UPDATE ON PLANET GAZZAM…

So, it’s official — we went out with the ol’ spec a few days ago. A fact which thrusts yours truly smack dab in the middle of writer hell. Because, for the next week or two, as your spec goes out…things get nuts. Rumors fly, studios pass on the project, some ride the fence, and some truly want the script, but allow their finger to hover over the “offer button” for days – waiting for just the right time to press down.

I’ve tried to ignore it all – tried to keep working on my TV pilot outline and forget about the spec. But I’ll be honest, it consumes me. It’ll consume until the very last day.

The worst part about “spec week” is hearing all the other anecdotes people feel are timely for you to absorb. Like the one my buddy told me yesterday. It was about a script that just sold for $500k. He claims it was just god-awful. He said it was so bad that he called up the agent (who he was friendly with) and give him crap for having the gall to send it to him in the first place. He told the guy, “This is horrible, it’s a complete rip off of “XXXX” (a recent hit film) and worse, it’s badly written. The agent just laughed and said, “I’ve already got three studios bidding against each other.”

“Isn’t that crazy?”, my buddy says to me. Slapping my shouldall the shitty writers clogging the place up and getting in your way! Which elicited a room full of painful belly laughs.

Because the studios will buy bad scripts for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with quality. Maybe they love the concept or a hit movie in the same genre just made a zillion dollars. Who knows? But, I think writers can take some solace in the fact that…

…a good script will almost always find a home. I swear. The town is also littered with stories like the “American Beauty” script. I’ve read a thousand scripts and this is in my all-time top 5. It was also passed over by EVERY studio in town – but eventually found a home. And, oh yeah — won an Oscar. So instead of wallowing in the negative, I prefer to hang onto the idea that a great script will be recognized by someone — sooner or later.

This is what I try and hang onto – to NOT focus on the nonsense…but instead focus on trying to write a truly great script. That being said — I’ll be honest – it isn’t always easy.