REDLIGHT, GREENLIGHT: I've not watched Project Greenlight before, or seen either of the movies it's spawned thus far, but this season has been totally awesome. The first twist is no longer are we looking for an indie hit--this time, we're working with Dimension, Miramax's "genre" arm, and the goal is to make a film that makes some money, which the prior PG films have failed to do. We start off with the screenplay selection--half of the production staff, particularly new Executive Producer Wes Craven, strongly backed a heist/con script called Wildcard, while the other half, led by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, pushed for the comedy script Where Were You When Hans Gubenstein Invented Time Travel? Then, the studio comes in, and says that only script they'll fund is Feast, a horror script uniformly viewed as the weakest of the three finalists, and described as "Evil Dead meets Diner." After some debate, they bend over for the studio. (Don't feel bad for the other two finalists. Craven has optioned Wildcard, and Affleck/Damon have bought Hans Gubenstein.) In case you want to read the script, it's here.
After losing the script fight to the studio, the production team insists on taking the director with the best reel, an older man named John Gulager, whose short is amazing, but who can't articulate a sentence in the room with producers to save his life. Of course, the utter inarticulateness is problem enough, but thus far, Gulager has demanded complete creative control, including casting his own family members. As we leave this week's episode, Gulager is demanding the right to pitch his family members directly to Bob and Harvey Weinstein, and Chris Moore is making noise about firing him. (Rumor has it that Gulager may ultimately have been fired, thus explaining why the PGL website lacks any blogging from him.)
It's like watching an utter and complete trainwreck take place. And I dig that. Check it out.
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