Writing Movies For Fun And Profit! (15 page)

We got to pitch legendary comic Billy Crystal!

Dick.

What happens after the studio has developed and redeveloped your movie, fired you, hired other writers, fired the other writers, then hired you again—then decided they’re NOT going to make your brilliant script into a movie anyway? Is it dead? Probably!

But—not always. There is also the possibility of TURNAROUND. Turnaround happens when a studio SELLS a script it’s developed to another studio. Usually it’s for not very much money—just the amount of money that the first studio has already spent on the thing.

This happened to us on
Reno 911!
Fox paid for the original pilot, then didn’t pick it up. Then, years later, Comedy Central asked us if we had any good ideas for a TV show, and we showed them our Reno pilot. Comedy Central bought the rights to the pilot from Fox.

Two kinda odd stories about that: The Fox lawyers decided that Comedy Central could air the (improvised) SCRIPT of the Reno pilot but couldn’t use the actual footage. So in 2003 we had to REENACT the improvs that we’d done back in 1999. There was a scene where the two of us had to make out by the side of the road—as Dangle and a personal trainer. We had to do that twice. And both times, we had to do it while two armed California Highway Patrol officers were standing ten feet away to stop traffic—glaring at us.

Odd story number two: The lawyer at Comedy Central in charge of buying the rights (we’re DYING to tell you her name, but we might get sued) FORGOT to mention the movie rights in the contract. Just flatout
forgot. So when Fox wanted to make a MOVIE of
Reno 911!
it went to the negotiating table with Comedy Central … only to realize that it didn’t need Comedy Central at all. In the end, they did it in partnership together, for a lot of reasons. The character Clemmy wasn’t in the Fox pilot, so we would have had to cut her from the movie. Plus, we wanted Comedy Central as a partner, for promotional reasons—and it would have been a sticky ugly fight to do the movie without Comedy Central. BUT—that f@*k-up cost Comedy Central millions.

There are some wonderful stories of studios selling a movie that it thought stank to another studio, then the other studio making the movie and that movie turning out to be, say—
E.T.,
which Universal bought from Columbia,
Speed
went from Paramount to Fox, and Warner Bros. sold
Forrest Gump
to Paramount. Ha ha.

When does this happen? Usually, the writer or producer has to aggressively sell the movie to the other studio. And sometimes it’s a hard sell, since a studio is willing to let it go. (No one wants to date the girl who can’t get a date.)

By “pimp your movie,” we don’t mean bedazzle it like a jewel-encrusted goblet. We mean pimp in the old-fashioned sense:
Sell it like a whore, out on the streets and in the back alleys, for cold hard cash and sometimes rock cocaine.
The way pimps USED to sell young ladies. In the good old days … wait, sorry, lost our train of thought there … scratch that last part, about the good old days.

If you are smart or lucky or both, there is a possibility that you will get to stay involved in the MARKETING of your movie.

A MOVIE CAN SUCCEED WITH A TERRIBLE SCRIPT. BUT NOT WITH TERRIBLE MARKETING.

So get your ass out there and pimp that movie, and if the movie comes in crying, trying to shortchange you on the night’s take—you tell her not to mess with you again, or you’ll mess up that pretty face of hers. …
Sorry, pimp train of thought again. Scratch that part about her pretty face.
You know what? We’re gonna stop saying “pimp.” Let’s just go with “promote” from here on. PROMOTE your movie. The world of movie
promotion is evolving all the time, as people’s attention shifts from TV to the internet. Your movie will need its own Twitter account, for sure. And a Facebook page.

If you are lucky enough to be asked to be involved in the marketing: do everything you can. Here are some examples of stuff you might be asked to do.

• The star of your movie might be presenting at a televised awards show—and she is NOT HAPPY with the banter that the show writers have provided (they almost never are): YOU MAY NEED TO WRITE SOME OPTIONS FOR THEM. If they call and ask you to do that—do it. Do everything you can to make your star look more funny and charming than she already is.

• The studio may want to do a Funny or Die video featuring the cast of the film. This is very common these days. Even if the film is not a comedy, some movies looking for the same AUDIENCE (teenage boys, usually) will search for those potential ticket buyers on Funny or Die. It’s just a matter of
that many eyeballs
all in one place. You should offer to write it. A good Funny or Die video is more effective and cheaper than some TV spots. Also good for the “street cred” of your star.

• The studio might want a short presentation film for ShoWest, which is a trade show where studios present their upcoming films to the theater owners. Like a car show, with movie stars where the cars would be. If they’ll let you write the promotional video—do it, and show everybody what a great team player you are. Hell, treat it exactly like a car show, and stand next to your movie in a bikini, if necessary. And if anyone asks you to. Which is unlikely.

• There might be other site-specific ads that need to be written. Say your movie’s set at the Kentucky Derby and the marketing department is buying three TV segments during the event this year; somebody has to write those spots. It will be either the marketing department or you. Make yourself responsible for this stuff, and you’ll be less embarrassed by it.

• And—this one some people consider a bit “icky”—you may need to include some product placement in your script or write some tie-in-type stuff in the run-up to the film’s release. This stuff is just a reality of the movie business these days. You can either gripe about it and how it’s ruining your “artistic vision” or get involved in it and try to make it seem as organic as possible. You can bitch all you want about it, but MOVIES ARE EXPENSIVE
TO MAKE. And if a main character holding a Mr. Pibb Zero
*
in his hand makes it less expensive—then figure out a way to make that work. You may then be asked to write some tie-ins later with Mr. Pibb Zero. Remember, movies are like playing roulette, and it’s THE STUDIO’S you’re playing with, not yours.

• The studio might be presenting at Comic-Con, which is the largest gathering of smarty-pantses in the known universe. Every studio presents movies there each July, at the San Diego Convention Center. (If you’ve never been, you should go. It’s flat-out wonderful. We once saw a fully dressed Chew bacca riding in a pedi cab. And identical twins BOTH dressed as Slave Ship Leia.) The studio may do a panel at Comic-Con—
which you need to be on and have great, smart things to say about the movie.
Or they may create a short film specifically for the Con, if footage is not ready to be shown yet (because the CGI isn’t done, usually). The tone of what happens when your movie is presented at Comic-Con is
enormously important.
DON’T MESS UP AT COMIC-CON. LOTS OF BUZZ can be created there in just a few minutes, with the right clips. Buzz can also be UNCREATED. The presentation hall in the San Diego Convetion Center holds six thousand movie/sci-fi/ comic-book fans. They’re VERY OPINIONATED. And they love to tweet. And blog. If the studio needs help with a script for its Comic-Con video presentation—offer to write it. And keep in mind at Comic-Con—
bring your A game.
Everybody at Comic-Con tends to be REALLY SMART. And their questions might not be “softball” questions.
They might be the real, hard questions that showbiz reporters never ask.
Be ready to “get your pimp on.”

And remember, there’s always other pimps out there on the streets gunnin’ for you. You’re not safe on these streets anymore. These streets that you MADE … now the good times are gone. Lil’ Johnny dropped a dime on you, and you had to knife his punk ass. But the cops know it was you … now’s the time to save that rainy-day Cheddar, take that young trick Lily off the streets, and start over on a farm upstate … outta the mean pimpin’ streets of North Philly. Fresh air, yeah, that’s the ticket. Pull up
stakes now, no more pimpin’ … DANG, I’VE BEEN SHOT. BY A CROOKED COP, RIGHT AS I WAS ABOUT TO GET OUTTA THE PIMPIN’ GAME!!! DON’T TELL MY MAMA. DON’T TELL HER HOW I WENT … Sorry. Anyway—

The most important thing:
Meet the marketing department at your studio.
Get to know them. It’s the same as with the studio executives:
Help them keep their jobs
. Marketing is tricky. Sometimes movies that SEEM like surefire hits get lost between the sofa cushions of cinema history, and nobody really knows why. The marketing department wants, and needs, your help. The better they like you, the better shot your movie has.

When you get a movie made, you’ll notice something: there are suddenly a
lot
of morbidly obese shut-ins with internet connections who have come out to hate you!

There’s only one thing to keep in mind: every critic, whether he works for a newspaper, a TV station, or—like 90 percent of internet critics—isn’t a professional writer in ANY way (he just started a website in his mom’s basement) …

They ALL want to be screenwriters—and they’re not.

You’re doing what you love to do, and they’re not—so they’re mad at you. Don’t sweat it. No matter how badly they hate you, they hate themselves worse. Some of your movies may suck, some may be great, but just because some dude can work a mouse, that doesn’t mean his opinion matters.

Remember:

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is
marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

—Teddy Roosevelt

(the guy from all those shitty
Night at the Museum
movies that grossed $987,587,011 worldwide)

Pound for pound,
Taxi
with Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon has to be one of the worst movies ever made.

—Adam Carolla

If you haven’t seen (and chances are you haven’t) the notorious Jimmy Fallon/Queen Latifah “vehicle” (yes, intentional use of the word “vehicle”!!!)
Taxi,
which we wrote, let us give you a bit of background about it. It’s an almost shot-for-shot remake of a French film by Luc Besson called
Taxi.
The French version was wonderful. It featured a young, completely-nude-at-one-point MARION COTILLARD and lots of awesome car chases through the streets of Marseilles, France. It was a huge hit over there and spawned three sequels. It’s just the kind of fun/dumb movie we love, and did we mention: MARION COTILLARD IS COMPLETELY NAKED IN IT? Just for a moment, but that’s why God gave us a pause button.

We saw the original film, loved it, and were hired to rework it for an American audience. So what did we do? Not much. Luc Besson wanted the bank robbers in the American version to be superhot women. We didn’t hate that idea; in fact, it seemed kind of fun. So we did that and made all of the locations New York instead of Marseilles, which was easy, because we had lived in New York for ten years, eating ramen noodles and cockroaches and living in apartments that were not fit for humans. (See
Chapter 1
, “Getting Started in Hollywood.”)

Then our buddy Jimmy Fallon got cast as Detective Washburn. Awesome! Way to go, casting people! We love Jimmy Fallon, and he’s perfect for for the part. And as the tough-as-nails taxi driver who’s spent her life creating a hot-rod SUPERTAXI that could win Daytona … QUEEN LATIFAH. Hmm? This seemed a little odd to us. In the French film, the role was played by the world’s toughest living human man: SAMY NACERI, who has, no joke: BEEN CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER. That’s how tough he is. ATTEMPTED MURDER-CHARGES TOUGH.

But could we make Queen Latifah work? “OF COURSE WE CAN MAKE IT WORK.”™ (This trademarked sentence is the one you need to be saying to studio executives when they ask you if you can do stuff. Because if you can’t: it’s back to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf fer you, smarty-pants!)

So we did several drafts, then off they went to shoot it. Then, when it was done, came the dreaded TEST SCREENINGS (where they show your movie to an audience in Orange County who tells you what they think of it).

And it “tested” great! The film
Taxi
tested OFF THE CHARTS! GREAT! Wait, what? Yes. Not a typo. People loved
Taxi.
Couldn’t get enough of Fallon/Latifah hotfooting it through the Big Apple, while Gisele Bündchen totes an Uzi and changes outfits. There’s also a scene where Gisele Bündchen FRISKS Jennifer Esposito that might be the best girl/girl frisking scene in history. It can be viewed on YouTube or, GOD FORBID … BUY THE DVD.