liked to layer his clothes as if a blizzard or a heat wave could attack at any moment. I never saw the very bottom layer, but there was a button-down thrift-store shirt under a blue Adidas warm-up jacket under a brown, orange, and yellow-striped ski jacket that his dad probably wore in the seventies. I offered to take his most outer layer, but that’s where he kept his paperwork, so he slung it over the back of his chair and pulled out some pages folded in quarters, unfolded them, and flattened them on top of my desk.
“Before we begin,” Jeremy said, “I need you to sign something.”
He then unzipped his Adidas warm-up jacket and pulled a gel pen from the breast pocket of his button-down shirt and readied it for me to sign, as if he were some kind of hipster real estate agent and we were closing a deal.
“What am I signing?” I asked.
“I cannot discuss any of my artistic endeavors unless you sign a nondisclosure agreement.”
“What is the purpose of this?”
“To make sure that you don’t a) steal my screenplay idea or b) discuss it with someone who might steal my idea. I’m afraid we can’t continue this meeting unless you sign.”
I snatched the pen in a split second.
“No problem,” I replied. “I have no show business aspirations.”
I did, however, read the contract—fine print and all—just to make sure that I was signing away my rights to his script and not, say, my liver. 5
I signed and then decided, based on my client’s ridiculous dress and even more ridiculous paranoid contract, that this conversation needed to go on record.
“Do you mind if I record this meeting?” I asked. “I’m afraid my penmanship makes note-taking a rather useless endeavor.”
“Uh . . . okay,” Pratt replied with mild discomfort.
“Don’t worry. I’ll burn the tapes when the case is closed.” 6
As for the conversation that followed, I’m only going to play you the best part:
[Partial transcript reads as follows:]
JEREMY : Before I tell you anything else, you need to know about the project.
[Jeremy pulls out a set of notes.]
JEREMY : It’s called The Snowball Effect.
ISABEL : I like it.
JEREMY : There’s this snowball that gets tossed from neighbor to neighbor in a small ski town in Colorado.
ISABEL : Like in a snowball fight?
JEREMY : Yes. Exactly. So, like, the fight goes for like three months.
ISABEL : Nonstop?
JEREMY : They take breaks.
ISABEL : To sleep and stuff?
JEREMY : And they have jobs.
ISABEL : Doesn’t the snowball melt?
JEREMY : No.
ISABEL : Never?
JEREMY : First of all, it’s winter. But it’s a magic snowball.
ISABEL : You should lead with that.
JEREMY : Anyway, every time the snowball gets passed to the next person, it makes that person’s wishes come true.
ISABEL : All of them?
JEREMY : Just one.
ISABEL : Okay, I get it.
JEREMY : I picture a Christmastime release. A total feel-good movie. Not my usual kind of thing, but you got to get your foot in the door somehow.
ISABEL : Let me ask you a question. What if the snowball ends up in the hands of someone whose foremost wish is that her husband die in a freak accident?
[Long pause.]
JEREMY : I hadn’t thought of that.
ISABEL : Makes it more of a feel-bad movie.
JEREMY : Yeah. So right now I need to find out what Shana is doing with the script.
ISABEL : Under the circumstances I’d recommend surveillance.
JEREMY : Can’t you just look in her garbage?
ISABEL : That would certainly be another angle I would suggest.
JEREMY : I think it’s the only angle I can afford.
ISABEL : I see.
JEREMY : If she’s actively shopping the script, she’s probably still working on it to put her stamp everywhere, in case I try to dispute it with the Writers Guild. In that case, it’ll end up in her recycling. She prints everything out. A total tree waster.
ISABEL : So we’ll start with a simple garbology and go from there.
JEREMY : Right on.
PHONE CALL
FROM THE EDGE #18
ISABEL : Hi, Morty.
MORTY : Hello, Izzele.
ISABEL : How are
“Before we begin,” Jeremy said, “I need you to sign something.”
He then unzipped his Adidas warm-up jacket and pulled a gel pen from the breast pocket of his button-down shirt and readied it for me to sign, as if he were some kind of hipster real estate agent and we were closing a deal.
“What am I signing?” I asked.
“I cannot discuss any of my artistic endeavors unless you sign a nondisclosure agreement.”
“What is the purpose of this?”
“To make sure that you don’t a) steal my screenplay idea or b) discuss it with someone who might steal my idea. I’m afraid we can’t continue this meeting unless you sign.”
I snatched the pen in a split second.
“No problem,” I replied. “I have no show business aspirations.”
I did, however, read the contract—fine print and all—just to make sure that I was signing away my rights to his script and not, say, my liver. 5
I signed and then decided, based on my client’s ridiculous dress and even more ridiculous paranoid contract, that this conversation needed to go on record.
“Do you mind if I record this meeting?” I asked. “I’m afraid my penmanship makes note-taking a rather useless endeavor.”
“Uh . . . okay,” Pratt replied with mild discomfort.
“Don’t worry. I’ll burn the tapes when the case is closed.” 6
As for the conversation that followed, I’m only going to play you the best part:
[Partial transcript reads as follows:]
JEREMY : Before I tell you anything else, you need to know about the project.
[Jeremy pulls out a set of notes.]
JEREMY : It’s called The Snowball Effect.
ISABEL : I like it.
JEREMY : There’s this snowball that gets tossed from neighbor to neighbor in a small ski town in Colorado.
ISABEL : Like in a snowball fight?
JEREMY : Yes. Exactly. So, like, the fight goes for like three months.
ISABEL : Nonstop?
JEREMY : They take breaks.
ISABEL : To sleep and stuff?
JEREMY : And they have jobs.
ISABEL : Doesn’t the snowball melt?
JEREMY : No.
ISABEL : Never?
JEREMY : First of all, it’s winter. But it’s a magic snowball.
ISABEL : You should lead with that.
JEREMY : Anyway, every time the snowball gets passed to the next person, it makes that person’s wishes come true.
ISABEL : All of them?
JEREMY : Just one.
ISABEL : Okay, I get it.
JEREMY : I picture a Christmastime release. A total feel-good movie. Not my usual kind of thing, but you got to get your foot in the door somehow.
ISABEL : Let me ask you a question. What if the snowball ends up in the hands of someone whose foremost wish is that her husband die in a freak accident?
[Long pause.]
JEREMY : I hadn’t thought of that.
ISABEL : Makes it more of a feel-bad movie.
JEREMY : Yeah. So right now I need to find out what Shana is doing with the script.
ISABEL : Under the circumstances I’d recommend surveillance.
JEREMY : Can’t you just look in her garbage?
ISABEL : That would certainly be another angle I would suggest.
JEREMY : I think it’s the only angle I can afford.
ISABEL : I see.
JEREMY : If she’s actively shopping the script, she’s probably still working on it to put her stamp everywhere, in case I try to dispute it with the Writers Guild. In that case, it’ll end up in her recycling. She prints everything out. A total tree waster.
ISABEL : So we’ll start with a simple garbology and go from there.
JEREMY : Right on.
PHONE CALL
FROM THE EDGE #18
ISABEL : Hi, Morty.
MORTY : Hello, Izzele.
ISABEL : How are
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