Tales From the Script

There are 3 million stories in the naked city, and most of them are screenplays. Since the explosion of the spec script market during the past year, everyone, it seems, has an idea for the next high-concept blockbuster. Working without a studio contract, veterans and newcomers alike are free to tell their story their way. Some of them are even lucky enough to sell it.

After the sale of Joe Eszterhas’ “Basic Instinct” for $3 million, the Hollywood buzz virtually broke the sound barrier. Eszterhas, 46, a former reporter for “Rolling Stone,” had written 14 original screenplays, five of them on spec. He sold them all, but never for anything approaching this record payoff.

“Basic Instinct,” like Eszterhas’ “Jagged Edge,” is the kind of sexy thriller with two starring roles (Michael Douglas has been cast and rumor has it Michelle Pfeiffer will sign) that makes producers see dollar signs. The result was an intense bidding war between two ex-partners, neither of whom were at all put off by the mediocre box office returns for Eszterhas’ previous two scripts--”Betrayed” and “Music Box.”

Relative unknowns also have taken advantage of the industry’s spec script fever. Peter Filardi, 28, sold his screenplay for “Flatliners” early last year for $400,000. Not as high as some, but considering that he previously had sold only a script for an episode of the television series “MacGyver,” it was not a bad deal.

Filardi moved to Los Angeles in 1986, after studying English literature and film at Boston University, to peddle two scripts he had written for television’s “Miami Vice.” While waiting for his big break, he wrote, produced and directed commercials for Security Shutters, a product hawked on late-night TV. Without a track record, Filardi thought he had no choice but to write on spec. Now he wants to keep it that way. “Flatliners,” a dramatic thriller about a group of medical students who experiment with near-death experiences, is the first of the current barrage of spec scripts to reach the screen, and its box office performance will be closely watched by industry executives.

Brian Helgeland and Manny Coto already knew how the spec game worked when they hit paydirt this year. Helgeland had written the screenplay for “976-Evil” and the fourth installment of “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Coto is a graduate of the American Film Institute and had directed two independent features. They were both 29 and tired of working in obscurity. Talking on the phone one night, they decided not to hang up until they had come up with an idea for a million dollar screenplay. What if a nuclear weapon became sentient? asked Coto. They were sure they had a can’t-miss concept; and so was their agent.

A week before the script was ready to circulate, the agency sent out ticking clocks to industry executives. “The Ticking Man” generated a bidding war and was sold for $1 million. (Bruce Willis has been cast, and a spring start is anticipated.) “With a spec script you can leap-frog up,” Helgeland says. “People know who you are and that’s what the game is all about.”

Not all spec scripts move as fast as “The Ticking Man.” Laurence Dworet, 40, and Robert Roy Poole, 36, wrote “Ultimatum” in 1980 when, in the shadow of the Iran hostage crisis, the climate was not right for the tale of a presidential adviser battling terrorists.

Poole and Dworet had met at UCLA film school and wrote two more scripts together on assignment but neither was produced. In the meantime, Dworet kept his job as an emergency room doctor, and Poole adapted a few novels for the screen. “Ultimatum” was resurrected last year when Poole met a producer at a poker game who asked if he had any scripts in the closet. Playing off the interest stirred by “The Hunt for Red October,” their agent sent the script out and sold it for $500,000. Steven Spielberg reportedly is interested in directing.

Jim Gorman, 29, and Michael Beckner, 26, knew they’d have a hard time pitching “Texas Lead and Gold” but they wanted to write a western so badly that they went ahead and did it anyway. Beckner, a fiction writing student at USC, did most of the writing while Gorman, a graduate of USC’s Peter Stark producing program, became the film’s producer. “Texas Lead and Gold,” an adventure story reminiscent of “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” went for $1 million to the first bidder. “I don’t enjoy the spec ride,” Beckner says. “I’d rather be writing than waiting for the phone to ring. We were flattered we got as much as we did.”

David Mickey Evans may have gotten more than he bargained for when he used his “Radio Flyer” screenplay to leverage an assignment from Columbia Pictures to direct the film. He was to be paid $600,000 for the script and $500,000 for directing, but no one was surprised when the 27-year-old virtual unknown was fired two weeks into the shoot. (Richard Donner has been asked to take over the directorial reins.)

“Radio Flyer,” the story of two young brothers who escape into a fantasy world, was the first original script Evans had taken to the majors, but he has written 21 screenplays, supporting himself through college and graduate school at Loyola Marymount University by writing low-budget horror pictures for the foreign market. Undaunted by the directing debacle, Evans is hard at work on, you guessed it, another spec script.