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Interviews
 
Timothy Dowling
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
Author: Will Plyler and EJ Pennypacker
 
Timothy Dowling grew up in Massachusetts and later attended the University of Southern California, where he studied acting. He cowrote the popular short film George Lucas in Love, set up his pitch Outsourced with Mosaic Media, was hired to adapt Born to Rock for Paramount Pictures and sold his spec script Treehouse Gang to Warner Bros. Dowling is currently repped by CAA, manager Dawn Saltzman at Mosaic and attorney Rick Genow.

When do you remember becoming first interested in film and writing?

I have always loved movies. I always wanted to act, ever since I can remember. I played Peter Pan in my kindergarten play and enjoyed it. I don’t remember when it started, but my dad told me a few years ago that I came out of seeing Star Wars at age three saying I want to do that.

In terms of writing, I think I was always coming up with stories, movies in my head that I wanted to make later. But it was more from a place of as an actor I would like to see/do these movies.

In high school I started writing a pilot for a TV show about a high school kid that I thought I could act in. I wrote like five episodes, which seems crazy now. The then president of CBS, Jeff Sagansky, went to my high school and came to speak to one of the classes. I went. And I think he was floored that anyone knew who he was. We talked and I asked him if he’d read my show. He took them. Which now, to me, seems crazy. He called me from L.A. a few days later and said he’d read the first three episodes, and that he loved the writing and the dialogue but that CBS wasn’t doing teen shows and suggested I write a family show. He encouraged me to keep writing and said to send him whatever I wrote. I wrote some other TV pilots, and his execs would read them and call me about them. I also wrote a Cheers spec. But then I went off to USC to study acting. And it’s funny because I had been writing a lot but that wasn’t my focus, it was all towards acting. I took some screenwriting classes at ‘SC but then didn’t really write anything for a long time. I was more focused on acting.

Tell us about writing your first script. What was your approach like?

It was very different than what I have written now. It was called Nightlight and was like ET but more of an adventure. I always called it ET meets Midnight Run meets Field of Dreams but without the comedy or the baseball. If you read it that makes more sense.

I wanted to write like one of those Spielberg movies I loved as a kid. I wrote it on and off over a long period of time. Freddie Prinze Jr., who was really hot at the time and was a friend of a friend, read it and wanted to do it. We were gonna play the two guys in it. But I didn’t have an agent or anything. He gave it to his agents at CAA and I don’t know if they ever read it. His manger read it and was like, I know a guy who can do this for $80,000. I was like, I don’t know film budgets, but this is like a $30 million movie with spaceships and special effects. So it didn’t go anywhere. Then I think it was a couple more years before I wrote something else. Again at this point it was more, I want to write myself a script. But I soon learned that it’s hard enough to sell anything let alone “Oh, by the way, I want to be in it.”

You were the cowriter of George Lucas in Love. What was the inspiration for the story? Describe working on that project. How did you and Joe Nussbaum hook up? And what doors did it open for you?

Joe is one of my best friends. We went to USC together. He used to come to this improv group that I was in at ‘SC. He’d come up to me after shows and say, you are really funny—will you be in my student films? Then the next year he auditioned, was really funny and got in. Anyway, he wrote his big senior thesis film with me in mind. I starred in it and we became really good friends.

I’ve always been very interested in the movie business in careers and what you should be doing. Also at this point I had a lot of free time between auditions. Anyway, there had been this thing with a few short films that were made and passed around Hollywood that got people attention and got agents and deals for their makers. Like VHS tapes that you just gave to people and they would copy and send to their friends.

Everyone thought we were the first to do this, and because we got so much attention so many people did it after us. But there were a few big ones before us. The thing to do was to make some sort of spoof of a popular movie. There had been Troops, which was Cops with Star Wars. Saving Ryan’s Privates, a few others. I kept bugging Joe to do one. Finally he was like, you’re right, come up with an idea.

A few months later I saw an early screening of Shakespeare in Love and loved it. It was way before it was on anybody’s radar. I called Joe and said I saw this movie, it’s such a great idea, we should do the comparable version with a screenwriter. But the question was who. My first idea was Joe Eszterhas in Love, which would have been funny. But as Joe wisely pointed out, did we really want to spend time and money making a movie about Joe Eszterhas? But I kept bugging him. And finally he said, you’re right, this is a great idea, but let’s come up with someone else. We talked about James Cameron in Love. Steven Spielberg in Love. And then one of us said George Lucas in Love. And we were both like, YES! We are both huge Star Wars fans. And the idea came together quickly. It would be Lucas in the sixties at USC having writer’s block coming up with Star Wars. And the answers are all around him but he doesn’t see it.

The first question Joe asked was who is he in love with. And I said it should be a girl with the Princess Leia hairbuns who is leading the student rebellion on campus, and she turns out to be his sister. And that was the movie.

We kept calling each other all morning with ideas. What if his teacher spoke backwards like Yoda. The guy next door would come to taunt him and have asthma. Maybe he had a roommate with a blue light bong who would get high and ramble on about the force. We met for lunch at McDonald’s because we were both poor and really came up with 90% of the movie that first day.

Joe then wrote the script with one of his friends, Dan Shere, who had sold a script and we thought maybe could help get this to his agent. A few months later we made it. And a few things happened that helped us. Shakespeare in Love went on to be a big hit and win the Oscar while we were making our short. And then we went out with the short the week after Phantom Menace opened, so there was a lot of interest in all things Lucas.

It’s funny, right before we went out with it, the DP, a great guy, called Joe and was like, you guys blew it, no one is gonna like Phantom Menace, it’s gonna become a huge bomb and no one is gonna want to see our short. But Phantom Menace became the number three grossing film of all time, and we were fine.

It was crazy. It did for Joe as a director everything I told him it would when I was bugging him to do it. Every agency chased him. He got hired for a ton of films. As it happens in Hollywood, many of them didn’t get made. But it definitely launched his career. And the short was the number one selling video on Amazon.com for a few months.

In late 2001, you set up the romantic comedy Come Back to Me at Senator Entertainment, with Joe Nussbaum attached to direct. Was this your first big break? How did it come about? How did things change for you?

Yes and no. A few things happened before then. After Lucas in Love, people started to ask me if I wanted to write more. I did another short film after that with another friend that I wrote and starred in. And like a year later I wrote a teen movie spoof called Back to the Teen Movie. It was making fun of the current spate of teen movies and the whole gross-out trend. It started in the more innocent world of eighties teen movies and used Back to the Future as a template—where Marty and Doc characters come into the world of present day teen films, which are much less innocent. The present day world was much more graphic, and everyone is having crazy sex and bodily fluids everywhere. I wrote it really fast, and for me it was my breakthrough as a writer.

I had done a lot of improv comedy, and I think what served me well was just saying the craziest thing that came to mind without censoring myself. And I tried to put that to use in writing, to be as creative and out there as possible, but instead of playing one character I was all of them.

Joe was attached to direct. He gave it to his agent Dawn Saltzman at Endeavor and his manager J.C. Spink at Bender/Spink. The both loved it and agreed to take it out. And they both then wanted to represent me. It didn’t sell. Neil Moritz already had a teen movie spoof that he was making so no one wanted to compete. But it became my calling card. I took meetings all over town with people that loved the script.

I then did a bunch of pitches and wrote a college comedy called Cramming. None of which sold. But they always got good feedback and led to a new round of meetings.

Then I wrote Come Back to Me. It got optioned but not sold. They optioned it with a greenlight saying they were gonna make offers to stars and make it within six months—which would have been my big break had that happened. But Propaganda, which kinda led the charge on it, went out of business two weeks after they optioned the script. Six months later I got it back and that was that.

It is a script I love and think could be a really cool movie. Actually my new agents at CAA just read it last week and loved it. We’re gonna see if it’s something we can do something with again.

After that I decided that maybe I would try something different, so I wrote an old school action script. Then I wrote an action comedy. It was an idea that Andrew Marlowe, who wrote Air Force One and created the new show Castle, had and we developed together and then I wrote the script. Neither sold. Although I really like and am very proud of both of them.

It was finally at this point that I started to feel like I was banging my head against the wall. I felt like people kept saying they loved my scripts and my writing but yet no one was buying them. I felt like, I don’t know what to do differently from what I am doing, but what I was doing was clearly not working.

So here are my two big pieces of advice for aspiring writers. One, figure out what genre you love writing or what you are best at and keep doing that. You can change it up later. But when you are starting out you want execs and agents to put you in a box, because then you become known for a certain thing and then they think of you for that.

And my second thing I would say is that as a writer, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And being told this doesn’t mean much when you are in it. When you put your heart and soul into scripts and they don’t sell, it’s heartbreaking. And I’ve been there, but the best advice I would give to writers is to always keep writing. Keep plugging away. When you’re struggling to write just one script, you don’t want to hear maybe you need to write five or ten before you sell one. I didn’t. But sometimes that’s the case. I do believe though that if you are good and you are constantly putting scripts out there and taking meetings and coming up with new things at some point it will hit. I’ve seen it happen with a lot of friends. If you’re working on the same script for five years and never showing it to anyone then maybe not. But if you are persistent and good it will happen.

In August 2004, you set up the pitch Outsourced with Mosaic Media. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson were attached to star. Where did the idea come from? How did the two actors become attached? What was the development process like and where does the project stand now?

This was my real big break. I was doing another round of meetings after my action comedy that didn’t sell. I met with an exec named Jonathan Kadin at Sony. He liked my script and wanted to meet and see what other ideas I had. It was before the Kerry/Bush election and we were talking politics. And I said I had this idea that wasn’t really fleshed out yet. But I’d been reading a lot in the papers about outsourcing and how it has hurt so many people and small towns.

I said I had this idea about two guys, a Vince Vaughn type guy and an Owen Wilson type guy, who work at this factory. The factory gets shut down and moved to like Malaysia or something. So since there literally isn’t any more work there for what they do they decide they are gonna move to Malaysia and get their old jobs back and end up Americanizing the place. (After it was bought we changed the locale to Mexico.) I pitched him like one or two other funny scene ideas, but that was really it.

A week later my agent gets a call and says Kadin pitched the idea to Eric Gold, who then repped Vince and had a deal with Sony. Eric liked it and pitched it to Vince, who liked it and pitched it to Owen. They were shooting Wedding Crashers at the time. And Sony wanted to buy it and pay me to write it.

All my friends couldn’t believe that after all the scripts I wrote and pitches where I could tell you every second of the movie, I sell one with two movie stars attached off a few lines. It was crazy. But I think all the other work I did that didn’t sell led to this. I think people had read enough stuff of mine that maybe I’d finally gotten a shot.

The development process was great. Spent a lot of meetings with Eric (Gold) and George Gatins, who was his development exec and has since become a good friend. I was so stressed out writing it because everyone kept telling me this was my shot and not to screw it up.

I also, even though I loved the guys, felt like maybe I am not cool enough to write that type of comedy. And it’s funny because after that, this definitely became my niche. A certain type of smart buddy comedy. But at the time I wasn’t sure if I could do it.

You did an excellent job of creating the voices for Vince and Owen’s characters. How did you go about doing that? Are there techniques you used?

Thank you. I worked really hard on that. I did a lot of improv in high school and college and I was always a good mimic. I could pick up voices. I watched a lot of their movies and tried to get their voices down. I would sit in my apartment and talk to myself in their voices as I wrote, really trying to nail their voices. I love writing to actors, actually. It really helps me when I write to have someone to tailor it to.

Sometimes, though, the actors might not agree. Funny story on this. People were really happy with the script and trying to get those guys to read it. They were blowing up with Crashers. I heard at one point that they’d both read the first ten pages and commented on how I nailed the other one’s voice but made no comment on their own.

After Crashers hit $200 million I think, Vince decided he didn’t want to repeat himself so soon and didn’t want to do another buddy movie right then. Bad timing. They would have been great. We’re still trying to make it. All my early work came from this script, and we’re currently trying to find the right two guys for it. It really is about the combo. Over the years we would get one guy who everyone loves but then couldn’t agree on who to pair him with. With the current state of the economy, it feels like it’s still relevant.

You were hired by Paramount Pictures and MTV Films in early 2006 to adapt Born to Rock from Gordon Korman’s novel. What did you go through to get that assignment? How did the development play out and what were the challenges of adapting? What’s happening with the project now?

For whatever reason a lot of people seemed to have read Outsourced. It got passed around a lot. And it led to a lot of interest in me doing something else. Big Brothers, which became Role Models, came about before this one.

MTV Films loved Outsourced and I had a big meeting with their execs. And they basically said we’d love to work with you and pitched me a bunch of projects and said pick one.

That was the one that interested me the most. It’s a great story. It was a hot book and different from what I had done up to that point. It was more dramatic. More Cameron Crowe-ish. So I kinda didn’t think much about it, assuming I wouldn’t get it. But they kept calling, saying we really want you for this. So I sat down with them and told them what I would change from the book, what I’d keep. They liked my ideas and I got hired.

Unfortunately literally two weeks after I turned in my first draft, which they all liked a lot, the execs I worked with got laid off. And eventually MTV Films shut down. I had another step on it. But later there was another project that MTV/Paramount wanted me for. A rewrite of a script called Coxblocker that was Topher Grace and Seann William Scott. Topher was a big fan of Outsourced and he really wanted me to come rewrite this.

So they moved my deal for Born to Rock to Cox. This was a script I loved writing. I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get hired, as you usually do. There were a lot of producers/people involved. And we had a big meeting before I went off to write. I’d already pitched them a lot of ideas. They were about to give me notes and marching orders, and Topher said: I don’t want to give him any more notes. We hired Tim for a reason and I just want him to do whatever he thinks is best. That if the script sucks I want it to suck because he made it suck, not because he felt like he was trying to do a bunch of things that we want him to do that may or may not work. It was very cool of him and thus very freeing while writing. I just wrote what I thought was funniest and was really happy with that script.

Paramount went through three presidents while I was working on this. And as happens often, the new guy doesn’t want the old guy’s stuff. Everyone loved the draft except the new guy, who didn’t buy it or hire me. My draft of the script got on the Black List of favorite scripts that year, but he didn’t like it.

Before Cox I did a project for Fox and Will Smith’s company called This Means War. How this happened is a cool story.

After Vince and Owen left Outsourced, Amy Pascal, the head of Sony, called Will Smith and sent him the script. He read it and passed. But I guess he liked it because he told Fox, who had just brought him on to develop a script they had had for years about best friends who fall in love with the same women and go to war with each other. Anyway, he said hey you should hire this guy.

So Emma Watts, who is now the president of Fox, called me and told me this and said Will Smith wants you to write this script, do you want to do it? I said yes very quickly. And we figured it out from there.

My idea was to make it more of an action comedy like True Lies, about two spies who in between saving the world fall in love with the same woman. And then we see what happens. The fun for me was starting out in an action movie and then putting these guys in a romantic comedy. And the emotional story is, what if your best friend and the love of your life came into conflict with each other and you had to choose. Who do you choose? It’s one of my favorite scripts. They are trying to put it together right now. I would love to see it get made.

After that the studio was really happy with the script and asked me to come on another project of theirs, What Happens in Vegas with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. I was brought on to bring a guy’s voice to it and punch up the comedy and come up with some new set pieces. It was a great experience. Everyone involved was really great. They flew me to New York to be there for rehearsals and the read through and was doing rewrites. I don’t have credit on the movie. That belongs to the original writer, Dana Fox, who couldn’t have been more lovely to me and we’ve become friends. But I had a blast working on the movie and am very happy with it.

There is something in Hollywood with writers where you are called a “closer.” It’s the last writer who is brought in to kinda close the deal before something gets made. To do the things that will get the script to the point of getting a greenlight or getting the actors to fully commit or the studio to make it. This was my first experience doing this.

In late 2007, Mosaic Media hired you to do a rewrite on the romantic comedy She’s Out of My League by Sean Anders & John Morris. They’d picked up the script about a year earlier. Why were you brought in? What were the challenges rewriting someone else’s script? Did the produces have specific notes?

So after my work on Vegas, these guys wanted me to do a similar thing for She’s Out of My League. George Gatins, who I worked with on Outsourced, was the producer. And he kept saying, I want you to come on, buddy. But the writers’ strike was fast approaching and I was so burnt out. Everyone was rushing all year to get everything in before the maybe strike. And as every day passed I assumed it wasn’t gonna happen. But then it did.

I was hired two weeks before the writers’ strike. It was crazy. I met the director, Jim Field Smith, that day. We both met the studio and each other at the same time and got hired. They had some broad notes but it was more, go, do what you think, because we didn’t have time to discuss it. I was writing or rewriting like 20 pages a day. The original writers by the way were off directing their own film, Sex Drive, which is actually pretty great.

It was a Hail Mary pass to try to get it made during the strike. And it worked. I did a lot of character stuff, dialogue, comedy punch-up. Worked on the central relationship. It got the actors and the movie greenlit. And they did some more work later, the director and others did. But there is a lot of my stuff throughout.

Are there any scenes specifically that are 100% yours?

Yes, there is a breakup scene late in the movie that is word-for-word what I wrote. I write in order, but they asked me on this to go ahead and write this scene early because it is an important one and they wanted to use it in casting. So I wrote it way before I would have normally. And everyone loved it, and in the movie it is pretty much word-for-word.

Role Models, for which you received co-“story by” credit and shared screenwriting credit, came out in 2008. Where did the story idea come from? What was the process of getting the project sold and then into production like? How did the other writers, including Paul Rudd, become involved? How did having others work with you or rewrite your work affect you? Was much changed from your original script?

It’s a long story. Luke Greenfield, who directed The Girl Next Door—a movie I love—was developing a drama script called Big Brother about a guy who gets forced into the Big Brother program. He read Outsourced and decided, no, that’s what this should be. It should be a buddy comedy about two guys forced into the Big Brother program.

My inspiration for this and Outsourced were early eighties Bill Murray/Ivan Reitman movies. I wanted that sense of comedy and fun. It was cool when I met Paul Rudd at a read-through we were doing for this, and he told me the reason he wanted to do it was it was like Stripes but instead of the Army it was the Big Brother program. And I knew he got it.

I worked on it on and off for three years. I wrote a few drafts, created the characters and the world. Laire was something I always wanted in there in creating Augie, I wanted a kid who when Danny first met him was wearing a cape and just seemed really odd. Then I thought it would be funny to throw Danny into this world of Laire. Which at first he is horrified by, but then you start to realize that the reason Augie does this is because he gets to be someone else and escape from his normal life, where he has no friends and isn’t happy. That stuff stayed pretty much the same from my first draft to the movie.

The project switched studios because they didn’t want to make it with Paul and Seann. Universal picked it up, then hired some closers. Six months and many writers later I get a call asking me to come back. They were throwing out everything the other writers did and wanted me to bring it back to what it was. So I worked on it again for a bit.

There were some creative differences between Luke and the new producer.

Eventually Paul did a draft that was fairly different, and Luke ended up leaving the movie. David Wain came on. And a bunch of other writers came in and out. And I kept hearing they were going back closer to what I wrote. The final movie really is a combo of what I did and what David, Paul and Ken did. So the credit was really right, and that isn’t always the case.

I am really happy with the movie. I think David did an amazing job. It was what I always wanted it to be. Especially with all the Laire stuff, which I think turned out really great.

In April 2008, you sold your spec script Treehouse Gang to Warner Bros. Pictures for a high six figure to seven figure sum. Where did the idea come from? Since you were already doing some paid work, was it tough to write on spec?

I love eighties Amblin movies like Goonies and Indiana Jones and wanted to write one. It was an idea I had had for a while. But I had been lucky, and every time I was gonna write it a job came up so I kept putting it off. When the strike happened I was like finally I am gonna write it. That didn’t happen. I had been keeping notes on it for years. When the strike ended I was mad at myself for not taking advantage and writing it. So I turned down a few things and just wrote it on spec.

A previous adult-Goonies spec had sold to Disney before Treehouse Gang. Did that dissuade you at all? Was your rep worried?

I had no idea about the other project. As I have learned over the years, every time you think you have this great new idea, so does someone else or it is already someplace.

I think my script is fairly different from that, from what I have heard. After I sold it I got a letter sent to my lawyer asking me if I’d ever read some script by this guy that had a similar idea. I hadn’t. Anyone that knows me knows that if ever I was gonna write a script this would be it. I am a big nerd and it is very me. I bought Indiana Jones’s desk from the last movie and am writing on it right now in my office. Anyway, Treehouse Gang is something very close to my heart.

You were repped by Endeavor Agency but now you’re with CAA. How did this change come about?

My longtime agent, Dawn Saltzman, who has always repped me and been beyond wonderful, got laid off from there after the merge. So I left as well. It is very new, but they (CAA) have been really great. I was upset when it first happened but I’m very happy with how it has worked out.

Dawn is now my manager and she is working at Mosaic, who did Outsourced and She’s Out of My League. I know a lot of those guys well so it’s a good fit and I am psyched to be there. Having said that, I was very happy with Endeavor. I loved everyone I dealt with there.

And your lawyer is Rick Genow at Stone, Meyer, Genow, Smelkinson, and Binder. For writers starting out, why would you say it’s important to have a lawyer along with an agent? How does your lawyer help you?

I asked Dawn that same question when I signed with her. Your lawyer deals with all the complexities of your deal. These are long and crazy. They negotiate all the points. Rick is great. And as I was dealing with the agency stuff recently, he was really helpful.

What about feedback on your work? Who do you have read your work? How do you sift through the various suggestions and ideas?

It’s part of the process. If you’re lucky enough to work you are gonna be dealing with a lot of people and they all have notes and opinions. You hope you are all on the same page and shooting for the same thing.

I think it’s good to be kept in check sometimes and to have other voices to tell you if something works or not. Sometimes it can be too much, but it’s your job to deal with that. For me, if I disagree with a note I just want to feel like I am heard and can make my case for why I don’t think something is a good idea. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. But I feel better having been heard, and then I will try to do that thing as well as I can.

I have a lot of talented friends. My friends used to always read my scripts and give me notes. Sometimes, although less than I used to, I’ll send pages to people as I write and get their thoughts. But nowadays there are usually a lot of producers, directors, actors, and execs involved, so I use my friends less for notes. My agents and manger get it when I am done, and I get their thoughts.

My favorite way to work, and I do this mostly now on a new project or rewrite, is if there is an idea they want me for, or potentially want me for, before I come up with anything or pitch them anything I love to sit down and hear their thoughts on what they want and tell them my basic thoughts/problems. I like to get everyone’s opinion and then go off and try to figure it out. After that I go back and pitch them my ideas. And hopefully then it is coming from a better place than just guessing what they want.

What have meetings been like for you? What can writers who are just selling their first script expect?

It’s different on every project. I guess expect to have to deal with lots of varied opinions. And it is your job to take a note—good or bad—and make it good. Make it work.

I still say, always start from a place of what do I like. I think people get into trouble when they think, well, I don’t like this but this is what kids will like, or this is what whatever group will like.

Do you outline all your scripts first? Write treatments? Do index cards?

Yes, for me, I outline. I need to know what I am writing before I start. I need to know where I am going and map it out. I don’t use index cards. A lot of times I will write notes and then never look at them, but just writing them down helps. On Treehouse I kept a binder of like 80 pages of handwritten notes/ideas but then never looked at it while I was writing. I have, or used to have, a really amazing memory. It’s not quite as good as it used to be. But it’s still pretty good. I have had some funny meetings where I get notes but don’t write any of them down and they think maybe I’m not listening to them, but then they get the draft and see that they are all in there. I do remember them all. After you have worked with me a few times you don’t take offense. Sometimes on a new project or so as not to upset people, I bring a pen and look like I am writing stuff down. Usually I just remember.

You’re also an actor and have had parts in Terminator 3, Sleepover, The Life Coach and Thank You for Smoking. Has being an actor helped you with your writing? As an actor, how do you look at a script differently than, say, a writer?

I think so. Hope so. I come from a place of what would I like to see/say. Jonathan Mostow, who directed T3, always told me he thinks actors make the best writers. I’d like to act more. Hope to still at some point. Cramming was always something I wanted to get made for like a million dollars and act in. Problem was I didn’t have a million dollars. I have an idea on how to make it older and might rewrite it at some point.

What things do you feel more writers need to recognize about themselves and the industry?

I have always been fascinated by the movie business. Even as kid I would read anything I could. Loved hearing about new movies and what was getting sold and what people were attached to. I think it is good for writers to know this stuff. Know who you are pitching and what different producers have done and do. Know what movies are working and making money for a studio and what aren’t.

This can only help you. But most of all, just write. Keep writing. Directors need someone to let them direct, so do actors. Writers can just write. So if you want to, you should.

What are you working on next? More spec scripts? Assignments? Can you tell us what they’re about?

I just turned in two things. One is a project for Scott Rudin and Disney. They don’t want me to say what it is. It’s a comedy and something a little different for me. David Silverman, a lovely man, who directed The Simpsons movie and co-directed Monsters Inc., is attached to direct.

The other I’m super psyched about. It’s for Happy Madison, Adam Sandler’s company. It was a rewrite and I’m really happy with how it turned out. We just gave it to the studio, and thus far everyone is really happy. Had a great time working with those guys.

Now I am looking for my next job. There are a few possibilities but nothing is set yet. There is something I LOVE that I pitched. It’s a sequel to one of my favorite films. I wish I could talk about it, but the studio hasn’t bought it yet. But if it happens I will be very excited. It’s to an older film, so it’s just, do they think people would want to see another one. But the story is great and we have a lot of great set pieces. I think it would be really good, so I hope it happens.

I also might be doing a remake of one of my other favorite films. It would be more of a companion piece than a straight remake. Not sure if it will definitely happen though. And then a few other things, but nothing definite yet. I promise to tell you guys when I know.

 


 

 

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