Script on the Black List hurts the feelings of John Landis' son
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A script on the Black List is currently making waves by causing the son of a famous director to become butt hurt. Among the best unproduced screenplays of the year is one called "Untitled Lax Mandis Project" a title that is an obvious dig at John Landis' son who has claimed film is dead because you didn't see his stoner movie, says people shouldn't be mad at films who whitewash, hates adaptations but (poorly) adapted Frankenstein, said Rey is the worst because she's a Mary Sue and also denies that he has any kind of privilege. According to The Playlist the film is about "A freshman film exec at odds with the state of his industry is forced to work with the one person who is making him question everything."
However this product of nepotism isn't mad because people are making fun of him, no of course not why would he be, he claims he's only upset because it took up someone else's spot on the Black List! (Sure Jan). He responded with a lengthy Facebook rant where he compared the script being on the list to Trump being elected President.
There's a script that was put out with my name on it to get attention to tracking boards. It is the story of a frustrated creative executive who is forced to work with a talentless megalomaniac wunderkind screenwriter called "Lax Mandis."
This is actually the fourth script I've read in which I or some version of me is a character, and the second in which I am a villain. It is however the first to unknowingly feature my old Unreal Tournament gamertag. (Gasp shock the horror not your old gamertag! 😱)
I was only able to get through a couple pages. Disappointingly bad writing, (You would know) but such I guess could be expected given the unbelievably lazy and superficial criticism of the industry I was able to glean. I mean we're talking sub-Entourage levels of insight; the script talks like it's Swimming with Sharks or The Player but then has the execution and knowledge base of a first year film student who just blew up on his date at Arclight because she didn't appreciate "Prometheus."
Even the opening pages, which attempt to mock Bright, a script the writer clearly hasn't read, fall short in my eyes because of their reliance on a false, simple idea of not just that script (as some kind of quippy Lethal Weapon-esque action film), but of me in general.
So let's get into this.
It's funny. I am good at my job, relatively easy to talk to, and a general momentum keeper in my career has been that I take notes well and am easy and quick to work with. I have worked tirelessly in the last eight years to build and maintain momentum, writing more than any other writer I've met within the industry, trying to help other young writers where I can, offering advice both professional and personal, being available to most anyone who needs me, and have been lucky enough to have found a margin of success.
Nonetheless, I have found my work subject to the heartbreak and frustration common to most screenwriters, and this has led to me increasingly trying to work outside the system, and in some ways change the system itself to empower creators.
Yet inevitably, and in this too, I find that the character of "Max Landis" is some kind of hyperactive Studio-hack, something I've never been; a kind of eccentric, goofball music man-type figure whose work has the depth of a thimble. It's not real enough to hurt my feelings, but it is weird enough to creep me out.
See, this person, the writer of this weirdly congratulated script, this poor, frustrated, jealous and sad guy sitting alone typing out a hundred page condemnation of a person he's never met, (Almost like how you do with anyone who disagrees with you or reviews you poorly...) through criticism of an industry he seems to barely understand, this image to me is deeply tragic. He's wasted so much time and so many words on something that essentially amounts to an angry tweet.
The positioning of "creative exec" as an earnest, virtuous hero and an empowered screenwriter as villain is deeply telling about this person's understanding of and station within the industry. I pity them, but my god, I'd never want to meet them. Although it certainly does help, I assume, to get votes on a list assembled by creative executives.
To me, the dark part isn't just that I'm shocked a script with such bad dialogue and plodding pacing made it onto the list; there is a worst part of this, and it doesn't involve me.
The bad part, the really rough part, is that the script isn't a good writing sample. It's not a good script. And this is coming from a guy who once really enjoyed a script where "Max Landis" got killed as a joke in a terrorist attack on a gay orgy.
Make fun of me all you want. Everyone does, it's easy, I'm weird and loud and I understand that my success could bother you.
That's not my problem.
My problem is that what is essentially a self indulgent, masturbatory 100 something page troll tweet temper tantrum was allowed to take the spot of some other actual script with an actual story someone felt passionate about on The Black List.
It even being on there is a Donald Trumpesque populist nothing. It turns the list into an insider joke. The only reason the script got any attention at all was that they literally put my real name on the cover, briefly fooling and confusing even my own agents into calling me in confusion.
It's as clean a shark jump as you could hope for for a tradition that that used to be a wonderful venue for underexposed writers to find recognition.
I'd say "they should be ashamed," but judging by the frustration and laziness of what I read, they definitely already are.
In summation:
You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation
Always stay gracious best revenge is your paper
Source 1, 2 and 3
Are you upset that this script made the Black List?
