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Build A Better Logline: A contest to benefit Mel, Leo, Bill and Graham [UPDATED again]

UPDATE 1/4/10:  We're setting the deadline for this contest at Noon on Friday, January 8 as well.  Prize is the same as the other Worst. Logline. Ever. Contest:  A free month's subscription to www.itsonthegrid.com.  There's a bunch of good ones so far, but it's still anyone's game.  

UPDATE:  Just to clarify the below, the contest is to come up with a better logline for the Untitled Mel Gibson/Leonardo DiCaprio Viking Fandango mentioned below.  Best suggestion (judged solely and capriciously by me) gets a free month's subscription to www.itsonthegrid.com.  KGMadMan has suggested an equally worthy contest on his blog, Deep Thoughts of Great Importance (of which I'm a big fan, and I know you will be, too), so in the spirit of the holidays I'll kick that off separately tomorrow.  But for the purposes of this post, let's focus on this hapless Viking project.  There are some good suggestions in the comments, and I'm looking forward to the rest of your contributions. - scoggins

Mel Gibson will direct and Leonardo DiCaprio will star in an untitled period drama set in the world of Viking culture. William Monahan is writing the script.

via weblogs.variety.com

Finally bit the bullet and paid for Variety (their new paywall is incredibly irritating...and remarkably effective) specifically so I could do this post:

"...[U]ntitled period drama set in the world of Viking culture" may be the worst logline I've ever heard. And in the spirit of the holidays, I thought we should do our best to help refine it a bit. First prize is a free month's subscription to www.itsonthegrid.com. Here's my entry. I know you can do better.

ALMOST FAMOUS meets THE REMAINS OF THE DAY.  But with Vikings.

UPDATE: I miss "Query Letters I Love" (a real awful logline contest)

UPDATE 1/4/2010:  We've got some good candidates already, but I feel like there's room to raise the bar even higher.  Now that vacation's over, I'm setting a deadline of Noon (Pacific) this Friday, January 8, for submissions for this contest.  Winner receives a free month's subscription to www.itsonthegrid.com.  Bring it, people.

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When I was deep in the heart of my non-pro years (2004 or so), I stumbled across a blog called Query Letters I Love, which purported to be a compendium of actual, awful query letters from aspiring writers to the guy who started the site, a literary manager whose nom de plume was ManagerGuy.  According to the site, ManagerGuy "passed on" in 2006, and the blog remains up in his memory.  Such a bummer; I loved that blog, not least because it helped me feel connected to the business, even though I hadn't yet started to think about coming back to town.

These days, I get far fewer awful query letters than one would expect (the volume is high, but the queries are usually pretty professional), and certainly far fewer than I used to receive when I was a TV Lit agent.  I chalk it up to how many more good sources of screenwriting and how-to-break-into-the-business advice there are today than even just a couple of years ago (thanks, interwebs!).  Frankly, though, I miss the comic relief of a steady stream of clueless queries, and especially all those incredibly bad ideas for movies.  I recently started reading KGMadMan's blog, Deep Thoughts of Great Importance, in which he has taken to writing his own awful query letters (on purpose, as you'll see), but one man's effort isn't enough to slake my thirst.  It's going to take a village.

So in the spirit of the holidays, inspired by KGMadMan's excellent work in this field, and in honor of ManagerGuy, I hereby propose the "Worst. Logline. Ever." contest.  To wit:

The challenge:  Come up with the best awful concept/premise/idea for a movie you can think of, encapsulated in a logline.

The prize:  A month's free subscription to www.itsonthegrid.com (surprise!).

The rules (such as they are):  Like the recent "Give the Untitled Mel Gibson/Leonardo DiCaprio Period Drama Set In The World of Viking Culture Project a better logline" contest, entries will be judged solely and capriciously by me, and I readily admit I may be influenced by comments by other contributors on this blog.  Submit as many suggestions as you like.  Since so many people are off skiing or tanning or whathaveyou until the week of the 4th, I'll probably leave the deadline for submissions open until sometime that week unless the quality and quantities of entries is particularly high between now and then.  If I close submissions before the 4th, I'll update this post.

So there you have it.  Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled...something, blah blah blah.  And make it snappy -- I'm sure KGMadMan's already way ahead of you.

Hollywood Roaster: Poached Specs – December 29, 2009

Formica
Based on the popular laminate counter tops. Plot being kept under wraps.

via hollywoodroaster.wordpress.com

Click through, all four are funny. The one above is my favorite -- I think the Hollywood Roaster guys should have held it for the week of January 4.

Suggestions for alternate Bourne 4 directors

Greengrass' departure puts the "Bourne" series in jeopardy, since it's unlikely that Matt Damon, the star of the franchise, would commit to doing a fourth film unless the studio came up with a great script and a top director. (The most fascinating detail in The Wrap's account of Greengrass' departure is the news that Universal had two different screenwriters simultaneously at work on competing scripts for the project.)

Like most movie stars, Damon is happy to take a big-sequel payday, but only if he gets to work with a filmmaker who would bring some A-list cool to the proceedings.

So who could the studio recruit as a replacement filmmaker? I always like to be helpful, so I've prepared a quick list of possible directors who could offer some added value to another "Bourne" film. If any of you have other suggestions, please feel free to share:

via latimesblogs.latimes.com

By the time I got around to reading the above Patrick Goldstein article, the whole thing became a moot point since it sounds like Damon's not doing it without Greengrass in any case. But I got inspired to come up with some additional suggestions nonetheless.  Unfortunately, the comments are closed on that article, so I'm posting them here.  Feel free to chime in on the comments.

Since Bourne 2 made Greengrass in the first place, I'd vote for refreshing the franchise with a relatively new voice rather than a defensible but conservative (read: boring, at least for this movie) choice like Tony Scott or even Zack Snyder. How about Nevaldine & Taylor (Crank 1 & 2, Gamer), Xavier Gens (Hitman), Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3) or Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin' Aces)?

Of the recently minted A-Listers on Goldstein's list, Timur Bekmambetov is a good call. But I'd add Louis Leterrier (Transporter 2, The Incredible Hulk) to this category before Pierre Morel or Neill Blomkamp, both of whom I think are great but neither of whom feels right for this project.

If the mandate is to go with someone who doesn't get you fired if it tanks, what about Francis Lawrence (Constantine, I Am Legend) or Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Edge of Darkness)? Mike Newell will be done with the enormous Prince of Persia by the time the Bourne 4 script is ready, too.  And Marc Forster proved he can handle this kind of material with Quantum of Solace.

And as long as you're including pipe dreams like Michael Mann, Steven Soderbergh and Doug Liman, why not include Peter Berg, Gore Verbinski, McG or Sam Raimi. Hell, how about a Michael Bay version of Bourne? Go big or go home, right?  I've always thought what this franchise really needed was more bikinis and explosions.  And robots, of course.

Random Film Development Updates

The below is from an email/post that swept through the tracking boards this morning.  I've parsed out a couple of them into the grid and will have the rest in shortly.

THE PASTOR BROTHERS will write the UNTITLED CONTAMINATION GHOST STORY (Participant). [IOTG: This is on the grid; see also the blog post here.]

LARRY MCMURTRY and DIANA OSSANA will adapt COLOR OF LIGHTNING (Fox).  Scott Free is producing.

MARK PELLINGTON in negotiations to direct ORPHANAGE (New Line) written by LARRY FESSENDAN and GUILLERMO DEL TORO. Contra Films is producing and they will go out to SANDRA BULLOCK to star. [IOTG:  This has been on the grid for a while.  See also the IOTG post on this here.]

JAIME MOSS will rewrite PLANET OF THE APES (Fox). Hearing: PETER CHERNIN is producing.

RACHEL MCADAMS is the top choice to star in DREAM HOUSE (Morgan Creek).

REQUA and FICARRA are interested in MAIL ORDER GROOM.

Sony is making a GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS movie. [IOTG:  UPDATED - Confirmed this is being produced by Motion Theory.  It's on the grid, still technically OWA, but Sony knows who they want to assign to it.]

MAZE RUNNERS trilogy set up at Fox.

Studio is considering a film adaptation of WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SAN DIEGO (Warner Bros). [IOTG:  Heard this is happening, not "under consideration."]

ALEX PROYAS is no longer directing AWESOME GRACE (Sony). Studio is looking elsewhere.

LOTB: Geek Heaven = Chrome for Mac

I found the link to download an early, developers' version of Chrome for Mac from Google.

via www.lifeonthebubble.com

This browser rocks.

Early Christmas from Amazon: New Kindle software enables screenplay formatting

Got a notice from Amazon this morning that a new Kindle 2 operating system was available, which includes native support for PDFs.  Now, I've loved my Kindle since getting it as a birthday present this year, but was disappointed by how badly the software messed up the industry standard screenplay format.  

Problem solved.  Files that get saved directly as PDFs out of the screenplay or word processing software seem to work best -- they are very readable in portrait mode and look even better in landscape mode.  Scans of scripts aren't big enough in portrait mode for comfortable reading, but in landscape mode they work fine.

I had to go to Amazon's Kindle site and download the software manually to get it this morning.  Amazon says Kindles will update themselves automatically over the next couple of weeks.  If you're flying somewhere tonight for the weekend, take a minute to manually download the software and install it before you bounce.  Then email all those scripts you don't really want to lug on the plane to your Kindle account and you're good to go.

The new software couldn't have been more perfectly timed:  I've got a very full script bag with my name on it this holiday weekend.  

Hollywood Roaster: The 2009 Turkey List

Since you've got nothing else to do today, check out the Turkey List, by The Hollywood Roaster.  I have to admit, I would totally see "Stacked."