Talk About a Great Heist Story

Variety reports today that Dan McDermott has signed a mid-against high-six figure deal (e.g., maybe $500k to turn in a script, another $400k if it gets made) with 20th Century Fox to write "Hong Kong Heist," about rival gangs drafted by a triad leader to steal three rare gems.

Hey, Phelps and I have made like, $2k against jack squat for our scripts this year. We've also generally made asses of ourselves, but that's another story. Like the protagonists in this McDermott epic, we also stole three rare gems: we stole the "Odd Couple" to write "Spaz", we stole "Pulp Fiction" to make "Harvey and Speeder Are Dead," and we stole Fred Travelena's Richard Nixon impersonation just because we love him like an old brown shoe (Travelena, not Nixon).

Project, to be overseen by Fox's Robbie Brenner and Hutch Parker, marks the
fourth feature script deal for McDermott since he traded the prexy post at
DreamWorks TV for a typewriter. He got off to a flying start, landing $750,000
against $1.1 million from Fox 2000 for "Selling Time," a drama about a man who
trades years of his life to go back and fix the worst day of his life. Interest
from Will Smith gives that project a shot at getting made.

So, this McDermott fella' is very experienced ("In Living Color," "The Simpsons" and "Melrose Place, and he was even the DreamWorks prexy for a time). But $750k for a script that has "a shot at getting made?"

Why isn't everyone on the planet writing scripts? Oh, wait, you are.