Well, it does for me, at least, although I’m sure plenty of fans and 53
sweaty guys on the losing side’ll be pretty disappointed. Nevertheless,
whatever happens between the Colts and Saints on Sunday, my week couldn’t
have gone much better.
First, the dinner party we threw for some local theater folks on Tuesday
night went great. Four solid voices, four folks well-versed with the tricks
of the acting trade, will be providing the narrative skills for Head Trauma,
the audio book I’ve been working on with fellow author Frank Wales
for…well, quite a while now. Not only was dinner great, the company was
great, and I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming recording sessions.
Head Trauma will include several stories from my first horror anthology,
Stuff Out’a My Head (still a few copies of the first printing left, hit the
store to snag one, complete with illos by Bernie Wrightson). I’m leaning
towards Brutal, Chance Meeting, The Monthly and p0rn-which may be retitled
Skin Flick to match the screenplay I wrote based on the short story, which
is currently sitting on a producer’s desk in New York.
So, dinner early in the week goes great. Wednesday, I buckled down and
finally got through the revisions on a freelance gig I’d hoped to turn in on
Monday, when things started getting hectic around here with paperwork and
deal-making in progress. Still, late Wednesday, I finally wrapped that puppy
up, and got it in to my editor. Two days early. Never a bad thing.
Wednesday also served to supply me with the final go-ahead I needed for what
came Thursday night, my radio interview with the guys who host THWIPT, a
weekly broadcast covering comics, comic creators, movies, new releases, etc.
(Check ‘em out at: http://www.inthefaceradio.com, 9 p.m. central, every
Thursday night).
The interview was a blast. First question right out of the gate was a
surprising one, and some of the other ones along the way came out of
nowhere, but over an hour and fifteen minutes flashed by like nothing.
Of course, Thursday night was also when my much-hyped announcement could
finally be made. After getting the thumbs-up from the production company
earlier in the week, I could finally let the cat out of the bag. Visions of
Sarah, my ghost story script, has been picked up, and will be going into
production later this year. I can’t say everything about it that I want, and
the official announcement and PR will probably be forthcoming from
Sometimes, Dead is Better Films next week, but the budget for the film is in
the low millions, and my payday alone for the option, screenplay and rights
is in the mid five figures. Easily, the biggest single payday for a writing
job in my career (and hopefully the first of a whole lot more!). These guys
are serious, and they’ve already been working with a casting agent, scouted
facilities in NY and CT, and put my script in the hands of a number of well-
established Hollywood types, including key staffers from films like M. Night
Shyamalan’s SIGNS and The Sixth Sense and One Hour Photo, The Woodsman, etc.
The response to the script has been fantastic, and the producers have
already contacted one actress with an academy award on her resume, and are
looking to secure other A-list talent for the film.
A multimillion dollar budget? Not one, but possibly two Oscar winners in the
cast? Yeah, as you can imagine, I’ve been waiting a long time to be able to
post about the deal, and now I can. Even more announcements are coming, as
the studio lines up the key players, both in front of and behind the
cameras. Oh, and did I mention theatrical release? Oh, yeah, there’s that.
The company is firmly set on a theatrical release.
Far and away, best week of 2010 by a considerable margin. I’ve been working
damned hard on getting my screenplays seen, ever since going through the
hassles and drama regarding The Bunker last year around this time. I made
the decision then that I needed to seriously start reaching higher, and
ditching the bottom-feeders plaguing my low-budget efforts. Now, it’s paying
off. I’ve got a real deal for real money in place, and people with
connections are seeing my work. More importantly, they’re being impressed by
it. Not people who I’ve established relationships with or who I’ve known
professionally from one project or another, but people on the inside in the
moviemaking industry who don’t know me from a hole in the wall, who have
actually said, concerning Visions: “We should take this to Scott Rudin.”
And, “The script is very compelling-any studio would be interested in this
project.”
So now, the waiting begins again. Waiting for agents to middleman the script
and actors and actresses to read it. Waiting for scheduling to be roughed
out, then finalized. Waiting for crew to be hired. Waiting for locations to
be reserved. Waiting to see how much more I’ll be involved with the film
from this point forward. I already have an alternate ending scene to turn
in, and I’ll be working on that later on during the week. Then it’s being
patient, which I’m not exactly good at, while the producers do their thing.
On Monday, I’ll be on the phone, getting the next update.
Who knows how good next week might be, huh?
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Follow me on Twitter. I may not follow you back, but still, occasionally I
say something amusing, you might enjoy it:
http://www.twitter.com/JosephMonks
And of course, film-related updates will be comin’ regularly through Sight
Unseen Pictures, the company through which I do my film work. Following is
as easy as clicking:
http://www.twitter.com/SightUnseenPics
* * * * * * * * * *
Currently listening to: Dead Enough For Life by Icon of Coil
