The Inside Joke of the Day

"When the movie comes out and gets adapted into a cartoon and toys, etc, you'll be rich enough to retire to a tropical isle with Lowell Cunningham." - Mike Sacal, making a funny but (co)apples-to-oranges comparison between me and the creator of the Men in Black comic book.

I hope the Andrew Foley that owns a bookstore in Sarasota doesn't have a Google alert in place flagging his name, but if he does, I want to publicly apologize for his inbox getting flooded by notices that Jon Favreau's apparently signing on to direct Robert Downey, Jr. in the Cowboys & Aliens film.

This is apparently biggish news in entertainment circles. When I mentioned it to my manager she giggled like a schoolgirl (which she does a lot regardless) and said it's "a really sexy project in Hollywood" (which she doesn't.) It's her job to know this stuff, so I'll take her word for it. Up here in the wilds of Canada, it's hard for me to get terribly excited about it all.

I've gotten a fair number of e-mails congratulating me for C&A's success, which is weird because, and I say this with no humility whatsoever simply as a statement of fact, I have nothing to do with that success. The concept was kicking around for years before I got involved with it; I was involved with it for a brief but enjoyable time; then I wasn't involved with it; and now it looks like it might actually finally get made, and by a marketable writing/directing/acting team to boot.

It's that last bit, rather than having my name associated with a potential tentpole in a very tangential way, that gets my juices flowing. Should the film get made, I'll be first in line to see the late Tuesday matinee after it opens (because I'm reasonably sure me going to a tentpole film on opening weekend would end up with someone dead and me in prison--#*%&ing videos have ruined the movie-going experience, every nitwit thinks they're in their damn living room...sorry, where was I...?)

I've also gotten a number of e-mails asking what this means for me. The answer, at least as it pertains to the immediate future, is "not much." My part of the project was contracted on a work-for-hire basis. To the best of my knowledge (I haven't looked at the contract in a couple years) there's no direct financial upside for me to a film getting made. I suppose it's conceivable that a successful film could juice book sales to the point where royalties kick in, but seeing as it's online for free, I'm not holding my breath. I do get to see my name in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, though, which is always neat and maybe, mayyyybe might get a producer's door or two opened a crack wider than would otherwise be the case. We shall see.

For the moment, whatever glory and money there is to be had goes to the folks at Platinum who put a lot of time and effort into getting the property this far; hopefully there'll be some trickledown to the folks who're no longer at Platinum that helped out along the way.

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