August McCrae and the One-Leggers

For those late arrivals or those showing up based on a type-o, or for those seeking lesbian poop porn only to arrive because I have now typed lesbian poop porn twice, welcome. I got behind and I’ve been playing catch up. We’re up to August of 09. We’ve made up a ton of ground in one month.
But allow me to interrupt August to share the reason I have and will always be a Letterman man. In a world of lies and liars, he simply don’t. He may not be perfect but he don’t lie about it. Amen.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled August.
Aug 2 Patrick starts compiling director notes in preparation for his Nic Cage meeting. Recall, Nic dug the script but his attachment depended on the outcome of said meeting.
On Aug 3rd, I send Monkey’s Paw to Tom Jane as a result of his and Jaime King’s discussion of it at comicon.

If you are what you eat then young Ms Rain is equal parts bacon, eggs, pancakes and chicken. And cookies but we’ll come back to that.
August 4th, Patrick and DeLuca sit down with Cage. I asked Patrick to sum it up in his words, “Meeting with Nick Cage was spectacular. From the moment, DeLuca and I started to discuss DRIVE ANGRY with him we knew we’d found a partner with passion for the film to match our own. Nick would be the perfect hero for the film.”
Aug 5: Tom responds that I should tell Jaime he’d love to do Monkey’s Paw with her. I email Jaime and I call Kevin, the exec at RKO.
Later in the day, Patrick has lunch with Sacchi at LGF. We assume it is to discuss a script John sent Patrick the previous week.
While waiting, Paseornek approaches. Turns out…they know all about Cage. Recall, LGF got the script first…out of respect. And passed. Turns out they have a deal with Millennium and are considering distribution.
Later still, we get the counter offer from Millennium. Way better than Relativity but still low considering this is a Nic Cage movie. We prepare and make our first counter.
Aug 7th: Millennium comes up the tiniest bit. They increase the purchase price for the script. They increase Patrick’s director’s fee. They deny me a producer credit. Refuse to fly me out to the set. Frankel goes back and simply shoots them straight. This isn’t a play. This isn’t ego. We are true collaborators. I NEED to be there when Patrick is there. After some bantering…they finally agree to fly me out but only if I’ll ride in baggage and stay at the Motel 5. SureWhyNot. We tentatively close.
On August 8th I have dinner with Allen and artist, Dave McKean. The dinner is to discuss hooking Dave up with Ludon and Ludon’s supposed financial connections. Later, Allen sends McKean material to Ludon.

I work hard. Dunno if I’ll make it or not. Sure I got some flicks under my belt but my future still isn’t clear as far as Hollywood and success are concerned. I suppose I could do more. Work harder. Go do the parties and make the rounds. Kiss the butt and suck the hose. But I’d rather hang with the almost three year old if we’re being honest. I still work my tail off. Way more than the average joe. But sometimes while making that magic I got an almost three-year-old sitting a couple feet away watching Dora. Yeah, I know, that’s weird. I’m thinking up interesting ways to cut off heads, meanwhile Dora is trying desperately to return a fallen baby star up to the moon and Izzie is cheering her on. But…that’s my thing.
Win or lose…I win.

Sure, she can be a pain in the keister but have you even met me? I invented keister pain. Pain or no, she sure do make daddy proud. Now, I don’t know how it is in your house but in our house good deeds often have chocolate chip cookie rewards.

And, you know, the thing about Izzie Rain…she’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When she comes at a cookie, doesn’t seem to be living…until she bites the cookie, and those black eyes roll over white and then…ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The bedspread turns to crumbs, and despite all the poundin’ and the hollerin’, she rips that cookie to pieces.
That’s from Jaws. Sort’a.
August 11th: Nic names Drive Angry his last movie under his Millennium contract.
We are closed.

The thing I realized most recently is that you never win. You hear it called the game of Hollywood. Heck, even I say you gotta play the game..but there’s no win. There’s no goal line, no three pointer at the buzzer because there’s never a buzzer. It’s like someone asking how you win World of Warcraft. You don’t. You survive it.
I know that’s a hard statement but Hollywood is a hard hard world.
While Cage attaching is great news…it’s not a win. It’s a moment of wonder in a fantastical journey. Because it is NOT about the WIN. It’s not about the lose either. The destination is irrelevant…it’s about the journey.
Breathe in the ocean air and enjoy it. The good and the bad. The high…and the low.

Slow down and look at the fish. What’s the rush?

Go to the ocean…or whatever equivalent battery recharger you use. Go to that place. Your place.

And embrace it.

And dance.
Aug 17th, Millennium has an issue with the title Drive Angry. We don’t really understand the reasons given. Something about the way it translates foreign. We fret. DeLuca thinks it’ll likely go away.
Later in the day we hear that Hammer responded to our meeting. Still waiting on word from the UK on Parasite. They dug our Silo pitch but want more details before pulling the trigger. And they loved our Golden Vamp but want the full pitch before moving forward. What we find interesting is that we pitched three stories at different levels of detail and they didn’t pass on anything.
Kristyn, Tom Jane’s assistant creates rawstudio emails for herself, Tom, Bradstreet and me.
On August 19, fellow writer, Mark Swift beckons me to pay attention to Guild politics. I sigh but know he’s right. I start reading.
Aug 20: Dark Country Screening. Driving in for the screening I learn that Dark Castle never got one of my VERY important forms and that THIS is clearly the reason we have not been paid. You know the one. The form I faxed months ago. The form which the fax receipt says was received without error. Yeah. That form. They didn’t get it. I change my plans and swing by Paradigm to fill out another.
While there I drop off copies of Alien Pig Farm.

Dark Country was good. Not great. Major tech flaws but pretty strong for a first time director. The crowd seemed to really dig it. It’s a crazy little movie. Above is the mock-up DVD cover Bradstreet did. Amazing. As Dean Lorey said when I showed it to him…”I walk into a store and see that, I stop and pick it up.”
Aug 21: Patrick and I meet with Brad Schenk from Paradigm. He gives us his actor recommendations for Piper, Jonah and the Accountant. The three mains making up Nic’s co-stars.
Nights in White Satin H2 trailer is awesome. Suddenly I’m stoked for the movie.
We learn that Universal is featuring MBV3D as their big horror nights thingy. We email Mike and John. They know nothing about it.
Aug 22: We send the Paradigm list to Deluca and crew. They hint that they have lists from other agencies and that the agents have been crazy about the script. When we ask about the other lists they tell us we gotta wait on WME. Sigh. I hate waiting.

So I run. 4 miles in the Agoura Hills heat. Sheesh.
Aug 24: Patrick and I go to John Wells meeting. I invite Dean as well but he tells me to go and decide and he’ll vote for whoever I tell him to vote for. In the end he ain’t quite that much my bish, but we discuss and research over the next week and the three of us all find Wells the better choice.
On Aug 25th, Aint it cool gives Tom a good review for Dark Country
Aug 26: Avi calls Patrick. Tells us we need to come up with a new title. This goes round and round. Deluca gets involved.
Comes down to “Drive Angry” or “Drive to Kill”.

Look! It’s an…Air…

…pluh…

..ane!

On Aug 27 we finally get the agency cast recommendations. Holy cow. Name your favorite actor. Good money says he and/or she is on this list. It’s sort of overwhelming. And cool.
Aug 28th: We hit Dimension to pitch our take on Kristy to Matt Stein. Good pitch. Good response. Next step is Bob.
Later that night Patrick and I take our bromance to see H2. It’s dark. And the ending was different from the script. We weren’t anticipating that. But we have our workaround before we reach the car. Not that it’ll matter. We never heard anything after our initial pitch on H3. We figure IF it moves forward it’ll depend on this weekend’s performance. Maybe we’re still in the running. Or not.

As is the case every year. LA burns.
On the 29th we send Matt an email as a follow up to our Kristy pitch. We mention we saw H2 and know how to continue the story. His reply is quick. He and Bob will shortly reach out to us on Kristy and H3.
Later that afternoon I get the following from the son of an old high school buddy.

I blurred the last name since he’s a minor and there’s probably some rule. That and I didn’t want any of your pervs bugging him. Anyway, thinking it sort of funny, I forward this to Matt with the question:
“What should I tell him? :)”
Matt responds that we’ll talk this week!
Aug 30, an old dead project comes back to life. FJ DeSanto and I created this story called Sleepers. This was back when he worked for Uslan and it never got off the ground. When FJ left he took it with him. He shot me an email. He’d run into Jim Lee from Wildstorm and gave Jim the quick pitch. Jim loved and set a meeting to hear the full pitch.
Later, Bob Weinstein announces that he’s been in talks with a director, that he’s going to release H3D in the summer and that Zombie won’t return.
Our phones, emails, facebooks and myspaces light up. We were…vague. While we had discussed the idea of doing H3, we’d heard nothing in the form of confirmation or denial. My standard reply was, “I cannot tell you what I know and I don’t know what to tell you.”

It was getting hot, my friends.

So I ran.
It was all very interesting. Final Destination 3D had opened and opened huge. At 28m. TFD was the lead headline until Bob’s announcement derailed them. And his announcement was top news until…
Aug 31st, Millennium and Nu Image announces the purchase of Drive Angry, a 3D road movie with Nic Cage attached and to start shooting in the spring. Patrick and I make the cover of the Hollywood Reporter. A first for me. We didn’t see that announcement coming either. But it was good to see we were getting to keep the title Drive Angry.
Later in the day we get an email from Matt congratulating us on Drive Angry and asking what our shoot schedule will be like.
Looks like Bob was indeed referring to Patrick.
Wow. Seems the next month is gonna be an interesting one (We had no idea just how interesting.)

As another month comes to a close we are exhausted and happy. We are hugged and kicked in the nuts. The Yin and the Yang of it all never ceases to amaze.
And for those who are keeping score, it has been 87 days since we delivered our draft of ISWYD and still no pay from Rona.