Just Relax, We Know What We're Doing

While we wait for news from Producer Dude and/or New Producer Guy for word on Siege, and while I wait from Charlie for word on the pages I sent him last week on our pygmy/blimp/orgy script, my thoughts turn to one of my other works.

I have a script. I've worked on it for years. It is, easily, my best work. It has gone through about 18 revisions. Said Manager really likes this script, and we've been working on it together for a while, honing it, sharpening it, smoothing it out. Making it all shiny. Now Said Manager tells me that they are going to start pitching it all over town.

That's awesome. I've never had a script pitched all over town. I've never really had a script pitched all over my room, to be honest.

And then Said Manager says "We're describing it as X (famous movie) meets Y (another famous movie.)

I'm being vague because I don't want to spoil the goose, but let's say that Said Manager was telling me "We're pitching it as Shrek meets Finding Nemo." (My script is not animated, so I figure this is as off-topic as possible.

In this scenario, let's say my script was about a family of Ogres who find happiness by eating people in the nearby village. So sure, I've got Ogres, Shrek has Ogres. I kinda get that. But Finding Nemo? In one scene, say, the Ogres go fishing and eat a bunch of catfish. That's the closest I can get to Finding Nemo. So why is Said Manager using Finding Nemo in the pitch? Just because it was a successful movie? I don't understand.

That's kinda how it is with my script. One of the famous movies Said Manager is using to describe my script makes sense to me. One does not. Except that, well, it was a big hit and is in the same genre. But a family of Ogres eating people is a far cry from Finding Nemo. Even if both films are made by Pixar.

Are there rules to this sort of thing? Anyone out there have tales of really strange movies they've had their work compared to for various reasons?

When I wrote The Eliminator (under a different title, still hate the title they went with) I called it "Survivor meets The Most Dangerous Game." The people in C-Movie land have never, it seems, read a book or taken a high school English class, and had no idea what The Most Dangerous Game was. I also couldn't be sure they'd ever actually watched TV. Eventually, I think they pushed the final film as "TimeCop meets Predator" for whatever that's worth.