First Person
By Mark Comaschi
I first pitched the Dog Stoyevsky idea to Bob in the mid-nineties, long before the MoviePitch website was set up. Initially I sent Bob three lines scribbled on a post card; a few weeks later he telephoned me and said that he would be interested in pitching the idea to the studios – with one proviso: that I would first have to write a three-to-five page treatment outlining the main story beats. After a few trial and error treatments, Bob accepted my story outline and began formerly pitching the idea to various studios. A year and half later, Bob sold the idea to Turner Pictures.
As soon as Turner had purchased the idea, they commissioned two L.A. based scriptwriters to write a full script. When I was sent a copy of this finished script I was I quite shocked by how much it differed from my original pitch: the title, story and characters had all changed – and not for the better. Whilst my dog story took quite a “hard-biting” satirical swipe at Hollywood, more like “The Player” – with a pooch, Turner’s script was more like “Scooby Doo” meets “Home Alone.”
Clearly, Turner wanted a script that would appeal to a massive worldwide audience; whilst I wanted a script that would appeal to more select audience of eight emaciated Tarkovsky-obsessed film students living only on Twinkies and existentialism in a damp basement squat in Greenwich Village. And of course, Turner (quite sensibly) won the day. The moral here for MoviePitch members is that if you are dealing with the studios, try not to be too “precious” about your idea because the chances are your idea will be drastically changed - sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Remember that in selling the rights to your story, you are also selling your rights to control how that story will eventually turn out.
Another point to note about dealing with the studios is that if the studio wants to buy your idea, make sure that you get someone to negotiate the deal on your behalf: i.e. an agent, a lawyer, or somebody who looks and/or sounds like they have at least worn a suit once in their lives (even if it was just to a funeral!). By using this “powerful other” you might get a much better deal than I did. Also, even if you don’t get a good deal, at least you will have somebody to blame for the fact that you’ve come away from the Hollywood negotiating table carrying a check for $28 and six bags of Scooby snacks.
Returning to Dog Stoyevsky, two years after buying the project, Turner’s option on the story ran out and the story-rights reverted back to me. During the last few years Bob has contacted me periodically to ask my permission to pitch the story to person “x” or studio “y” but the story has yet to be re-sold. I still hold the rights to the idea and I have decided that if Hollywood doesn’t make me a decent offer for these rights soon, I am going to auction them on eBay for an outrageous sum, a sum that truly befits a man of my creative stature, i.e. $29 and seven bags of Scooby snacks!
On Rejection
I think the issue of “why certain ideas get accepted & sold while some ideas get rejected” is one that looms large in the minds of many MoviePitch members. It certainly does in my mind. Personally, I find it an outrageous injustice that some of my more classy high-brow ideas such as “Three Men & A Baboon” or “Don’t Buy That Dog, Mr President!” or “RoboFish” etc have not been snapped up by the powers-that-be at moviepitch. Are they blind to art?
Seriously though, rejection can be painful and very difficult to cope with - even for those of us who experience it on a regular (i.e. hourly) basis. MoviePitch members therefore might like to know that I deal with rejection simply by not getting my hopes up too high in the first place. Also, I listen to the inspirational advice that my mother offers me daily: “When you write and submit your ideas, you must always hope for the best, but expect the worst. And above all, whatever you do, don’t give up your day job selling lawn furniture at Wal-Mart!”
What members might like to know about working with Bob
There are three points that I’d like to mention here:
1. In all of my contacts with Bob, I have found that he has never made promises that he could not, and did not keep. He seems to be a man with integrity (Sources tell me that this is as rare in Hollywood as a middle-aged actress without a drink habit.)
2. Bob seems to be immensely passionate about, and committed to, the ideas he takes on board. I noticed that once he had committed himself to pitching the Dog Stoyevsky story, his passion for the idea never seemed to wane. For example, I first pitched the Dog Stoyevsky idea to Bob in the mid-90’s, then around 2001 he telephoned me with great enthusiasm to tell me that he would like to pitch the idea to two famous wrestlers (sic). During this call, his passion was as great as it was six years earlier – and it contrasted markedly with my depressed Xanex-like grunts of “erh, yeah, duh, right, um...Ok”
3. Bob offered me a great deal of good, creative advice when I was developing the idea. In particular, I received a lot of help from him when I had to move from the initial pitch to writing a fleshed-out treatment. Also, Bob took a lot of pressure off my shoulders by giving me more than one chance to develop the story to a point where it actually became interesting, comedic and saleable. I was actually quite surprised at the type of advice that Bob gave me: he always encouraged me to strive to be more original and/or more cutting-edge, or more satirical in my comedy than I had hitherto been. He actually told me once “...not to write for the lowest common denominator.” This might also surprise some MoviePitch members because I think that there is a prevailing assumption held by many that a successful commercial Hollywood producer must necessarily be interested in the most obvious, safe, and banal form of content. Such an assumption is undoubtedly applicable to many in Hollywood but I don’t think it applies to Bob. For example, if you read Bob’s book, “How To Sell Your Idea To Hollywood,” you will notice that the “Tom” who gave him creative goose bumps was “Stoppard,” not “Cruise.”