Alien: Survival - Spec Script by JM Prater & Eric David Wallace

[SiL]

Duly noted.

[oduodu]

I love PO podcasts and Jamie in particular but can totally understand what SM is talking about. He's becoming more and more arrogant lately which is really disturbing ,

who is becoming more and more arrogant ?

i agree with SM. and SIL.

[Kradan]

I love PO podcasts and Jamie in particular but can totally understand what SM is talking about. He's becoming more and more arrogant lately which is really disturbing ,

who is becoming more and more arrogant ?

i agree with SM. and SIL.

JM Praiter (the one who runs PO podcasts)

At least, that the impression I've got.

[oduodu]

oh ok

[TC]

I get it. Breaking into Hollywood is hard - and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Self-promotional press releases in the guise of journalism, in the hope of catching the attention of key players, is standard operating procedure in that town. I hope they don't get disappointed when Variety or The Hollywood Reporter fail to take notice. If they're very lucky, Mr H or Alien Theory will reference the article and use one of their pre-prepared quotes in a YouTube channel. But that's about it.

TC

[SM]

I hope they run a quick spell/ fact check over it first.

[Local Trouble]

I just glossed over their site, but it seems to have more Blade Runner content than anything else.  Did they write a script or something?

[SM]

The podcast used to tout itself as 'the only Alien podcast of its kind' or something similar (not sure if it still does).  Which I found confusing because I think AvPG podcast pre-dates it, and they do talk a lot about Blade Runner amongst other things.

But, despite my criticism, however people want to celebrate their fandom should be encouraged.

[TC]

...
But, despite my criticism, however people want to celebrate their fandom should be encouraged.

Absolutely.

But let's acknowledge the difficulties a fan often faces when trying to convert a fandom into a career. Suddenly you're going from content consumer to content creator. (Although there is now a kind of halfway house in the form of the YouTube "superfan", in which you create regular fanstuff and make a living from clicks.) As a creator, you can no longer insulate yourself in your own echo chamber of personal taste, you have an entire fandom to please, with all its diverse range of opinion.

I don't know much about comics or books, but usually when a fan decides that screenwriting for Hollywood is a good career move the biggest mistake often made is pinning their hopes on a single screenplay that's going to astound everyone with its genius. Maybe this actually happens once in a blue moon, but mostly screenwriting careers are made out of a stack of screenplays forged over a period of 4, 5, 6, maybe even 10 years or more.

When a manager or agent is considering whether or not they want to represent you and looks into your work, they want to see a track record of dedication to an entire career, not just a passion for one story.

And if you ever get that all-important meeting with an actual producer, chances are they're not going pick up an option on your one great script and you better be ready when they ask the next question, "what else ya got?"

And if you've got nothing...

TC

[SiL]

There have been a lot of fan scripts over the years that got a lot of interest. I remember an Alien5 one written years ago that had great concept art and fan response, but -- predictably -- didn't go anywhere.

The reason why you don't hear about fans getting whisked away to make the next film is ... it doesn't happen. "Passionate fan" is not a job qualification

[SM]

I heard that.

[SiL]

I heard that.

As in "Mmhmm preach it" girl I heard that or "hey I do consulting work where my job qualification is literally 'passionate fan'" I heard that.

Cos if the latter I'll add the caveat of "not a job qualification for a screen writer".

[SM]

I was channelling Frost when he says to Hicks, and I quote, "I am in full agreement with that thing what you just said."

[SiL]

That was my first thought, then overthought it

[TC]

There seems to be something missing from that interview / article.

He blames the Fox studio system for the state of the Alien franchise, saying that the entire fandom distrusts them, and yet he plans on going to a meeting with Steve Tzirlin at Fox and pitching his script.

What was he hoping for - that Fox would hand him a deal memo to sign and a big wad of cash, at which point he would laugh in their faces and make his accusations that they, in their ineptitude, was destroying the Alien franchise and he would never allow their studio system to corrupt the purity of his script, and then storm out of the meeting having delivered his devastating gotcha moment?

Clearly not. But he must have had some plan to extract finance and support from Fox while telling them to back off and wait for him to return with the movie all completed. What was this plan?

That's the part that's missing 

TC