Tales From the Hollywood HIlls
Lucy Fisher liked the script.
"It's the most brilliant script I've ever read, absolutely, completely perfect in every way. … Now, for the first rewrite….”
I stop listening.
Coppola bought it and gave it to his coke dealer to direct. Of course I was banned from the set. ..I was the writer. He was over budget on One From the Heart and the studio was going down. He sold my script to Paramount for a million dollars. They didn't bother to tell me. I was the writer.
The first time I met Don Simpson he was screaming and pounding his desk. So I pounded his desk and screamed too. Coppola had just sold my script Interface to pay for the neon in One From the Heart. I didn't see a cent. Not even the $6250.00 for the last payment on the script.
Paramount bought it because they needed one more project to start shooting before the Director's Strike. Coppola told them it was brilliant and it was ready to go. The one thing he didn't tell them was a problem. It was POV.
They had a meeting. "What's the main character look like," they asked.
"Doesn't matter," they said.
"What do you mean it doesn't matter?”
"You never see him."
"What! You never see the main character?! What kind of movie is this?"
"It's Point of View.”
"What?!”
"Everything you see, you see from his Point of View. That's why its so good, that's very hard to do."
"What? We bought a script where you don't see the star? How do we cast that?" They all sat around for a beat.
"What else do we got?"
"White Dog."
"What?"
"A white dog who hates black people, then it turns around and he hates white."
"Do you see the main actor?"
"Yeah."
"We'll go with that."
I'm making this up. I wasn't there. They don't talk to the writer. They wouldn’t acknowledge the script was there. They wouldn't return my calls. They had my script but I was a non-person. The decision hadn't come down.
Then they decided they had to hire me. If the script was brilliant but flawed, being uncastable and all, they'd hire me and get me to do something mainstream to prove that they hadn't been taken for a cool
million.
PARAMOUNT
I bump into a CreativeExecutive in the hall, a gushing girl, Pam Dixon.
“Hi, who are you?
“Chip Proser”
“Chip Proser?!!! Chip Proser, as in “Interface?”
“Yeah.
"Why...Brilliant...Brilliant Script! I'm so thrilled to meet you... to meet you at last.
"But we already met?"
“We met? We did?! No, I don't think so..."
"Yes, we did. I remember."
"Where, when?"
“That party in Westwood. Saturday night. I talked to you for 20 minutes."
“Oh, but you weren't anybody, then."
I walked in. He was pounding his desk. So I walked up and pounded it too.
"Forget it. Forget about it! Paramount will never make a Point of View movie," Don pounded.
I pounded back. "That's okay, I don't want Paramount to make it. I want it back."
He pounded some more. "Paramount will never give it back!"
I pounded. "Why not? They don't want to make it!"
"Paramount is not in the business of giving scripts back."
"You're not gonna make it, you're not gonna give it back."
"Right. We don't do that"
"Then why this meeting?"
"We want you to do something else?"
"What?"
"Whatever you want. We think you're a brilliant writer."
"I'm not a writer, I'm a filmmaker. And I want to do Interface."
"No. We don't want to do that."
"Then we have nothing to talk about." I pounded and left."
I heard from him over the years through agents. They offered Beverly Hills Cop when it was a Stallone project and he had a big gun. I turned them down.
"Interface", I said.
"They'll never let it go," said the agent. That's not the business they're in."
"They're just gonna let it sit on the shelf?"
"That's right. That's the business they're in. They're not gonna admit to anyone they bought a Point of View movie for a million dollars. It makes them look like schmucks."
"So sell it, get the money back."
"What if it made money for another studio, they'd look like bigger schmucks!
“Then fuck 'em." I said.
I met on Dirty Dancing and turned them down. They introduced me to a Zucker. They said 'bring in anything you want to do.'
"Interface," I said.
"No way."
"Then I'm not interested."
I meet with Guber. Innerspace. It was his idea. "Little guys in the body of a big guy."
"Fantastic Voyage", I said.
"Never heard of it," he said.
"Weren't you head of the studio at the time?
"This one, It’s my original idea. Its called Innerspace. Completely different, only, kind of the same".
“How about if the big guy is up and moving around? Then you got a story inside and outside!”
“Perfect. I can sell that.” He says.
This brain fart buys me a house in the hills.
PARAMOUNT
They hated Guber. He hogged all the credit on something they did. They brought me to see Mancuso. "We think you're brilliant," they said.
"I know."
"We want you to do a project... Little people inside a bigger person...all zooming through veins and stuff."
"I'm doing that project. You know that. For Guber."
"Yeah, but we'll let you direct."
They weren't gonna do that. They were gonna make a directing deal, get the project, fuck Guber and then find an excuse.
"And when I get sued for stealing his project, you'll take the heat?"
For the first time, there was silence.
"It's in the contracts I read. I have to indemnify you for any lawsuits over stuff like that. That means, if they sue me, you're in the clear. So in this case, you're gonna indemnify me. They sue me, you take the heat."
"We can't do that."
"Right. Neither can I."
Mancuso looks at me. I look back. Writer's are such a pain!
"There is one thing I want to direct."
"Yeah, what's that?" as if they don't know.
"Interface."
"No. We won't do that."
"Would you say this meeting is over?"
I insist on being Co-Producer on Innerspace. I get a call from a friend. "Congratulations", he says.
"On what?"
"Your picture, they're making it."
"What picture, what are you talking about?"
"You know, the one at Warner Brothers."
"What Warner Brothers? I never worked for them."
"You better call your agent."
The Agent Berkus is matter of fact. "Well Berman left Universal and took it with him."
"Don't they have to tell me these things?"
"I'll make some calls. Oh, by the way, I think its also been re-written.”
"Did you read the script?" Berman asks, long distance.
"Part of it, " I say.
"Well, so, what did you think?"
"Well, of course, its imbecilic…"
"Gotta call, other line…." The phone goes dead.
"As a consideration," the agent Berkus says.
"A consideration? What does that mean?”
"That means they got too many producers for the ads, they say.”
"So what?”
"They want you off.”
"As what?”
"As Co-Producer. And since you didn't do it…."
"But that's why I want it, you see."
"But now they got Spielberg on it and they need room for him.”
"Well, did he produce it?"
"No, but he's Spielberg."
"Can't argue with that. Have them take me off as writer. I don't want people to think I wrote that shit.."
“That, they won't do."
"A pseudonym, then. "Sue Donim"
"No, they've got control of your name."
"When did they get that?"
"It's in the contract, the Writer's Guild MBA, you get paid that much, they control your name."
"To put it on any piece of shit they write."
"That's right. But Co-Producer can come off."
"As a consideration?"
"Yeah."
“How about as a consideration they go fuck themselves."
“I'm not going to tell them that."
"Want to go to the opening? the agent says..."
"I'm not invited. I'm the writer"
"I am. I’ll take you with me."
" I don't date agents."
"Want to see the movie, don't you."
"No. They don't pay me to watch these things."
Katzenberg loves me. I can make anything I want.
"Interface."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Anything else."
"Why not Interface?"
"You want to direct?'
"Yeah, Interface."
"How about Beverly Hills Cop?"
"How about Interface?"
"Stallone's attached. Its got a big gun.'
'What is it about Interface, you embarrassed you paid a million before you read it?"
"Anything, anything you want."
'Just not that."
"Un huh…."
Read about this script elsewhere and am interested in reading it! (for the sake of reading it, I have no money or pull re: Hollywood). Is it available to read or purchase anywhere?