So, anybody out there ever write a script, and then, after seeing the latest blockbuster, conclude that the script you wrote is so far off the mark, so unimpressive by comparison, that it can’t possibly interest anyone? I’m not talking about seeing your idea done better elsewhere. I’m talking about your idea never ever being done... anywhere! And if you did, and saw it coming, why'd you keep going?
Long ago, a writer re-typed CASABLANCA with the title changed to the one on the source stage play: EVERYBODY COMES TO RICK’S. Of the 217 agencies he sent it to, ninety returned it unread. This was back in the 1970s when scripts could still be sent in, uninvited. Thirty-eight agencies read it and rejected it. Five asked to represent it or send it to someone else in the business. Many complained about the writing. One even suggested he pay an associate to fix it. By the way, it won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars the year it was eligible.
I recently finished writing a black comedy set in Hollywood, primarily in the 1990s during the spec script boom that saw Shane Black and Joe Eszterhas trading record sales. There are no car chases, no explosions, no super-powers, and no moron entourage pf "besties" getting “lucky.” Instead, there’s just a really cool scam. I can say “cool” because I didn’t come up with it, I found it in the newspaper, and the arresting FBI agent said it was the cleverest scam he’d seen in his two-decade career.
So I took the scam, and, after fashioning a story around it, and setting up the scam in the first act, I paid it off later in acts two and three. But somehow it didn’t work, it wasn’t what the industry calls, “a movie.” The project sat there for almost 10 years waiting to find a way to become a movie. Finally, I “licked it” by throwing the original plot away and changing it into something completely different. Now, finished, it might be described as THE PLAYER meets THE STING. But do they even make “mash-ups” like that anymore?
So, there it is. No spectacular Jason Bourne action set-pieces. No plots about world domination. No capes. And the sex is real-world rather than an adolescent male’s wet dream.
I spent, off and on, over a decade building that story and script. It evolved from a straight caper set in contemporary America to a fairly sophisticated period black comedy about the movie business. I struggled for years trying to find a way to make it resonate as much with an audience as the original idea had with me. I spent another couple years trying to find a way in, that wasn’t the “same ‘ol same ‘ol.” I don’t know if I succeeded, but does it really matter?
Why? Because I look back on those ten lost years filled with Hollywood’s single-minded obsession with “over-the-top-ness” and I find my story-aesthetic left so far behind that I wonder if the script can ever find a contemporary audience. We are in an age, for God’s sake, when whole movie studios have laid down dictums that ALL films in development must be in 3-D! (And I am not talking about Robert Towne’s apartment number, here.)
It became clear to me long before the script was completed that it was becoming out of touch with the industry to which it must sell. I rationalized my continuing effort with valid arguments like “movies about the movies” continue to appear: WHAT JUST HAPPENED, SWIMMING WITH SHARKS, THE MUSE, BOWFINGER, GET SHORTY, BARTON FINK, THE PLAYER, THE BIG PICTURE, etc.; the Coen brothers seem to be able to find interest in quality genre-stories, so my story’s champion is out there; it entertains even without the spectacle; etc., etc. But am I just fooling myself?
If a screenplay is written in the forest (or anywhere else, for that matter), can it be read? Can it be sold?
"When someone says, 'They’d never make that movie now' -- that’s exactly the movie I immediately want to sit down and write. Or try to. Let the cards fall …"
---Lem Dobbs
KAFKA, THE SCORE, THE LIMEY, etc.
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Congratulations on finishing your script, Lee Matthias! I'm sure your story’s champion is out there.
"It became clear to me long before the script was completed that it was becoming out of touch with the industry to which it must sell." That's not always a bad thing. Your script, my script, anyone's script could be one of those scripts that changes the industry.
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Maurice Vaughan Well, trying to follow the trends usually happens way too late to jump aboard. Following your heart, your gut, and your energy will get your writing closer to a truth, perhaps your truth. But their truth? The danger is letting the truth lie to you. Changing the industry may be possible, but it ain't likely.
The real truth is that if your motives go beyond telling a great story, any truths in it begin to turn into lies. Somebody once said, going for any perceived "short-end money" is a "one-way-ticket to palookaville".
I do have an idea how I can do an "end-around" Hollywood's bias against movies about Hollywood. So that's the plan, at this point.
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The industry seems to be in a strange place. Nothing seems to be working very well, and following the old blockbuster format is near dead. I am hoping the industry will move more back to traditional features, although there are a lot of really good series that seem to be killing it, like Stranger Things, The 3Body Problem, Silo, etc. We can only hope that what we are creating finds an audience... Good luck Lee.
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Dan MaxXx It's not anti-Hollywood. There are two bad actors in the story, but, if anything, Hollywood comes off pretty well.
While not saying it explicitly, the post was about the fact that Hollywood doesn't like to do movies about Hollywood because Hollywood does not see itself as representative of the real world. It's well aware of the fact that its people are greatly over-paid compared to the national average, and that their lifestyle is way beyond the rest of the world. So it rationalizes that the rest of the world won't relate. That, and the fact that H doesn't want to air its privileged lifestyle in public because of embarrassment. That, of course, accounts for much of the philanthropy. Guilt. But the public is fascinated with H. And, so, H ends up trying to avoid stories about itself while stifling the desire to make almost guaranteed money. Kinda funny, actually.
I don't plan on passing away, so H will have to adjust.
Writing about Hollywood has a similar audience appeal that voyeurs enjoy when wondering who all those men are visiting the pretty lady in the apartment across the hall.
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My college buddy and I wrote a screenplay about our film school experiences. It was optioned but nothing ever came of it and the option lapsed. Still, it captured wide-eyed hopes, dastardly teachery, and promises of grasping the brass ring that should be baked into every film school curriculum, and likely is...