Make Undercovers better

I really want to like Undercovers. The pilot was okay - not great, not even remotely as good as the Alias and Lost pilots - but good enough that I liked its potential. But now....

These two people were spies for years before they met. They traveled around the world lying to everyone they met, doing lord knows how many morally questionable things to get the job done. Yet they don't appear to have any secrets from each other.  Their "fights" are more like cute little foreplay. They just love each other so much that they know each other sooooo well and just want to protect each other, but not at the risk of sacrificing professional respect. It's like the fucking Cleavers with guns.

And the other spy guy, the hot white guy, he used to date the wife. Now he works with the wife and husband and they all get along. He doesn't really want the wife back - he jokes about it, but he's got a lot of other irons in the fire. The husband isn't particularly jealous, sort of mildly annoyed.

Speaking of jealousy, nobody's a better spy than anybody else. There's no real competition between them.

I don't tune into shows like this to watch the mission. I don't give a shit about the mission. I tune in to watch how the mission affects the relationship of a married couple, but so far the mission doesn't seem to affect them much at all.

Give one of them a horrible secret. Make one member of the group HATE another member of the group they're forced to work with. Make one of them kick so much ass on a mission while the other one ends up looking like an idiot. For heaven's sake, give us some genuine conflict, not this surfacy cute shit we've been getting. I'd say Undercovers does not need to be Chuck, but even Chuck has constant relationship conflict. So instead I say, Undercovers, be the edgy Chuck. Please.

Snow White and the Huntsman

There's been a lot of talk this week on all the boards about Snow White and the Huntsman and the $3 million sale. And wow, that's a hell of a sale, and I'm happy as hell for writer Evan Daugherty. The pacing of the script is terrific and he's obviously a gifted writer.

But I'm not sure what made this script worth so much money. My best guess is the PG rating. Most of the retold fairy tales out now seem to have R ratings.

In Snow White, there are evil fairies who are kind of mean although not in any memorable way, which would seem kind of edgy, I guess, had Killing on Carnival Row not been about fairy prostitutes.

It's retelling of a fairy tale, but it seems like every ten minutes a new fairy tale pops up with some kind of modern take. It's so trendy to retell fairy tales that I looked on Project Gutenberg a month ago to see what kind of cool Grimm tales I had overlooked. Do you know most of them are like three paragraphs long?

The consensus among those of us who've never actually made any money writing screenplays is, we don't get it. The script has some major dialogue issues and overall is kind of predictable except in places where the characters defy logic. On the one hand, it was easy to read. I had no trouble making it to the end, and I'm somebody who regularly gives up when shit gets boring. On the other hand, I just didn't get the wow factor.

I wish I understood. Does anybody get why this script made so much money? Is it the PG thing? I'd like to understand so I too can make that much money.

Digital twins

As I watched Social Network Saturday, I remember thinking those Winklevoss twins were fantastic, and how lucky Fincher was to find two identical twins so perfect for the role who could act so well.

My favorite line in the film: "I'm 6-5, 220 and there's two of me." Brilliant.

Turns out, though, Fincher didn't find two perfect identical twins. Those are two unrelated guys digitally enhanced. I never would have guessed. Amazing. What kind of crazy shit are they going to think up next?

Tweet me or whatever

Look, sometimes these pictures are relevant to the topic, and sometimes they just make me giggle.

Anyway, peer pressure has finally won out. I finally started a Twitter account. I remember reading an article about Twitter in a Wired magazine a couple of years ago and thinking, Why the fuck would anyone want tiny updates on your day?

I've never been good at spotting developing trends.

Anyway, I'm under the name Bambookiller because my name was taken by someone who hasn't tweeted since 2009. I don't know if I'm every going to tweet anything cool. It may all be lame shit. It may be elegant pearls of wisdom.

But I will not - NOT - get a Facebook account.

Teach

Okay so. I'll admit when I was wrong.

Tony Danza's Teach does show what it's like to be a teacher. In the pilot he doesn't have the kind of discipline issues most teachers get, but he does have the general problems aside from discipline that we all have. But it's the pilot; it looks like in future episodes he will have to deal with some discipline issues. The first week the kids are figuring you out. The second week they're testing you.

There's a scene in the preview of upcoming episodes where he walks out in the middle of class and thinks about leaving. Oh yeah, I've been there. I've cried in the hallway in the arms of another teacher while my kids sat in my room waiting for me to come back. So I guess this show is for real.

I found myself willing him advice.

I found myself wondering if they said the same things about me in my first year that they said about him. I am both terrified and amazed at how much logic and empathy the kids used when talking about him.

I heard him say things exactly like the things I have said, because much like Tony Danza, I am manic in the classroom and I still talk too much.

With that in mind, the best advice I ever got as a teacher:

-When you ask a question, wait. And wait. Eventually one of them will get more uncomfortable than you are with the silence, and they'll answer the question.

-At the end of the day, the kids should be tired, not you. Make them do all the work, even if that work is mental

-Make the kids think you're crazy. If they think you're crazy, they'll always be a little scared of what you might do if they piss you off.

Outline: Done

I spent the whole week trying to get over one scene in the beginning of my outline for the new script, which for now will be known as The First Hit. This morning I figured out how I would get over that hump, and then suddenly my fingers flew through the rest of the outline. In one hour I wrote three pages, from halfway through the first act all the way to the end. And it was fun. It's exhilarating, like I just rode a roller coaster in my head but it didn't make my stomach leap or anything. Actually it's not really like a roller coaster. Maybe a double-decker ferris wheel.

Now I'm waiting to see what my friend thinks before I send this to the Manager.

It's good to be productive.

Counting

Does everybody but me count their scripts? People always spout off how many scripts they've written, and I have absolutely no idea. 10? 15? 8? Beats me. I wrote a lot of crap that never saw the light of day before I started writing stuff I wasn't ashamed of. I didn't keep count, and I didn't even keep all the scripts. Things that sucked got lost or erased. Plus there's shorts and TV scripts.

I've given myself a number sometimes on other websites when people ask, but to be honest it was just a guess, and as time goes by that guess gets hazier.

Do you keep count? Am I alone in this?

Hawaii 5-0 and Daniel Dae Kim

Even though I said I didn't want anymore cop shows, I'm enjoying the hell out of Hawaii 5-0. I think it's because although technically I guess it's a drama, it doesn't feel super serious and fake like so many similar shows. The characters seem real, not scripted, which since they're scripted is pretty good.

And okay, Grace Park is ridiculously beautiful. And thin.

And that guy who played a sleazy asshole manager on Entourage gets to be a good dad here.

And the lead is a good lookin fella.

But the real joy of this is seeing Daniel Dae Kim looking cool. I knew he was cool back when he was on Angel as an evil lawyer who eventually got zombiefied and then shot in the head. Or was he axed in the head? I don't remember, but Gunn gave him a headwound so he wouldn't become a zombie, even though he was evil and made life a literal Hell for the team.

The point is, he was so evil and cool on that show, and now he's good and cool. He drives a motorcycle and he gets to use his real deepish type voice. And because of the shape of his forehead he always looks like he's raising his eyebrows in disbelief, as if all the white folk around him are going about this whole thing all wrong and he has all the answers.

And that is why I will continue to watch Hawaii 5-0, despite the fact that they wasted an opportunity with James Marsters. But they made up for it with Daniel Dae Kim's badassery.

You got to have friends

Last night after going around and around with my script outline so many times I completely lost focus. I couldn't figure out whether I was coming or going or whether or not my idea was any good at all or just another generic piece of crap idea.

I emailed a friend of mine, told him about the notes I already got and the ways I was throwing them around, and then we got on chat and he talked me through it. Like deactivating a bomb over the phone.

By the end of the conversation, I not only had a new direction, but I had a new title and new confidence. Once he thought of the title he refused to let me not change it, to the point where he may track me down and shoot me if I don't. In fact, his title suggestion is so good I'm not going to post it here until I'm done with the script. For now it stays The First Hit: Most Generic Title Ever.

The beautiful part was that besides the title, everything was there in my head. I just needed someone to help me find it.

Everybody needs that one friend who knows how to steer you in the right direction when you're wandering in the wilderness.

Floating in a sea of possible angles

I had this idea that was pretty cool so I started writing up an outline, then I read Horrible Bosses, which has a lot of similarities to my script, so I changed the location from work to somewhere else, which necessitated some changes in the overall story as well.

In the process, I created a whole new protagonist. I went from Emma Stone to - well, not Emma Stone anymore, anyway. Someone more wide-eyed and innocent.

I love the concept and the character I've now created, but I've spent two weeks trying to make this work to no great effect. I finally threw up my hands and asked for help, and so far the help has been helpful. Helpful help.

Whenever you ask for help on a story, everybody always has these directions they'd take it based on things they like, so one of the great tricks of taking suggestions on the idea is to know what's just someone's personal preference and what's the true direction you want to take.

And I think that in order to do that, you have to be open to anything. I always go into getting notes of this kind hoping someone will say one thing that will send me off in the right direction, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes what they say is that the idea you had needs a complete revolution and that the one element of your story you KNEW was right, was, in fact, not right at all.

So I've started toying with some of the ideas I've been given today. Part of me says "NO! That's not the story you want to tell!" and the other part of me says "But this might be an even COOLER story!" and another part of me says "You're a fucking hack and nobody wants to read your stupid story anyway!" and then another part of me thinks "Explosions is the answer. More explosions," and then another part of me just stares at my hair in wonderment of how fantastic it looks when I use that expensive conditioner.

At some point I really hope this all clicks into place, but for now I'm just floating, looking for the glue to hold the puzzle together.

House of Secrets

As part of a project at work I needed to get comic books for the kids to look at in class. It's a whole artistic thing I'm doing.

I don't know that much about comic books, but last time I went to House of Secrets in Burbank they were super nice so I went back there, and I just want to give those guys another shout-out. I'm not the first: Bitter Script Reader gave them love once, too.

When I walked in they were busy and there was a small crew doing an interview, but both employees stopped to help me find what I was looking for. In fact, the girl - I wish I got her name - spent 20 minutes combing through boxes or a stack of cheap comics that fit my criteria. She was downright ecstatic at the challenge. After I chose my stack of titles, the boss gave me a discount on them since, as he put it, I'm "doing the Lord's work" in my ghetto school.

I've been there twice now, and they never minded that I don't know much about comics. They relished it. In fact, they thought it was terrific since maybe this project might get kids interested in reading comics.

I felt it appropriate to show them a little love here today.

A lesson from Raising Hope

I like to catch the pilots every season, so I just watched Raising Hope.
First of all, I love Garret Dillahunt. I love his voice, I love his clever redneck personality, I love his bone structure, I love that he can whip in and out of comedy and drama at the drop of a hat.

Now that that's out of the way, watching this show felt like swimming in floaties.

These people are supposed to be poor white trash rednecks.  I did not believe for one goddamn second that anyone ever involved in this show actually spent any time in a white trash home. Poor people are depressing; the only show that ever made that shit funny was Roseanne, and that's only because those people were so horrible you laughed at how glad you were that you weren't them. And no, Married With Children doesn't count because that was a fantasy white trash home.

Anyway, on this show they say some white trashy things, but they do it with complete enunciation and verb agreement and their clothes are clean.

I'm all for defying stereotypes, but first you have to embrace them. There's a moment on this show where the white trash dad and the white trash mom share a moment where you get that they love each other. They've been together since high school, but they seem to be a perfect match. Now, this would be a nice twist on the stereotype except it's not surprising in the least since these people don't really seem all that white trashy.

And while we're at it, speaking with a Southern accent does not automatically make you white trash. And fuck off with the assumption that it does.
Is it wrong to hope that show gets canceled so Garret Dillahunt can spend more time doing things I like? That seems wrong, but still kind of correct.

Editing reality shows must be fun sometimes

Sometimes I love imagining the fun the editors and writers on reality shows must have assembling their cuts. Like whoever puts together Bridezillas must just have a blast watching the crazy these bitches embrace.

So I want to give credit where it's due. On this week's Ultimate Fighter I saw one of my favorite edits. The bad boy with the bleached hair and the pack-a-day habit spent his time in the van talking shit about his opponent, one Bruce Leroy. Now Bruce is a little crazy, but in that way that never hurts anyone because he's so nice. He dresses like Bruce Lee. I'll bet if you asked him enough questions you'd find out that he thinks he was Bruce Lee in his past life.

So the bad boy, Jeffrey I think, sits in the van talking soooo much shit about how he's going to make Bruce Leroy want to go home, he's gonna beat him so bad in his stupid gi and he's gonna show him what a real fight is and he's so badass and yadda yadda I'm the bad boy and I'm gonna fuck this weird kid up and send him home to mamma because he's such a loser and whatever.

Then they cut to Bruce Leroy in the other van in his black gi as he quietly points out the window and says "Look, a hummingbird."

That's one of those moments where I imagine the editor in his bay just gleeing with delight when he realized what he had.

The Zombie badwagon

I wrote my zombie script after World War Z came out, but before Zombieland. I wrote it to be a writing sample, because it requires a huge budget, and at the time nobody was making zombie movies with huge budgets except Resident Evil, and Resident Evil doesn't count because it's a video game.

I'm not saying I invented zombies, just that I wrote big budget zombies when nobody was writing big budget zombies. Except the guys from Zombieland, I guess. They probably thought up that script before I wrote mine. But whatever, I still wrote my first draft before I even knew about that script.

So anyway I wrote Not Dead Yet and it got me the attention it was supposed to. Some cool industry people read it, or at least got the opportunity to read it. Two of the people who could have done something with it may never have cracked it open, or if they did I never heard about it. But anyway, it made the rounds and got me a little attention. So I thought that was pretty good for a big budget zombie movie.

Then came Zombieland. And then Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and now Boyscouts vs Zombies and Zombies Vs Gladiators are making the rounds, and despite wanting to read those things, I also have been annoyed that I made my script have too high a budget even for big budget movies.

I was riding this wave before there was a damn wave. Which makes me think that although I am happy to have a great writing sample, I wish I had made a great writing sample that also could double as something I could sell.

Somebody got there first

I had this idea, see, about a woman who fantasizes about killing her boss, because I figured everybody can relate to that and it would be a big hit, except I'm a little late. Horrible Bosses, a comedy about three buddies who decide to band together to murder their despicable bosses, is already slated for production.

I just read it and yeah, there's a lot of overlap. So back to the drawing board.

I love the original idea, but at some point I got stuck on it taking place at work because of the aforementioned thinking about killing the boss as being relatable. But the story doesn't have to take place at work because there are plenty of other people we fantasize about killing during the day.

So I've decided not to scrap my script, but to use this as an opportunity to get really creative. I went for the obvious - cube farm frustration and an irritating boss, but this is actually going to force me to come up with a scenario that hasn't been done.

It happens to everybody eventually.

Son of a bitch

There is a new untitled comedy making the rounds that will apparently star Kevin James as a teacher who moonlights as an MMA fighter to pay for classroom supplies.

I have spent the last 8 years trying to figure out the right way to make an action star out of a teacher. I also happen to LOVE MMA. It's the only sport I give a shit about.

A teacher who fights in MMA matches to pay for classroom supplies. Dammit to hell. Why the hell didn't I think of that?

Best Week Ever

This is one of the most fun times of the year. I just ran through the TV listing for next week, just picking off all the pilots I want to add to my schedule. I try to watch all the pilots so I can decide which ones will become regular viewing. It's always fun to watch this year's crop of world building. I''m excited about Hawaii 5-O the most, I think.

Plus Ultimate Fighter is back, so it's kind of the best week ever. My money's on the tough guy who talks trash about the other guys.

What pilots are you excited about?

What are you reading?

So as it turns out, work is a lot of work. I miss vacation but I have to say that so far this batch of kids is fantastic. Some of them even know what a stanza is already. So yay.

I'm working on a new script but first I have to read the screenplay for Horrible Bosses to make sure I don't overlap that too much with one of my projects. The Manager always reminds me of this. One of her regular questions to me is "What are you reading?" I get the impression that she has dealt with a ton of new writers who never read anything. I make sure I can always tell her the latest scripts I've read and which ones I liked.

Last week I was getting ready for the start of school, but I still had time to read the remake of The Thing and 127 Hours. This week even though I'm starting back to work I'm still going to make sure I have time to read Horrible Bosses and another script I've been eager to read.

As much as I like Carson's Scriptshadow site, reading his reviews is no replacement for reading the scripts themselves.


What have you read lately? What did you think of it?

I'm too tired to think of a title

Today was the first day of school in LAUSD and I wore uncomfortable shoes because I'm trying this new sophisticated look thing, all a direct result of watching What Not To Wear at 9am while eating cereal almost every weekday of my vacation. Actually they are very comfortable shoes for traversing through the airport, but not for standing on your feet for eight hours and walking all over a high school campus. I don't want anyone to think I'm talking shit about my awesome Clarks.

Anyway, my feet hurt and I'm exhausted, more exhausted than I've been in a long time. But I feel it is necessary to share this, in case you haven't seen it yet. It's delightfully poignant:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Cops, lawyers, doctors

I decided not to go to the CBS premiere party tonight because I don't want to sit through The Defenders and Mike and Molly to get to Shit My Dad Says, especially since I have no idea if Shatner showed or not. Did Shatner show?

Anyhow, I don't know what Mike and Molly is, although I can assume from the title that it's probably cutesy and will annoy me, but I know I don't want to watch The Defenders. I love Jerry O'Connell, don't get me wrong, but I am sick to death of shows about lawyers. Comedies, dramas, procedurals, whatever. Unless somehow they make a show about lawyers in space, I'm probably not going to watch it. And to be fair, Farscape already did an episode about space lawyers so that field has been plowed.

I also don't want to watch anymore shows about hospitals. And probably not cops either. There are a bazillion different interesting jobs out there, just ask Mike Rowe. Do we really need another show about doctors, lawyers or cops? It's a bit uncreative, I think. Of course doctors, lawyers and cops all have daily cases to solve, stories that lend themselves to procedural stuff. But if you meet people and talk to them, you'll hear all kinds of interesting ideas for stories that don't revolve around a hospital or a court room.

Or at the very least, set that shit in space.

Outsourced and The Event

So, first of all, TV obsessed people, if you're going to a party with an open bar please do us all a favor and at the very least take three goddamn seconds to brush your hair.

Now with that out of the way, NBC night at the Paley Center opened with Outsourced.

I expected unfunny, possibly racist stereotyped silliness, and I got a genuinely funny, clever pilot. I liked it very much, to my great surprise.

Then we watched The Event. Eh. I was hoping for something there, but I felt like it was trying to be the next Lost instead of embracing what it was. I was frequently confused because we kept leaping back and forth in time for no real reason and with no real pattern. At one point we sat with President Blair Underwood in an office, then we flashed back directly to a scene with him in his office talking to one of the same people. How the hell am I supposed to keep that shit straight in an episode with eighty thousand other completely unnecessary flashbacks? They added very little to the story, and served mostly to confuse and annoy me. There was what could have been a cool Hitchcock moment where a character's life is thrown upside down, but just felt like a lot of similar scenes we've seen in the past. All that said, the mystery is just enough to get me to watch episode 2. I will watch, but if this shit doesn't clean up I'm out.


Then Chase came on, and even though we wanted to watch Undercovers, we didn't want to watch it enough to sit through another show about a female law enforcement officer with straight blond hair, especially since there was no Q&A.

And that was NBC.

Paleyfest time

It's premiere party time at the Paley Center again. Last year I went to the NBC party, where I discovered Community, last season's best comedy - I don't care what the Emmys say.

This time got tickets for Thursday's event, also NBC, because I want to check out The Undercovers. The Event is also screening, and Outsourced and Chase. Naturally it looks like they're saving The Undercovers for last to make sure I stay until the end. Last year I bolted when the Mercy pilot finally bored me and my friend half to death, but this year I'm going to have to sit through everything, good or bad.

Then I'm hitting up Friday for CBS and Shit My Dad Says. There's some other stuff screening, but I'm just going for the Shatner. If you haven't read his autobiography, I encourage you to look into it. He's brutally honest and hilarious.

Anyway, the Paley premiere parties are very cool events, so if you can still get tickets I highly recommend it. And if you're headed out Thursday of Friday, keep a lookout and say hi.

Why Alien 3 sucks

Aliens came on the other day. I think Bill Paxton should be in every movie ever.

I was thinking about Newt and Ripley and how much it sucked that you watched her work so hard and almost die and sacrifice everybody to save Newt, when the kid dies offscreen in the first few minutes of the third movie.

What the fuck were they thinking with that? "Hey, you know what will make people really love our movie? Let's kill off the almost potential love interest and the cute kid everyone rooted for all through the last movie right there at the beginning, and let's do without even showing it. Let's just tell everybody they died for no real reason whatsoever, right in the first few minutes so everyone is sad and annoyed right off the bat."

You can't open your story by pointlessly killing the cute kid I spent a whole movie rooting for. You just can't. I don't care what else happens in your story.

SAY HELLO

I'm having a pity party day again. I wrote like eight different posts for today and deleted them all because I sounded like a whiny bitch.

So I'll say one thing, and then I'm turning it over to you guys. I love Say Yes to the Dress on TLC. LOVE. You'd think a show about girls choosing a wedding dress would be boring, but it is not at all. I'm going to miss my daily fix when I go back to work next week. To be honest, though, I have an unnatural affinity for all wedding shows. Yes, me, girl who likes explosions and fist fights, I also LOVE wedding shows. I have layers. Girly, aggressive layers.

And that's my confession today. Now it's your turn. I've been growing over the past yearish, and some of you still lurk around and don't say hi. So say hi. Enough about me, let's talk about you. Who are you? What do you write? Do you love shows about weddings? Say hi. Even if you're like Oh, she doesn't mean me. Oh fuck yes I mean you. Say hi. It will make me feel like less of a vulnerable whiny bitch.

Please stand by

Know why the California education system is in the toilet? Because we're all too buried in paperwork and taking stupid pointless classes to do our jobs.

I might be about to lose my job because I forgot to cross a goddamn T somewhere in 2005.

Derivatives

I was driving to an appointment today listening to the radio - I still listen to the radio even though I have a CD player - and that one Kid Rock song came on. You know the song that uses the tune from "Werewolves of London" and "Sweet Home Alabama"? Every single time it comes on I think it's going to be "Werewolves of London" and then I'm all disappointed when it's not.

It reminds me of way back when Puffy first sampled "Every Breath You Take" for his B.I.G. tribute and every single time that song came on you thought it was going to be "Every Breath You Take" and you'd be all like "Aw, son of a bitch" when it turned out to be that lame Puffy song. That used to really piss me off.

When this happens, all I think about is how much I'd rather be listening to that other, better song.

I get that sometimes with screenplays too. We all love movies or we wouldn't be here, so sometimes it's really tempting to use an homage to your favorite movie in your script. I read a script once that used actual lines of dialogue from Scarface, and every so often I'll read a script where the characters spend pages of dialogue talking about movies they like or don't like. Kevin Smith got away with it because his characters were interesting, but that isn't a good idea for most new writers.

When I read a script that reminds me of another movie I love, I begin to think about how good that movie was, and all that does is make me wish I was watching that movie instead of reading this crappy screenplay.

You don't want anyone to think about better movies while they're reading yours.

A gem in the $5 bin

This afternoon the Beefcake and I went to Best Buy and peeked into the $5 bin. Conspiracy Theory, Harry and the Hendersons, Bad Boys (the one with Sean Penn), Cast Away, Memento (Memento? In the $5 bin? What is the world coming to?), 15 World War II Movies, and one shiny copy of Ghostbusters.

I already have Memento, so we liberated the copy of Ghostbusters. And I thought momentarily, this movie comes on Comedy Central like once a week, so do we really need to buy it? But then I thought about how they always replace the best line in the film with "Yes it's true. This man is some kind of rodent, I'm not sure which" which I can never figure out how in the world that fits into the same verbal space as "It's true. This man has no dick." It's not even close to the same amount of syllables. No matter how many times I see that movie on TV I never understand how they fit that in Bill Murray's mouth.

Anyway, it's also just impossible to see one of the greatest comedies of all time in the $5 bin and not rescue it from the proximity of Harry and the Hendersons.

What have you grabbed from the $5 bin?

Hold me closer, Tony Danza

A&E recently started airing promos for a new show called Teach: Tony Danza. Tony Danza taught for a year in the Philadelphia public school system.





This I have to see. I have often wondered why Reality TV had not yet infiltrated the classroom, and thank goodness A&E has fixed that problem. Now the whole country can see what hand-picked kids are like when edited, in front of a camera crew and taught by a former sitcom star/talk show host. It's about time.

Lake Placid 4: Stubby's Revenge

This year my parents moved to a new house back East and brought with them this corgie you see before you. His name is Stubby on account of his short little legs. Yes, he is cute. He is also one dumb motherfucker.

In this little bitty town there is a swamp across the street from a big lake. In this swamp are alligators. My parents have told me many times that in the history of the lake, not once have the alligators crossed the street into the lake. I am skeptical, but trusting. Two days ago my mom and I drove by the swamp and saw four gators out sunning themselves. I thought is was so cool, I decided to ride her bike down the road to get pictures of them.

Stubby doesn't get out of his pen much, so as I began to ride Mom's bike down the driveway he began his adorable and pitiful barking.

He's dumb as a post, but Stubby's a very good dog and he has no problem trotting around off leash. Besides, this is the kind of town where everybody's dog wanders at will so nobody bats an eye if a cute little corgie wanders hither and yon on his own. My parents don't let him out much though, because their neighbor is a horrible bitch and she has it in for him.

So anyway, could you resist that dog? No. Nobody with a heart could. So I said to Stubby, look Stubby. You will run alongside this bike as I go to photograph the gators sunning themselves in the swamp.

Stubby hates swimming. HATES. Freaks completely out when he's walked anywhere near a swamp or a lake or a pool or an ocean. So I wasn't worried about him going anywhere near the swamp and the gators. I brought along an old short rusty chain link leash just in case he gave me trouble.

So I biked on down the road and he trotted along, occasionally stopping to sniff the foliage. He was happy as a pig in shit.

Along the way I saw this alligator:

Yes the swamp is currently a little overrun with algae.

Now that I've gotten my picture of an alligator I decided to double back and head home. Stubby's very furry and has very tiny legs, and at this point his tongue was practically dragging the ground, so I figured if he could talk he'd probably admit defeat and ask if we could go.

I turned around and started biking, stopping periodically and calling Stubby to me when a car went by. He'd sit there and wait, and then start jogging as soon as the car past.

So we went along like this for a while until one car came along and I called him to me, but he didn't come. He ran into some bushes and failed to reappear. I called again. Nothing. I thought I heard a splash, so naturally at this point I'm convinced that Stubby has been gobbled up by an alligator. Great. I killed my mom's dog.

I rushed over and didn't see the dog anywhere. But suddenly there was frantic splashing, and there he was, down in the water, scraping at the embankment with his mud filled paws.

Stubby decided that neon green water was a lovely drink and forgot that he had short-ass legs.

As I leaned over to grab his forelegs and wrestle him back on land, I thought to myself, this is how horror movies start. This is also how stories about rednecks who die saving their dogs start.

I braced one leg on a tree. I did not look for an alligator because I figured seeking out a green lizard in green water would require too much time, time I could be grabbing this goddamn dog. I pulled his forelegs up and used my right hand to push his butt the rest of the way, then I got the fuck out of there before all that splashing got us eaten.

Naturally, Stubby was filthy and now, so was I. I put that short rusty leash on his filthy neck and walked him and the bike back to the lake. I dragged him in to clean him off, at which point he panicked and splashed his way back to the dock. Once on the dock, he immediately rubbed his face in bird poop.

At this point I threw my hands up and he trotted his furry little ass back to the house, not a care in the world.

I packed my glasses already

 What picture did I choose? I can't see it.

Today I was going to tell the story of how my mom's corgi almost killed us both, but I took my contacts out then realized I already packed my glasses so I can't see what I am typing. Plus I have to be on a plane at 3am so I should go to bed soon. I will tell my story tomorrow.

I'll just say this so I can get this laptop off my chest: I spent most of today sitting by a lake reading a book by David West called Chasing Dragons. It's a journey through the history of the martial arts film broken down by country, then director, then film. Plus it's kind of funny in places. I've learned a lot of things about the history of the martial arts film, but most of all I've learned that Netflix does not carry a lot of old Japanese and Chinese stuff. How can you not carry a movie called How Wong Fei Hung Pitted a Lion Against a Dragon? I mean, seriously. I want to know how he did it.

My anecdote file is growing

I'm spending the week in a very tiny town in the middle of nowhere in the South and it's beautiful and quiet and hilarious.

This is one of those towns where the only crime is lawn mower theft and the angry old lady next door comes out and stares at you if your corgie thinks about urinating somewhere near her grass.

So I am making a lot of notes in my file of interesting quotes and anecdotes to use at a later date when I am in need of some comedy.

Everyone should have a file of quotes an anecdotes. Every time I get to a scene and I need some kind of filler material, like a joke or a bizarre opening line, I go to my file and pick one out. There's some excellent and strange stuff in there that I can no longer remember where I got it.

That angry old lady is totally going in it.

Thanks Mom

After I read the script for My Mother's Curse I immediately sent it to my mother. She thought it was terrific and immediately got why I wanted her to read it. It's one of my favorite scripts of the year and I took a few notes from it because Salvage is about a mother/daughter relationship. One of the things My Mother's Curse does so well is pick up on the things all mothers do that drive us crazy; my favorite scene is when the protagonist's mother tells him over and over that he should put on his windshield wipers and he keeps telling her it won't work, then finally he does it and she's right.

That is the worst, when your naggy mom is completely right. Everybody can relate to that - I don't care who you are.

So as soon as I put that script down I started thinking about things my mom does that are so very MOMlike, and I started working them into the script. I found myself writing conversations we've had in the past and smiling. Yes, Mom, I am aware that I'm going five miles over the speed limit. No we will not crash and die.

After I finished Salvage I sent it to the Manager, then I sent it to my mom.

Now my mom is different from other moms in that she does not think everything I touch turns to gold. She thinks I'm awesome, but she also thinks my last screenplay had too much sex in it, and she never read my zombie script at all because she just doesn't see the appeal. Explosions really do it for me, but Mom thinks they're unnecessarily destructive.

A compliment in this house must be earned, and that's how you know it means something.

Which is why, when my mom said my comedy is good and that I wrote a cute story, I beamed. Yay! My mom thinks I'm funny.

Box Office thoughts

I'm on a plane today. Weeee. I'm not checking any luggage, so hopefully things will go well.

Anyway.

It's a good thing I'm not an executive because I super suck at predicting the Box Office. It was a weekend filled with new movies, yet nothing made any real money. I thought Piranha 3D and Nanny McPhee Returns were going to take the weekend and The Expendables was going to drop to number 3. I was pretty sure Vampires Suck was going to tank.

Instead Piranha and Nanny came in 6th and 7th respectively, with Piranha making just enough to stay afloat and Nanny pretty much a bomb. Are the kids all back in school? They aren't around here, but I'm guessing in many other states this was the first week of school, or that everybody spent their movie money on backpacks. Usually kids movies do well, and a sequel should do even better, but not this time, clearly.

I almost wanted to see Piranha 3D just for the sheer joy of watching what is essentially a Syfy movie with better effects on the big screen, but 1) I HATE 3D and 2)  I was busy getting ready for my trip. Plus I'd already decided that if I saw something this weekend it would be Scott Pilgrim. But I doubt that was everybody else's reason for avoiding this film. Since it made 10mil in opening weekend and had a budget of 24mil, I'm sure the studio will survive it. But I just thought it would do better. Maybe it lost its crowd to The Expendables.

The Lottery Ticket coming in at #4 I totally get. It's a great idea for a story, something everyone can relate to, and it's so rare that we get a film aimed at black audiences that when one comes along it generally cleans up.

But Vampires Suck? Did Twilight fans really go see this? I know that's what the actors in the film kept saying, but I thought it was pretty obvious this film was poking fun at them all. Are they that starved for vampire love stories that they'll even go for the spoofy kind?

All in all, it was an interesting weekend at the movies with so many opening so close to the end of summer. What are your thoughts?

Relax

I did nothing today. I mean I watched some TV, I read a book, and I did some script notes, but compared to my usual day I didn't do a whole hell of a lot.

I've got three ideas for my next project, but I think one is probably easier to write than the others, and more sellable, so I'm starting with that until the rep tells me otherwise.

But first, I'm relaxing. I think when you send away a script into the ether, you should take a day to chill out and do nothing.

Tomorrow I'm working on my Luc Besson article as soon as I get back from Target. I swear.

This happens every time

I finished the script today! Yay! Glass of wine and Top Chef to celebrate. The last thing I did was one final read through to check for errors and unnecessary words, and I realize that I have a character named Old Bored Security Guard and a character named Security Guard, and that Old Bored Security Guard ends up having so many lines that he really should have a name.

I wish I'd made this decision before I typed out Old Bored Security Guard a bunch of times.

Anyway, I draw a name out of a hat - Johan - and do the old name switch.

I have been through this before, so the next step is to go through all of his scenes making sure his name got switched in every instance. Check.

Everything looks good, it's funny, it's fun, it's clean. Wrote an email to my manager and sent that puppy right over.

Naturally, that's when I realized two things: 1) I now have a character named Johan and a character named Joe. I'm sure THAT'S not confusing at all.

And 2) I forgot to introduce Johan. When you have a character named Old Bored Security Guard, you don't have to bother with description because his name is his description. So where my script used to say "It's a typical lobby, complete with OLD BORED SECURITY GUARD," it now says "It's a typical lobby, complete with JOHAN."

What the fuck is a Johan?

After kicking myself, I changed his name to Reginald and sent the Manager a new version where I introduced the guy.

The next lesson I have learned

Every time I write a script I learn something new that I need to do. Yesterday I got a new set of notes that gave me my lesson for this particular piece.

Obviously, with my first script I learned how to write a script. And do flashbacks and voice overs. Oh yeah, they were all there.

I wrote a script about brothers who were thieves which taught me to never write something I know nothing about.

I wrote a story about a former assassin in witness protection told me that  a good idea does not a good script make. You have to have a story too. One event has to lead to another in a logical method, and you can't just throw a bunch of action scenes together and hope somebody likes it.

A Supernatural script taught me that sometimes no matter how hard you try, a story just doesn't work. And that I'm not really a TV writer.

With Not Dead Yet I learned the value of editing your writing to the simplest, most straightforward language. I still write naturally, but the last thing I do before I ship the script off to the world is to do one pass where all I'm looking for is words to cut.

Burnside taught me that no matter how cool everybody thinks your story is, that doesn't mean anyone will buy it.

And now Salvage has taught me to remember that people like surprises. I only had one real reversal, and it's not all that surprising to the keen viewer. So today I sat down and changed it all around to incorporate a reversal, which necessitated moving events all over the place. It also meant that the setting of my final set piece moved all the way to the beginning of act 2, which meant I had to rewrite the final piece. I went from 108 pages to 89 pages with a keystroke.

That's daunting. But after I started reworking it I found some pretty funny stuff. And pacing. My pacing picked up big time because my characters weren't just waiting to get to the next scene, they were surprised and forced to rethink their assumptions.

I will remember that for next time. In my ever increasing toolbox, I can now add, Don't Forget Reversals.

The Expendables crowd

Ever since I moved to the burbs, I've gone to a small movie theater where parking is plentiful, tickets are cheap, and you don't have to wait in a long line for anything. I love that theater.

Friday night I actually waited in a short line to hold our group's seats when the theater opened up for The Expendables, and I took a quick gander at the audience.

Behind me was a man in his 40s whose wife had given up. If you show up for the movies on a Friday night in a velour track suit with a scrunchie in your hair, you might as well start getting fat because that's the only place left to go. Anyway, the wife went to see Eat, Pray, Love, leaving her husband alone behind me in line. Down the stairs comes this exotic chick with a body that kills poured into a minidress and high heels. The guy behind me stared at her all the way down the stairs.

In front of me was a young Latino couple. The girl was bright eyed, excited, giving a speech about awesome movies she's seen and where The Condemned ranked among them. My girl.

Ahead in line, a family of four - a wife, husband, and two kids under 10. This movie is rated R. No time like the present to teach your kids about giant guns that shoot grenades into people's torsos.

Behind me down the stairs, your stereotypical group of guys. They were all smiles and popcorn.

At the front of the line, a 50 something couple. They were giddy.

Now I'm not trying to say that there were as many women as men, or that this film brought in the old crowd, but I think maybe the studios underestimate the appeal this film had for women.

If they had realized how many of us wanted to see this film, they would have had Jason Statham take his shirt off at least once. I don't think that's too much to ask.

It's Expendables Day!

I really want to see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, but I want to see The Expendables more. Rotten Tomatoes means nothing to me today. I am turning off my brain and on my awesome meter.

Whenever I go to see films of this nature, I always check to see how many other girls there are in the theater, and how many I think are there because they want to be. We are out there, people. Hiding, lusting after Jason Statham and Jet Li and kind of wishing we could kick somebody in the face and get away with it.

So I will watch Scott Pilgrim next weekend. This weekend belongs to my boys.

What movie are you chomping at the bit to see?

I will not read your damn screenplay, newbie.

I got some more notes this morning from a couple of people. One set of notes was just pull-no-punches soul crushing stuff, enough that at first I honestly had no idea what to do with them because they were so negative it just made me ponder whether or not I should go kill myself.

But while I tried to pick through the notes to figure how to fix the fact that I suck, I took the time to thank the note giver for the notes and assure her that though they are tough to take, I appreciate the criticism. No matter how cruel they seem, this person still took time to read a script they didn't like very much and tell me why they didn't like it. They could have stopped reading at page two and told me to suck it in general. Instead they stopped at page 45, but along the way explained just what was pissing them off about my work, which is incredibly useful once you dig through it.

A few years ago I gave notes on a girl's first screenplay right before she planned to enter it into the Nicholl. I read the whole thing, gave lengthy notes about why the script did not work complete with suggestions for ways to improve it and compliments about the things that did work (I believe all notes should include not just the bad, but also the good, and most importantly, advice on how to make it better), and ended by telling the person to save her money and enter with a better script next year.

Her script seemed like it was written by a person who was trying to figure out how to write a script. Interesting scenes, but not much story. The protagonist had no motivation for anything - she just floated through a couple of possibly humorous scenarios behaving exactly as you would expect her to.

This was the response I got, in full: "I think the script is pretty good, so I'm going to enter it. I'll fix those apostrophe errors."

Some time later, I read a first screenplay which read like it was written by someone who was trying to figure out how to write a screenplay. The protagonist flitted from situation to situation without any real logic. I read the whole thing and gave pages of specific notes on what worked, what didn't, and how I thought the writer could fix it.

This was the response I got, in full: "Thanks."

So I guess I should at least be glad he mustered a sarcastic thank you.

A few months ago a guy was bragging about having the best script in the world, so I offered to give him a read. It was not the best script in the world. It was a mashup of genres that spent too much time on boring stuff and not enough time on interesting stuff. I gave him suggestions on how he could turn it into a great script, because unlike the other first time scripts, this had an idea to work with.

This was his response in full:

Last night I stayed up until 1 am to give notes to a first-time screenwriter. His script needed a tremendous amount of work. It has a plot but no originality. I gave him suggestions and compliments as usual, but also suggested that he put it aside and come back after he gets more practice.

This was his response in full:


And that is why, from this day forth, if you are a first-time screenwriter, don't you dare ask me to read your fucking script. I'll be hanging out with Josh Olson from now on.

Humbling Notes

I love rewrite time. Yesterday I got some notes that were all "Hey your script sucks balls and you should shoot yourself."

Not really, but, you know, sometimes it feels like that.

At first I was despondent. What do you do with that? Someone hates your material straight up, no hope for your script, nothing to do but write a new one. I couldn't sleep.

Then The Beefcake said something cool. "You hated Annie Hall, right?"

Why yes. Yes I did.

"And that's considered by many people to be the best movie ever made. Think about that."

I did. And that helped.

And I started thinking about my opening scene. The note giver did not say he hated my opening scene, but I know. It sucks. It's two people talking for three pages and nobody wants to watch that. Sure, I made all kinds of excuses while I was writing about why it had to be this way. Salt doesn't open with an action scene, you know. My inciting incident is on page 7, so that's good, right?

Bullshit. I knew it sucked, and when that note giver said my script was hooey, it became obvious that the problem was those first ten pages.

Usually when I start a script I have that first scene nailed down in my head, and no amount of convincing can get me to change it, but normally that scene is a big fight with lots of energy, not two people in a janitor's closet dumping dialogue all over the place.

So last night I thought about those notes. I rolled around and pondered, and at just past midnight I got back up and cranked up the old laptop and got to typing.

Just because I saw it in my head does not mean it's the best opening of my story. I can easily see something else in my head, and I did. Let's face it - nobody wants to spend the first three minutes of an action film watching two people talk in a janitor's closet. I don't want to watch that, but for some reason I was attached to it until I told myself to knock it off and consider other possibilities.

I don't know if the note giver would like what I've come up with, but it doesn't matter. I like to give my script to a different person each time so I get a different perspective, so he'll never see it again. What I got from that guy is that I needed to change something. I knew what was wrong, I just needed someone to tell me that I am not the damn golden child so I could put my ego in check long enough to make the necessary change.

I just don't buy indistructable heels

I've got a question for you.

Okay so I'm watching Surrogates because.... I don't know why, really. I knew it would be terrible, and it was. Maybe I watched it because I thought I'd fall asleep and I didn't want to miss something I cared about. I didn't fall asleep, though. I watched the whole thing. It was really really bad.

Periodically during the movie the Beefcake and I began naming other movies Bruce Willis was in that were better than this one. "Hi, I'm Bruce Willis. I was in Hudson Hawk." Like that.

Anyway, that's not my question.

So I'm watching this movie and although I don't like the stuff that's happening, I'm following. I buy the world of people using robots to conduct their day-to-day activities, I buy the science of it, I buy a gun that blasts through robots and fries the eyes of the people behind them. Here's what I don't buy. At one point a cop who is a robot jumps over a couple of cars and lands right on her high heel encased feet.

She jumps super high and lands on a tiny little heel and it doesn't break. And at that moment I threw up my hands. That is just ridiculous. I don't care if they're Clarks or Manolos, there is not a heel on Earth that can take that kind of punishment. Maybe if it's made of adamantium.

So here's my question. Why do you think that is? How is it that I, and no doubt many others, can accept the most ludicrous plot points only to get hung up on petty details? We do it all the time. Why?

One day rewrite

Well it took me five hours, but I did a complete rewrite of my script in one day. I decided this morning that I was going to do the whole revision in one day, come hell or high water.

Fortunately as I get better as a writer, I have to change fewer major plot elements and more general character bits. I had to make one major change, but most of the work was dialogue that sounded the same or unrealistic and whatnot.

So it wasn't the most difficult rewrite I ever had to do, but still. Five hours straight of writing is exhausting. I feel like I should have vacuumed or made dinner or something, because saying you sat in front of a computer all day and didn't leave your office sounds like the laziest thing in the world, but I am tired.

But dammit I got it done.

Interview with Alex Litvak, part three

The thing about writing blogs is, nobody reminds you that you forgot to post something some days.

Anyway, here is part three, the final piece of my interview with Alex Litvak.

Part one


Part two


“The days of people buying screenplays as a favor are over,” Alex Litvak said during our interview. These days, if you want to sell a spec script, “You have to write. It’s hard but you have to do it.”

He said that if you write something good, eventually you will be read. Litvak navigated his way through the studio system by developing other people’s projects, so he had plenty of opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t. “Be aware of who your audience is and what the marketplace is,” he said. “And don’t listen to all that bullshit about ‘write what you know.’”

So what does work? Wall-E. Toy Story 3. Litvak was blown away by Toy Story 3, and a part of him wishes he could have written it. And Inception. The film has flaws, he said, but the beauty of what is on that screen is undeniable. Litvak’s eyes lit up as he described how even in the middle of noticing the details that didn’t quite work, he couldn’t help but feel a little awed by the film itself.

But these aren’t your typical action pictures Litvak has made a name for himself writing. He loves action, and Predator, but has desires to write in other genres too, like romantic comedies.

"Don't let someone tell you you have to be an action writer," he said. He was talking about me at the time, but the truth is, Alex Litvak does not like being told what he can and cannot do in any situation.

“Movies are no great artistry,” he said. “There’s just great moments that come from the heart.”

In the end, here’s what you need to know about Alex Litvak: He’s sarcastic, funny, realistic and not an asshole, but he will not bullshit you, and he will not agree with you to be polite. He also does not like Salt, which made this writer a little sad.

Also, he got where he is by working, listening, and not being afraid to ask questions. His biggest advice to me was to be confident in my abilities and fight through the fear of being a nobody in a land of somebodies.

After all, a year ago, he was just another executive guy. Today Milla Jovovich is reading his words on camera. It’s not such a bad place to be.

Interview with Alex Litvak, Part Two

Interview with Alex Litvak, Part One 

The spec sale of Medieval landed Alex Litvak more than just an opportunity to write Predators. He’s also finishing up rewrites on Grayskull and a reimagined version of The Three Musketeers. So a lot of you guys probably want to hear about Grayskull, but I didn’t watch that much He-Man as a kid and She-Rah annoys me, so the novel was a priority. I love this novel. I am cautiously optimistic about the outcome of this film.

[EDITED TO ADD: Dear He-Man fans, I had two hours to ask Litvak whatever I could before he went off to a meeting, and that two hours flew by. I had a long list of questions I didn't even get to ask. I am a HUGE fan of the Three Musketeers so that was early on the agenda. If you had been the one interviewing him, you would have asked about He-Man, and then I would have been disappointed because I would have wanted to read about The Three Musketeers. Perspective is your friend. Thanks for reading!]

Anyway, Litvak was supposed to take a few weeks to punch up the existing script for Musketeers, but once he took the project home he just couldn’t stop changing things. What began as a quick little project grew into a full rewrite and another screen credit. He wrote a page-one rewrite in 16 days because that’s how long the studio had given him for the original job.

Like his previous work, this version of Dumas’ classic is balls out action. Litvak took the characters and the spirit of the story and ran away with it, playing on the opportunity the story provides for lots of sword fights. “It’s true to the spirit of Dumas,” he said.

In the original novel, a young Musketeer is tasked with saving the queen’s reputation when her husband’s advisor, Cardinal Richelieu, sees an opportunity to remove her influence from the crown. This is based on a true event from French history, and the Disney version crapped all over it. Litvak used this moment as a springboard for a sort of heist story filled with intrigue and swordfights and scuba gear. It's a little like what 2001's The Musketeer tried to but with more of an effort to stay on the source material.

In the film, M’lady De Winter, played by Milla Jovovich, is a strong-willed woman. Like Isabel in Predators and Amelia in Medieval, M’lady has her own independent goals and weaknesses. She is not merely a love interest to follow around the protagonist, a common characteristic of female characters in most action films. Litvak said he tries to write women well, and uses as influence the women he has encountered in his life.

On the other hand, he does see action films as a chance to revel in masculinity. “On one level, it’s conflict personified,” he said. “On another level, a fantasy of guys. The epitome of cool. Testosterone in its purest form.”  After all, women amounted to essentially zero percent of the market share for Predators.

As his most recent work finishes up production, another writer has taken over duties on Medieval. At this point, the story is someone else’s job now, and Litvak no longer has control over what happens next.

“It’s a bit like sending your kid off to college,” he said. “Bye. I just don’t want to see you on Youtube.”

Tomorrow in part 3: Advice for the rest of us

Interview with Alex Litvak, Part One

Alex Litvak has blown up this year. He and partner Michael Finch sold their spec script Medieval for $800,000 against $1.6 million, and followed it up by writing this summer’s big budget action sequel Predators. These projects have launched Litvak from unassuming studio executive to Hollywood big shot in no time flat, but fortunately for me he’s still willing to sit down for coffee at The Bourgeois Pig in Hollywood with little old me.

In person, Litvak’s Russian accent is slight but present, and he says he’s often mistaken for a New Yorker. He has a confident demeanor and refused to let me interrupt him to ask more questions until he was done talking, as if he would not allow anything to derail his point until he finished making it. He's also completely adorable and intimidating at the same time, if that's possible.

Litvak started out life in Moscow during the Cold War, but he still managed to find enough burned copies of great American films like the original Predator and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to inspire a love of movies from an early age. “I love John Hughes,” he said. “I didn’t go to an American high school, but everybody can relate to problems with your parents.”

By the time he was ready for college he had no question that movies were the thing, so he packed up and headed to LA.

After the usual classes and interning, Litvak found himself almost accidentally moving up the ladder as an executive. But after years of paying attention to someone else’s stories, Litvak realized that he had neglected his own true love of writing.

Enter Medieval. Medieval is an action script in the purest sense of the word. A Dirty Dozen of sorts, where each member of the group brings a different badass skill, and set during, well, medieval times. Yep. A period action piece that bends historical accuracy in favor of coolness, not much different a concept from the new Sherlock Holmes or Brotherhood of the Wolf, or a handful of scripts coming down the pike in its wake. The script made the Blacklist and sold to Regency on the quick, and is currently in production with McG pulling the strings.

Medieval has taken some heat from reviewers because of its wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am style, but that may just be the reason the script sold for so much money. The pace of the script, and of every other script Litvak writes, is blisteringly fast.

“I don’t want anyone to be bored,” he said. He credits Shane Black and William Goldman with inspiring his flippant, fun style because they never shy away from personality on the page. “Why not put personality there? You should.” Sometimes he admits he goes a little overboard, but that's just because he's having so much fun.

That personality and hard work is what eventually landed him and Finch the dream project of writing Predators. Back during his tenure as an executive, Litvak attempted to get a Predator sequel going. He had an idea of Predators fighting against each other in a battle royal on a global scale. Nobody was interested in his ideas at the time, but after the sale of Medieval he suddenly found himself with enough clout to pursue the project already being bandied about with Robert Rodriguez. Due to budget constraints, the planet-spanning battle royal was out and the version released starring Adrian Brody was in, but Litvak and Finch still managed to find a way to make their Predator on Predator fight happen.

As of this writing, Box Office Mojo lists Predators’ current worldwide take as $103,491,249, a definite success in a season where similar films have flopped left and right, and a fair bet for another sequel.

“Your name is forever in the pantheon of action icons,” he said with a smile.

Tomorrow, Part 2:  Why he loves action so much, and what's up with The Three Musketeers?

Stay Tuned

There need to be more hours in the day because there just aren't enough right now. I've been busy as hell the past four days. I haven't written a damn word in Movie Magic, and I keep trying to start writing up my article and get distracted. Plus I keep meaning to do this article on Luc Besson for the Story Department and I'm only halfway through watching the necessary films.

But tomorrow I swear I'm only doing two things: Finishing my first draft of Salvage and writing up my interview with Big Shot Hollywood Screenwriter.

Oh crap I forgot I have a doctor's appointment.

Okay three things. I'm doing three things tomorrow: Finishing my first draft of Salvage, writing up my interview with Big Shot Hollywood Screenwriter, and going to the hand doctor to hear his plans to chop open my hand and move tissue around.

Just who is Big Shot Hollywood Screenwriter? Why, none other than Alex Litvak, half of the team that wrote Predators and Medieval and all around good dude. So tune in Tuesday evening to find out how he feels about Inception, The Three Musketeers and what it's like to be rewritten. Plus some other stuff.

I'm serious this time.