I’ve been too busy to post as often as usual…preparing for a pitch meeting (it went well), preparing for a meeting for a possible writer/producer gig (it also went well), and I’ve been working hard on MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU (going well as well…and I’ve now broken my personal record for using the word "well" in a single paragraph). I’m also a judge in a short story contest and been reading hundreds of submissions. Anyway, that’s a long-winded way of justifying yet another rerun post from my blogging past…
This is a true story.
I was in the offices of a major movie producer who had just read my book THE WALK
and wanted to talk about a possible screen version. The story is about
a TV producer who is stuck in downtown Los Angeles when a major
earthquake decimates the city and has to walk back home to the suburbs.
The executive loved the book, the human drama, and the action-adventure elements. He only had a few thoughts and concerns.
“Does the guy have to be a TV producer?” he asked.
I
was prepared for that question. I knew the character might be “too
inside,” meaning too much a part of the entertainment industry, to
connect with a wider audience.
“No,” I said, “Of course not. We can give him a different profession.”
“How about if the TV producer was a team of cheerleaders instead?” the executive asked.
I laughed, thinking he was joking. He wasn’t. But he wasn’t done with me yet.
“And what if the earthquake was a tidal wave?”
The book remains unfilmed.
Not enough drama there. Now if you had the Yellowstone caldera erupt, as it did 640,000 years ago, blanketing North America with many feet of ash and extinguishing most life on the continent, and if you had two sheepherders who have to walk to Acapulco with their hamster, the story would be bought at once.
And what if (because it’s now a tidal wave) we rename it “THE SWIM”? Is Burt Lancaster available?
But.. because the protagonists are now Cheerleaders what if you call it “THE SWIM TEAM”.
No, no, it should be a troupe of bellydancers, in full glittering costumes and stage makeup (even though it’s the middle of a weekday.) And the earthquake should trigger the release of a mighty grumpy demon who can breathe napalm, and only the dancers’ shimmies can stop the impending disaster!
Okay, maybe not. *grin*
I’ve got it! Get Michael Douglas to play a really pissed off out-of-work engineer who gets caught in a traffic jam and has to walk home. But on the same day, a volcano erupts in the middle of Los Angeles! A brave public works official played by Tommy Lee Jones has to save the day! You can call it, Walkano!
Cheerleaders …. tidal waves …. he’s thinking wet T shirts, right?
What if the cheerleaders were all Navy SEALs?
What if LA was a small town in Nebraska?
http://www.theonering.net/giveaway/contestEA.php
I wonder if this sanctioned fanfic contest will go the same way as the “L” word fiasco did.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! No one could make this stuff up. Last year I was working with a director on a piece I’d written where a teenage girl was “investigating” the murder of someone she knew (even though someone had already confessed). The director was obsessed with his idea that the girl was actually the murderer. He loved “the twist” — apparently the fact that it made NO sense –it “had” to be done.
Thanks for the laugh! Better luck on the next pitch!