Timing Is Everything When You’re Selling Doom

Before the new normal, a former Rhodes Scholar told me that after the Soviet Union collapsed, 84 Soviet “briefcase nukes”--each a potential Hiroshima--were “lost.” When “found,” any Bill Gates with a double-Y chromosome could become a nuclear power by signing a check. So?

Think of the box office.

I’d written an autobiographical novel, “Aloha,” about rich Hawaiian surfer-astronauts killing each other and the girls who loved them, but my tale refused to rise above genre. Now, a perfect twist to help it along: the end of the world. Not a sad “Blade Runner” end of the world but a rapturous, feel-good, mushroom-cloudy, Christ-comes-back end of the world, where power is in the hands of a sexy, enlightened, psychotic elite. A golden retriever couldn’t botch a concept this linear, and I was invited to 20th Century Fox to pitch my still-unborn book to a movie alchemist whom my agent described as then-mogul Sherry Lansing’s “right arm.”

I knew that Rule No. 1 of pitching boldly amorphous movie ideas is never write anything down. Because anything in writing can be objected to. No problem. My idea was too cinematic for words--but sadly, I found myself pitching a hookah dream.

What might happen if, on the death of its founder, a huge construction consortium such as Halliburton fell to young heirs who were ambitious geniuses with access to “briefcase nukes”--and also crazy?

Blockbuster apocalypse.

I compressed the idea to this: “Think ‘GoodFellas’ but with H-bombs.”

Still, no worries. Already my soul was headed for the pawnshop thanks to Rule No. 2: A pitch is like a lie that is true, but only if you can sell it. I benched Christ and, descending to boots-on-the-ground death and dismemberment, was delighted when the lovely Right Arm said, “That’s horrifying.” Horror is good. I was less delighted to hear, “This sounds complicated.” (Rule No. 3: “Complicated” usually means “no.”)

Days later, bad news. Lansing’s partner Stanley Jaffe concluded that filming the apocalypse of “Aloha” could cost more in special effects than any movie ever, $50 million just for stuff that would get blown up. What cost half a can of Budweiser wherewithal-wise to write, God might not have enough money to film.

But soon, new hope for the dead. Disaster movies were going bananas. “Aloha” would be “Titanic,” with the world as the boat. Published by Simon & Schuster, my 1994 novel sailed into Steven Spielberg’s office on strong reviews. A top movie agent called to say that he loved “Aloha” and could he stop by my house in Long Beach and . . . how did he get my phone number?

Then it occurred to somebody that $50 million in special effects was still $50 million in special effects--goodbye deal.

But time flies. The good news: In the New Computer-Aided-Design Normal, $50 million in special effects no longer is a problem. A high school kid with a hot rod Mac could level Honolulu for a digital dime. The bad news: After 9/11, my agent concluded “noir” doom was dead. Who wanted to see an irradiated future when the present already was so grim? So no “Aloha” and, truth be told, our world may be better for it.

Meanwhile, I’m still thinking about Rule No. 4: First, find a hit film. Then give them something exactly the same but completely different. “Rapture II” will be so slam dunkable my dog can make the pitch.