paradise found

Lucky WGA Writer Tumbles Down Ukrainian Rabbit Hole, Discovers Scribe-Worshipping Wonderland

Recognizing that striking writers could really use a positive story to lift their flagging spirits after enduring so many disheartening months of marching in circles and dodging the occasional vehicular manslaughter attempt by lead-footed studio employees, this week's LAT Scriptland column relates the inspiring tale of improbably named WGA member Billy Frolick, who, by accepting "a mysterious offer" to script a Ukranian animation project, suddenly found himself transported to a kind of Bizarro Hollywood where scribes were not only not regarded with typical scorn, but treated as royalty. We join our narrative in progress, as Frolick alights in Kiev to meet his new collaborators:

The Ukrainians apparently considered this a momentous occasion. When he finally stepped onto the tarmac in Kiev, Frolick was greeted with a dozen roses and a row of shivering reporters who had been waiting two hours to shove microphones in his face.

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short ends

Checking In With America's Favorite Crazy-In-Love Astronaut

· Remember, Lisa Marie Nowak, adult-undergarment-wearing, crazy-in-love astronaut? When Toni Collette finally gets the call for Breaking Orbit: The Lisa Marie Nowak Story, this clip of her asking to be freed of her cumbersome electronic ankle monitor will help the actress more fully inhabit the surefire Emmy-winning role.
· "Hey, that Hannah Montana show/Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode sounds a lot like my idea for a secret-rockstar-in-high-school show/third-place-winning script contest entry!" say aggrieved writers in different stages of the tilting-at-studio-windmills process.
· Don't watch this if you'd like to avoid seeing moving images of Jack Nicholson eating a sandwich while shirtless.
· The Dirty Sanchez crew is including a barf bag with their DVDs; don't be surprised if their stateside competitors decide to up the ante by packaging a fart mask in a special directors' cut of Jackass 2.
· The world held its breath when Katie Holmes nearly fumbled Suri while twisting an ankle in Paris, but quickly exhaled once it saw that her omnipresent baby-retention team was on hand to make sure no harm could come to the infant.

it's desperation meets four-hundred dollars' worth of hope

The Hollywood Pitch Festival: Where Crazy Screenwriting Dreams Meet Bored Development Execs

Given that being locked in a room with 200 desperate, aspiring writers willing to pay $400 a head to have a representative of Legitimate Hollywood politely nod through their pitches for "Transformers meets Harry Potter, but where the transforming wizards are all animated woodland creatures" sounds like a genital-punishing exercise outside of the pain threshold of even the most masochistic, CBT-loving of producers and agents, one might wonder if participating in events like the recent Fade In Hollywood Pitch Festival is worth the unlikely reward of hearing a new voice among the crazy-idea-spewing din. As it turns out, there's at least one attractive benefit for the reps grudgingly agreeing to pitchfest duty, as the NY Times reports:

"I feel like I'm on 'American Idol,' and I'm crushing people's dreams," said a talent agent from Endeavor after having swiftly nixed six hicks' pix. Citing her company's policy, she insisted on anonymity.

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good will procrastinating

Affleck And Damon To Surf Their Way To Second Screenwriting Oscar

After almost ten years of creative paralysis brought on by wondering when the Academy repo men would arrive to snatch the Good Will Hunting Best Original Screenplay Oscar from his mantel as punishment for every career-sabotaging choice he's made since 2002, Ben Affleck has decided to stop living in fear and take proactive steps towards winning a second one, phoning partner/lifelong BFF Matt Damon and inviting him on a creative retreat in Hawaii. Reports Us Weekly in their new Procrastinating Screenwriters, They're Just Like Us! feature:

"They're really excited about it," says the source. [...]

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trade round-up

TV Audiences May Needs Some Time To Warm Up To Brett Ratner

· Mike Myers is the latest star to try and take a whack at the long-gestating remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which has now moved from Paramount to 20th Century Fox, and to which Owen "The Butterscotch Stalliion" Wilson and Jim "My Career's Way Too Cold To Have A Decent Nickname" Carrey were once attached. [Variety]
· MTV Games has announced a Jackass video game, which will ship with a special controller that will deliver blunt-force trauma to a player's genitals or emit flatulence in his face as he steers Johnny Knoxville and his gang through a variety of wacky stunts. [THR]
· Fox's American Idol predictably dominates in its timeslot, but there's some potentially bad news for the network: the preview/premiere of On the Lot opens to a weak number, calling into serious question Brett Ratner's TV drawing power. [Variety]
· Cuba Gooding Jr. will produce and play a pivotal janitor role in "edgy," Napoloean Dynamite-esque teen comedy Harold. [THR]
·Writers' collectives are so hot right now: Screenwriters like Christopher "Usual Suspects" McQuarrie, John "Undercover Brother" Ridley, and Naomi "Jake and Maggie's Mom" Foner Gyllenhaal have formed the 1.3.9 co-op, joining forces to help each other maintain more control over the creative process.

defamer employment dept

Writer Takes Crazy Staffing Season Dream To YouTube

Today's LAT publicizes the plight of local TV-writing hopeful David McMillan, who after completing the CBS Diversity Institute's Writers Mentoring Program and enduring three unsuccessful staffing seasons, has this year decided to distinguish himself from the other faceless hopefuls watching their careers quietly die in the spec script slush pile by harnessing the power of the internets for some self-promotion. He's seized control of his own destiny by posting a clip of the top ten reasons he should be given a staff gig, then mailing off the URL to his industry contact list. Career suicide, or clever stunt that will land him a few meetings with executives anxious to meet the YouTube guy so that they can brag to their friends over lunch at the commissary that they met the YouTube guy? You be the judge. More »

trade roundup

Trade Round-Up: John Wells Establishes Screenwriters' Eden On Warner Bros. Lot

· John Wells Productions will house the Writers Co-Op, an all-star collective of high-priced screenwriters (David Benioff, Rob Bass, Scott Frank, and a cast of teens) who are willing to sacrifice huge bags of upfront money in exchange for greater creative control over their work and better profit participation. As part of the Co-Op's deal with Warner Bros., these top scribes will receive first-dollar gross, get to be involved as producers on their films, and, should their scripts be put into production, each will be provided with a unicorn that poops out nuggets of 24-carat gold on which to ride during the shoot, majestic steeds that will remind everyone on set of the writer's crucial role in the moviemaking process. [Variety]
· The Gersh Agency makes a bold move into sports representation by opening a baseball division. But before you get too excited, realize that their initial client list includes David Dellucci, Luis Ayala, and Brett Tomko, none of whom will likely be taken in the early rounds of your fantasy draft. [THR]
· Leading fauxteur Michael Bay will explore the possibilities of blowing shit up...five years in the future! Who knows what unnecessary explosion technology will be available to us half a decade hence? [Variety]
· Little Children's Best Supporting Self-Emasculating Child Molester nominee Jackie Earle Haley rides his newfound Oscar heat to three new projects: the Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro, the ensemble drama Winged Creatures, and indie drama Bolden!. [THR]
· Cool Hand Luke director Stuart Rosenberg to bet God that even He can't eat fifty hard-boiled eggs, finally settling a theological dilemma that's torn apart the Church for the last forty years. [Variety]

screenwriters

Today's Painful Hollywood Lesson: A Jenny McCarthy Appearance Doesn't Guarantee Your Movie A Theatrical Release

We'll save you five minutes of reading and give you the Very Important Lesson from today's Scriptland column (motto: "Laboring under the illusion that screenwriters are people, too, since September 2006!") in the LAT about the plucky crusade of a writing team to save their opus from a straight-to-DVD fate: Before you decide to start burning your bridges by publicly complaining about the lack of respect your Jenny McCarthy-featuring, Wiener Wagon-based work of road-trip comedy genius is receiving from the studio that refuses to pay for an expensive theatrical release, ask your agent why he neglected to mention that the executive who bought the script kept using the phrase, "ultimate Blockbuster date night movie" during contract negotiations. More »

sony

Screenwriter Goldsman Given $4 Million To Not Fuck Up 'Da Vinci' Sequel Too Badly

The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke reports that Sony is making Da Vinci Code adapter Akiva Goldsman, a man whose career highlights include depicting schizophrenics as people who spend their days scribbling on dirty windows while playing with imaginary friends and assisting in the destruction of the Batman franchise, the best-paid writer in town by forking over $4 million for him to churn out a script for Da Vinci sequel Angels & Demons: More »

screenwriters

Screenwriter Sues Fox Over Uncomfortable Similarities Between 'Deck The Halls' And 'Deck The Halls'-Like Script They Didn't Buy

We ask that you steel yourself for the possibility that a recently filed copyright infringement lawsuit could prevent the release of Fox's Deck the Halls, throwing into utter chaos all of your cherished plans to spend the holidays watching Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick driven to the brink of mutual homicide by their competing desires to erect the most ostentatious Christmas light displays ever conceived. THR ESQ reports that a screenwriter is seeking an injunction against Fox and New Regency, claiming that their forthcoming movie is uncomfortably similar to a screenplay he wrote which both the studio and production company had previously rejected: More »