How to sell a screenplay by drinking in a bar

Only a few more days for entering the Daffy Definition Kontest. Here's where you go. And even if you don't enter, treat yourself. There are some inspired entries.
Aspiring screenwriters always ask what’s the best way to break into the Hollywood? I say move to Minnesota.

It sure worked for Diablo Cody. A couple of years ago she sat in the frozen tundra and wrote JUNO. And now Nick Schenk.

Nick was a construction worker and fruit truck driver who dabbled in writing on the side. He contributed some of the better comedy sketches for the prestigious DVD, FACTORY ACCIDENT SEX.

A couple of years ago Nick spent his nights in a local bar banging out a screenplay. He scribbled everything down on a pad. With Hamm’s on tap as his muse, Nick wrote 25 pages in one night. Helping him develop this project was a guy who sold furnaces to the gas company and the bartender. So you know he was in good hands.

His main character: a sympathetic racist old codger. What Hollywood studio isn’t looking for six of those vehicles? Nick was clearly tapped into the zeitgeist.

He got the script to a pair of young producers. From there it followed the usual path. Submitted to Clint Eastwood who agreed to direct it and come out of acting retirement to star in it. Nick’s screenplay was filmed as is, with no studio interference and no other writers brought in to rewrite. In fact, there were no rewrites period.

GRAN TORINO opens in selected theaters this month and goes wide in January.

The point of this story is that IT CAN HAPPEN! Granted, not often. But still, without the benefit of living in LA, or having taken Robert McKee’s seminar, or spending six years at NYU, or being married to Brian Grazer you can become a highly successful screenwriter. Just make sure you dress warm and can drive with chains on your tires.