John August

Projects

Regarding the Gyllenhaal rumor

Projects, Shazam

According to the internet, Jake Gyllenhaal is playing Captain Marvel. I’ll be sure to let the studio, producers, and director know.

Sigh.

It’s frustrating how in the digital age, random speculation turns to fact in about .003 seconds. And once it starts, it’s like a tire fire: any attempt to extinguish it merely creates a lot more smoke.

Since it’s impossible to put the conflagration out, we can at least try to figure out how this case of celebrity arson began. My hunch is that it was a combination of factors:

1. The announcement that I got hired to write the movie.
5. The Captain Marvel illustrations that ran with the story, leading to questions of, “Who does that look like?”
2. Gyllenhaal’s recent visibility in Zodiac.
3. Jake’s sister Maggie being hired for the new Batman.
6. Recent trailers and leaked photos from Spider-Man 3, re-igniting…
4. …the [old rumor](http://www.stupidscifi.com/mambo/n46-Spiderman_2_trouble.html) that Jake Gyllenhaal was replacing Tobey Maguire.

Amplifying all of these factors is what I call the Sticky Celebrity Constant: associating a recognizable star with a concept makes it exponentially more interesting. For example…

**Re-hab.** Depressing.
**Britney Spears in rehab.** Fascinatingly depressing, like a clown with cancer.

**Adoption.** Laudable but dull.
**Angelina Jolie adopting again.** Worth at least five minutes on The View.

**Established screenwriter hired to adapt obscure comic-book character.** Yawn.
**Jake Gyllenhaal considering playing obscure comic-book character.** Hooray!

But the thing is, he’s not considering. I can pretty much assure you he’s never heard of the project. And we’ve never discussed him. We’ve never seriously discussed anyone.

After several months of meetings, casting has come up exactly zero times. There’s no casting list. If there were a list, Gyllenhaal’s name would probably be on it, but trust me: there is no list. There’s no start date, no release date, no movie whatsoever. There’s just a script to be written. Which I should probably get back to.

But if you happen to bump into the internet, please tell him what I said.

Publicity 101

Big Fish, Charlie, Film Industry, Follow Up, News

Last night, the [Writers Guild Foundation](http://www.wgfoundation.org/) held a panel discussion about publicity. I was one of the panelists, but I ended up learning a fair amount myself.

For example, according to a Variety editor, it’s perfectly okay for a screenwriter to pick up the phone and call a writer at the trades when you’ve sold a project.Announcements like this run all the time (c.f. Shazam!). It has to be legit, of course. Optioning a script to your roommate, who is an aspiring producer-slash-drummer, doesn’t count. It’s strange: in this blog, I’m constantly telling aspiring screenwriters to stop asking for permission and just do what they want to do. But I honestly wouldn’t be ballsy enough to call an unknown writer at the trades to do this.

Chris Day, who runs publicity for my agency (UTA) brought with him a memo I’d written in the Big Fish era. At his suggestion, I was meeting with publicists, and had listed my goals and messages.I was an advertising major, so this kind of publicity-speak comes naturally. I promised attendees at the panel that I would find the original memo and post a .pdf of it. So here it is: [Big Fish publicity goals](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/pub_goals.pdf).

One of the questions that came from the audience–but probably should have started out the evening–was, What is the point of publicity, exactly? Most of us aren’t looking to be famous per se, and unlike a novelist, our names alone aren’t going to be selling books.

The Writers Guild Foundation stresses that any time a screenwriter gets press, that helps all screenwriters. And to some degree, that’s true. [There are no famous screenwriters](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/are-you-somebody), but it would be nice if the general public had some sense that movies are actually written, and that the actors aren’t making up their dialogue.

But I’d say the main reason to think about publicity is to help the movies and TV shows you’re involved with. The screenwriter tends to know more about the story than anyone else on the project, so you can be a crucial resource as journalists figure out how to write about the plot. I’ve attended a half-dozen junkets, and have rarely seen myself directly quoted. But I recognize a lot of what I’ve said in the stories that are written. If I can help create a consistent, positive message, then I’ve done my job.

The other reason to think about publicity is in terms of your overall career. I have no doubt that I’ve gotten meetings with certain directors and actors because of repeated exposure to my name. It’s nice if someone likes Big Fish. It’s even better if they remember I wrote it. Every time a news story includes the phrase, “…August, whose credits include Big Fish, Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory…” that’s like refreshing the cache on someone’s internal IMDb.

The Big Red Cheese

News, Projects

[captain marvel]And now, the answer to speculation about why I was busy reading up on DC Comics mythology. As [announced today](http://replay.web.archive.org/20080718233550/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i119db77792cbaa01e58b9c970709fb13) in The Hollywood Reporter, I’m writing Captain Marvel. And I’m very, very stoked.

The movie is set up at New Line, with Pete Segal attached to direct. For those who aren’t [rabid fans](http://www.marvelfamily.com/) of the character, here’s the briefest of introductions.The Wikipedia article is terrific, and worth a read if you’re curious.

Captain Marvel is a superhero roughly as powerful as Superman, minus the heat-vision and cold breath.That’s a lazy comparison, but in my experience, the average moviegoer is familiar with roughly five superheroes: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man and Wolverine. And of those, Supes is the closest. What’s unique about the character is that in ordinary life, he’s teenager Billy Batson. Speaking the name of the wizard who gave him his powers (Shazam) calls down a magic thunderbolt, transforming him into the studly superhero. But he’s still a teenager in there.

If this to you sounds, “Like Big, but with superpowers,” then congratulations! You now understand Hollywood.

The process of getting hired to write it has taken months. It started with a call from my agent, asking, “Hey, have you ever heard of Captain Marvel?”

The answer was an enthusiastic yes. I was vaguely aware of the character growing up,Yes, I saw the live-action show. Let us never speak of it again. but it wasn’t until the character’s recent resurgence in the DC Comics universe that I started paying attention. Not more than a month before my agent’s call, I’d read a JSA and thought to myself…Someone should make a Captain Marvel movie. And now they were.

Pete Segal and producing parter, Michael Ewing, had already signed on, so the next step was meeting with them and figuring out if we shared the same tone for the movie. It’s not *Spider-Man* plus jokes. It’s a comic book movie where the characters in it read comics. The story needs to be funny and dramatic even if the villain never shows up. (Don’t worry, there’s a great villain.)

Once we agreed on the framework for the movie, [Geoff Johns](http://www.geoffjohns.com/) from DC was gracious enough to come in and idiot-check it for us. Having witnessed the uproar over Spidey’s organic web-shooters, we were all sensitive towards cavalierly changing things. Fortunately, Captain Marvel is pretty movie-friendly already, so we hadn’t bent or broken any mythology.

Between my time at Sundance and Pete’s prep schedule for his next movie (Get Smart), it took weeks to get a meeting with New Line. Going in for the pitch, I was warned that there would be a lot of people in the room. But I wasn’t prepared for the fact that four of the attendees would be sitting in by videoconference. It was incredibly awkward, but I got through it. And I got the job.

In my head, the movie’s called Captain Marvel, but for legal reasons, it will almost certainly be some variation on Shazam! I grumble because people will inevitably assume that the hero’s name is Shazam, when it’s not — Shazam is the old wizard. It’s like calling the Harry Potter movies “Dumbledore.” Then again, the hero isn’t a Captain, and doesn’t live in the Marvel universe. So you’re going to have confusion either way.

I can already anticipate the natural questions which will come up, most of which I can only answer, “I don’t know” or “I’m not allowed to say.” And I should re-iterate the standard disclaimer: most movies don’t get made. But I’m really hoping this one does.

The Week in Review

Los Angeles, News, Projects, The Nines

It’s been a busy week, and the next few days promise to be equally action-packed. So I thought I’d do a quick recap before two weeks go by without any real updates.

Boulder
====
I gave a lecture on screenwriting at the [Boulder International Film Festival](http://biff1.com). It’s always weird going back to your home town, and even stranger going back as the resident expert in a field. The talk went well, with many good questions in the follow-up.

Family obligations kept me from seeing any movies at the festival, though my brother enjoyed Air Guitar Nation.

Obama
====

Barack Obama’s campaign visit to Los Angeles included a fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton. All of the articles about it somehow overlooked that I was there too, elbow-to-elbow with billionaires and movie stars. But that’s probably a good thing. After my trip to Boulder, it was nice to be reduced to my proper role: observer.

And from what I observed, Obama’s wife Michelle is the underestimated force here. Yes, Barack Obama is a terrific speaker, but Michelle is funnier. Together, they feel like they came from an alterate-universe Earth where hope prevails.

Dugg
====

My article about [what I learned from World of Warcraft](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/seven-things-warcraft) got linked on [Digg](http://digg.com/movies/Seven_Things_I_Learned_from_World_of_Warcraft_2), which predictably overwhelmed the poor servers and made the site run very slowly for a day or two.It would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t installed a plug-in which automatically cached the page on Coral. The graphs tell the story:

page views

dugg trends

The fact that I was out of town was an added complication, particularly when I found I had linked to the wrong David Allen, who was upset to be getting false hits.

What did I learn from being Dugg? First, it’s important to have the right initiator. The first Digg-er put the article in the video category, which was clearly a mistake, but that led all future hits that way. Fortunately, frequent commenter [Andreas Climent](http://digg.com/users/andreascliment/news/dugg) got it set right.

Second, the discussion on the Digg thread inevitably focuses back on itself, rather than the story being linked. One commenter posted a highly-edited summary of the article which completely missed the point, and no amount of correction on the part of other readers could get it back on track.

The Nines
====
Optimum Releasing bought the movie for the U.K., with other deals set to be announced soon. It’s this post-post-production phase that I hadn’t anticipated being so busy. This week, we’re working on French subtitles. Comment dit-ons “nervous breakdown”?

The Next Movie I’m Writing
====
The deal’s not done, but my earlier allusions to D.C. mythology (and alternate Earths) were project-specific. I hope to be able to say what it is soon. And yes, it’s cruel of me to leave it floating out there.