I’ve been so busy this week I haven’t been able to post but when this hit the Hollywood Reporter today, I couldn’t not use the opportunity to congratulate Jacob Rainer, whose Bigfoot spec, “Wildman,” born out of the Blood & Ink Screenplay Contest, sold.
To give you a little background on this one, earlier this year, Jake Wagner, from Alibi management, called me and said, “Carson, we have to meet. We haven’t talked in forever.” I’ve known Jake all the way back since The Disciple Program, believe it or not. He was one of the first industry people to read that script and say, “This is awesome.”
So we had lunch at Superba on Sunset. Great spot. And he said, “I want to sign some people. I want some fresh writers.” What I knew about Jake was he loves genre stuff. He loves horror. And I said, it just so happens that I’m doing this horror contest called Blood & Ink. I’ll slip you any scripts that I read that are good. As soon as I read Wildman I said, “You may want to check this one out.”
What I didn’t know about Jake is that he LOVES Bigfoot. So he was stoked. He immediately signed Jacob and he gave him the same mission I talked about in the review, which was to streamline the script and just focus on Bigfoot. I came in for a quick set of eyes on the new draft, offered some notes, and credit to Jacob. He wrote another draft FAST.
Jake then went out to about 8 people. And Badlands loved it. And we liked them. Wildman was always, “John Wick with a Bigfoot,” and Badlands is an arm of Thunder Road, who made John Wick. So it was a perfect marriage. Also, they’re about actually making movies. They’re not interested in buying a bunch of projects and letting them linger in development hell. If they buy something, they want to make it. Which means not only is this script getting purchased. There’s a very good chance it will get made!
Dreams do come true!
So keep writing!
And if you need script notes, let me know (e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com). I’m busy but I’ll try to fit you in.
