“This is the worst script I’ve ever read and I’ve been in this business for 40 years,” Jimmy Greco, head of Trainwreck Productions, shouted at me. “What were you thinking making Pee-Wee write this shit? Do you have an answer?! The man is hardly literate!”
“Does this mean you’ll fire me?” I shrugged.
“Fire you?!” Jimmy retorted. “I can’t fire you. Your movies make billions in streaming!”
“So what does it matter? What exactly do you want out of me, Jimmy?”
“Cooperation. Effort. A little thought into the details…”
“Name one time I ever gave any of that!”
Jimmy sat up in his seat and looked me sternly in the eye. “Now listen here buster,” he said. “I have two polyps in my ass that need removing. So I need your shit. I expect this production to come in on time and on budget! Do we have an understanding?”
“Nope!” I said. “Because I quit.”
Jimmy started maniacally laughing. “What’s so funny?” I ask.
“You think we haven’t gone through all this before? Do you really think that I didn’t anticipate this move?!”
“Jimmy, if you have something to say, you better spit it out.”
Jimmy poured himself a scotch as he wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. “Here, you want a drink? You better take it,” he said.
“I’m about to leap over this desk if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” I warned.
“Fair enough,” he replied as he swallowed the scotch whole. “You’ve been able to run roughshod over this studio for so long that you’ve become predictable,” he explained. “You know all those pages of legalese in your contract? I know you don’t read any of that shit. So I put in a stipulation: if you walk away from this production, you will owe back all the money you have earned with Trainwreck Productions. So you want to quit? That’s fine with me! But have fun being only the 27th richest man in the world!”
Jimmy’s own ingenuity caused him to laugh even harder. I saw only red.
“Laugh it up, Jimmy,” I said. “But just know this: you’re a dead man walking.”
And I left him with those ominous words.
TO BE CONTINUED…
The Internet Ruined Everything 