I've had the hardest time writing this post.
It was meant to be an all-encompassing cautionary tale of heartbreak and woe, and of promise and hope, for other screenwriters.
What happened was this, and then maybe instead you can tell me what it all means:
I'll jump around in time.
This past month a Spike Lee movie (or 'joint') came out called Miracle at Saint Anna. It is a WWII film about black soldiers in Italy. It is based on a true story.
A number of years ago I wrote a WWII-set screenplay about black soldiers. It was not set in Italy. It was not based on one true story, but a confluence of true stories and anecdotes. The characters are based on real people, or combinations of real people, from real interviews and letters from soldiers. Both Black soldiers and German soldiers are featured in the story. I wrote several drafts of the script before finding a producer who was interested in it and loved the script. With him I did some more reworking.
From there he searched for actors and directors who might also love it as much as he did. I made a few suggestions. One of those suggestions was the filmmaker Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep, To Sleep With Anger). Eventually the script made it his way. And eventually after that he told us he liked it -- he liked the idea and the general set-up of the script a bit more than that draft of the script itself. But he liked the potential enough.
With him, I rewrote the script again. And again. And again. All told, I probably had about 20 different versions of the thing, quite a few of them dipping in other genres -- one had a romantic subplot which we eventually dropped, another was more of an action film, another more of a mystery, while my original draft was more of a black comedy.
At any rate, after much reworking and re-reworking, I eventually came up with a draft that was satisfying enough to Burnett at least for us to have the go ahead to start selling it around.
And then several things happened, meanwhile. One, Charles Burnett was hired to make a film in Africa (Nujoma). Which became a whole long multi-layered story which perhaps he will share in more detail with the world at some later date. Off to Africa he went. And then back. And then off again. Repeat until dizzy.
Two, the writer's strike put everything on hold temporarily. Then post-strike, the fallout and the slow process of picking things up again.
Three, the other African-American themed WWII projects started to happen, first the Lee project as mentioned above, and then second the long-rumored black tank batallion story as pushed by Morgan Freeman. While both these projects are very different in story than mine (though Lee's film touches briefly on a couple of aspects of mine), there's often a perceived quota about the number of black-themed stories that can happen, apparently, and between that, and the tanking economy, and the sad fact that as great as he is Charles Burnett is not Will Smith and cannot get a film made very easily at all. (And even Spike Lee had great difficulties getting his project made.) With all these things conspiring against it, this script that I have labored so long and seen through so many incarnations, that I believe so greatly in, this project is stuck in neutral.
While the option on my script has expired, and officially the rights have reverted back to me so that I could conceivably find someone else to help peddle it, I still maintain a relationship with the producer and the director (who some time ago agreed to also help produce it) in case some magical thing happens on their end in the meantime. I don't expect it at this point, and am searching around.
But for now. there is the perception that there cannot be another black WWII movie in the mix, especially since Lee's fared poorly. Is it dead? No. It may be dormant, in a coma only to be resuscitated again when the time is right.
If someone has a spare five million dollars, that would certainly jump-start the project -- be about halfway (or more) to total budget. (Attention: Mark Cuban.)
But what is the real point of all this? The lesson, if there is one?
It took me awhile, but I realized while this script may be my "first love," it became time for me to "see other people." I started work on a new script, which required much less research and was 180 degrees from the other. Then I came up with another idea that got me even more excited and turned into a new treatment. Now I have a third idea that I am also turning into a treatment.
I guess the moral here is don't give up, and keep writing. Which you've heard a million times before.
But it's true. Stopping to sulk is deadly for a scriptwriter. I took too long as it is to shift gears and now I'm trying to make up for lost time.
By the end of the year I hope to have at least one finished screenplay if not two, and at the very least three treatments that I can try to sell.
And at the very least I have an earlier screenplay which I remain very proud of that can serve as a writing sample.
Just as Woody Allen said about relationships in Annie Hall, screenwriting (or any kind of writing) is like a dead shark, too. You have to keep moving forward, or die.
The WWII script is called THE PRISONERS, and it is far from dead. But I know there's more to me than just one story and so I press onward, trying to remain both vigilant and hopeful. No longer wanting to blast a muffled scream into my pillow, I move on.
