5/8/23
Newsletter #330
The Crack of Dawn
It was 1987 and I was living in a tiny bungalow in Hollywood with two other guys with whom I was not getting along. None of us had any money, we had one box of corn flakes between us, and we were fighting over it. I was 30 years old, had made one feature film five years earlier that had not set the world on fire, and I had absolutely no idea what I would do next.
I sat on the back stoop and thought, “I have to think my way out of this situation.” Terrific. Think about what? A story idea? What if I actually get one, who do I sell it to? My buddies Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert had just gotten a development deal at Universal and were ostensibly looking for projects. OK. What’s a good idea? I had no idea.
So, I sat there in the hot sun on the back stoop of that bungalow for hours. In my head I recycled the question, “What’s a good idea?” over and over and over again. Finally, I thought, “OK, forget ideas; forget stories; what’s a good title?” My thoughts went to horror movie titles. “They’ve already used Psycho, Maniac, Homicidal, the Crazies, Nuts, Dementia, Dementia 13, Berserk . . .” Meanwhile, inside the house, I had Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon playing. The song came on, “The lunatic is on the grass/The lunatics are on my grass . . .”
Had anyone used Lunatic as a title? I dashed inside, got the Leonard Maltin book, turned to L and found: Lulu Belle, Lumberjack, Lured. No Lunatic. Terrific. OK, The Lunatic. What’s it about? A lunatic, I guess. I ruminated on that for quite a while until I thought, “What if there are more than one, then it would be Lunatics. What if the lunatics are a boy and a girl? And what if they fall in love? Then it could be, Lunatics, A Love Story.” Suddenly, I had a title and a story, sort of. But I knew that Sam liked the idea of shooting in a single enclosed space, like the cabin in Evil Dead, which theoretically holds your budget down and makes production easier. It didn’t accomplish either of those things on Evil Dead, but it is a good idea nevertheless, and Sam still believed in it. Therefore, I thought, “OK, one of these lunatics is an agoraphobic who won’t leave their house, and there’s my single enclosed space for a great deal of the story. And if one of the characters is stuck inside, the other character should be stuck outside. Opposites attract. And somehow this all works out.”
In the course of about four hours of sitting on that stoop, I had a title, characters, and the skeleton of a story. I didn’t even bother to write anything down. I called Sam and Rob at their new Renaissance Pictures office on the Universal lot and said, “Wanna hear a story?” They said, “Come on over and pitch it.” I said, “I’ll be right there. Call me in a pass at the gate.” Little did I realize that this was the first visit of hundreds over the next 15 years (all of the post-production for Hercules and Xena were done on the lot).
Renaissance Pictures was located in the crummiest part of the Universal lot, in the “Trailer Ghetto.” A dozen single-wide trailers perched on a rickety wooden platform, precariously dangling off the edge of the L.A. River, which is really a big, empty cement trough where they’ve shot innumerable car chases. Sam and Rob’s Renaissance Pictures trailer was the closest to the “river,” and thus suspended higher. Every time a truck went by on the street in front of the ghetto, the entire wooden platform shook, and inside the trailers it felt like an earthquake. For the horror fans out there, and to give this a touch historical perspective, in the next trailer over Shane Black and Fred Dekker who were developing Monster Squad (1987). I love that their names make Black & Dekker.
Sam and Rob had just taken possession of the trailer and hadn’t yet decorated. Sam did have a big old desk, behind which he sat. Rob sat on the desk. I pitched my story, embellishing as much as I possibly could. I recall saying something inane like, “Think of it, psychotic sex between lunatics,” whatever that means. I brought up the single enclosed location several times. I assured them that I could bring this in at a very reasonable budget.
A long silence ensued. Both of them slowly digested my story, nodding, considering the implications. Cigarettes were lit. And bless those fellows’ hearts, without giving it a hell of a lot of thought, they both nodded and said, “Yeah. Let’s make it.” Sam produced a bottle of scotch from his big desk and we drank. I had just made my first Hollywood deal.
But when I absolutely needed an idea, and in this case, I was given a title that led to an idea, the universe supplied it.
And thus, another day begins.
[I think I had the Comment button turned off by mistake. Apparently, I can be reached at josh@substack.com. Remember, if it’s free, you’re absolutely getting your money’s worth.]