The Aughts (and The Aught-Not- Haves)

Journal Entry:  April 4^th, 2002.  A late, late Thursday night.

This morning I learned we have no money to finish the movie, and no units to sell.  Well, not enough of either, anyway.  Sacrifices will be made.  Fucking sucks.  There goes my summer paycheck.

Today the other producers went nuts, and I got dragged into the middle.  All I know is we need money wired into a bank account. Screaming.  Almost crying. Everyone was furious.  It was awful.

Black Sky came through with their $350,000 and we were able to shoot the 2 and a half days we needed to complete principal photography.

It turns out they were showing the completed cut to one of the investor’s 12 year old son. He turned to his dad and said “This is better than ‘American Pie’.” And that was it, they wired the money. Literally my career, my whole life’s work, was in the hands of a 12 year old.

Journal Entry:  April 14^th, 2002.  Actually, the 15^th at 2:37 in the morning.

I’ve finally done it.  Wrapped my first feature.  This is something I’ve waited for my whole life, and I’ve done it by 30.  Just under the wire, eh?  We got 87 setups this weekend.  87.   I can’t even believe it. 668 shots total in 24 and a half days. I’m so happy right now.

Deerpath, however, took a little more convincing.  It was on the sound mixing stage when we were expecting a wire transfer that they called to say they needed more time to think about it.  The mixer was literally looking at us, saying “are we starting?” and we said “We need the money NOW.”  It turns out they were showing the completed cut on video to one of the investor’s 12 year old son.  He turned to his dad and said “This is better than ‘American Pie’.”  And that was it, they wired the money.  Literally my career, my whole life’s work, was in the hands of a 12 year old.  And thankfully, he loved it.

September 2002

We got into the Toronto Film Festival, and every single show of “Cabin Fever” sold out.  The line for the critics’ screening went out the door, down the hall, to the escalator, and two extra shows are added, both of which sell out completely.  Lionsgate won the film in a 7-studio bidding war, paying $3.5 million, but more importantly committing $12 million to release the film.  This guarantees we’ll be out in 2,000 theaters – their biggest release to date.  The same people I had met in Cannes a year earlier who had passed on the script were now the ones fighting tooth and nail for it.  I still tease them about this to this day.

Life changes.

All of a sudden my phone’s ringing off the hook.  Everyone wants to meet me, so I book up my day with endless breakfasts, lunches, dinners, drinks – and suddenly there’s a pile of scripts on my desk.  I actually read the scripts all the way through before passing on them, and soon I start reading 30 pages, and then  eventually if it didn’t grab me in 5 pages I’d chuck it.  I went in to meet on big movies, none of which I got, and set up a few movies around town by pitching my own ideas.  These films never got made for one reason or another, and I soon learned why it takes forever to get a movie made in Hollywood.  No one seemed to be able to make any kind of decision.  Everyone had notes and wanted another draft.  It was just like z.com all over again, except now I had to be polite and really find a way to make their ideas work.  Soon the scripts became unrecognizable, and I was secretly happy when they went away.  But at least I was in the game.

Journal Entry:  October 20th, 2002

One year ago I was about to start rehearsals for “Cabin Fever” without a safety net.  And now I’m flying around  to Toronto, Texas, Spain, where the film is celebrated.  People LOVED the movie at Harry’s Dusk Till Dawn fest. (*Harry Knowles from aintitcoolnews.com*) , We watched the movie in an abandoned mental asylum overlooking a prison, and before the show (Alamo Drafthouse owner) Tim League and I handed out cups of lemonade.  It was perfect.  At the Sitges Film Festival in spain, I met Guillermo Del Toro, Roger Avary, Lucky McKee, Matthew Bright, Alex de la Iglesia, we just had the best time hanging out watching movies and talking about everything.  There’s a whole world of genre festivals out there that I never knew existed.  We need something like Sitges in the states.  We won Best Special Effects and I gave the trophy to the guys at K.N.B. effects.  The movie would not be the same without them.  Now I’m invited to go to all these festivals around the world to just go watch movies, get taken to fancy dinners, and party all night with other filmmakers. It’s unreal.

>>>NEXT: “Everyone’s ready for blood to make a comeback.” (Click here to print.)

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.