By Jay A. Fernandez

First Run Features has acquired North American theatrical rights to Peter Hanson’s “Tales From the Script.” The documentary will open in a limited run March 12 ahead of its April 20 DVD release.

Containing interviews with Shane Black (“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”), Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption”), William Goldman (“All the President’s Men”), Paul Schrader (“Taxi Driver”) and more, Hanson’s documentary details the lives and work of dozens of Hollywood screenwriters. Hanson’s project includes a companion book, “Tales from the Script: 50 Hollywood Screenwriters Share Their Stories,” which HarperCollins imprint IT Books will publish January 26.

Here’s the trailer:

“Script” premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January and has since screened at the Austin and Starz Denver fests. Hanson produced through his Grand River Films along with Paul Robert Herman of Jade Tiger Films.

I met Hanson several times at evening Q&As with screenwriters (Billy Ray, Ted Griffin, Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Nathanson, etc.) that I moderated as companion events to a DVD series on screenwriters called “The Dialogue.” This was two-plus years ago, when Hanson was first starting to film these interviews. His ambition was clear then, and this two-pronged “Tales From the Script” project is the impressive result — the guy clearly got access to many of the top screenwriters in the business, past and present.

Allison Anders (“Gas Food Lodging”), John August (“Go”), John Carpenter (“Halloween”), Antwone Fisher (“Antwone Fisher”), David Hayter (“Watchmen”), Bruce Joel Rubin (“Ghost”), Guinevere Turner (“American Psycho”) and David S. Ward (“The Sting”) also appear in Hanson’s documentary.

The 346-page companion book features photo portraits and additional interviews with Mike Binder (“The Upside of Anger”), Nora Ephron (“Julie & Julia”), Robert Mark Kamen (“Taken”), Paul Mazursky (“An Unmarried Woman”) and others.

An author and filmmaker, Hanson also wrote and directed the documentary “Every Pixel Tells a Story” in 2002.