Working under contract for Castle Rock Entertainment
Sorkin worked under contract for some years at
Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. and had an office at their headquarters near
Santa Monica Boulevard in
Beverly Hills, California. These were formative years in which he wrote the scripts for
A Few Good Men,
Malice, and
The American President. While writing for Castle Rock, between 1991 and 1995, he made friends with colleagues such as
William Goldman and
Rob Reiner and met his future wife, Julia Bingham, who was an in-house entertainment lawyer.
The screenplay for
A Few Good Men was still in an unsatisfactory early draft when he started working under contract at Castle Rock. Sorkin had purchased a book about
screenplay format and was learning the craft. William Goldman (who regularly worked under contract at Castle Rock) became his mentor and helped him adapt his stageplay into a
screenplay.
In the meantime, William Goldman approached Sorkin with a premise, which would later become the screenplay for
Malice. Goldman oversaw the project as
creative consultant while Sorkin wrote the first two drafts of
Malice. Subsequently, Sorkin left the project to finish up the screenplay for
A Few Good Men. Rob Reiner directed
A Few Good Men, which starred Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, and Kevin Bacon, and was produced by David Brown. The film was a box office success.
In Sorkin's absence, screenwriter
Scott Frank was hired to write two drafts of the
Malice screenplay. Sorkin returned after delivering on his commitments to
A Few Good Men and wrote the final
shooting script for
Malice. Harold Becker directed
Malice, a medical thriller, with actors Nicole Kidman and Alec Baldwin playing lead roles.
Sorkin's last produced screenplay for Castle Rock was
The American President and once again he worked with William Goldman, who contributed as a consultant, and Rob Reiner, who served as director and one of the producers. It took Sorkin a few years to write the screenplay, due to an increasing consumption of
freebase cocaine, which he started using in New York. He eventually turned in a massive 385-page screenplay for
The American President, which ultimately was whittled down to a standard shooting script of around 120 pages. The film was made and shown in North American movie theaters in late 1995.
Worldwide, the three films grossed about $400 million for Castle Rock. By this time, Sorkin had developed a full-fledged addiction to freebase cocaine and was advised by his then-girlfriend Julia Bingham to enter rehab. Rob Reiner had spoken to Bingham about his own concerns for Sorkin. In late 1995 Sorkin entered rehab at the Hazelden Institute in Minnesota. Five months later, on
April 13, 1996, Sorkin married Bingham; they divorced in 2005.