> I can't figure out why a "kid usurps throne
>from evil uncle" story would take three whole
>movies, but even more inexplicable to me is how
>the SPEC for the story sold for one million
>dollars. This isn't a screenplay; this is an
>idea (that somebody else had) for a screenplay
>for movies that may not get made. I must ask
>myself: what the heck am I doing working as a
>software engineer when I could be cobbling
>together other people's ideas and selling them
>for seven figures.

I looked into this. Turns out you have to already be a Hollywood insider for this to work. Hollywood is the most incestuous place imaginable, apparently. It's why when one person thinks of the idea "volcano movie" suddenly four studios all have a volcano movie in production for next summer.

And apparently, to become an insider, you have to "break in", which is insanely insanely hard, because nobody trusts an outsider (since obviously "Let's do Home Alone 5!!" coming from an insider is a way friggin better idea than "Let's make a fantasy trilogy in which the characters think and act like adults and have actual personalities and emotions and hey I've already written the script would you like to maybe pay me a couple Gs for it?" coming from an outsider.) I've heard stories of writers who managed to break in, sell their one or two or five good scripts that they already had written, then get ripped on cocaine and heroin for years and still make six figures selling crap they wrote completely strung out, because now that they're an "insider" they can sell used toilet paper and people will buy it because they have a "proven track record". Apparently if you once had one good idea and sold it to Hollywood, you're set for life. Gah.

-- Dave