Every screenwriter knows the protagonist hits his lowest point at the end of act two and then rises from the ashes to emerge victorious.
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I never know what I’m going to talk about with my therapist, but I caught myself totally off guard tonight when I opened up about the time I met Dr. Dre.
It was about fifteen years ago, I was living in Southern California, and I’d just had the good fortune of “being discovered” in Hollywood. Well, it would be more accurate to say that a screenplay I’d written had been discovered, and I simply got to ride its coattails because someone had to sign the contracts, accept the checks, and pretend to laugh at the stupid jokes the suits were always making.
I optioned my screenplay for five figures, got signed by the management company behind the American Pie flicks, and had a nice article about the deal appear in The Hollywood Reporter.
Since the clock was ticking on my fifteen minutes of fame, my new managers hustled me off to meetings with producers eager to check out the flavor of the month. Playing the Hollywood game was not my thing, but it’s what a writer has to do if he wants to work. You might be able to take the boy out of Brooklyn, but not even the most overpriced celebrity surgeon could take out a Brooklyn boy’s disdain for the vapid ramblings of Tinseltown’s walking brain dead.
This deal opened a lot of doors, and I wanted to slip inside as many of them as possible before someone realized I shouldn’t be wandering Hollywood’s hallowed halls. Nothing ever came of these sit downs, but I did get to pitch some ridiculous screenplay ideas to Ice Cube’s production company, and there was always really good food to take my mind off how much I hated pitch meetings.
My script had gotten discovered via a publication that my alma mater, NYU Film School, sent out to production companies. The movie never got made, and the producer who optioned the script turned out to be a real tool, but her assistant was nice and asked if she could read something else I’d written.
Bored, ambitious assistants are Hollywood’s true lifeline to struggling screenwriters. They are always looking for the next big thing to rescue them from a life of indentured servitude, and they tell the clueless people with the money what’s cool and worthy of their precious reading time.
I gave her the bank robbery script I’d just completed. It was raw, violent, and incredibly twisted. Not your typical Hollywood fare, but the kind of movie you’d expect a nerdy NYU Film grad to write. She loved it, told me that she was starting her own company, and offered to option it.
Of course, I jumped at the chance. I knew I had to strike while the iron was hot, and having a second script in the Hollywood pipeline would mean that my fifteen minutes might stretch to half an hour.
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Even though I was dealing with a business where logic was rarely involved, common sense told me that since this was a new company looking to make its mark, and my screenplay would be the only property currently in its library, this assistant turned producer was going to spend every waking hour hustling on my behalf and looking to make a deal.
I was pleasantly stunned less than a week later when she told me that Dr. Dre wanted to meet me to discuss the screenplay. I’d waited so long to get my big break, so I couldn’t believe that this meeting had been set up so quickly.
And it was with Dr. Dre!
He wanted to meet me at Sky Bar at the Chateau Marmont. I hadn’t lived in California that long, but even I knew that this place was way too cool for the likes of me.
But who was stupid enough to tell Dr. Dre that he couldn’t meet with me there?
He didn’t want the producer. Just me. The screenwriter is so low on the Hollywood totem pole that he is not usually permitted to meet with a celebrity when not accompanied by a chaperone.
I was nervous. I was thrilled. It was the first time in my life that I was eager to have an appointment with a doctor.
This being the height of the East Coast/West Coast Rap Wars, there were several menacing bodyguards seated at the next table. Not only was I taking my first celebrity meeting, but I was also having my first sit down where armed guards were deemed necessary. I was definitely moving up in the world.
Dre was accompanied by his production partner, Philip Atwell, who had made a name for himself by directing Eminem’s biggest videos. Philip would direct the flick, while Dre would act (taking on a small, but important role), produce, and oversee the soundtrack.
The meeting began with Dr. Dre giving me one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received on my writing. “You are one sick mother@#$%^&” were his exact words. If our sit down had ended at that moment, I would have left Sky Bar a very happy man.
But the meeting went even better than I could have ever dreamed. Dre and Philip were passionate about making the film. When Philip voiced a concern about shooting a chase scene that involved a freight train and a Dukes of Hazzard type jump, Dre called him a wimp (at least that’s the polite version of what he said) and demanded that it remain in the movie.
I started taking notes for the rewrite because all parties involved were confident that this deal was moving forward. Dre wanted Mark Wahlberg to play the lead, and asked me to tweak two of the supporting characters so that the roles could be cast with Snoop Dogg and Eminem.
I didn’t even care about how much I would make on the deal because having my screenplay produced by Dr. Dre, with the cast he wanted and the soundtrack he would definitely deliver, was going to solidify my place as a player in Hollywood. This movie would create a buzz that would lead to other writing gigs, I already had an idea for a sequel simmering in my brain, and getting this flick made would most likely greenlight production on the first script I’d optioned.
It was a no-brainer. I was going to sign whatever contract Dre offered and be on my way to a career as a successful Hollywood screenwriter.
I left the meeting and celebrated. This was the moment I’d dreamed about ever since people started telling me how hard it was to make it as a writer. I thought about all the trees that had been cut down to create the rejection letters my screenplays had earned, and I made a mental note to plant a sapling somewhere on the day the movie went into production.
Unfortunately, I forgot about the producer who had optioned this screenplay. You know, the one who had been only an assistant the week before, and was now about to go into production with Dr. Dre on her company’s first movie.
Well, she demanded $500,000 from Dre as her producing fee for the project. All she had done was make a call, message a copy of my screenplay to Dre’s office, and set up the meeting.
And for that, she felt she deserved half a million dollars.
Instead of looking at the big picture, and seeing an awesome opportunity to be associated with a big name star and have a movie with franchise potential in production, she decided to be shortsighted and ask for a big payday.
Needless to say, Dre balked, she wouldn’t budge despite all my begging, pleading, and attempts at appealing to the tiny portion of her minuscule brain where logic supposedly resided, and the good doctor walked straight outta the project.
It all fell apart as quickly as it had been put together. Typical Hollywood. My fifteen minutes were up, the clock struck midnight, and I turned back into just one of a million screenwriters trying to make it in a town where no one seemed to remember that you can’t make a movie without a screenplay.
I was so crushed by what had happened that soon after, I moved to Maine and left Hollywood behind.
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All these years later, I still haven’t fully recovered. It’s easy to imagine how much different my life would be if that movie had been made. My view of Hollywood has been forever tarnished, I don’t know if I could ever again trust anyone in that business, and I realized tonight, while telling this tale to my therapist, that I’ve pretty much given up on my dream of being a successful screenwriter.
Sure, I’m at fault here, too. Just like I’ve always done when I’ve had my heart broken, I put up walls so that Hollywood couldn’t hurt me again. I could have stayed, put myself back out there, and found someone else who loved my screenplay.
But I ran.
A good man wouldn’t allow a setback, even one this devastating, to derail his dream.
More importantly, a man who Dr. Dre referred to as “one sick mother@#$%^&” would never allow a shortsighted moron in a cheap suit to bully him out of the future he deserves.
I made a promise to myself tonight as I walked home from therapy that I was not only going to get that screenplay made, but I was also going to write something even better to be my follow up to that project.
If you’re in the movie business and looking to read a great script or represent a screenwriter with two produced screenplays under his belt, please let me know. My comeback starts tonight!
Every screenwriter knows that a protagonist hits his lowest point at the end of the second act, and then rises from the ashes in act three to emerge victorious before the story fades to black.
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Photo: Getty Images
Read Austin Hodgens‘ column every week here on The Good Men Project!
And thank you for sharing this!
So dope Austin.
Keep going!
Thanks, LeRon. That is my plan!