Ten Manipulations: The End of the Road

16Jan/050

Ten Manipulations: The End of the Road

It was a long, harrowing meeting yesterday. Ernest defended the incoherent version of the script he rushed out Thursday night and, in contentious dialogue with his friend Nick, the supposed producer that I hadn't yet met, he layed out his plans for what he would like to see in each story. SAND becomes more of a predator. JALISA intentionally puts him in jail. DON & AVERY have an S&M and not abusive relationship. BRUCE is "two-dimensional" and that's fine. We'll move away from a feeling of authenticity to the world and the people in it and toward a more surreal Wong Kar Wai meets Wes Anderson vibe. And so on. It's not a direction for the story I can get behind, and clearly -- now that Ernest has hijacked the writing and stacked the deck with his friends (director BB and his producer JC were at the meeting too) -- it will only worsen.

So I took him aside and bowed out. I told him we obviously have different visions for the story and that I couldn't reconcile my vision to his. I'll draw up an option contract and that will be that.

It's a big disappointment for me, because after delivering d9.9 it really looked like everything might come together. But Ernest pulled the same stuff he's pulled all along, only in a grandly insulting manner. The big thing for me to do is cut my losses and not interfere with project.