Let us take the hypothetical case of the transvestite Hungarian biker who lives in a motor-home near San Diego. He quit his executive job in Europe, and relocated to the US to make it big. How this happens is of no consequence whatsoever. In his spare time from his new job at McDonald’s he pens a script based on an old but recently re-appraised novel, and starts stalking various movie producers. It so happens that he avoids a restraining order, and corners one of them in a cafe. Just before his green card expires, the newly converted Scientologist wins his jackpot: the script is bought and suddenly he is also blessed by Tom Cruise. The script, however, ends up in a stylish mahogany drawer and gathers dust.
After the divorce of his seventh teen-age wife, the first producer rediscovers the script in his new love’s Barbie collection, and is about to bring it to the local flea market when his old brother in-law, a fellow movie producer whom he dislikes intensely, is persuaded to buy it. Being closeted man who uses his brother-in-law’s sister as a beard, the new producer takes offense to the hetero-typical noir protagonist, and decides to replace the masculine and clearly butch hero with a gorgeously robed gum-shoe resembling Julie Andrews. Into the drawer the script goes, and more time passes.
Unfortunately, it is an illusion brought on by excessive make-up, cosmetic surgery and unnatural hair-pieces that gay men do not die of old age. In the present case – believe it or not – it was true! The demise of this particular producer was brought on by a cocaine overdose at a local bathhouse. His son describes his father’s pathetic death-scene in a tell-all. On Oprah, he recounts the tear -jerking story of how this made him lose faith in late his father’s judgment, and why he then sold all his father’s scripts to a genius who applied science to literary analysis, a guru of digital humanities, a man trying to link Hollywood with trans-humanism, cryogenics and Silicone Valley.
The script is analyzed using revolutionary AI and tailored algorithms. Various story elements are tested against focus groups to measure potential revenue models. It may be that the optimal setting for the story is not some Vegas casino, even if this was the intention of a Pulitzer Prize-winning alcoholic. Perhaps a space station would generate more income, and perhaps the Julie Andrews character should not have a car, but in stead an elephant?
Of course, this elephant must be created using CGI, and then PETA and certain special effects companies must be contacted in order to ensure realism, and an ethical and accurate portrayal of the species – and ascertain the per second cost of each animal sequence. Could production perhaps be outsourced to Columbia if the villain in the story resembled Pablo Escobar? Is it possible to exploit this for marketing, or could an appeal to controversy, perhaps involving sexual innuendo and martians, do the trick?
In view of many real, imaginary and self-inflicted expenses, the wizard of Silicon Valley was relieved to discover that the NIH offered a huge grant to any movie producer who might help disseminate knowledge of venereal diseases. Incorporating such information into the dialogue by means of said AI-system, and introducing tasteful cameos of Musk and Trump – and their logos – might offset the CGI-cost and widen target audiences.
However, any naturalized citizen of the United States must avoid contact with judges, even on public transport. Therefore the literary estate must be approached – in some alley, if need be. This hypothetical adaptation of the literary canon came to a permanent halt when lightly dressed invitations to several beach houses failed to prevent a top publishing lawyer from knocking at several doors, rehashing the often repeated truism: “the similarity between Hollywood scripts and venereal diseases will be painfully obvious to all lovers of good fiction. They are passed from person to person socially, mutate and are not really wanted by anyone. Having one in your drawer(s?) is, however, considered proof of virility”.
The project was immediately scrapped, the name of the original author deleted and the script sold in an undisclosed bankruptcy settlement to Marvel, who – according to inside sources online – will re-write it as an episode of Dr Weird, five years from now when “a not named Pulitzer Prize story” finally passes into public domain.
by Michael Henrik Wynn
