Good Enough to Option Isn’t Good Enough
The story was Hollywood picture-perfect: a handsome husband wrongly accused of killing his beautiful wife and young stepson in a rowboat off the beach in Malibu for a big life insurance payoff. He was a personal friend, someone with whom we were raising our young kids. No way, we thought. Overzealous prosecutor, we thought.
Our friend was convicted and sent to Folsom for life. And we, longtime reporters, dug deep and long in the hopes of getting him freed. Instead--surprise--we discovered the jury was right. Not only was he guilty, he may very well have killed his first wife as well. We wrote the story for a California magazine and cataloged the long journey that led us to this terrible conclusion.
When the story was published, producers began offering option checks. Our story would make a terrific movie, or maybe a four-hour miniseries --at the very least a two-hour TV flick.
Producer one teamed up with Network A, which saw the protagonist as a Ted Bundy type--a devilish ladies’ man with a block of ice for a heart that never thawed despite the sun perpetually shining on his trendy Malibu lifestyle. Then came one of the occasional pushes to reduce violence on TV. Murder was out, especially when it involved an innocent kid. Exit Network A.
Network B loved the story but wanted to soften the tale. Easygoing parents with two kids (that was us) who discover that their fellow soccer coach is a cold-blooded killer. We’d barely begun the new script when Network B called for changes. Let’s make the killer a secondary character--and do it as a “Rashomon”-like story in which the colorful denizens of Malibu each have differing takes on the accused.
“Tell the story through the neighbors’ eyes, taking audiences into their beachfront estates,” said the network story honcho at one of the story conferences. No one liked the new script. Exit Network B.
Enter Network C, with a twist. What about concentrating on the wives--two high school friends. No, make that best friends: my wife and the murdered woman. That would go down well with the crowd at Lifetime, which at the time was billing itself as the “television for women” channel. A new script lasted about as long as the Lifetime executive’s hold on her corner office.
An independent producer suggested that cable was the way to go. We could get more graphic--topless at the beach, throw in some four-letter words. Forget the real story. Toss out the murder-for-insurance motive--too run-of-the-mill. My wife and his wife have a lesbian relationship that leads to a revenge killing by the ego-damaged, embarrassed husband.
The next cable channel preferred the “family in jeopardy” angle. In that incarnation, our family is threatened by the suspected killer, who hasn’t yet been arrested for the drowning deaths. But now he knows that we know. So he’s coming to get us.
“Love it,” said the producer of the month. “But let’s up the ante. You’re paralyzed and in a wheelchair. That would attract the disabled audience.”
Thrilled by his stunning story twist, he feverishly outlined the final climactic scene: “He comes after you and tries to push you and your wheelchair into the pool--just seconds before the cops show up to save you.”
By this time even we realized that desperation had set in. The killer remains incarcerated. Our children have children of their own. We no longer live in Malibu.