The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood (69 page)

Spitballing

Usually used as “just spitballing,” as in “We’re just spitballing here.” Often used in creative meetings by studio execs who (1) are trying to write your story for you and (2) know that what they’re suggesting is stupid. Therefore they cover themselves by saying, “We’re just spitballing here, right?” or “This isn’t a very good idea, probably but we’re just spitballing here, aren’t we?”

Ingratiate yourself with your superiors
.

J
ack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Academy of America, and I were on the
Today
show.

Jack was berating me (I deserved it) for telling teenagers to use their fake IDs to see
Showgirls
, an NC-17 movie.

Jack, exasperated and angry with me, said, “Oh, you’re just here publicizing your movie.”

And I said, “So are you, Jack.”

Stereotypes

A word used by directors, producers, and especially studio executives to get you to rewrite a character. If you force them to admit that a character is acting in a realistic manner, then they tell you that while the behavior is realistic, it’s also stereotypical.

The word is frequently used when discussing black or gay characters.

Jack Valenti is not an Oliver Stone fan
.

S
aid Jack about Oliver’s
JFK
: “Young German girls and boys in 1941 were mesmerized by Leni Riefenstahl’s
Triumph of the Will
in which Adolf Hitler is pictured as a newborn God. Both
JFK
and
Triumph of the Will
are equally a propaganda masterpiece and equally a hoax. … Does any sane human being truly believe that President Johnson, the Warren Commission, the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, local law enforcement officers, assorted thugs, weirdos, all conspired together as plotters in Stone’s wacky sightings?”

Studio execs feel no pain there
.

A
Warner Bros. executive who didn’t think
Bonnie and Clyde
was releasable said this after a preview audience got up and cheered it at the end: “Well, I guess Warren Beatty just shoved it up our ass.”

Send Me Some Pages

What producers, directors, or studio execs say when they are worried your script won’t be any good. Don’t ever send anyone pages from your script until you are finished with the script—then send the script in toto. Their hope is that if you send pages before you’re finished, they can tell you where to take the story from there … or tell you to start all over again.

DBTA

Dead by the third act … this usually refers to the protagonist’s best friend or partner, killed off by the third act … usually to motivate the protagonist to take revenge for his pal’s death.

Studio execs have impeccable taste
.

I
still think
Pinocchio
is a perfect movie,” said Dreamworks coboss Jeffrey Katzenberg. “Perfect story, perfect characters and stunning animation.”

Off Point

A scene that doesn’t work.

Lew tells me it ain’t so
.

W
hen I was a young screenwriter, I ran into Universal potentate Lew Wasserman and his wife, Edie, one morning near the deli Nate and Al’s on Beverly Drive. I introduced myself and said that I knew that both Lew and Edie were from Cleveland, like me.

Then I said that I had a gangster friend in Cleveland named Shondor Birns, who’d told me that Lew had worked handling the racing wire across the street from the Theatrical Grill on Short Vincent Street (before he became a mogul).

Lew Wasserman looked at me, smiled, and said, “You got some bum information. I never did that.”

Then he said, “Is Shondor Birns still alive?”

I said, “No, he got blown up in a car bomb on the West Side.”

Lew Wasserman smiled and said, “There you go,” and walked away with Edie into Nate and Al’s.