How I Learned To Stop Worrying Why Bad Movies Get Made and Love Our Writing

Let's face it, anyone who knows me even a little bit knows I am not shy about watching, buying, renting, seeing, talking about or enjoying the occasional (ok, maybe more than occasional) bad movie. I can't help it. Maybe I am drawn to someone in it, or the story idea, or the effects, or the spectacle...whatever it is, it's a truth.

Me and bad movies have an intimate relationship. One I am not afraid to admit.

But...that doesn't mean I think they should be made over the good (read: ours and the other plethora of well-deserved writers, haha!) ones.

But they are. Case in point: ONE MISSED CALL.

Now, I will admit that the reason I am writing about this is because I ALMOST called Cat up to see that. (When she reads this she'll be so glad it never happened.)

Here's the thing: of course critics aren't going to like it...of course some audience is going to find it...but the reason I was on the fence is I read the script a while back as a sample for a project. It's a super neat idea...has a cool cast...looks slick. What the heck could make it so bad? For me, it was the script (alas, let me clarify the SCRIPT, not the WRITING. I liked the writers style, I just thought the movie missed the mark).

"Aha!", you say. "Those pesky development people!" Don't always be so fast to blame them. Or the producers.* You never know what mandates are put on projects with intellectual property rights, former rights holders, etc. It is not always the vision you want. It's the vision that the studio will pay for and make.

A director friend of mine often asks me "how do bad movies get made?" I tell him, "The same way they all get made. Money." If there is money to be spent on something someone thinks they want to spend it on...well, tell them to call me! HaHa.

We all know that is what it coems down to. And that, dear readers, is also why I sometimes drag Cat to see what many perceive as bad movies: I want to support them. To let the people who worked as hard as they could know that their work deserves to be seen. Also, more selfishly, I want the genre to thrive so the movies in that arena that Cat and I write can have a better chance of being seen. We work hard,too.

Hmmm...I'll be back...I think I might call Cat to see ONE MISSED CALL now.

*I actually had the pleasure of meeting one of the producers on the film a while ago. Wonderfully nice, I just know that this person knows what they are doing, which proves my point that the wonderful world of making movies is in the hands of so many people...sometimes you just gotta go with the train that is moving...whether or not it arrives at the detination you had hoped it would.

--"He would get these far-off looks in his eyes and he would say 'Life doesn't always turn out the way you plan."
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING