Update

Thanksgiving at the Loreys was filling as expected. The usual crew was there with the addition of Jimmy, Maggie, JP and his wife. We stuffed ourselves then Dean kicked everyone out so the three of us could log on to Warcraft.

I saw a deer fart this week.
On the work front…
I met with Goldstein and we discussed ideas. I mentioned the whole “Riddle Me This” lapsed option thing and told him I was thinking about spinning it into a one-hour procedural for the world of TV. This clearly excited him. Riddle was the first of my scripts he’d read. As a matter of fact he was the guy who introduced me to my agent. Good man, he is.

Mel and I killed us a female winged creature.

And I found myself oddly attracted to her corpse.
Goldstein met with Fox after our meeting and told them my little idea for a procedural and they loved it. They read a copy of “Riddle Me This” last night and want to meet to discuss. After the New Year.

A typical night out with the guild.
So with Fox liking “Riddle Me This” it puts me in something of a bind. The Constantin option is up, the property is mine again. I could take it and spin it into a series. But then Frankel is telling me that Constantin is going to make a backend offer to extend the option for another six months. Hensleigh’s off working on his killer ant movie so the question is, can he even get to Riddle within six months? Six months from now we could be going through this whole process again. I mean, I can still do the procedural without Riddle but using Riddle sure makes it easier. Hrmph.

The gnomes are cutting down all the trees. That makes me angry.
I guess I’ll take their offer if it’s reasonable. Maybe I shouldn’t. I’ve given blood, sweat, urine, semen and Skittles to this project and I haven’t gotten much of a return. But if I kill the project then I’m slapping Nicole and Hensleigh in the face. And from my meetings with Tom, it’s clear Hensleigh has talked to him about stepping into the lead role. Tom’s a fan of the script and clearly wants to do it so I’m getting some pressure. I’ve asked Tom his feelings toward Hensleigh and he clearly loves the guy. I had thought perhaps with the Punisher’s backlash there would be hard feelings but that’s crazy…Tom’s too laid back. So, what do I do? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.

A big dead tree attacked us.

I guess dead trees don’t do it for me.
Goldstein has also gone to Borstein at Showtime and evidently they are interested in “Last Vamp”. This is good news for all of us. Especially Whitley who has needed some good news since Anne’s stroke. She’s doing much better, by the way. I went back and read “Last Vamp” a few nights ago. When a studio passes on a project I suppose the writer always feels the weight of guilt. What did I do wrong? Was it not good enough? But after reading it…Bah! It’s awesome. They are morons.

So, Mel, Dean and I took on Darkfathom Deep and had a blast.

Except when we took a break, Mel went to the kitchen and forgot to surface thereby drinking water until dead. Poor dear.
Tobin called and they loved the outlines for Necroscope. We talked about meeting this week but I’m guessing Christmas Fever will nip that. Anyway we discussed combining two of the takes, which is fine. I’d just like them to settle on something so I can climb into my dungeon and start making the magic again. It’s time to do some writing and I’m feeling the withdrawal. This truncated outline crap is for the birds.

There’s a calm one receives in killing colorful raptors.
Foxhoven called from Tiger Hill and it seems I’m back in play with “Demonik”. There was a big honkin meeting with all the players (except me of course). I haven’t said a whole lot about this because I hate dissing a project while it’s still in play but the truth is…the guy running the show at Virtual Reality did not like the idea of my playing in his video game sandbox. Every outline, every suggestion, every idea I had…he shot down. Hey, I don’t have to be right all the time but statistically I should be right at least once. He never gave me a point. Not once. He argued everything. I never made progress because he’d shoot me down before I could even get my feet off the ground.

They say Desolace is desolate. I find it lovely.

And sad. It’s the place the Kodo’s go to die. Did you know that?
Myself and Tiger Hill both felt the story was in bad shape. But our hands were tied. Any time we’d offer story fixes we were told we were screwing up the designs. It was a strange place to be. TR makes the game. They are the talent. You want them to be happy. But what do you do when you think they are screwing up? I supported them in the beginning but later when I realized the story was sort of wonky I stepped in. Little good it did.

For relaxation, one should always spend time in Booty Bay.
The problem with the story was simple. TR or the bozo running the show, rather, had created this very interesting, very intricate backstory to the game. However he wanted to save the reveal to that backstory for game two. Thus we had us a game with no story. If we tried to bring in a story we were told that our ideas either screwed with design or they screwed with the backstory. Thus we were protecting a backstory that no one would ever see if the first game failed…which it was destined to do because there was no story. Bozos. In ten Hollywood years I’ve never come across this sort of backwards thinking.

This pic was taken moments before we were all slaughtered by raging apes.
Well the big meeting with Majesco came last week and the crap hit the fan. Majesco hated the no-story. Bozo kept arguing that there was a story then laid out his splendid backstory which of course no one playing the game would ever know. My understanding is that he was made to look…foolish. And it all came out that everything I’d been paid to create had been thrown out. Rule of thumb, big studios don’t like spending money on writers only to have the writing thrown out. This makes them…angry.

Lessa took Mel, Gondo and myself to fight on a big ship to kill that guy from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. We had a blast. No death.
Majesco wants me back in the mix and they also want to attach a director. So, story misery aside, the game looks amazing. The play is fun and the engine is top notch. The problems were simple. Story and cutscenes. They all sucked. So, I’ll come back in to work on the story and a director will be attached to work on the cutscenes as well as take the helm on the later feature version.

Several director names were thrown out. Craven, Carpenter and Barker. I pushed for Barker. He’s rep’d at ICM as well so I called Nicole and meetings are being set for after New Years. As for Carpenter, I suggested we go to him with our other Tiger Hill project, “Psychopath”. Since then, Brad talked with Derek at Revolution and he’s very interested in “Psychopath” with Carpenter attached. That meeting’s being set for after New Years as well.
And as for Craven…well, he’s off working on “Redeye” for Dreamworks…let’s just not disturb him.

Many times during play Mel’s mining sense will tingle and we’ll have to trek off to some mountain top so she can mine ore for her blacksmithing.
This morning I finished a rough pass on our little Tom Jane/Steve Niles graphic novel thingy. Steve’s still sending me sketches and ideas. Tom is never short on ideas. I’ll write the outline, Steve will turn it into comic form, then Tom will make the deals.

Once we were nekkid…

Now we are clothed.
Chris Carlisle called about “Narcosis”. They want Patrick and I to come in to discuss turning the story into a graphic novel then spinning that into feature, toys, etc. We’ll meet after the New Year.

The Dark Tower made me think of Dean who’s still off in Hawaii with Damon, Don and Bob Saget. He’s been playing the World of Warcraft from his laptop but don’t go shedding a salty tear for him because his laptop is better than most houses.
He comes back Sunday just in time for Mel and I to hit the road to the south…or the air rather. We’re spending Christmas with her folks this year.
So, that’s it for the update. I’m certain I left a few big events out. Like, Mel and I going to the Oaks mall. We were waiting in line for the Cheesecake Factory, just people watching and I said to Mel, “Wow, they are by far the two best looking people in this place.” Mel looked around for a moment then looked back at me and said, “Who, us?”
God, she’s good.

I’m thinking once we get all this Christmas crap out of the way it’s time for a return trip to Vegas. Who’s with me?