Movies and Television Archive

HOLLYWOOD
The $treet
The First $20 Million
Dotcomarama (A Script)
Stick or Flip (A Script)

INDEPENDENT
The One

Recap of my 18 months in Hollywood: In latter 1999 and 2000, I worked in Hollywood. I co-created a television pilot for ABC, South of Market, which did not air, then wrote two movies, "Stick or Flip" and "Dotcomarama," which were adapted from different chapters of Nudist on the Late Shift. I got paid, but they didn't get made (an extremely common outcome). You can still read them though, above. I particularly recommend the romantic comedy, Dotcomarama, if you want to reminisce about love, or what we called loved, during the height of the fever. At the same time (Summer and Fall 2000), I wrote for a television show on the Fox Network called "The Street," which starred Jennifer Connelly, right before she was in A Beautiful Mind. More on The Street here. Meanwhile (as if that were not enough), 20th Century Fox went ahead and made the adaptation of my second novel, The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest. The script was written by Jon Favreau (Swingers.) 

The video/DVD of "The First $20 Million is the Hardest" is supposed to be available. 20th Century Fox spent $17 million making the movie, but didn't want to spend another $17 million to market it in wide release. This, despite very good audience feedback in test screenings. Its stars aren't big enough; it's too smart for a screwball comedy; the high-tech thing is over. So it received only very limited distribution in New York and Los Angeles.  Pics from the shoot