This is a series detailing the strange, sometimes traumatic experiences I've had in the entertainment industry -- run-ins with celebrities, development execs, and douchebags of all shapes and sizes -- since I moved to LA 11 years ago. A link to the previous installments can be found on the right hand side of the page, and also here.
I’ve wanted to write about my mysterious, head scratching, and downright maddening experiences in the world of Hollywood development for sometime now, but some of the memories are painful just to think about. The first nine and half years I spent in LA were incredibly frustrating for me as I was unable to sell any of my scripts. Little did I know, the most frustrating episode of my career wouldn’t happen until I sold my first project.
I came here to make it as a screenwriter in 1997, and by 2000 that goal had not yet materialized. Sure, I’d made a little money as a screenwriter*, but it was uncredited, so officially I was still a nobody. I had encountered repeated rejections and failures, which never makes anybody too happy.
But I got a big break when my buddy Phil was coming off a big success (’Dude, Where’s My Car?’ grossed $50 million in theaters domestically) and wanted to co-write another idea based very loosely on my life -- my phone number somehow got confused with a man named Oscar Bertichevsky, and the mysterious phone calls and voice mails I recieved inspired an idea for a mistaken identity spy adventure comedy.
Phil and I wrote the script as a spec, then went out with it in February, 2001. Unfortunately, at that moment, the threat of a writer’s strike hung over the industry like a dark cloud. Studios had bought up scripts like crazy for a period of a few months in preparation -- “stockpiling” for the long winter -- and now the trades, usually filled with news of sales, had one had one or two a week.
I questioned if this was the wisest time to go out with the script, but was ignored by our agents -- in fairness, I am a screenwriter. The script, despite being taken to studios by several prominent producers (including Team Todd, who had produced the most recent hit spy comedy), it was ignored by studios. We never even got passes from all the studios -- they were just in a holding on everything until the strike was resolved.
The good news was (or supposedly was) several people liked the script a great deal and wanted to meet with Phil and I to talk about working together. One, Neal Moritz’s Original Film, wanted to discuss a rewrite deal on a script they already owned. I was thrilled...until I heard the title and concept -- ’Book ‘Em’: A library’s book detective investigates an overdue book only to stumble upon a big-time criminal.
It was lame, but I wasn’t in a position to be choosy, so we worked up a pitch. Brad, the producer at Original, was a big fan of ours, and Brian, the studio producer, was a big fan of Phil’s from his TV work. Everybody got along great, things were fast-tracked. Within a couple of weeks, we’d gotten down a pitch which the producer was ready to take to the brass. It was all happening so fast and easily -- just like all the people who’d know say it does. There was no way this going to fail.
Only it did. At the time, the “Greenlight Guy” at Paramount -- the man whose okay you needed to get a deal done -- was John Goldwyn, and he had an opinion we couldn’t have possibly anticipated. John Goldwyn didn’t like art thief movies, or at least, not comedies involving an art thief. See, that was what we’d pitched for our antagonist’s crime. “We’re not making ’The Thomas Crown Affair’” was the quote relayed from an incredulous Brian, who begged us to find another crime.
This as a bigger problem than it sounds like. Because it was a light comedy, a murderer was too dark. Because it had to do with overdue books, kidnapping didn’t make much sense. A bank robber wouldn’t need books either. Everything we thought of, either they had a problem with it, or we did. Finally, Phil became so frustrated, Brian actually told him to smoke pot. That didn’t work either.
Phil told me he wanted to pass on the project, which was heartbreaking to me -- to come so close to getting my first gig, a big studio job, only to say “no” -- but I understood. Our agreement was that if either of us wanted to pass we would. So, we passed.
The next day, I woke up with one of those, “Why even get out of bed?” moods. But when I checked my voice mail, I found a message from Brad, wanting to talk. He said he really wanted to work with us, and had another project we’d be perfect for. My spirits soared -- we still had a chance.
The new project, ’Employee of the Month’ (yes, that one), was a more palatable concept: Two best friends are torn apart by the love of one woman, fighting to win their company’s employee of the month award in order to win her heart. I knew it wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was a lot easier coming up with a pitch for this than for ’Book ‘Em’.
Brad quickly got us a pitch meeting with a producer from Lion’s Gate, and the Greenlight Guy at Sony, Matt Tolmach. Only that week, a stuntman had died on the set of ’Spiderman’ in Chicago, and Tolmach had gone to see to the situation personally. So instead we meet with another studio producer, Rachel. She heard our pitch, and clearly liked it. We waited while she relayed it to Tolmach.
Rachel came back with one note, which we quickly executed. We were ready to pitch it again, but Tolmach wasn’t back in town yet, but Brad relayed to us that Rachel claimed she was Tolmach’s “proxy”, and had the power to say “yes” to the project. Since it was hard getting everyone’s schedules to mesh, a conference call was arranged. We pitched Rachel, she had no notes, and once again we were on the doorstep.
We waited. And waited. After a couple of weeks, I could tell Phil started to sour on the deal -- he had another deal working for the ’Dude’ sequel. I tried to get our agent, Justin, to give him a pep talk, but he said that wasn’t his job. I prayed we’d get a offer from Sony before Phil completely quit.
Then, the very next day, Brad called. Surprisingly, there was neither an offer, nor a pass -- Rachel had tried to relay the pitch to Tolmach (despite the fact she supposedly had the power to decide on her own), and according to her, something was lost in translation. He needed to hear the pitch in person. I was pissed. Justin was pissed. Phil didn’t want to do it.
I thought Justin would understand this, since I’d just predicted it the previous day, but in stead he was shocked. He tried to give us a pep talk to do the meeting (despite the fact he said that wasn’t his job), but Phil wouldn’t budge. One meeting away from becoming a done deal, the project was dead. (At least with us -- obviously, the producers were able to find someone who would take that meeting). We had turned down two studio projects within two months.
Having two rugs pulled out from under me back-to-back like that was very difficult to take. Even worse, because of our “unprofessional” behavior, there was tension between myself and Justin, and soon he wasn’t returning my calls. I honestly thought my career might be over right then and there.
It wasn’t, but I hadn’t seen the last -- or even the worst -- the world of development had to offer. You can read about that tomorrow in Part 2.
* I’m sure just about everybody reading this knows this by now -- and at some point I’m going to get around to doing a post on it, so I can just link to that in the future -- but just for the record: ’Dude, Where’s My Car’ was written by my friend, Phil Stark, based on one my first nights in LA, when I (you guessed it) lost my car. I contributed a few ideas to the script, and got a nice little chunk of the big pile of money Phil sold the script for.
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