The Founder Page #4

of ‘29. One minute we’re screening

“Gold Diggers Of Broadway”, the

next it’s “Brother, can you spare a

dime?” Literally.

DICK MCDONALD:

I couldn’t.

MAC MCDONALD:

Nobody in town was making any

money. Except this one fella, Wylie

Reid. Ran a hot dog and root beer

stand. People still gotta eat,

right? So we decide to set up our

own stand, hot dogs and orange

juice, out in Arcadia.

EXT. ARCADIA - DAY (FLASHBACK)

A YOUNG DICK AND MAC manning their dusty, roadside HOT DOG

STAND during the Great Depression. A smattering of CUSTOMERS.

MAC MCDONALD (V.O.)

It did okay, enough to keep us off

the bread line, but we were hardly

doing gangbusters. There just

weren’t enough people in Arcadia.

19.

BACK TO PRESENT-

MAC MCDONALD:

Meanwhile, one town over is San

Bernardino, the place is growing at

a terrific clip. We want to

relocate, but we’ve got no money

for a new stand. That’s when my

brother here gets one of his

brilliant ideas. Tell him, Dick.

Dick throws Mac a “That’s okay, you tell him” nod.

MAC MCDONALD (CONT’D)

“Why don’t we move the stand we’ve

got? Put it on a truck!”

(BEAT)

Genius, right? Except one small

problem. On the road between the

towns, there’s an overpass. The

building doesn’t clear. I figure

that’s it, we’re done for. But then

Dick says...

Another nod of deferral from Dick.

MAC MCDONALD (CONT’D)

“Why don’t we saw the restaurant in

half?”

EXT. ROAD - DAY (FLASHBACK)

Dick and Mac driving an old flatbed Ford. On the back is the

stand, SPLIT IN TWO. The truck goes under an overpass,

narrowly clearing.

MAC MCDONALD (V.O.)

We truck the darn thing over in two

pieces, put it back together!

BACK TO PRESENT-

Kroc guffaws with amazement.

MAC MCDONALD:

We move the building, set up shop.

But before we open, we decide to

give the place a little tweak. It’s

1940. Drive-ins are all the rage,

the hottest thing going. I say

Dick, we gotta get in on this. Dick

says sure.

(MORE)

20.

MAC MCDONALD (CONT'D)

Two months later, we open for

business...

(show-biz hands)

“McDonald’s Famous Barbecue!”

EXT. MCDONALD’S FAMOUS BARBECUE - DAY (FLASHBACK)

The brothers’ proto-McDonald’s, up and running. Pretty

CARHOPS in tasseled short skirts and Western boots hustle

about serving customers.

MAC MCDONALD (V.O.)

We’ve got a 27-item menu, barbecue

slow-cooked in a real pit out back.

Uniformed waitresses bring the food

straight out to your car. It does

gangbusters. Going great guns. But

then, sales start to level off.

BACK TO PRESENT-

DICK MCDONALD:

The drive-in model, as we learn,

has a few built-in problems.

Kroc leans in, eager to hear their take on this.

DICK MCDONALD (CONT’D)

For starters, there’s the customer

issue. Drive-ins tend to attract,

shall we say, a less-than desirable

clientele.

MAC MCDONALD:

Teenagers.

DICK MCDONALD:

Hot rodders and hooligans. Juvenile

delinquents in blue jeans.

Kroc nods, all too familiar.

DICK MCDONALD (CONT’D)

Then there’s the service. It takes

forever and a day for your food to

arrive. And when it finally does-

RAY KROC:

It’s completely wrong.

21.

DICK MCDONALD:

The carhops are too busy dodging

gropes to remember you wanted a

strawberry phosphate, not cherry.

RAY KROC:

If they remember at all.

MAC MCDONALD:

Then there’s the expenses. Payroll

is high due to the large staff

required. Dishes are constantly

getting stolen or broken.

DICK MCDONALD:

Tremendous overhead.

MAC MCDONALD:

But one day Dick has a realization.

Going over the books, he notices

something. The bulk of our sales

come from just three items:

Burgers, fries, soft drinks.

DICK MCDONALD:

87 percent.

MAC MCDONALD:

We say to ourselves, what the heck

are we doing monkeying around with

all this other stuff? Focus on what

sells.

Kroc nods. Yes.

MAC MCDONALD (CONT’D)

And that’s just what we do.

Brisket, gone. Tamales, gone. And

we don’t stop at the menu. We look

at everything. What else don’t we

need?

DICK MCDONALD:

Turns out, quite a lot.

MAC MCDONALD:

Carhops.

DICK MCDONALD:

Walk up to a window. Get your food

yourself.

MAC MCDONALD:

Dishes.

22.

DICK MCDONALD:

All paper packaging. Disposable.

MAC MCDONALD:

Jukeboxes, cigarette machines.

DICK MCDONALD:

Drive out the riff-raff.

RAY KROC:

(totally in sync)

Create a family-friendly

environment!

MAC MCDONALD:

And finally, the biggest, most

important cut of all... the wait.

DICK MCDONALD:

Orders ready in 30 seconds, not 30

minutes.

MAC MCDONALD:

We decide to tear down the kitchen.

Rebuild. Reconfigure. Rethink the

whole dang thing. And you’re gonna

love how we do it. Tell him, Dick.

DICK MCDONALD:

The tennis court?

MAC MCDONALD:

He brings me out to this tennis

court, draws an outline in the

dirt. Exact dimensions of our

kitchen.

EXT. TENNIS COURT - DAY (FLASHBACK)

A TENNIS COURT, somewhere in San Bernardino. Mac watches as

Dick carefully draws a KITCHEN OUTLINE on it with a stick.

MAC MCDONALD (V.O.)

We bring in a bunch of employees,

have ‘em go through the motions,

making pretend burgers and fries.

--An invisible kitchen, YOUNG EMPLOYEES mimicking the moves,

trying to get it right.

23.

MAC MCDONALD (V.O.)

Dick’s chasing after them with the

stick, marking up where all the

equipment should go. They do it

over and over, hashing out the

moves, choreographing like it’s

some sort of crazy burger ballet.

--Over and over. It’s starting to get dark.

DICK MCDONALD (V.O.)

Finally, after about six hours of

this, we get it just right.

--Workers making pretend burgers and fries in perfect sync.

DICK MCDONALD (V.O.)

A symphony of efficiency. Not a

wasted motion.

BACK TO PRESENT-

DICK MCDONALD:

We take the layout to a builder,

custom build to exact specs.

MAC MCDONALD:

Ta-da. The Speedee System is born.

The world’s first-ever system

designed to deliver food fast. It’s

totally revolutionary.

DICK MCDONALD:

And a complete disaster.

EXT. MCDONALD’S - DAY (FLASHBACK)

The grand opening. The hungry and the curious pulling up.

MAC MCDONALD (V.O.)

Opening day, people pull into the

lot, immediately start honking when

no carhop comes over. We try to

explain the walk-up window. They’re

bewildered. Furious. “Whaddaya mean

I gotta get out of my car?”

24.

BACK TO PRESENT-

MAC MCDONALD:

Most of them just cuss us out and

drive off. The few that stick

around are mad as heck about having

to eat off paper and discard their

own trash.

DICK MCDONALD:

We may have underestimated the

learning curve.

MAC MCDONALD:

By five o’clock, Dick’s calculating

the cost of converting back to

drive-in. But me, I’m not quite

ready to throw in the towel. Going

back to my Hollywood roots, I say

to myself, “We gotta go big with

this. We gotta put on a show.” I

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