Just before the pandemic hit, a good filmmaker friend of mine, Aaron, was having a lot of success with his screenplays in film festival competitions. I thought, what a sense of validation it must be. I observed him nail one festival after another, congratulating him each time along the way. I marveled at his success and was vicariously feeling his excitement.
Aaron urged me to try it with my screenplays as we’d worked together as filmmakers on several past projects. But after almost succumbing to cancer a few years prior, I’d kind of given up on ever doing anything related to filmmaking again. So, I told Aaron my screenwriting days were behind me.
I had been through the mill with this disease. First, it was open chest surgery at UCLA to get a fist-sized malignant tumor out of my chest cavity. Then a year after that, I had my entire esophagus removed. Cancer again. It was a miracle I got through it at all and each day was progress for me just to stay alive. And my life-long attraction to filmmaking was not high on my priority list anymore - besides I was still making a pretty good living as an artist.
Aaron then said something to me that stopped me in my tracks. “Mike, if it’s in your blood, it’s pointless not to.”
That messed with my head big time. Aaron was right.
It’s ironic, really - here my dad, who was in the movies, and had given my brother and me a wonderful childhood, was the one who had planted the movie bug in my brain to begin with. Yet every time I dabbled in any acting, screenwriting, or filmmaking, he’d gaslight me saying I didn’t know what I was doing. He literally referred to my first film short as “The Piece of Shit” – no kidding. But I kept coming back to it. It was in my blood.
So, I decided to return to screenwriting. I soon realized, after almost dying, that fear was not a factor for me anymore and neither was my dad. Now well into his nineties and having bouts of dementia, the gaslighting had subsided. A weight was lifted. I figured I really had nothing to lose. I had a second chance and I wasn’t going to blow it this time.
It was Halloween time and I was working on a series of corn maze illustrations for a client. While rendering these illustrations, it seemed my brain had begun spinning a corn maze tale. It began coming to me in dribs and drabs. As an artist, I’ve learned to recognize inspiration and act on it. So, I dove into the deep end and began to write.
I was having a blast. The first incarnation of it was a seven-page short screenplay called, “Scared. To. Death.” It was a Halloween, flavored tale of a corn maze and its haunted history. It seemed to just spill out of me and I had so much fun writing it. I shared it with my kids who are my toughest critics.
They unanimously loved it and so did my wife, Kim, who traditionally doesn’t enjoy horror at all. It gave me so much confidence. I dreamed of maybe trying it at a festival or two like Aaron had. Even though I was like an excited Golden Retriever, I wanted to see if it could be developed into a feature-length screenplay.
Christmas came and Kim gave me a Masterclass. “Wow!, All my heroes are right here,” I thought.
There I was, with the likes of Aaron Sorkin, Dan Brown, David Mamet, and Ron Howard. I immersed myself in Masterclass - taking lots of notes.
The pandemic hit. I was quarantined at home so it was actually perfect timing to pen a ninety-page manuscript. The first half of every day I would write. While I would sleep at night, my brain seemed to work on the story and plotting. I’d wake up in the morning with a new idea in my head that was already worked out and it usually fit like a dream. It was crazy! Kim was a rock, fielding an array of my ideas ranging from the good, the bad, and the ugly while doubling as my logic cop. She tolerated a lot and kept me focused. I am forever grateful for that.
A month later, CornStalkers the feature screenplay was born. But the moment I finished it, the Golden Retriever in me was back. I excitedly sent it off to dozens of festival screenplay competitions and spent a lot of money that Aaron warned me not to do. It pretty much crashed and burned garnering only one quarter final nod from the StoryPros film festival competition. Full stop.
Time to retool. Back to the drawing board. What was I doing wrong? Aaron gave me notes. I bought coverage several times through WeScreenplay. Then my good friend Richard Christian Matheson helped me proof it and wound-up teaching me the laws of mystery. I was learning the secrets of the writer’s Universe from both him and the dogma of his late father, the great Richard Matheson senior.
Between Aaron’s notes, Matheson’s lessons in building mystery, and an incredible final proof and edit by Maayan Schneider, a sharp-as-a-tack resource for screenwriters, emerged my 2nd and final draft. It was my pandemic baby. I had birthed a horror film. It was finally done and time to let it out into the world.
It did so well in festivals – I was truly blown away. It actually won almost ten screenplay competitions around the world, and placed in over thirty – some were top festivals too. I had a client of mine who owns a popular restaurant in Santa Barbara offer 300 to 400 thousand to put towards the budget. What the hell was happening?
I brought on my good friend, David M. Mathews. He’s a director and producer and he agreed it was worth trying to produce and thought the screenplay was certainly good enough to go the distance. We got the film budgeted and began the process of trying to raise 6 million dollars.
I produced and directed a trailer with a few actors in a cornfield that I developed from scratch. I edited it and did all the sound too. I posted this on its own web page, including two different posters, a deck, and a licensing video. I set my intention on making the film and directing the movie. I was living the words of Basil King who said, “Move boldly and mighty forces will come to your aid.”
Then I lost my dad - we all knew it was coming. I felt a sense of forgiveness overwhelm me. Maybe it was my emotions subconsciously striving for some semblance of closure. I will miss him. He opened the door to the power of storytelling for me and I will always be grateful for that.
A year passed. Nothing. No mighty forces came to my aid and no one was beating down my door to make CornStalkers either. We were dead in the water. I felt like I was the scarecrow out in a lonely cornfield, hanging out on a cross with my award-winning screenplay flapping in the wind.
Then I got a random freelance job through a high school friend of mine from over fifty years ago. Judy Heller was my leading lady in my high school play, “David & Lisa.” It was her brother, Mark, she referred me to. Mark wanted a poster and set design created for a play he was writing and was being produced for off-Broadway. We became fast friends and he asked to read CornStalkers.
He enjoyed the screenplay very much he said. But the job was completed and I didn’t hear back from Mark until the beginning of 2024 when he texted me something very interesting; It seems his good friend was an entertainment attorney he went to UCLA with. This attorney was invited to pitch horror properties to some major distributors and he thought I might want to offer CornStalkers. Of course, I was interested.
Cut to several hour-long Zoom meetings later, Mark’s attorney friend had connected David and I to an Executive Producer who was also a Casting Director. She was savvy and experienced. She had cast and gotten funded many B features as well as having established relationships with many talent agents and distribution companies.
David and I watched the connection grow into both of us actually signing contracts with her to move forward with CornStalkers. The property is now at half a dozen major horror distributors throughout Hollywood. I’m beside myself with excitement. Unfortunately, this is all the story I have to tell. This is where we currently are. April, 2024.
If nothing else happens, I knew I had to write about it, even so. It’s been such a journey of life, death, and awakening.
Hopefully, my dad’s looking down on me and changed his tune a bit. Hell, he might even be cheering me on.
