Film Courage: How long after selling your first screenplay did you sell your second?
Jim Agnew, Screenwriter: It happened pretty quick because
the next screenplay I don't know if it was the next thing we wrote but I come up one day I
was at the Tower Records, the old one that used where you could rent videos and DVDs.
Film Courage: On Sunset?
Jim: Yes they had two. The one across the street the one that had the dvd store in it
and I was looking at DVDs. I had this idea it was like Dario Argento I saw his he had a
section. I was like his movies are cool and I watched a lot of his movies from the 70's
it's like we should do a retro kind of Dario Argento film and that was when horror was really
hitting its peak in like 2007-2008. So it's like let's just write a 70's type thing that has all
those tropes and just have fun with it and we did. Literally I don't know how this happens,
two months later this friend of mine who's from Italy goes Oh you have something like
Dario's movies? I'll send it to Dario. Okay I didn't really know this guy that well so
and then I get a call like a week later it's Dario Argento on the phone from Italy. He's
like I love your script. I want to do it. So that movie got made. I don't the universe just wanted
that movie to get made. We had a lot of problems with the production but it was just strange. It
was like one day and sometimes the universe just kind of leads you right in certain directions
because I just was like I like his movies let's do something like his a retro 70's throwback film
and then he literally directed it and Adrien Brody was in it so it's how does this happen
from from the concept of being in that video store like a year later I was in Italy on set so
sometimes things just have a weird synergy projects have a weird synergy too that's the
other thing people have to realize it's happened to me on so many where I'm banging my head trying
to get this movie made and it's just not working and then sometimes you write something and every
step of the way it just snows balls it connects at the right time and right place I don't know
why but it just does and that did and it's about a missing model yeah because that's what all the
70's movies were about like missing pretty girls so it leaned into all those tropes of
it was like this this girl who was a model went missing her sister's looking for her in a
and doesn't speak the language and finds this American who actually does and helps her out
so yeah the movies got some problems but it was it was fun to make and it was a great adventure
and Dario's an amazing person and a great director another again I've been I feel like
I've had the million dollar film school because I've got to work with so many great people
so yeah so that was that was that taught me a lot about how things can go wrong on a movie which
I'm not going to go into too much detail but a lot of stuff went wrong mostly with the money
and the budgets and we didn't have as much money to finish the film so halfway through
you find that out it's like it's it was a real a lot of problems not creatively but
on the business end of the film was it filmed in Italy yeah oh I see okay yeah great wow it
looks like a good I gotta go to Italy for three months yeah that's nice that was fun to sell
a screenplay do you have to really believe you can sell it yeah I think you need to believe in
in the in the screenplay you have to believe in yeah because it's a hustle especially
if it's your first one so you need to really believe in it you it needs to be something that
you believe in something that you think you could sell and you just need to be kind of relentless
but if it doesn't work out you need to move on to the next script because the question is you
need to ask yourself as a up and coming screenplay writer and if you want to do this for a living do
you want to write things for yourself to direct do you want to be a working screenwriter because if
you're if you get to the level where you're taking jobs which has happened to me on several projects
I'm getting hired to write something there's like an adaptation of a book or a comic book
so I don't have any say in the creative thing but you can get paid very well to like do that work
so are you doing it for yourself are you doing it because you want to constantly write now if you
want to do it as a living in that sense where you're writing all the time you don't get to
choose all the time what you want to write you may have to do a rewrite you may have to do this
so it becomes more about work than like just believing just in the project you have to believe
in yourself and it becomes more about like just doing the work and doing the work correctly and
efficiently and on time so when things haven't panned out have you had like a heart to heart with
yourself like well I didn't really believe in it yeah no I think because most those those projects
I'll get rid of them before they get to that point like I won't finish them or even if I do
I'll be honest about like I don't think anybody's going to want to buy this I think it's great
but no one's going to want to make it because the other thing too is like you have to really
realize that in regards to indie films or smaller 10 million under film the only way they're really
going to get financed unless you have a rich uncle is that you have to have actors in them you have
to name actors that finance the film you can't just ask somebody for five million dollars and say
the guy from vampire diaries who's the fifth lead is gonna be the lead in it it's not gonna work
they're gonna wanna name actor they're gonna be like okay we want Frank Grillo and we want John
Travolta we want to make sure that we can make our money back so you have to also think too is
that project appealing to actors that will get your movie made because that's a big important
component to the whole process so you've been in situations where you think you like it but
you don't think others will or a producer will how do that that's the case just instinct just
kind of knowing what and it might not be the right time to put something out too
because it's like okay these movies are hot horror movies are hot right now all anybody wants to make
are these so you just have to be really honest with yourself and it you can send it out but you
only have so many shots of like getting people to read things too if you keep sending them junk
you're not gonna get anywhere even even I'm very careful never to send my agents and managers
too much stuff because I'll be like oh that was okay so I only try to send them the best
stuff that I do can you think of a screenplay of yours that you did not think would sell
and did yes broken vows which was made with Jamie Alexander and Wes Bentley yeah it was just it was
a script that my writing partner and I wrote and then we weren't really too happy with it we knew
it was good but it wasn't great and we just kind of stuck it in a drawer and then I got a call like
two or three years later from a producer friend of mine said hey do you got anything that can be
made for two and a half million dollars and we're looking for a thriller or something in that genre
so I was like yeah here we we never sent this out we never gave it to our agent even to read check
it out it's good we can maybe work on a little bit more make it better and then I get called like a
week later like okay cool we got the financing let's make it so that was like literally like
just finding a movie in a drawer because it was just sitting in a file but I also think
two part of that is that goes back to what I'm saying about some of the stuff that I think
is not up to to par it's still I've written some some things that are very professional and could
get made but I don't want to like take my shots with those because I just think they're not
maybe they're 90 and they're not 100. so I think even something that on my 90 because I've worked
on so many things is still good enough to turn into a film the opportunity just arose that this
was a good opportunity to take that film that was like 90 there and they were looking for something
like that so it worked great did you think it was too edgy no it just seemed I don't know
I don't know why it just didn't it didn't even click with the writers in some ways we knew it
was good but it didn't click with us but then we worked out a little bit more once it got
serious and then it became a different kind of film and became a little bit better so I don't
know it was just a weird situation where it was just script was sitting in a drawer and end up
getting fully financed and made with great actors and I think the actors brought a lot to it too
so it's one of those projects that and that's what you always want is your screenplay can be here
but hopefully the the finished product's one step better sometimes it goes the other direction where
I have one movie which I'm not going to say which movie which everybody who saw
in the film business was the screenplay was great which that's very disheartening when
it should get a step or two better when when it's shot and edited and made into a film
broken vows was like a like a romantic deception or yeah what was it sorry it's been a while
yeah it was like a stalker movie but the guy was a stalker usually you saw it as
as the girls the stalker now they've had quite a few of those I think we wrote it like 2008
and then it got made in 2013. so it was it was that the guy was like obsessed with the
woman and I mean they've made quite a few of those since then so it was Wes Bentley that
yeah the obsessed oh yes yeah he's great great to work with a great guy
so yeah and so from that time that you got that call where they said hey what do you got hanging
around when was the movie actually finished what was the time frame probably about a year later
and we had to do the post everybody chipped in I did the sound mix the other producer did the
color timing so it took a little bit longer to get made but yeah so it was made and I think Lionsgate
lines get distributed so so when they said what do you have you said well I've got this thing
and you kind of were almost talking them out of it before no just I didn't know what they were
really looking for so it was just it was like okay you've got this certain amount of money that you
want to invest in a film you're looking for this type of film but I did tell them from the get-go
I was like this is the kind of film we can easily cast because it's got some good parts for actors
and they're between 25 and 35 which is a really good spot to find some good actors and we did.
What do you like about this video?