Yeah, so the ads have started rolling out for the new Amazon movie, "Red One."  The movie where Santa goes missing and the folks at the North Pole have to hire a professional investigator to find him before Christmas.  Sound familiar?  It should, if you're on his blog.  It's the plot to my story, "Lost Claus."  I've talked about Lost Claus lots of time here.  From the Pee-Wee version that got me my first job in Hollywood (I love how that implies I've had other jobs since then), to my attempt to adapt it for Prairie Home Companion, making Garrison Keillor's character, Guy Noir, the lead.  Then there was the novelization, which I did to lock my story down into protectable form and the radio adaptation that got produced.

And my lead character, Nick Flebber, P.I., I've spun off into a slew of other tales, both prose and audio (You can check them out at The Nick Files Page).  

I've been grabbing tweets (I said tweets) from the movie's Twitter feed and re-tweeting them with plugs for my book, so we'll see how long I can continue that or if it's even effective.

Now, do I think they stole my idea?  Ideas aren't protectable.  I have to wait to see the movie now, like everyone else, to see if there are any similarities in execution of that idea.  Let's just say someone feels that certain people on the production team did possibly take a pitch and saw my script.  But even if the plots are totally different, I take a hit.  My screenplay isn't dead, but this is going to make it pointless for the time being, if it's a hit.  A bigger hit if it's a flop.

This happened to me once before; I had script knocking around called "Hitler's Script."  It was a story, inspired by true events, where a group of German filmmakers, during World War II, used the production of a Nazi propaganda film to escape Berlin. I started sending it around.  Then my manager at the time asked me if I had a seen the Tarantino film, "Inglourious Basterds"?  I hadn't.  So I ran out and rented a copy (is is how these were once done).  It was about World War II.  It involved Nazis.  It involved the German film industry.  And that was it.  But it was enough to derail my script.  I wasn't able to start showing it around again for a while.

This is not a linear career I attempted, I get that.  One job doesn't lead to another.  There are no "promotions."  It's all random.  And there are so many different ways things can not happen.  I'm the perpetual outsider without the moxie to work my way in.  And speed bumps like this just annoy me all the more.

​All I can say is, if you see the movie,   Buy the book!

I just saw the trailer for the new Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson movie, “Red One.”  Santa goes missing.  Christmas is coming.  The North Pole is in a panic.  A regular human private investigator is brought in to find him.  He’s a fish out of water dealing with the Christmas magic.  Why does this sound so familiar?
 
Oh, right, I wrote that story ages ago.  I called it “Lost Claus.”  It was optioned by Warner Bros.  I had to write a second draft for them.  Eventually, the idea of making the movie faded away.  I rewrote it as a novel.  I rewrote it as a radio program.  I wrote a couple of sequel novels and sequel radio programs.
 
I have a long chain of evidence that my version existed first.  However, my script is now useless.  There was recent interest, but it’ll all disappear now.  The Fast & Furious team came in with their version, all juiced up on steroids (did you see the shirtless Claus in this version?) and turned into an action movie.  My screenplay is dead (again).  

I needed to see this like I needed a poke in the eye with a peppermint stick.

Well, maybe I can ride these red coat tails and sell some books.  That would be nice.

Link below:

​Congrats to The Radio Theatre Project and Matt Cowley for being awarded "Best Mixing" for the production of my script, "The Nick Files: Lost Claus" at the Atlanta Fringe Festival 2024!
You can hear the episode and learn more here:

Back in December, I had a 2-for of Christmas cheer.  The Florida Radio Project did two of my scripts.  First (second will be another post), they did a new version of "The Nick Files: Lost Claus."  After having written a couple of radio adaptions of my Nick Flebber stories I took a look back at "Lost Claus" which was, to be honest, a glorified radio sketch that was a cross between my original screenplay and a comic story I made to parody my old K-mart job.  So, I attempted to fill it out with some scenes from the original versions and beef up my page count/run time to 30 minutes.  Then I sent it out.  And it sleigh-ed the audience.  Ha!  Check it out for yourself:

It's been announced that my radio script, "Cupid is As Cupid Does" was the winner in this year's MTB Audio Drama Scriptwriting Competition, which celebrates exciting aural storytelling! 

The script is an adaptation of my short story that was published in "Love and Other Distractions: An Anthology by 14 Hollywood Writers."  You can pick up a copy today.  All proceeds go to charity!

The story is a sequel of sorts to my film script "Lost Claus." I've been working on several episodes of a project I call "The Nick Files," where the detective character, Nick Flebber, is called in to solved other odd-ball cases.  I started adapting them to radio, getting the idea from the time I took the film script and knocked it down to a 15-minute sketch for Prairie Home Companion.  They didn't produce it, but I sent it around to various radio groups and it's been produced.  I followed that up with an adaptation of my book "Author in the First" and then found a home with the Lakes Area Radio Theater.  They have produced "Never Say Never Neverland Again," "The Leprechaun Job" and "Spoiler Alert" but I'm still waiting for them to post the shows online.

Wow, this post went off in a lot of directions at once.

Well, time and Yuletide wait for no man (that's a line from my book).  This is Little Christmas, Three Kings Day, The Epiphany, the Twelfth day of Christmas.   Screw it, I'm going to wind up the holiday season by repeating myself.  Here' s the Prairie Home Companion production of my song parody, the 12 Days of Christmas!

If you liked this bit of holiday fun, you'll love my book, Lost Claus, the story of a tough PI and an elf who have to save Christmas.  It's over at Amazon.  Buy a copy today!  Yule be glad you did!