I am experiencing a moment of reverential awe after reading the LA Times account of Clive Cussler’s movie deal with Phillip Anschultz’s production company. Cussler signed a ten million dollar per book deal with Anschultz to bring the Dirk Pitt stories to the silver screen. That occurred back in the year 2000 presumably after the all clear was given in re the new milennium. Ten million dollars per book: who wouldn’t rush out and buy new pajamas for those chilly mornings at the keyboard?
The article remains coherent precisely because the LA Times factors in the vagaries of Hollywood in a way other newspapers could not. A good analogy might be covering the 1927 Yankees and you have to think of variations on the headline, YANKS WIN. After thumping the tribe and smacking the Senators you can see how difficult this task might be. If you write for the LA Times and the story is about Hollywood and law suits you have keep repeating the phrase, “a new writer was brought in, paid 500,000 dollars and fired. Then they were rehired to fix the script previously fixed by the old writer now living in disgrace on the proceeds of the previous rewrite lost forever in a parking lot incident.”
I’m just going to say this. I’d like to try the Hollywood approach. So far when I see a part of my manuscript isn’t working I just fix it. In the future I’m going to fire myself, probably after an exchange of vicious emails. Then I’ll offer to fix it for 500,000 dollars, get fired, get rehired, write some coverage on the back of a spiral notebook, get another 500,000 dollars and fire off another email. Wow, the scales are falling from my eyes. Here’s a headline: Yanks Pummel Pale Hose. I get it now, this is fun.
Not to mention the fact that all the lawsuit buzz is bound to get a publisher interested. What conglomerate wouldn’t want to acquire a manuscript that already had millions of dollars invested in a high-profile, bitter battle?
I think you’re onto something here…