Saturday, August 27, 2016

"Don't Breathe" in LA. How Big Hollywood said "Hush" to a couple of small time writers.

The poster for "Don't Breath" on the left.
The concept poster for my "Hush" film on the right.
Penciling by Chadwick Curry
With coloring by Jeffrey K Plummer
This weekend a film was released about a blind man trying to hunt and kill a group of would be robbers.  The concept of a blind killer is a fantastic, original concept.  At least, I thought so, when I wrote my film "Hush" in 2006.  Sony Screengems didn't think so in 2012 when they rejected the script, written by myself and fellow co-writer Michael DiSalvo.  I can't help thinking, watching the trailer and reading the very positive reviews, that someone did get robbed.  Hint- it's not the villain in "Don't Breathe."

I wasn’t originally going to talk about this.  Until today,  the release of the film,  I would not even mention it on my Facebook.  My friends, however, many of whom were around during this period of my life and understood the extreme passion that went into this project, insisted I should try to get my story out.

In 2003 I had written a spec script prequel to “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”  At the time, “Outside Providence” director Michael Corrente was looking to produce a few horror films, and a mutual friend showed the “Elm Street” script to his assistant.

The assistant- very enthusiastic about my work- called me within a few days to discuss rewriting the screenplay to be a stand alone.  After much thought and consideration, I came to the conclusion that the script was too ingrained in the “Elm Street” mythology to achieve this, but I told Corrente’s assistant I would try to come up with something new.  He said he needed something in four weeks.

I was a fairly new screenwriter.  I had written two scripts at this point- the aforementioned “Elm Street,” and a coming of age drama which I locked in a drawer and never let out.  Both scripts, in my opinion, were too wordy, with too much dialogue.  So I decided what ever I came up with had to force me to rely more on the visual aspects of filmmaking.

A few months before this call I had a nightmare about aliens attacking Earth.  The aliens, as it turned out, were sensitive to sound waves.  Anyone who made noise over a certain decibel was immediately attacked and murdered.  The dream took place in a High School with would-be rebellious teens trying their all to stay quiet.   Even served in the form of a dream, the desperation to not make noise was eerie.  Immediately I thought of my aliens concept- except there were a few problems.

For one, Corrente wanted a single location script.  I felt the concept was maybe too big to keep confined in a school for 2 hours.  Furthermore, Corrente wanted a budget under a million dollars. Cheap aliens are never a good idea.

So I started thinking- if we’re going cheap, let’s stick to a human killer.  Why, oh why, would a simple killer be sensitive to noise?  That’s when it hit me.

“What if he’s blind?”

I had always been fascinated by the idea that when you lose one of your senses your other senses become heightened to compensate.  What if our killer isn’t sensitive to sound in the same way the aliens are?  What if he just has really good hearing?  This would still have the net effect of our protagonists trying desperately to stay quiet.

I started thinking of scenarios that would make it difficult for our heroes to remain silent.  This itself was easy.  The problem I kept running up against was our protagonists had a huge advantage over our villain.  They could, after all, see. Questions bombarded my thoughts.

A few minor things I worked out quickly.

“What are the villain's limitations because he’s blind?”

Few.  I decided we would establish he’d been blind since birth (later changed to childhood) and could compensate for the handicap.

“How does he get around the building?”

Maybe he knows the layout.  Maybe he’s been in this building for years.  “Maybe he works there.”

Concept of the killers weapon, a modified cane.
My scribbles on the left which artist Chadwick Curry
did a fantastic job translating to actual art on the right.

Good.  Still, something did not sit quite right.  My main issue: If everyone is trying so hard to be quiet, they too, to some extent, are going to be more sensitive to noise.  Drop a pin in an empty hall and you’ll hear the “clank” as it hits the floor.  How, in the world is this killer ever going to sneak up on our protagonist?  She’ll hear him a mile away.  It’s too bad she’s not deaf.

“What if your protagonist was deaf?”

Bingo.

With only four weeks to write a full length screenplay I called my college roommate, Michael DiSalvo, and asked if he wanted to cowrite.  Together we brainstormed, coming up with different ideas and scenarios that would allow us to play off the concept of visuals vs audio.  I still had one last idea I needed to work out.

A few years before some college buddies had taken me to the mother of all Lazer Tag arenas.  This was not your typical Lazer Tag.  This place housed a giant spaceship, a maze, some tunnels.  All sorts of places you could hide.  I wanted that feeling, of an enclosed off space where you could fit inside nooks and crannies, inside the script.

I knew, however, a Lazer Tag arena was a bit too kitchy. Besides, I liked the idea of a school with twisting hallways. We needed something similar.  After some back and forth, we decided a library, if designed correctly, could fill this role.

Michaela Splinter found this during a location scout


The last bit we needed was our title.  My first thought was “Dead Silence,” until Michael reminded me that James Wan had just released a movie with the same name.  An hour later I called him back. “I’ve got the perfect title.  Hush.”

Three and a half weeks later we had a first draft, very rough, but something we were happy enough with we could show Corrente’s assistant, even if just as a concept.  The assistant had me send him the script, I spoke a little bit about the concept, and he asked me who I would envision to play the killer.

“In a perfect world, Robert Englund.”

We didn’t hear back for a week.

Our first thought was we had misfired, and granted, the script was in fact very rough.  In reality, Corrente’s assistant eventually called to inform me he and Corrente had a falling out.

He had left his job.

Years later, I would find out that they patched things up and the assistant had a role in the Corrente produced “Inkubus” which starred (doh!) Robert Englund.



My cowriter and I were in a lull.  We kept working on and refining the script but neither of us had any contacts.  No agent would even look at our work.

One night, while staying at a Hotel in Boston, I stepped out to the nearby 7-11.  Upon my return a gentleman asked me for a lighter (whose name I’m leaving out, on the small chance this story gets out in the wild. We’ll call him George). He was tipsy, feeling a bit chatty, and mentioned he was in town because he was a film producer and he had a meeting with some execs from a major studio.  I quickly gave him my card, mentioned I was a screenwriter, and then politely left when he received a phone call.

The next day I received a message on my voicemail.  “Angel, I think we met last night.  I have your card.  Honestly, I was out celebrating, have no idea who you are, but my number is… go ahead and call me.  It’s George.”

To make a long story short, I sent George my current draft for "Hush".  Two months later I received an e-mail.

“Angel, no promises, but I read your script… I’m 90% sure I can get this made.”

It’s worth mentioning George had some success that made this believable.  He wasn’t exactly big time, but he had recently released an award winning documentary that had been a hit, had a Rotten Tomato score just south of 90%, and was being considered for remake rights by Sony Screen Gems.

George had a few questions for me.  Who I’d want for the villain? (Please, please, Robert Englund). Any ideas for Director?  (I mentioned a few names I thought we’d never get, brought up Lucky McGee, who I thought maybe we could, but picked Tim Sullivan as my likely favorite).  Finally he asked if there were any recent Horror films I had really enjoyed.  Again, I pointed to Tim Sullivan and “2001 Maniacs.”

George pulled through.  A week later I found myself having dinner with George, my co-writer, and one of the Producers of “2001 Maniacs.”  We’ll call him Steve, also not his name.

Steve is telling us we’re going to be huge, this movie is going to be huge, he’ll call his crew, and they’ll “see if we can get a hold of Robert (Englund).”

At this point Michael and mine’s jaws are hitting the floor. George and Steve are talking shooting locations.  Every thing is feeling suddenly- and very- real.

Concept art by Chadwick Curry
The next 4 months are an odd period in my life.  I have a menial day job doing administrative work at a Psychiatric Hospital.  I’m getting frequent calls from the producer, which actually leaves me in an awkward position when one day I have to tell the producer of “2001 Maniacs” I’ll call him back because “I’m working the floor.”

The pattern is this- during the week, I’m an Administrative Assistant.  During the weekend I’m off to NYC to meet with George- or sometimes Steve in his office- to work on “Hush.”

"George", Michael and I created "Red Eye Pictures LLC"
in anticipation of making "Hush."  Concept logo by Chadwick Curry
with a handful of modifications I made myself

The problem was that George and Steve were starting to have a lot of disagreements.  It’s here were I make the first of three really big mistakes in the “Hush” project.

A Psychiatric Admin is not unlike a film producer.  My job is literally to smooth over differences in priorities between the patients, the staff, and the administration.  At work I was known for my unique ability to get people from different perspectives to cooperate.  My instincts were to get involved and find some kind of common ground between my producers.  But I also felt like an outsider.  A writer from a small city in upstate NY who had somehow stumbled into the outskirts of Hollywood.  So for most of the time, I stayed out of it.  Near the end, I did get more involved, and it did help things a bit, but it was too late.  Steve eventually left the project.

George remained determined, and to his credit kept getting more people to read the script.  There’s a cameo written for Snoop Dogg- this was by the request of Snoop Dogg’s manager.  At one point we had a NFL football star write up a contract to finance the film.  Two million dollars.  Then, as George tells it, “He got cold feet at the last second.”  Gone.

As it so happened, I had met Tim Sullivan a few years earlier, and let me tell you, he is the most personal, approachable, and friendly guy in the business.  He promised me if I wrote him on “My Space” (hey, this was a long time ago) he would respond. He’s been good to his word and provided advice the handful of times I’ve sought it out.  I wrote him (no longer on My Space) about the project, and Steve’s former involvement.  He wrote back and said that he was only taking on projects with financing because he’d been burned before, but- like I said, Tim’s really a stand up guy- he gave me his agent’s personal phone number and added “call there if you’re close.”

George wanted to call the agent anyway, but eventually we decided to respect Tim’s wishes and not call until we had financing.

By far one of the most surreal moments occurred in 2011.  I was on a cross-state trip when I received a call from a lightly panicked George, who had apparently been trying to get a hold of me for hours. There was a reason I wasn’t available- I had the flu, really awful stuff, and was trying to deal with riding in a van for six hours and not vomiting.  I had not even noticed my phone had been ringing. For the one and only time in all the years we worked together I asked George if I could call him back.

“Well, normally you could, but I have a representative from Lionsgate on the line and they want you to pitch.”

With a long sigh- to compose myself, not because, oh poor me, I have Lionsgate trying to get my attention- I said, “Okay, put them on.”

It’s here I made the second big mistake in this project.  I had not been aware Lionsgate was even talking to us.  This was all off the cuff.  It’s hard to imagine now, but at the time, there was a lot of buzz around “Scream 4”, which was opening in two weeks.  I piggybacked off that.

“I think this is going to pull in a very similar audience.  The numbers for Scream 4… we think they’re going to be big.  This could be just as big, and you’ll own it.”

From what George would tell me, the pitch went smashingly well.  They loved it.

Unfortunately, audiences didn’t love “Scream 4” nearly as much, which did… okay business.  Shortly after the Lionsgate representative dropped the project.

Over the next few years we approached several different studios. One such studio- one Michael and I insisted on- was Paramount Pictures, who had just opened up a micro-budget division following the success of “Paranormal Activity.”   The response was, and I quote George, “We sent it to them, but they just were not interested in the concept.”

The last time I spoke to George at length he had informed me he was going to pitch “Hush” during his meeting with Sony Screen Gems- who did, as it turn out, buy the remake rights to George's previous film, and not long after released a very botched fictional interpretation of the documentary.

A few months after the Sony call I informed George I was no longer writing.  In the years that we had shopped “Hush” I had written several more scripts.  A few I managed to just barely get in the hands of some professionals.  At one point, George convinced a  producer to take the “Nightmare” prequel to Newline- which Michael and I then rewrote from scratch- but as far as I know that fell through and never even made it to the studio.  Nothing got the attention of “Hush”, “Hush” was now going nowhere, and I was just past 30 and looking to start a more lucrative career.  Things like a steady income, starting a family, putting downs roots- these things, not even thoughts to a 23 year old writing “Hush”- were starting to occupy my mind.

That’s where I thought the story would end.  I’ve heard from George only once since then- a short email that read, “Oh wow, they stole our movie!”

The story picks up about six months ago when Bloody Disgusting ran a piece regarding Netflix picking up the rights to Mike Flanagan’s “Hush.”  I clicked on the title, hoping- praying, actually- that this movie would, beyond the title, not in any way be similar to my own.

Some research revealed a few things.

- Obviously, the title was the same
- The lead character was deaf
- The film was a single location
- The main character in our script was named “Sadie.”  In Flanagan’s “Hush” the main character is named “Madie.”

After some initial panicked back and forth with Michael, and an e-mail to George that resulted in the above exchange, I thought to myself, “This could be a coincidence.  Who’s the studio?”

Blumhouse Pictures- the microbudget arm of Paramount Pictures.

Damn.

With no resources beyond my amateur sleuthing and a couple of lawyers I know who are not necessarily involved in Copyright cases, here’s what I was told-

Concepts are hard to prove.  Unless they stole the script itself, Paramount was in the clear.

And here’s where I discovered my third big mistake.  When I quit writing, I did not renew my Screenwriter’s Guild script registration.  I’m a student again, poor as dirt, and all I had was a movie script that, as far as I knew, no one wanted.  I didn’t even think about it.  But if I had thought about it- $50, as a student trying to start a second career- $50 is an obscene amount of money to me.  I’m not sure I would have spent that on a “dead” concept.

And, to be fair, and this is a very big point- the concept of my “Hush” and Blumhouse’s “Hush” may be similar, but the execution is very different.  The Netflix “Hush”, at least, according to my peers and what I gather from the trailer (I can’t bring myself to watch it) is a straight up thriller.  The “Hush” Michael and I wrote was meant to be a hybrid “slasher”, a beautiful blend of 80s and 90s horror, cherry picking what we felt were the best pieces of each decade.  For example, as nineties horror films loved to do, we wanted to create characters who were aware running up the stairs was a bad idea, and would not be afraid to say so.  We did not, however, want to go around referencing other films.  There’s no point where a character says, “Running up the stairs is a sure fire way to run into Michael Myers!”

So Michael and I bowed our heads, and decided to let this go. Michael had dropped “Hush” from his mind and soul long before I did, and I am at this point knee deep in an accelerated Software Engineering program- which I absolutely love.

So we moved on.  Again.

Re: Two months later.

Michael sends me the link to another trailer, along with the message “This is the real Hush.”

That trailer was for “Don’t Breath.”  It’s getting phenomenal reviews, even from mainstream critics. It’s a blind killer, single location, and- oh yeah- it has a scene in the basement that uses “The tight space and a lot of boxes to create suspense.” Sort of like, I don’t know, a library scene I once wrote.

Again, based on the trailer, the tone- unlike the Blumhouse picture- is very similar to my “Hush.”

“But,” I think to myself, “Who’s the studio?”

Sony Screen Gems.

Double Damn.

Now everyone's screaming at me “lawsuit.”  From what I’ve been told, I’m probably not going to win.  That’s if I could find a lawyer.  Remember, I could not afford the $50 to re-register my script.

Some people are probably thinking, “Well, it’s your fault for not re-registering your script.”  Perhaps, but also from what I’m told, it would not have made any difference.  Basically, as long as my script is not stolen word for word, I have no case.  Even if I maybe had a case, what resources do I have to sue?

And I want to be clear about something.  I’m not saying, per say, the directors or even screenwriters of these films stole my movie.  I’d like to at least think that’s not the case.

The scenario I imagine is not quite so spiteful.  What I do imagine is closer to a room filled with filmmakers and producers trying to come up with a concept, and one producer, who’s either read my script, or heard about it through another producer who’s read my script says, “Hey, you know, here’s an idea...”

I’ll probably never know for sure what happened.  I don’t expect to ever have any closer on this. Who knows, maybe, just maybe, two studios I worked with just happened to come across nearly identical ideas at the same time for a concept I’d never heard before.  Mayyyyybe the idea of a blind man chasing a woman in an enclosed space with a bunch of barriers is just so obvious that of course someone thought of it.  I mean, I haven’t seen it before, but you know… maybe?

Here’s what I do know.  If you have an idea for a movie- well, don’t bother.  Unless you have connections.  Or money.  Or both.  Because it turns out you don’t own that idea.  That idea is ripe for the taking at any time.  So keep your ideas to yourself.  Keep your ideas out of Hollywood.

Unless you happen to be talking to Tim Sullivan.  He doesn’t pull this kind of crap.