Getting a break in Hollywood is harder than it looks. So what if you have a small mountain of scripts? So what if you are convinced you can write Sofia Coppola under a table? Who do you know? Really? Who do you know?
I don’t know anyone with any connection to Hollywood, but I figured there had to be some stupid way to hustle smart scripts. Movie Ideas by Greg Lundgren was my stupid way. Ten treatments for major motion pictures. I printed 5,000 copies of this 45 pages staple bound booklet. It’s a lot of books when you seen them arrive on your doorstep in 50 pound boxes. I mailed them to four friends in Los Angeles with simple instructions: Place them in every dry cleaners, doctor's office lobby, art gallery, yoga studio, restaurant, hotel reception — place them in the habitat of Hollywood elite. So 5,000 copies hit the streets of west Los Angeles over a two day period. They were free, bright red and offered a twenty percent commission to anyone who knew anyone, who made movies. Twenty percent of whatever author's commission I would get. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Traditional channels never worked for me. It was time to think outside the box. Be aggressive (in a passive way). All I had to do now was wait.
My friends spread the books all over the place. The Getty Museum, the Writer's Guild, movie theaters in Westwood and coffee shops in Venice Beach. Every car windshield in the parking lot of Fred Segal in Beverly Hills. Every table at Canter's at 2:00 in the morning.
To date, not a single person has responded — no crazies, no posers, no Hollywood hitmen. I don’t like to think of it as failure, I see it as a waiting game. Someday Hair Slug will be a blockbuster, someday Columbia will garner the applause of the academy; someday Youth will make a terrific community theatre play. Failure is just a term for the impatient.
Update: I did get one interesting email from a screen writing professor at UCLA. She had been using my book as part of her class curriculum and a debate got started as to the success or failure of my project. She wanted an update. And a few years ago, a friend of mine attended a wedding at a posh private winery in northern California. A copy of 10 Movie Ideas by Greg Lundgren rested on the shelf of their library.
No story is ever completely over.