Sat in a big room with leather couches with Virginia, two of the partners (Jim Berkus and Gary Cosay), and another agent, Anne Dollard.
(“They’re just guys,” Tomi coached me before I flew down. “Pretend you’re going into a meeting with Doug and Gene Portwood.”)
They all listened in attentive silence while I pitched my high-school-narc script idea. Finally Jim Berkus broke in, gently. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “But…”
Whereupon they all informed me that there are about three feature films involving undercover cops in high school already in development. Plus a TV series called 21 Jump Street, which I would have known if I ever watched TV, or looked at a TV Guide. I felt like an idiot. Awkward moment. The meeting broke up soon after.
They still want to take me on as a client, though.
“Try to think of some other movie ideas,” Virginia suggested. She gave me about nine scripts to take home, Xerox and send back to her. Screenplays of films actually in production. She also let me pore through her “red book” for a couple of hours while she went to lunch with a guy from UA. It was terrifically exciting.
The “red book” contained a capsule description of every feature film currently in development anywhere, with notations like “Status: Needs Director” or “Needs Major Star” or “Needs Script.” The descriptions were “Like Alien underwater” or “Remake of The Hit only funnier.” Bizarre.
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“Like Alien underwater”. Could that be The Abyss, by James Cameron?