From Can't You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer's Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise by Allan Weisbecker

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they were willing to actually to remain fools.
--Alice Walker

 

Aside from the Cosmic Banditos movie contract fiasco, as described, it was right around this time that the In Search of Captain Zero movie deal fiasco reached a possible turning point. The current option period was up. (To be exact, on February 18, 2004.) To recap the deal:

The studio (via Sean Penn, the other producer and the director) had not bought the rights to my book; they'd optioned the rights, a year at a time, at $5,000 per. So it was put-up-or-shut-up time on that date each year. I know: chump change, considering they'd already spent a couple hundred grand for my adaptation - the whole "it's-brilliant-then-it's-not-the-script-we-expected" fiasco - plus a producer's fee went to the above trio. Not chump change, in total.

Thing was, though, everything had gone so poorly that my feeling was they might let the option expire, stop throwing money into the fire. I certainly would have, had I been in their position. But hold on. A version of my catch-22 kicks in here, no? Something like Anyone dumb enough to think there's a movie in my book in the first place is dumb enough to keep throwing money into the fire.

And now there was another catch-22; or rather, the first catch-22 becomes a compound catch-22, which is sort of like an exponential whammy. Something like Anyone dumb enough to think there's a movie in my book in the first place and then, in the second place, dumb enough to ignore a really good screenplay that somehow gets written, is certainly dumb enough to keep throwing money into the fire.

So it was absolutely guaranteed that they'd keep throwing money into the fire.

I'm just realizing this now, as I write about it. At the time I thought maybe they wouldn't keep throwing money into the fire. And that would have been fine with me, since I'd get back the movie rights to my book. There was a problem here, though. Steven fucked up and failed to negotiate a buy-back clause in the contract, which meant that I'd get the book rights back but the studio and producers would still own the screenplay I wrote based on the book. The bottom line of this piece of Hollywood ridiculousness was that nobody could make a movie out of my book (at least not from the screenplay I wrote). Yes, still another catch-22, of the simple, classic variety.

But hold on. What's the problem here, really? If someone else, another studio, say, wanted to shoot my screenplay, couldn't they just buy it from the current studio/producers, those morons?

No.

Why not?

The studio/producers wouldn't sell it to them. They'd just sit on my screenplay and swallow the money lost.

Why would they do this?

Because if someone else made a movie from my screenplay and it was a hit, the studio/producers would look... how?

Right: Foolish

So forget that.

If no one could make a movie out of my book and, indeed, if I got the rights back it would cost me in option money not earned, then why did I want the rights back? I'm not sure, but here's an analogy that comes to mind: Imagine you're in love and your mate starts fucking someone else, some scumbag. You leave your mate, it's over. Then you find out that your mate and the scumbag are not fucking anymore. You're happy about it, even though it's still over between you and your mate.

Why are you happy about it?

Same thing here, somehow.

I wonder where that came from.

There was an amusing aspect to the option situation, though. Steven called and said the studio suggested that I extend the option for free - presumably, because they figured that either, One, I liked them all so much, or, Two, money was not a concern of mine.

Insofar as it's possible for one to laugh in a Hollywood movie studio's face through an intermediary - in this case, one's attorney - from a cell phone at the end of the road at the bottom of Central America, that's what I did.

So they sent me the $5,000.

While the studio was busy making nonsensical proposals to my attorney and then sending me money, I was busy too. I mean aside from dealing with Lisa and her distressing antics, plus the hit man/Ron fiasco, plus crack-head thieves moving onto my property, plus my attorney telling me to sign a contract authored by Amy-frickin-Nickin without reading it, and so forth. I was busy trying to get my draft, the "brilliant" one - written before the one wherein I went into the tank - to Sean Penn. Aside from putting the draft on my website and asking anyone who knew Sean to please give it to him, I'd sent the draft to his Hollywood manager with a note asking him to read it and, if he liked it, send it along to Penn. I knew this wouldn't work but I gave it a shot anyway. I knew it wouldn't work because Penn's manager was also the director's manager, and the director, along with the other producer and along with the studio did not want Penn to read my draft. I also knew the manager wouldn't do anything as intelligent as reading the draft and giving it to Penn because (if you'll remember) the manager was one of the idiots who thought there was a movie in my book in the first place. Right: That catch-22 again (or a slight variation of it).

Regarding that catch-22: That catch-22 did not apply to Sean Penn because he still hadn't read my book (and hence had no reason to know there is no movie in it). I know this because I'd asked the other producer if Sean had got around to reading it. She told me no, but that Sean's wife, actress Robin Wright Penn, told her a copy of my book was sitting on their living room table.

"But you know Sean," the producer said. Meaning that a copy of my book's current location on Sean's living room table wasn't a whole lot of progress towards him reading it.

"No, I don't know Sean," I said. Not only did I not know Sean, but I hadn't seen him or spoken to him in quite a while -- since the breakfast meeting at the Four Seasons, actually, when the producer repeated how he gets involved early in the script stage and how I will enjoy working with him. So, no. I didn't know Sean, but I was getting the drift.

In case you haven't figured it out: I wanted to get my draft to Sean Penn because I figured he'd like it and straighten all the morons out - my draft would go back to being brilliant (plus I'd be a genius again). Which was why everyone was petrified of Penn reading it, since they'd look foolish if he did like it.

Can you wrap your mind around all this stuff?

My other move was to dig up Penn's assistant's name and address and send the draft to her. Sent it off to Hollywood (the state of mind Hollywood, since her address is in San Francisco) from Big Turkeys then waited to see What Would Happen Next while all this other shit was going on.

As I say, it was a busy time.

From Can't You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer's Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise by Allan Weisbecker

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The Writing Life Sean and Me, Part 5