As the great Christopher Walken in the classic ANNIE HALL says "I tell you this because, as an artist, I think you'll understand"...

Something i need to sort through my feelings about, pertaining to screenwriting, and it's not really FB material, so I thought I'd share with my fellow artists.

So a few years ago, I had a project with a director attached who had made studio films. I also had one of the principals of both the CAPTAIN AMERICA movies and the TV show ONCE UPON A TIME attached.

We had people ready to match first money, which took us a while to arrange, since this was a $5MM budget. And then we were very close to getting funded - or so we thought.

My agent at the time brings this guy around. Very credible. Very knowledgeable about financing. Does something in finance I can't even understand, like arbitrage or derivatives or some crap. And he wants to get into movies now.

Supposedly he loves the script. And his model is 'asset based financing' where banks issue LOCs against an asset - this time a mine in Chile that he is supposedly partners in.

So it looks like it all checks out, and... fast forward, I won't bore you with more details, but over a year later, we found out we were being scammed.

I didn't lose any money - luckily we finally sniffed him out before anyone deposited anything - but other people in other projects did lose money. And he had multiple lawsuits against him, and eventually the hammer was going to come down.

However i had lost a valuable year plus of my life going down the road with this person, and eventually all the attachments dropped out. We had lost a lot of credibility.

Fast forward again, and I find out a couple of weeks ago that he's dead.  Supposedly from natural causes, though someone I spoke to who did lose money to this guy said 'my first reaction was - is there a body? I wouldn't put it past him to fake his death.'

So I tell you this for two reasons - one, there are tons of guys out there like this guy, pretending to have cash, pretending to be a part of the business, so be VERY careful.

The other reason is that I feel cheated. The guy is dead, and he leaves behind a wife and kids, and yet I wanted him to pay for what he did. And he never will. Unless you count death as paying.

This is terrible, Anthony. The worst part is that the attached names had to drop out. Just too bad. Hopefully something else comes your way real soon to take your mind off it.

Some people must have a special gene that makes them lie like that. The lying gene.

More so trying to reconcile my feelings about him. I don't have him around to hate any more. And I'm trying to feel bad for his wife and kids, and all I can do is come back to the thought that one day he would go to jail and I'd feel better...

A sad and twisted tale for sure - thanks for sharing. The world is filled with these types sadly.

Be glad you got out when you did. A lot worse could have happened with this guy. As you can see too, shit spreads... so even being in concern with this guy, no matter how minor, is going to spread to you a little too.

Hopefully, things are going well with other projects. Good luck... and thanks for sharing. Gives us all a heads up.

I remember that project. Was following it on FB too. Really sad to hear this. This biz is full of stuff like that though. Don't know if you remember, but that reality show I was working on some years back, it set me and a couple of other people back 85K.

This biz is like swimming with sharks, but it's also like an extreme rollercoaster ride. Some exhilarating ups and some crushing lows. Sometimes I feel like a fool for continuing to crawl back to the whipping post.

Hope you find some new funding or start a new project.

Pia

Ouch Pia. Yes I remember you telling me about that project however I had no idea it had such a financial impact on you.

Roller coaster indeed... more lows than highs. But then again, those that quit are the ones who fail.

We've had a rebirth of sorts and have some things going on, and I'll never give up on a project. It just still to this day turns my stomach what this man did.

Well, here's how it went and you can maybe see how it ended up costing so much. This was over a 2.5 year period. If someone had told us at the beginning how much we would end up spending, we would've stopped before we even got going. I would rather have a new kitchen, to be honest, lol.

This is what happened, and I think it's probably fairly common. You have an idea for a movie or in our case a TV reality show. You make a little promo for it and start pitching. That promo didn't cost much at all, btw. Then the people you are pitching to tell you they are really intrigued, but your promo is just too amateurish to pitch to the big guys, so you take some time to mull this over and then you decide to take the plunge to make a more professional promo, because at this point, you still strongly believe in your project and you're encouraged that people in the industry are interested.

You make the pro promo. People really like it and tell you to come out to LA to pitch it to some really big people. Okay. We mull this over too. Flying five people to LA, staying at a NICE hotel in a suite because we had  to be able to entertain while we showed our pro promo. We even had a private promo with nude skydiving just for kicks...

We met with some bigger people. Including one famous actor who was willing to invest right then and there. We were stoked!!!! We went back to Florida and started pre-planning our show. Then someone higher up says they really like the idea, but he would like to see our first episode before they committed. Now we're talking a couple of hundred thousand to shoot the first show. At this time, we decided it was way over our budget means, so we had to end it.

The interesting thing here is that the higher up we moved as far as contacts and such went, the more they just expected that we could do. They thought nothing about asking us to film the first episode for a few hundred grand. To them, it was just small potatoes.

I won't get into that situation again. If you like my stuff, buy it. If not, I'm on to my next thing.

Wish you the best on getting yours going again.  

Quoted from Grandma Bear nude skydiving

I can't believe that didn't seal the deal right then and there.

Quoted from Grandma Bear Well, here's how it went and you can maybe see how it ended up costing so much. This was over a 2.5 year period. If someone had told us at the beginning how much we would end up spending, we would've stopped before we even got going. I would rather have a new kitchen, to be honest, lol. This is what happened, and I think it's probably fairly common. You have an idea for a movie or in our case a TV reality show. You make a little promo for it and start pitching. That promo didn't cost much at all, btw. Then the people you are pitching to tell you they are really intrigued, but your promo is just too amateurish to pitch to the big guys, so you take some time to mull this over and then you decide to take the plunge to make a more professional promo, because at this point, you still strongly believe in your project and you're encouraged that people in the industry are interested. You make the pro promo. People really like it and tell you to come out to LA to pitch it to some really big people. Okay. We mull this over too. Flying five people to LA, staying at a NICE hotel in a suite because we had  to be able to entertain while we showed our pro promo. We even had a private promo with nude skydiving just for kicks... We met with some bigger people. Including one famous actor who was willing to invest right then and there. We were stoked!!!! We went back to Florida and started pre-planning our show. Then someone higher up says they really like the idea, but he would like to see our first episode before they committed. Now we're talking a couple of hundred thousand to shoot the first show. At this time, we decided it was way over our budget means, so we had to end it. The interesting thing here is that the higher up we moved as far as contacts and such went, the more they just expected that we could do. They thought nothing about asking us to film the first episode for a few hundred grand. To them, it was just small potatoes. I won't get into that situation again. If you like my stuff, buy it. If not, I'm on to my next thing. Wish you the best on getting yours going again.

Great lesson. Thanks for sharing it