I sunk many years and many dollars into a movie called MEG. I was heavily involved all the way through the process, bringing in the people who eventually got us a deal at New Line and then hung on for dear life as bad decision after bad decision threatened to derail the process. Along the way I had to deal with so much shit that is book-worthy and ridiculous that some of it seemed too outlandish to be real. This is a project which eventually went on to having a director who was this site’s number one punching bag for years in Jan de Bont, who turned out to be a pretty solid dude. Imagine that meeting in Santa Monica where the two of us sat down at a bar and broke bread on that subject. Imagine watching a monster film evolve into an action film. Watch as the studio makes failure after failure around us. Inkheart. The Golden Compass. Rush Hour 3. The Last Mimzy. While we dealt with as close to a green light as you can get before it all gets yanked away.
In truth, at the end, our movie wouldn’t have been that good. There were too many fundamental flaws. The original team of Guillermo del Toro, Lloyd Levin, Ken Atchity, Steve Alten, and myself? We would have made something that would have affected things. Others came onboard, some good and many not… and it eventually led to someone strongarming all of the creative folks off the project.
But our own idiotic personal squabbles aside, I think I know why it wasn’t made. This was our number one ambassador at the studio. A man who could not get it any less. This was our big fan in the halls of power, a man who thinks the shark name MEG is an abbreviation for Megalopolis. A man who gets the plot wrong and someone who blames the film’s non-start on a rights owner who doesn’t exist and had no bearing on things. There were certainly very expensive folks along the way but a certain executive was the real black hat. The man almost names him in this interview if you listen, but he checks himself. Anyway when I saw this looney tunes video I had to share…
This guy was involved on the studio side of the project:
Wow. I wouldn’t have wanted to make the film either if this was our knight in shining armor.