First, the sci-fi project. My writing partner, W.A. and I have been going back and forth on outlines for a few months now. I write them, based on notes and discussions we have, and then he sends his comments. I revise, we meet if need be, and then we show the latest incarnation to our producer. Maybe a month and a half ago, we got some note from her that spurred on a major overhaul of the outline. The result has been a drastically new version of the script, albeit with the fundamentals still in tact, which W.A. and I are both very keen on. He got me some notes on it two weeks ago, and yesterday I was finally able to get the edited copy out to him. I know that W.A. has already mentioned the project to some industry people in general meetings, and there's been interest. He's a bit of a known commodity, so it's nice to already have a bit of an in with it. Either way, I hope to be able to start writing pages soon. Once he - and our producer - gives the thumbs up for the latest draft, it's off to the races.
The post-Apocalyptic spec, meanwhile, is still on its unending and varied ride to a (hoped-for) sale. After being on the market a couple years, it still hasn't sold, much to the bafflement of my producing team. At this point, we're looking into adapting it for the graphic novel medium as a way to generate some "source material" that might make buyers more comfortable with the big budget project. We've been in talks with an artist, who is interested in working on the project. More so, though, we've also had meetings with an editor who works for a known (though not upper echelon, DC or Marvel type) publisher. All in all, the team has managed to get some interesting ideas circulating.
One approach, and perhaps the most obvious, would be to literally convert the script as is into a graphic novel. This would be nearly a page for pag adaptation of the project. It wouldn't be very different (maybe a bit streamlined), so the work on my end would be minimal, but it would require a lot of time and commitment from an artist. We have also talked about doing a full length graphic novel, but a different version of the story all together. This, though, would essentially necessitate me writing a brand new screenplay for a project that's already been tested on the market, which I'm not so sure is a wise investment of time. My producers agree; if the script hasn't sold in two years, and I have other projects in the works, then why focus on rewriting the script for another medium without a guarantee that it would even get picked up in that industry?
The third (though not final) option that we're starting to gravitate more and more toward is that we do a one-time short story related to the world and characters of the script. If we can produce and print, say, a ten-page story set in the post-Apocalyptic world and use that as a means to attract attention, then why not? We've already found - through that one editor - a means to do it in a way that would enable us to pay the artist (and therefore lessen the extent to which he would require some sort of creator credit). The periodical prints, publishes, and gets distributed, so it's a better bet than self publishing a story. And, we'd have something visual to put before buyers. Given that it's a short, there also wouldn't be an overwhelming time commitment on my end, which is another plus.
We haven't locked into anything yet, and there is still a ton up in the air, but it's exciting to be exploring these alternatives. Who knows what will come of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment