Breaking Bad meets The Searchers

Well, I'm gonna start in on how great The Searchers is, the classic western that was the strongest influence on my choice of career. You probably already know how I went on about how The Searchers influenced not only me but also Spielberg, DePalma, Scorceses, Lucas and a dozen or so writers and directors.

The scene above is from The Searchers, where John Wayne is ready to kill his niece but his half-breed nephew is protecting her. Very similar to Walter's last act.

So guess how Vince Gilligan ended Breaking Bad, in the final scene with the bad guys going to kill Walter but as we know now, Walter has the edge when his robotic machine gun blasts the warehouse office and anybody in it. Almost anybody.

Seconds before, Walter got the gang to bring in Jessie before the doomed bad guys planned to kill him and Walter leaped at Jessie and in doing so, saved his life rather than having him killed. And in that moment he took a bullet for Jessie.

Where does The Searchers come in? The ending of The Searchers has John Wayne face the Indian attack and wants to kill his niece because she's been "tainted" by the "savages". But at the last moment, he saves the lovely Natalie Wood instead of killing her.

So is this my own opinion?

Of course not, Vince himself said that the ending scenes were right out of The Searchers, modernized of course, but as he added "I stole from the best". 

I will miss Breaking Bad as much as I miss the Sopranos and I'm not one to replay old shows, once is enough for me, watching them over will make them less inspiring, in my mind. 

And another thing; why did one movie influence so many boomer writers and directors, maybe there's an article in that, there already are some, but what made that movie stand out so much for us.

 

I got a great idea but...

Back from my 1800 mile roadtrip through the Canadian prairie, seeing old homes and old friends and old highways. Always brings me back to where I came from and what I am.  Still a small town boy.

During that time our effort to raise money for Ghostkeeper 2 died miserably but as I mentioned in earlier posts, I expected that due to the lack of promotion and a fan base that wasn't enough. But I will continue to look for funds the old fashioned way, knocking on doors. And also crowdfunding will get a possible asset when an announcement comes offering investors into the mix.

Basically that means that a Kickstarter or Indiegogo project could get real investors rather than donations and that could be, as they say, a gamechanger.

Why?

Because investors want to not only get a return on their money, but also a profit. The announcement is supposed to happen this week.

So that's that.

But back to the title of this blog...

I recently finished a new spec screenplay called The President's Heart, got a great comment on The Black List (if you've never heard of this click on the link to your left). The story is about a U.S. President needing surgery in a foreign country. I thought it had a unique angle but tonight on CBS (Sept 23), at 10pm, a show called Hostages begins.

Okay, not exactly my idea but very close. Hostages concerns a family being taken hostage by "ruthless bad guys" who want the mom, a doctor who has to operate on the President, to accidentally kill him. 

There are a lot of similarities but still a lot more differences.

But this goes with the rule I made up years ago and it says this;

Whenever Jim thinks of a great idea, there are at least 5 other writers with the same idea. And they are:

One is thinking of the same idea.
One has started writing the same idea.
One has finished the screenplay.
One has sold their screenplay

And one that completed filming last January (or whatever).

So it just goes to show you how my idea (and most likely yours) has dopplegangers all over the place.

In my case, the reviews on the show are so-so but the one element that will kill the CBS show is that it's a series. And having a family being held hostage for 13 episodes is going to be hard to find ideas to keep it going. In short, it would be better as a feature film. After all how many times can the family attempt escape or chase someone away from their door while the bad guys threaten to kill their family?

Under The Dome was a better idea; have lots of people trapped in a bubble and begin to show the weaknesses of people under stress. But they have cars and roads and lots of places. Hostages has the house mainly and some FBI guys trying to stop it.

So what will I do with my screenplay?

Plan B is to send it to every producer I know and especially foreign producers as my story takes place in Europe. 

Here's the Black List comment on the idea:

"The premise of a presidential heart transplant is strong and commercial. It takes a personal need with a ticking clock, and transforms into a global crisis with a journey as its center. It's a smart base for an affordable political thriller which still has world-wide stakes."

I can live with that.

Heading south

 I'm finally heading south again and with me are hundreds and even thousands of wild geese who are also heading south for the winter. It's quite a sight and I've forgotten how impressive their numbers are and how they fly towards a warmer climate leaving behind bears, wolves and other wild life that have to slug it out in sub-arctic temperatures. And of course, those pesky humans who retreat to the warmth of their homes.

Yesterday I watched them from my car as groups of geese, sometimes a dozen, sometimes a hundred, accompanied by the constant honking that fills the northern skies.

People like my cousin don't exactly see them in such a light since the geese land for the night and usually prefer fresh cut wheats and other crops. For my cousin, they're stealing his wheat and the blast of a rifle into the sky sends them flying away. Of course he also has beavers who block up his dirt roads with sticks and mud that eventually make a tiny creek into a fair-sized pond. They too are amazing to watch.

All of this so far from L.A., where the only honking comes from impatient drivers.

But for today, I follow the geese.

Where I came from

I've been a little slow on blogging, mostly because I was traveling across the Canadian prairies that stretch for around 800 miles. Back in the little village, my first day was with meeting some old friends, followed by a trip on gravel roads and dust to pick corn which would later be cooked. Following that I met a cousin who was fixing his combine, a giant machine that cuts wheat, got my hands dirty, chased away wild geese who eat his wheat and marveled at how beavers could box up a tiny creek into a small lake, all in one day.
The town is small, less than 400 people, two cafes, a library, bank and a few other buildings. And completely silent day and night. Far from LA but also where my formulative memories started.

This morning I went to the Gateway Cafe on the highway south of my town. The highway, 83, starts where I was born and makes it's way south all the way through Manitoba and down onto the U.S. in North Dakota and down all the way to Texas, ending at the Mexican border. I've always wanted to make a documentary on the highway, maybe some day.

Tomorrow I make my first "speaking engagement" at the first library in the little town. I'll use a screenplay, probably the Christmas story, to illustrate how screenplays are written. I"ll also try too explain exactly what screenwriters do, as most people thing actors make up all their own lines.

There's usually a Q&A and I have a few friends who will start it off as most farm people aren't that bold, hopefully it will work out and if not, we'll all have coffee and pastries made by some of the local women. Some things don't change.

But I can't help but enjoy all this even if there wasn't a speaking thing,  I still like being back where it all started. The pic below is what it looks like now and ironically not much has changed since 1959. No traffic lights either on Main Street.

Enjoy the pics...

The Week-ender... Where are the heroes?

Unless you lived in a cave you must have noticed who were the leads in this summer's action movies, at least the leads that made money in the last few years.

Stallone, Willis, Harrison Ford, Arnold, Malkovich, Mel Gibson and a dozen more actors not only over the age of 50, but also 70 (Ford is 71). 

So where's the young heroes?

Ryan Reynolds movie R.I.P.D died, Tatum Chatham's White House Down bombed. Anyone remember John Carter? And how about the biggest bomb -- The Lone Ranger with Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger. Depp is 50 so he's in the ambiguous zone.

So where's the young heroes?

You can consider this summer's Star Trek but it had a big cast and Chris Pine looks like he watched William Shatner scenes so that he could copy it exactly to the smile.

A feminist once referred to this new crop of male actors like Gosling, Norton, Reynolds and others as "little lesbians". It's not hard to see that everyone big action movies are looking for strong male figures they usually go to Australia (Hugh Jackman) or Brits who at least have acting skills.

Stallone is on his 3rd Expendables movie for next year and Willis is once again doing a new Die Hard. And the list goes on.

But what will happen when they get too old? Well, Clint Eastwood is currently filming the broadway hit Jersey Boys. And what about the Spanish director Manoel de Oliviera who is 101 and starting a new movie.

But here's another thought... what if there's been too many action movies, with either old or young guys?  Maybe it's time for something new, and that's definitely connected to technology that we are stumbling into now.

So what's the new movie going to be about? Any ideas?

Ben or not Ben...

By now most of you have heard or read or watched the announcement of the new Batman movie. Well, actually Batman and Superman. 

With Batman being played by non other than Ben Affleck.

And while some of Hollywood cheered (they always love the come-back kids) the real audience are the Batman/Superman fans and they are not happy. Ben as Batman? Is he better than Christian Bale who played the last few Batman movies?

Before answering that, you have to know what I think of Ben Affleck. He's considered by most in the industry as lightweight as possible. In other words he can't really carry an entire movie for one reason.

He's not a good actor. In fact really not good.

Yes, he won the oscar last winter and he acted in it too. Ben is okay when there are other actors on the screen but he's shown over and over again that he can't carry a movie. Argo had a lot of good character actors like Alan Arkin and John Goodman and Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston. Put those guys around Ben and he manages to almost hold up his end.

In other words, Matt Damon is the talented one.

Ben has played the main character in a few movies though. He played Jack Ryan in a Tom Clancy movie, The Sum Of All Fears and it didn't do well. There was Gigli, which was a real bomb and was a sign of his future. And then Daredevil, a big action movie like Batman that bombed even worse.

So what happens to actors who don't bring in the bucks for a studio? 

Well, having Harvey Weinstein as a friend is a good thing.  Weinstein and his brother made Good Will Hunting, which was written by Ben and Matt. Of course nobody mentions that a few of the best screenwriters in Hollywood reworked the original screenplay.

But Harvey is a good friend and that's how Ben began to direct. This is quite common among actors who realize that their acting days are usually numbered. So when they're hot, many always try to get directing gigs. Even Bryan Cranston has directed Breaking Bad, when you're hot you're hot.

And so Ben directed a few movies and then found Argo. As a Canadian I was a little upset that most of the movie was made up and that the participation of the Canadian ambassador was put way in the background. In fact if the Canadian embassy didn't do what they did the consequences would have been worse.

And to thank the Ambassador for his dangerous plan, Ben didn't invite him to the screening of the movie at the Toronto Film Festival. 

So that's one reason I don't like Ben. Unless he buys one of my screenplays and then he's my best pal and most talented actor around.

Yes, we are a shallow lot, ready to sell out to the devil.

But back to Batman. What's going to happen now?

Well, for one thing the studio, Warner's, is going to introduce the actor to play Lex Luther. Remember Gene Hackman? He was great. Well, who do you think they're getting. Or do you know already?

Bryan Cranston.

But the comic book fans, and there are millions of them, are not happy with Ben for all the reasons I gave and many more. And it doesn't help that the last Superman movie wasn't that great either.

So right now you have two actors, Ben and Brandon Routh. Remember him? No? 

Then how would you like to spend $200 million dollars on both of those guys being the lead heroes?

And a fan base that already doesn't like them.

And finally, another reason I don't like Ben is that he's married to Jennifer Garner.

You've just sold a screenplay -- now wait.

One of the great misconceptions about selling screenplays is that everyone asks you when it'll be filmed... a week, a month?

The truth is it can be years. 

What happens first is an option; a fee paid to the writer from the producer or production company of approximately 10% of the total price. Taking Writer's Guild minimums that would be 10% of $42,000 for a movie that will cost under $3 million, and $72,000 for bigger budgets.

A lot of new writers hear about hundreds of thousands of dollars for screenplays, even millions of dollars. That does happen, but just to a handful of writers. For the rest of us, it's basic scale, as mentioned above.

So how soon does your movie film so you can get the 90% owed to you. Well, my Christmas screenplay that Hallmark had read and liked took nearly 6 years. And this was a script that they liked! It sat around their offices for about 3 years and before that I was sending it around to companies who liked it but weren't sure if it could get made.

Hallmark held it for the last three years, not paying me anything, because they were still "looking at it". And then at the end of 6 years from the date I wrote it as a spec, I got a call from a woman who worked for a Canadian production company. They wanted to make it for Hallmark. And more importantly Hallmark wanted them to make the film.

In only 6 years.

But wait.

Emperor of Mars was my first really good screenplay and I wrote it in 1989. Since then it's been optioned at least 7 times and actually almost made around 4 or 5 times. I never remember how many times exactly.

That's 24 years.

But wait longer;

I've heard of screenplays that have been hanging around even longer.

Last September, 2012, I optioned a screenplay called Chaser to a French film company in Paris. As of now, they might be making it next spring.  But I'm not holding my breath.

And unfortunately, this is more common than not. So what's the reason? What's always the reason. No money. That was certainly the case in the 5 times Emperor was almost made. The deals fell through.

And there's another reason; the producers might want to work on it somemore. Or maybe they can't find the right director, or the network or studio wants someone else to rewrite it. And then the director doesn't like it and leaves. Or the lead actor has a better offer on another movie.

So selling a screenplay isn't exactly like selling your car; it's only the beginning of something that might not even sell. I've had a dozen options on a dozen screenplays that eventually just went away.

So why do I continue to stay in this crazy business.

Because it can and has happened to me at least 10 times.

And also because nobody told me that I should do something else with my life.