I know
lots of Chewers share screenwriting aspirations, and we’ve enjoyed a lot
of success tales lately from the likes of Dave Davis and Jeremy Slater. But for
the rest of you undiscovered masses out there, here’s a super secret tip for
getting your work sold: Stop writing screenplays and start freelancing for
fancy mags like Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and Sister
2 Sister. Sure, your wacky torture porn/family drama spec script is
collecting dust (“It’s basically Hostel meets Something To Talk About.
Wait….where are you going?!?!”), but if you can find a good real-life geopolitical
or current human interest story and can get these publications to give you space
enough for 5000 or so words on it, you’re probably a lot closer to getting your
foot in the door these days. You might even have that door opened by George
Clooney.
Clooney’s
Smoke House Productions (which he runs with creative partner Grant Heslov or,
as casting agents in the 90s know him, Vaguely Ethnic Weasel-ly Guy) and
Warners (Really, wasn’t Batman and Robin worth it so that
Clooney could get in good at The WB for all of his projects since then?) have
picked up an article in the current issue of Wired entitled “Escape
From Tehran,” which details the story of a CIA agent who came up with the
brilliant concept of staging a fake movie shoot in Iran during the late 70s
hostage crisis in order to smuggle six Americans out. He went to
clever moniker Studio Six Productions and there were notices
in Variety
and
The Hollywood Reporter (Hell, if the ‘Net was viable back then, we’d be
fantasy casting Reb Brown for the lead). Eventually, he found the Americans and
passed them off as “Canadian Location Scouts” to get them out.
As always
with projects under his banner, Clooney may act or direct the story, but he and
Heslov will most certainly be writing the film. This would mark their first screenwriting
collaboration since Good Night, and Good Luck.