Lee Goldberg

Another Bond Movie

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Variety reports that Warner Brothers is making another Bond movie…only this one will be about 007 creator Ian Fleming.

"Fleming," meanwhile, tells the story of how the author’s own experiences
with womanizing and spying shaped his signature secret agent creation.

Born into a privileged English family, Fleming began as a comparative
underachiever until a stint as a journalist covering the Soviet Union led him to
begin spying on that country for the Foreign Office. Fleming was the mastermind
of numerous clever spying schemes, some deemed too outlandish to use. He dreamed
of becoming a daring secret agent and adapted his own womanizing feats and the
stories he heard to craft the Bond novels.

Daniel Craig is Bond?

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The London Evening Standard is reporting that Daniel Craig has been picked to be the new James Bond.  This is not the first time this has been prematurely announced — and subsequently denied — by the Bond producers. But I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s been widely reported over the last few months that Craig has been one of the three or four top contenders for the license to kill for some time now. Variety reports that a decision will be announced this week.

Becoming a TV Writer

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Paul Guyot has an excellent post today about becoming a TV writer and what it takes to stay in the game. Here’s a taste from his very long, very informative post:

Starting out you must have skin like a Rhino. You could get lucky and land on
a show with a very smart, very secure showrunner like I did – one who encouraged
the writer’s original voice, one who liked to teach, one who wanted to get as
much of the writer’s words into the show.

Or you could land where I’ve also been – on a show where you’re seen as a
threat, an outsider, someone who hasn’t proved themselves – and in their eyes
that means someone who didn’t go through the same shit they went through. It can
be like fraternity hell week… only lasting a whole season. You can be writing
your ass off, knowing you’re doing good work – better than others – and still
have your work slammed. Still be completely rewritten. To the point where, when
the show airs, you’re almost embarrassed to have your name on it. Not because
it’s so awful, but because there’s not a single word of yours left.

But you shut up and take it. You do your job.

My friend Paul moans all the time about shutting down his blog, but it’s because of fantastic essays about the biz like this one that I hope he never does. Keep’em coming, Paul!

 

WhyDo So Many Movies Suck Lately?

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…Jim Warren had lunch with a couple of film-makers and left with the answer:

How can these guys expect to make great movies if they’re basically unfamiliar
with what has come before? And it’s not really their fault, either; they’re both
bright and talented young men. They’re victims of a society that does not reward
substance. We’re immersed in a culture that puts a premium on novelty rather
than on creativity, one that places a higher value on the breadth of trivia than
it does on the depth of knowledge, one that prefers spectacle over vision, and
videogame hand-eye coordination over book-perusing eye-brain comprehension.

Looking for the Short Cut

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I got this email today:

Hello Lee,
               My name is Mark Coulter, pen name M.W.C. Coulter. I recently
wrote a book and got it published through "Publish America". I have been on one
book signing and have two others upcoming. The book is called "The Folding of
Time", about two astronauts on a first deep space mission, they encounter an
anomaly, wormhole, that takes them on a journey through time and alternate
universes.I would like some advice of how to contact studios’ on making this into a
series or movie. Can you give me some advice on how to do this?
                                                        Sincerely
Mark.

First off, you never should have gone to PublishAmerica. You were looking for a short cut and this one leads to a dead end as you’ve undoubtedly discovered. You could contact various studios and production companies, ask for the names and addresses of their development executives, and send them your book.  Ordinarily, you’d have a one-in-a-million shot of selling the movie or TV rights. But since it’s a self-published, POD book, your odds against  interesting any studio in it have probably become one-in-a-billion.  I don’t know if your book is good or bad, but unfortunately, no one in Hollywood is going to take PublishAmerica title (or any vanity press publication)  seriously. 

On the other hand, if you can sell 10,000 copies, get some great reviews from respected publications, and get a bunch of newspapers and magazines to write profiles about you, that could change. That’s what happened with ERAGON... and the movie is in production now (of course, ERAGON wasn’t a PublishAmerca, iUniverse, or xlibris POD title, either).

UPDATE (10-12-05): I got this reply. My reply follows.

Well how about if I write another manuscript, on a movie idea not associated with the
book, and send it in raw and unpublished? Would I stand a better chance of
getting a read?

Nope.  Studios buy hot novels (ie bestselling and well reviewed) and
they buy scripts. They buy pitches, but only from established screenwriters
which, I assume, you are not. So, if I were you, I’d write a script. Even then,
though, you need an agent to submit it to the studios on your behalf.  They certainly aren’t going to read a raw, unpublished manuscript from an unknown writer…at least not without a powerful agent, producer, director or actor attached to it.

Christmas on Television

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027598331501_sclzzzzzzz_Christmas is a time for families to come together to count their blessings and enjoy the love, joy, and
spirituality of the holiday season.  The same thing goes for your
favorite TV characters and their families. Just about every TV family has
celebrated the holidays in their own special way… giving us some of the most
memorable, touching, and truly surreal moments in television history.

Now TV critic Diane Werts has collected them all – more than 700 episodes, specials, TV movies, reality shows, cartoons, and commercials — in her book CHRISTMAS ON TELEVISION. To tell you the truth, I’ve been kicking around the same idea for a book since I was a kid, recording Christmas episodes and sticking them in a box for the day I’d finally get around to writing it. Well, that day never came and now Diane has beaten me to it. I’ve already ordered my copy and can’t wait to read it.

A Touch of Class

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Today, for reasons I will never understand, I got an email offering me the amazing opportunity to buy an I DREAM OF JEANNIE bottle autographed by the cast:

The incomparable magnetism of this 2nd-thru 5th Season Metallic Purple I Dream
of Jeannie Brass Bottle is a must-! YES, Dreams DO come true, as you will
discover upon adding this classic and breathtaking Jeannie Bottle to your
collection.

ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY!
A "SIGNED LIMITED EDITION" SIGNED BY BARBARA
EDEN, LARRY HAGMAN, BILL DAILY, AND THE OFFICIAL BOTTLE ARTIST!
"YES" SIGNED BY THE CAST JUST FOR “YOU”!!!!!!
THIS IS THE OFFICIAL 40TH ANNIVERSARY BOTTLE, METALIC PURLE, BRASS
GALLERY EDITION ‘I DREAM OF JEANNIE’ BOTTLE!

It’s hard to believe, but for the cost of self-publishing your unsaleable book, you can have this amazing bottle! That’s right…you can own this masterpiece for just  $549! But wait, there’s MORE! Foronly $25, you can get a priceless photo of the celebrities signing your bottle! But wait, there’s even more MORE reasons to buy this destined-for-the-Louvre artistic masterpiece of fine art!

MOST IMPORTANTLY, BECAUSE 10% WILL ALSO GO TO VICTIMS OF HURRICANE KATRINA, AND
WHAT A WAY TO HELP SOMEONES WISH COME TRUE, BUT WITH A JEANNIE BOTTLE!

Don’t waste a second.  Think how wonderful this will look next to your STAR TREK salt shakers, Elvis ashtray, and BABYLON 5 nosehair clippers. It’s just the touch of elegance your basement needs. Show your parents that although you never moved out of the house, you’ve got class.

Room 222

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Enrollment has begun for our next online session of Beginning Television Writing. The four-week course begins Oct. 24th and is a lot of fun…at least for your humble instructors. Here’s the listing from Writers University:

In this four week course, two established executive producers/showrunners
[That would be William Rabkin and me ] will give you an inside look at the world of episodic television. You will
learn—and practice— the actual process involved in successfully writing a spec
episodic script that will open doors across Hollywood. You will learn how to
analyze a TV show and develop “franchise”-friendly story ideas. You will develop
and write a story under the direction of the instructors, who will be acting as
showrunners… and then, after incorporating their notes, you will be sent off to
write your outline. Finally, you will develop and refine your outline with the
instructors, leaving you at the end of the course ready to write your episodic
spec script…the first step in getting a job on a TV series.

We look forward to seeing your in our virtual classroom.