obvious influences, of course:  The Lost World, King Kong, The Thing-- but the lighthouse incident is certainly not central to the story.  And far's I know, the original monster discussed by Jack Dietz, Lourie & Co. was amorphous-- an octopus, a dinosaur, whatever.  All concerned (even Bradbury) seem to recall that any similarity of one sequence in the script to Bradbury's short story was noticed only after the fact... long after the screenplay was finished.

And yet, by getting screen credit for the film, Bradbury ends up not just with a little $750 check from Hal Chester, but a third of the WGA-mandated residuals for every time the movie runs on TV-- money which would otherwise have gone to the screenwriters, Lou Morheim & Fred Frieberger. 

Last Edited By: Ted Newsom Aug 12 10 2:34 PM. Edited 1 times.