Wendago

Patrick and I have been kicking a story around we’re calling Mass Destruction. Could be fun. We’ll keep playing with the story and when Narcosis is out of the way we’ll just write the spec. Don’t think we’ll make the pitch rounds this time.
Funny thing about pitches…you put in just as much work doing the pitches as it would take to just write the spec. Probably more. At least with the pitch there’s no question that we can write. With Narcosis we’re pretty certain that some may have passed because the weren’t sure we could even write something as a team in the first place. Who knows.

Glenn took us in to meet Kahli Small at Focus. I think she used to be his assistant when he worked there and now she has the job he used to have. She loved the pitch and we will pitch the big boys there next week via satilite.
On the way out Glenn mentioned the pros and cons. He felt we could get a greenlight at Focus but the budget would certainly be smaller than we might get elsewhere. He’s spoken to someone at Paramount and mentioned taking us there if Focus didn’t pan out. Patrick and I agreed.
The truth is, we’re pretty tired of pitching. If Focus passes then we will certainly go where Glenn wants because he’s put in the time. But we’re pretty excited to just sit down and write the thing on spec.

We pitched Narcosis to Melissa Reid at Bruckheimer’s this afternoon. Yeah. She didn’t get it. First time that’s happened. Everybody we’ve pitched has at least gotten it. She didn’t.
Drove back to the old apartment after the pitch to fix holes. I guess maybe I’d punched a couple into the walls over our eight years there and the doc thinks it’ll be good therapy if I fix the freaking things myself. So I did. Patch, mud, sand, paint. I got a walkthru with the landlords sometime this week and I’m quite certain they will do everything in their power to keep our deposit. They are afterall, the lowest form of ball sweat.
After the holes were patched I stopped in to speak with the doc to report. I poke fun but I actually really like the guy. He’s provoked some interesting thought.

We didn’t get it. DeLuca passed on Narcosis. I’m waiting to hear why but I also heard that he’s leaving Dreamworks. Great. Horrible timing. I really thought we had it with them. Bonnie was fantastic. I’m wondering if they’ll run it by DeLuca’s replacement but that may be wishful thinking.
We have Bruckheimer next week and Glenn has set up our pitch with Kahli Small at Focus. So we’re not dead yet but we’re clearly nearing the end of the line.
Met with Navid McIlhargey this morning. Navid used to be Derek Douchy’s assistant at Revolution…I think. I met him during Scarecrow. He’s working at Next Entertainment, company hidden away in the Warner’s Animation Studios. His boss recently produced Texas Chainsaw and they are looking for an old school horror. He had some interesting concepts and I told him I’d play around with a couple and see what sparked.

Great pitch. Bonnie Curtis is amazing. She used to be Steven’s assistant. By the way, everyone there says “Steven”. Steven this and Steven that. Later she produced for him and now she’s doing her own producing with a first look deal with Dreamworks. Anyway she was great during the pitch. She laughed and joked and jumped in and you couldn’t ask for better support.
John Fox got it. Loved it even. He was leaving our meeting to have a meeting with DeLuca. He said he was going to tell DeLuca about it at lunch.
It was so upbeat. I think we got it.