Letterman Blackmailed? No-- T'was Just A Misunderstanding...
by Earl Merkel
October 2, 2009, 7:50 am
There's a myth --started, I suspect, by writers-- that all writers write "not because we want to, but because we have to." The compulsion to write is, we tell people, an "artist sort of thing."
Uh-huh. Ri-i-i-ght.
Yeah-- that explains why so many of us stare at the morning's blank computer screen, motionless hands poised over the keyboard, until our eyeballs bleed.
And then we do random Google searches, check our e-mail, surf for porn (or --ahem-- even dash off a blog).
It's called "procrastination," and I have yet to meet a writer who --when pressed hard enough-- doesn't confess that there have been countless times that he or she will do just about anything to avoid the admittedly hard work of actually getting down to writing.
But perhaps the worst case of writer's procrastination in recent years was unveiled last night on the David Letterman Show.
By now, you've already heard the ... uh... bones of the story: as it turns out, Mr. Letterman has his own (private) "Top Ten List." Someone --reportedly, a fellow employee at CBS-- did a little back-story research, pulled together some of the steamy details, and proceeded to pen what was either the worst "project-pitch" proposal in literary history or --as a New York grand jury termed it-- a blackmail note. As reported, the as-yet unnamed scribe suggested to Mr. Letterman that the story would make a great screenplay as well as a sure-fire blockbuster book.
Well-- so far, so good: Letterman's production company, Just Pants, is certainly a logical venue to pitch a screenplay. And as Mr. Letterman himself agreed during his on-air discussion of the incident, a companion-piece book clearly has the makings of a potentially profitable marketing combination. One suspects that discussion of the accompanying action-figure spin-off -- perhaps even a "MA" -rated video game-- wasn't far behind. In this initial-discussion phase of the pitch, Mr. Letterman and his legal counsel appeared open to --even encouraging of-- green-lighting the project.
It was here that the writer made a serious negotiating blunder.
Close your eyes and picture the scene: Presumably acting without the guidance of a competent agent, the writer begins to blue-sky provisions of the proposed contract-- specifically, asking for a two-million-dollar advance. Just to get the inevitable dickering over compensation started, of course...
But incredibly, Mr. Letterman snaps up this opening bid-- and I suspect that it is here that our hapless writer had a terrible realization.
Oh, crap! I could have asked for more!
And haven't we all been there?
Suddenly, we're faced with the enormity behind the contract we've just landed. We're confronted with the god-awful prospect of actually having to do the grunt-work: the volumnious additional research, the scheduling of interviews with the principals involved, the inevitable associated travel, the drudgery of tracking expenses that won't trigger alarms at the IRS, et al.
Worse, after all of that we're going to have to apply-ass-to-chair and write the damn thing. We're looking at a minimum of six months, probably a year, of sheer, unmitigated salt-mine/ galley-slave labor...
And all of a sudden, two million bucks seems like a trifling sum-- chump change, compared to the effort involved.
For our indicted-but-unnamed protagonist, it is here, I am sure, that the ol' writers' nemesis, procrastination, reared its multi-horned head.
C'mon... surely you can hear yourself saying the fatal words?
"Er...uh... hey! I've just had this crazy idea, Mr. Letterman-- but it might just work out great for both of us. Just thinking out loud, now... what if you still pay me the two million --hear me out, okay?-- but then I don't write the screenplay or the book? Whatcha think, huh?"
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Some may call it "extortion." But as writers, we know the real truth.
October 2, 2009, 7:50 am
There's a myth --started, I suspect, by writers-- that all writers write "not because we want to, but because we have to." The compulsion to write is, we tell people, an "artist sort of thing."
Uh-huh. Ri-i-i-ght.
Yeah-- that explains why so many of us stare at the morning's blank computer screen, motionless hands poised over the keyboard, until our eyeballs bleed.
And then we do random Google searches, check our e-mail, surf for porn (or --ahem-- even dash off a blog).
It's called "procrastination," and I have yet to meet a writer who --when pressed hard enough-- doesn't confess that there have been countless times that he or she will do just about anything to avoid the admittedly hard work of actually getting down to writing.
But perhaps the worst case of writer's procrastination in recent years was unveiled last night on the David Letterman Show.
By now, you've already heard the ... uh... bones of the story: as it turns out, Mr. Letterman has his own (private) "Top Ten List." Someone --reportedly, a fellow employee at CBS-- did a little back-story research, pulled together some of the steamy details, and proceeded to pen what was either the worst "project-pitch" proposal in literary history or --as a New York grand jury termed it-- a blackmail note. As reported, the as-yet unnamed scribe suggested to Mr. Letterman that the story would make a great screenplay as well as a sure-fire blockbuster book.
Well-- so far, so good: Letterman's production company, Just Pants, is certainly a logical venue to pitch a screenplay. And as Mr. Letterman himself agreed during his on-air discussion of the incident, a companion-piece book clearly has the makings of a potentially profitable marketing combination. One suspects that discussion of the accompanying action-figure spin-off -- perhaps even a "MA" -rated video game-- wasn't far behind. In this initial-discussion phase of the pitch, Mr. Letterman and his legal counsel appeared open to --even encouraging of-- green-lighting the project.
It was here that the writer made a serious negotiating blunder.
Close your eyes and picture the scene: Presumably acting without the guidance of a competent agent, the writer begins to blue-sky provisions of the proposed contract-- specifically, asking for a two-million-dollar advance. Just to get the inevitable dickering over compensation started, of course...
But incredibly, Mr. Letterman snaps up this opening bid-- and I suspect that it is here that our hapless writer had a terrible realization.
Oh, crap! I could have asked for more!
And haven't we all been there?
Suddenly, we're faced with the enormity behind the contract we've just landed. We're confronted with the god-awful prospect of actually having to do the grunt-work: the volumnious additional research, the scheduling of interviews with the principals involved, the inevitable associated travel, the drudgery of tracking expenses that won't trigger alarms at the IRS, et al.
Worse, after all of that we're going to have to apply-ass-to-chair and write the damn thing. We're looking at a minimum of six months, probably a year, of sheer, unmitigated salt-mine/ galley-slave labor...
And all of a sudden, two million bucks seems like a trifling sum-- chump change, compared to the effort involved.
For our indicted-but-unnamed protagonist, it is here, I am sure, that the ol' writers' nemesis, procrastination, reared its multi-horned head.
C'mon... surely you can hear yourself saying the fatal words?
"Er...uh... hey! I've just had this crazy idea, Mr. Letterman-- but it might just work out great for both of us. Just thinking out loud, now... what if you still pay me the two million --hear me out, okay?-- but then I don't write the screenplay or the book? Whatcha think, huh?"
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Some may call it "extortion." But as writers, we know the real truth.
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Comment by Dana King on October 4, 2009 at 3:14am
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Well done.
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