The death of the TV movie is back

 

Having killed off the TV movies something finally happened. It was a guy who slipped DVDs into envelopes and sent them to me. Actually to a million people. And more.

It was netflix.

Just as movies for tv were gone, netflix continued sending me movies, some of which they even started to make themselves. And other guys started to do this too. Hulu and Crackle and more and more.

And suddenly there were more movies being made.

And that led to a race, but not just made for TV movies. They began doing something that started a long time ago. I mentioned that before, where networks did 4 or 5 episodes of "one- off. as they say.

Right now I'm watching one of them, Davis and Crawford, two 40's stars who, if you don't know, were big in their time. And I can tell now, that there's gonna be a lot more of this. 

Another one is Sun Records, which I think is really good, it's about black music finding a home to white singers like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and a whole new rock and roll sound.

Ironically, about five years after, some other bands changed it again. This time the biggest change in music history ever. They also took black singers music and changed it to their liking.

They were The Beatles. 

The biggest change in music ever. Even beyond hip-hop.

You know how I know?

Because even my parents knew who the Beatles were. And my grandparents.

But the change in all of these programs weren't help for the feature movies being made now.  For example, the last Academy Award was a sleeper for the most part. A bunch of sad white guys trying to compare with Gene Kelly and a really good movie about the space race with African-American women part of it.

Walter Hill, who made one of the best b-movies around, The Warriors said that a lot of movies now are about nothing and not filmic. And I agree. If you want to see great movies about L.A., see Welcome to L.A. and of course Rebel Without A Cause and West Side Story.

Of course, I don't like Ryan Gosling even though he's Canadian too.

So, as we speak I have, once again, someone interested in a screenplay of mine and of course, it will probably go away next week just because I said it.

But it is probably the strangest movie I've ever written and I still don't think I wrote it. In fact I'm sure someone else wrote it. 

But I will have to wait. Writers always wait.

I had a screenplay at Hallmark for three years and nobody touched it. Then, out of the blue, I got a call from a lovely woman who I never met and she said she wanted to make it.

Now.

So I said "okay." And that was it.

But just then, I asked her why someone at Hallmark decided to make it after being on the shelf for three years.

She said this: "You have a teenage girl in your movie..." I waited for more... then... 

"She's just like my daughter."

That was it. My movie was being made because someone liked the teenager in my script. 

This is what happens in movies. It doesn't make sense. 

It got made. But that's even a better story. They contacted me a few times over a couple of months and then nothing.

Then a friend of mine was at the Toronto Film Festival and ran into the producer of my movie and asked about it. The producer said that it was fine, all done.

Only one thing was wrong.

I wasn't paid.

Oh... the teenage girl is to the left. The one that the producer decided on making the movie because of her daughter.

But let's get to the money.  Will push it this week.