I think he did that wrong

[From CYGAWA Chapter 12]

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they were willing to actually 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 catastrophe 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.

* This particular studio did do this once, i.e.; sell back to the writers a screenplay they owned but
didn’t like. I’ve mentioned this one before, in another context. There’s Something About Mary.
Right: You wanna talk about looking foolish?

** It’s still on my website (the aweisbecker.com one), so you can read it there too – see if I have my
head up my ass like everyone else.$
     $ As Steven made sure to point out, putting my draft on my site was illegal since I don’t
own the draft, the studio/producers do. They could sue, Steven said. To which I say:
Good luck to the fuckers! I imagine some Hollywood asshole in a suit with a briefcase
showing up at Big Turkeys to serve me papers and getting accidentally shot by a hit man
looking for my sorry ass or mugged by the crack heads on my property or bit by the
deadly terciopelo viper.

†  Still more Hollywood incest, and still another example of how I was surrounded.

PART 8 COMING SOON…

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AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTERVIEW