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.
The exciting (not really) conclusion to yesterday's post in a moment, but one quick note first: I'm being purposely vague about the companies, projects, and names listed here to protect both the innocent and the guilty. I would like to work in Hollywood again, even if I'm not in Hollywood.
After losing two deals and my agent in the matter of a few weeks, I went into a depression, didn’t want to write, thought about how close I’d been to becoming For Real in the industry, ate a lot, slept late... You get the idea. But my mama didn’t raise no quitters. I wasn’t about to give up. I forced myself back into it, wrote a couple of decent scripts, got a new manager, and eventually hooked up with my current writing partner, Barry.
Writing with Barry, we had some success -- not at selling scripts, mind you, but at least we made some fans by the beginning of 2006. One was Brad, the old producer with Original Film, who we’d turned down twice. He was now running a company with overseas money looking to make genre films (comedies and horror) and wanted us to pitch him ideas.
For months we threw ideas at Brad, and he managed to find a small flaw in each of them. One of them had the exact idea which has since been written and made by someone else. One he loved, only to find out a similar idea was already in production elsewhere.
Finally, after three or four months, we found something. Our managers represented a graphic novelist who already had 10 projects in development, had a book Brad wanted us to adapt. It seemed to good to be true (usually a good clue) -- we didn’t even have to come up with the idea, just come up with a take on it and detail it in a treatment.
We did, then traded notes back and forth for another few weeks. Some of these were ridiculous -- first he said he wanted them to be stoners, then he didn’t; at one point he wanted us to put in a cameo for music producer Rick Rubin. Why? I have no idea at all. But finally, Brad had a treatment he liked, and just had to pass it by his boss. That was more than two years ago, and I’ve never heard from him since.
After about a month, he told our managers he could buy it, but not for another month or so -- after he got another project into production. He called a few months after that to say he still was interested, and loved the treatment, but said his company couldn’t make any comedies (despite the fact that was one of the only two kinds of movie he said they could make). Months later, our managers heard from him again, saying he still hadn’t given up on buying it.
Maybe he hadn’t, but I know I had. Barry and I had moved on, and in March 2007, nine and a half years to the day I moved to LA, we got an offer from a production campany on a pitch we’d made to them. It was a low-ball offer -- they knew we’re non-union and could acceot a less-than-scale offer -- but I really didn’t care. I’d sold a script. I was a failure anymore. I was a screenwriter! I mean, I’d been saying I was a screenwriter, but now it was really true.
I enjoyed that moment, and I’m glad I did, because it was all downhill from there. If I had thought getting random, nonsensical notes from producers on their project was tough, I had no idea what it was like to get those same kind of notes on my own project. But see, that’s the thing about selling a script -- they don’t give you that money for nothing. They get something, too: Your script. If not your soul as well. You don’t own your script, they do, so whatever note they give you has an ugly subtext: If you don’t want to do it, they can surely find somebody who will.
At first, the notes from the production company’s development team -- founding partners and exec producers, Marc and Trevor, and creative execs, Katherine and Anil -- were fantastic. I thought the first round of notes on our treatment -- mainly that we should change one character to a girl -- were very helpful. Their first round of notes on the script were even better. By the time we handed in our second draft of the script, I was actually looking forward to their notes. They then gave us the best round of notes I’ve ever had on a script.* I was thrilled.
And that’s when the roof caved in on me. The last round of notes is what’s called a “polish”: it’s supposed to be smaller -- and pays less -- than the other steps of the process. But it was at this time, that Marc and Trevor decided to drop a very big note of us: change the entire opening. That was a huge change to make that late in the process -- definitely a “screamer” of a note.
We did the best we could, but the new opening, based on a shaky concept given to us by them, didn’t turn out great. Both us and our managers prefered the original take (and still do), but the company went full steam ahead with the new script -- sending it out to directors, then studios.
They failed to attach anybody, or get the co-financing they hoped for, and I can’t help but wonder if the better opening might have pushed it over the top. Most people say a script either grabs you in the first 10-15 pages, or it doesn’t, and our first 10 were not as good as they had been just a few weeks before we went out with it. That’s hard to swallow.
Even harder to swallow was the handling of the announcement of the script -- or lack therof as it turned out. An announcement is vital because it tells the industry you’re a money-maker, someone they need to talk to. Most people I know of who’ve gotten announcements have had 20 or 30 meetings set up based on that along -- meeting where you can pitch your next project and often partner up with someone looking tom catch a rising star.
Upon selling them the pitch, they said they would announce it soon, and asked for publicity photos of Barry and I for the articles which would appear in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. We sent them in and waited.
Usually an announcement appears within a few days, so we were surpised when a couple of weks went by. They said it would happen soon, but hinted they wanted to have a copy of the script in hand before it hot the trades, so they could send it out to inquiring parties.
That made sense, so we wrote the script. When we were done, they wanted to wait until it was all polished and ready. When it was, they wanted to go to A-list directors first, because an attachment like that would make for a better story. Then they finally blew it off altogether and took it studios becuase they were so confident there would be a deal to announce in a matter of days anyway. There wasn’t. But that time, there was no point in announcing it -- everybody in town knew it didn’t get picked up.
The production company dropped the ball by not announcing not only because it cost us this priceless opportunity, but also because it could’ve gotten people excited about the project in a proactive, rather than reactive way. Our managers, who kept promising to announce it themselves if it didn’t happen soon, were also at fault for failing to follow through on their repeated promises. Though it was not the direct cause, the tension created by this, I believe, ultimately caused us to leave them.
And that’s how the sale of my first project -- as a pitch no less -- became the most frustrating, disappoint, and anti-clamactic moment of my career, if not my life. And it made me realize that even “success” in the industry (i.e. selling your idea for money) wasn’t necessarily going to make me happy. That was the first step to realizing I needed to move from LA.
* The best kind of development notes you get on a script are the one which make you wince just a bit when you hear/see them. A big wince (or scream) means they’re bad notes, impossible, or just stupid. No wince means they’re probably too easy to execute. But a little wince and queasiness in your stomach means the note is hard to execute, but badly needed.
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