Well, here we go. We did NOT expect the news to leak this early - or, at all, rather - as I attested last night in the Sundance thread, but here we are. Either way, I officially live in bizarro world now...
http://deadline.com/2016/04/sylvester-stallone-omerta-mario-puzo-tv-series-harvey-weinstein-antoine-fuqua-1201745852/
I cannot fully express how long and winding this road has been. These guys have been two of my very best friends going on 13 years now, and I've written with both on side projects here and there in the past. We've been through a ton together in this industry - a lot of good, some bad - but we've never given up, and have stuck with it long after so many other acquaintances called it quits. One of these two lives out of town, but was in LA to pitch their take on this to Harvey the day after my birthday in 2014. That night - at my party - our company, Oil & Cattle, was born out of a serendipitous conversation we had, and ever since setting the company up, we've been able to make incredible inroads simply by saying that two of our four founding partners had written Harvey's passion project. Except we had no proof. And now, we have THIS. And this changes everything for us.
As for the project itself, as the story breifly mentions, Harvey tried for 15 years to make this as a movie. It was my two buddies, in that initial meeting, who had the balls to tell Harvey this wasn't a movie. It was a TV show. They convinced him right then and there, got the job, and ultimtaely delivered, in Harvey's own words, "one of the best scripts I've ever read." Since then, months and months have been dedicated to attaching the right director and star, but things kept falling apart due to circumstances beyond my friends' control. And just when it seemed like things had started to cool a bit, one of my buddies floated an idea by us after seeing Creed. What if STALLONE was the lead? He had never crossed our minds before, but all the sudden he seemed like the perfect fit. Weeks later, Fuqua signed on to direct, and it just so happened that he and Stallone had always wanted to work together. The rest is now history.
Anyway, again, this is big, big day for not only my two partners as a writing team, but for us a company as well. Though this isn't an official Oil & Cattle project, a rising tide lifts all boats. Through sheer hustle and grit we've been able to set up projects all over town - projects I can't wait to tell you guys about once they're official - but the game for us just got a little easier with this news. We have something to point to now. Heck, just in the last hour this has already affected one of our projects in a positive way, as this news spreads like wild fire. And once this show finally airs, the game really changes.
Until then, back to the grindstone...
http://deadline.com/2016/04/sylvester-stallone-omerta-mario-puzo-tv-series-harvey-weinstein-antoine-fuqua-1201745852/
I cannot fully express how long and winding this road has been. These guys have been two of my very best friends going on 13 years now, and I've written with both on side projects here and there in the past. We've been through a ton together in this industry - a lot of good, some bad - but we've never given up, and have stuck with it long after so many other acquaintances called it quits. One of these two lives out of town, but was in LA to pitch their take on this to Harvey the day after my birthday in 2014. That night - at my party - our company, Oil & Cattle, was born out of a serendipitous conversation we had, and ever since setting the company up, we've been able to make incredible inroads simply by saying that two of our four founding partners had written Harvey's passion project. Except we had no proof. And now, we have THIS. And this changes everything for us.
As for the project itself, as the story breifly mentions, Harvey tried for 15 years to make this as a movie. It was my two buddies, in that initial meeting, who had the balls to tell Harvey this wasn't a movie. It was a TV show. They convinced him right then and there, got the job, and ultimtaely delivered, in Harvey's own words, "one of the best scripts I've ever read." Since then, months and months have been dedicated to attaching the right director and star, but things kept falling apart due to circumstances beyond my friends' control. And just when it seemed like things had started to cool a bit, one of my buddies floated an idea by us after seeing Creed. What if STALLONE was the lead? He had never crossed our minds before, but all the sudden he seemed like the perfect fit. Weeks later, Fuqua signed on to direct, and it just so happened that he and Stallone had always wanted to work together. The rest is now history.
Anyway, again, this is big, big day for not only my two partners as a writing team, but for us a company as well. Though this isn't an official Oil & Cattle project, a rising tide lifts all boats. Through sheer hustle and grit we've been able to set up projects all over town - projects I can't wait to tell you guys about once they're official - but the game for us just got a little easier with this news. We have something to point to now. Heck, just in the last hour this has already affected one of our projects in a positive way, as this news spreads like wild fire. And once this show finally airs, the game really changes.
Until then, back to the grindstone...