Take 112 - Writer Daniel Kunka, 12 Rounds, Lift

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for short, dozens of unproduced script littering on.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in home with every single day.

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This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is everything.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

And I think we're thinking I want that for me. It's never one page five. There will be other five.

SPEAKER_04 0:58

Screaming into the Hollywood events is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Award-winning app that instantly transfers your notes into new drafts in seconds. Scriptation allows you to digitally mark up scripts, separate notes into layers, track changes across revisions, and so much more. Insert Noah saying something nice about scriptation.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Dan, I I think this is where they actually want me to talk about how much I love it. And I do love it, it's great. It's colletting function transformed me from the messiest writer in Hollywood to, well, ever so slightly less messy. My wife might have other things to say about that. Sitha listeners can get a free month of scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash Sitha.

SPEAKER_04 1:43

For those of you who don't understand slightly drawly American accents, that's scriptation.com backslash S-I-T-H-A. Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am, as ever, your non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

And I am your still in the industry co-host, Noah Epson. On today's podcast, I'm thrilled to introduce screenwriter Daniel Kunkka to the podcast. Daniel is best known for the movie 12 Rounds, starring John Cena, and he is also the writer of Lift, starring Kevin Hart, which is currently the number one streaming movie on Netflix. Uh welcome, Daniel.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Uh thanks for having me, guys. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Right. So look, this is a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity. So I think I'm only going to ask one positive question. So let's get it out of the way before we get into the good stuff. Yes. So you wake up in the morning, you go to Netflix's home screen, and you see on the left-hand side your movie in the big number one box. Um and I'm sure at some point we'll go through the whole journey of how you got there, which will not have been straightforward because it never is. Just that moment, how does that feel?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Uh it's very surreal. It's very surreal. It's um it's been a it's been a it's been a very interesting and fulfilling weekend. Uh it's just it's interesting how humans perceive large things, right? Like it's been great because on my Facebook and on my Instagram and in my emails and text messages, I have friends or I'm Facebook friends with people I went to elementary school, and they're like, oh, we watched the movie uh and we had a great time. And so, like, you sort of have this personal sort of one-to-one thing where people who you may have not heard from in a while are like, Oh, we saw this thing that you were doing uh and we had a great time for two hours on Friday night watching it, and it was amazing. And it sort of feels weird because you're just like, they just did that experience by themselves on their computer or on their TV, and they sort of saw it, and you're like, Oh, that's great. Like the 300 people I know in this world, uh, you know, 200 of them checked out this movie. And then you start to think about everybody else, and then you go on, you know, Kevin and some of the other actors' Instagrams, and they're like retweeting people from Nigeria and Germany and and England and Australia, and you're like, oh, well, that's weird. I guess like people all over are watching it, and then you start to like you go on the flix patrol and you go and you're like, wait, how big is Netflix again? And then you're just like, oh, this is kind of insane. And so it's it's almost it's I I was sort of saying last night, I was saying more people in three days probably watched Lyft than the entirety of 12 rounds, which is a movie that was released 15 years ago, uh, all over the course of three days, all at once. And it's uh frankly overwhelming as shit, to be honest with you. Like it's like, I don't know, I don't, it's like a weird, it's just a weird thing that happened. And I I don't even know how to really process it. Like um, I'm very excited. You know, feedback has been, you know, it's very positive. There's you know, there's also people who don't like the movie, which is which is also an interesting thing that always happens, but um uh it's almost it's almost too big to it's almost too big to really process in any way. So I I've just found myself focusing on those like little moments from friends or other things where we you know uh I had a friend whose dad was in the hospital and he watched it yesterday waiting in his room and he just fucking loved it. And it's just like, well, that that to me is like more of like a one-on-one thing that really grounded it for me. Uh, and then I guess I'll worry about you know, people watching it all across the world when I I meet them all across the world, I guess. I don't know. It's a very it's very strange.

SPEAKER_04 6:06

Obviously, uh, I think next Netflix are becoming slightly less opaque about their numbers, uh, but obviously it might be years before you find out exactly how many people watched it on the platform. But I think it's definitely more than 200, uh, would be my guess, in order to get to number one. But it was interesting. When I was uh over Christmas at some point, Ricky Gervais had a new comedy special out and it was number one on Netflix, and he got very excited and posted it on social media. And then over the next three days, every other country it was number one on Netflix on, like people were sending screenshots of like it's number one in Sweden and Norway and all that stuff. Do you know if you're has anyone from other European countries or wherever told you you're number one in their country too?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yes, I've seen I've seen quite a few I've probably seen 10 or 15 um number ones across uh that people have sent in. And then just sort of from what rudimentary information you can kind of find on the internet, um, I'm fairly certain it's the number one movie on Netflix. I haven't seen a country where it's not. So um that's not there are a lot of countries out there, and so there may be uh uh other movies that that are more, but uh for all intents and purposes, I think it's it's number one everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

So well, our listeners around the world, like Estonia, especially in little places, reach out to us with screenshots. We want to see, we want to prove this theory of Daniel Kunker that his movie is number one all over the world. Um and if it's not, don't share it with us.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

We actually just want you to show us the I don't want to see, I don't want to see any twos. Keep your twos to yourself.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Um, and okay, so let's this is a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity. So let's go back. Let's go back to well, let's talk a little bit about how you got your first movie made. But I'm really interested in that 15-year gap because it's it's you know what happens to somebody in the in-between successes and how do they keep their momentum and their and their just career focus going during that time. So let's talk a little bit about how you got 12 rounds made and then what happened next.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah, I um I love this podcast and I love it especially for um for screenwriters. And it's sort of it's just um thinking about that 15-year gap is so strange because in the in the terms of the in like it feels like 15 years is a long time, but in terms of like the industry, it really doesn't feel that long to me, uh, which is very strange. Um but we'll we'll we'll sort of we can we can sort of get into that. But um yeah I I um I guess I I went to school at uh the University of Southern California, their undergraduate screenwriting program. I graduated from there in like 2000 or 2001. Um I worked in the industry for a while. I was an assistant. Um I worked for a producer, I was an intern, did sort of all that sort of stuff, looking to be a screenwriter and wasn't really doing much writing. Uh finally had a spec script uh that I really liked uh that went around that did not sell at all, but it got me a bunch of meetings. And in one of those meetings, um I met a guy named Josh McLaughlin who worked at Mark Gordon's production company. And together we kind of came up with the idea of 12 rounds. Um, but again, like all things, like again, it's the the point of the podcast is that we went to go to pitch it to the one place, you know, the couple of places that really liked my prior script, and no one said yes. And then we I wrote it as a spec script and it went around and no one said yes. And it was sort of just a chance meeting that um Josh had with John Cena, and they were looking to make his next movie, and they had a script and they had a window, and no one liked the script that they had, uh, but they were determined to make a movie. And Josh said, Hey, I've got this script. Why don't you check it out? And they checked it out and they're like, We like this better than the script we want to do. Um, and then it all kind of came together very quickly after that. Um and so that was in 2000. It was we made the movie in 2008, it came out in 2009. I come out of 2009, and I'm like, let's fucking go, right? Like we're we're I finally have cracked through, I've made the W, I've made the WGA, I've uh, you know, I've got health insurance. Um, and then it was just like kind of a big shit sandwich for a while, uh, where you you come out of you come out of I found now that I've become a WGA mentor, um, I have found that oftentimes it's the second and third gig that are are the most difficult for people. Um, and I was sort of in the same way. I I I had written this sort of not really well-received movie, not even not well-received, just not received movie that was like an action movie with a with a guy who wasn't quite John Cena yet. He was still wrestler John Cena, and it wasn't really seen. And I found myself in a spot creatively where I kept trying to do that thing. I was like, oh, 12 rounds was a grounded action movie. And I was like, even though I'm not like a huge grounded action movie kind of guy, I was like, let me chase all of those, just chase, let me try to do it again. And I kept trying to write the same script over and over again, and it wasn't working. And it's the it was the only time since I sold 12 rounds. I've only I've only missed WGA health insurance one quarter. And it was the quarter directly after my movie came out because also you get um you get residual money, which doesn't count towards your PA, you know, your pension and health, and you're feeling kind of comfortable, and you're trying all this stuff, and you kind of lose focus, and I lost my I lost my health insurance. I lost my health insurance. Um, I was recently married, my wife was pregnant. Um, we were having a baby at the end of August, and I was like, fuck, what do I do? Like I've done this once. I don't know if I can do it again. And I was just like looking at the scripts I was working on, and it was like, I didn't want to do this sort of like smaller action things. Like I want to do a big idea. And so I went to the hopper and I came up with an idea for a script that wound up being a spec that I sold to Sony called Agent Ox. Um, and was about a human spy on an alien planet and had a big backstory, and it was just like something I really cared about. And I was like basically like, if I'm gonna take one final swing, I want a swing for me. Uh I said that I had to have 30 pages of it done before my kid was born, um, so that I knew that I could finish when he was when he was up at night feeding and whatever. And I wrote that script and I wound up selling it, you know, three months after he was born. Um, and then that sort of like kick-started me into the next 15 years of my career, which was um writing spec scripts, hopefully selling them, and trying to sort of recreate that success of getting another movie made, uh, which didn't necessarily happen for 15 more years.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

But you said that in 15 years, you've only missed health insurance one quarter. So is this is this are you maintaining your career through spec sales, uh open writing assignments? Did this, I mean this 12 rounds having one credit out there must have allowed you to coast a little bit, not coast as in not work, but coast as in an executive C's, you have a credit that's gonna help you beat out some other people that are up for a project.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Um so yes, obviously, so yes, you're correct. Like I I I have been I have been I have had a very good career writing. I think that it's it's a weird thing between features and TV, right? I think I think that um as a feature writer, to sort of sustain your career, um I think it's it's it's sort of a different animal because obviously I've been able to do it for 15 years without having to make a movie. And the way I do that is by coming up with a new product every year. I I sort of like I sort of have an analogy, right? That like when Apple made an iPhone, they didn't make one iPhone. They made an iPhone that then they made a second iPhone, and they make an iPhone every year so that you're always buying iPhones. And as a feature screenwriter who's not gonna be sort of, you know, taking the path of either getting staffed or even developing in TV, which I think is a little more um TV has just sort of I know it's different now as it's sort of changing and the different models are changing, but sort of when I was coming up, it's it was a little bit more rigid and and the feature world is a little bit more freeform. And, you know, I have had a few open writing assignments, and you know, having a credit, I guess, has sort of helped. But really, the feature world is what can you do for me now? Like, and I tell this to young writers all the time. It's it's they don't it it definitely helps. And I think your um the level of skepticism that executives have for you, the longer you are around and the more times you deliver, or the more times you have a movie, or the more times they write they read a script that they like, that sort of skepticism maybe goes down a little bit because it's easier for them to sell to their boss. Um, but really, as a writer, um my job over that 15 years was every six months, like, let's come up with an idea. And like we we write it as a I love writing specs. Um, I've had very good success doing that. Um, but it's not necessarily tied to let's make a movie. Like when I sit down to write a spec, I want it to become a movie and I want to write a movie, but you know, success as long as I get paid to write those pages, that is a that is a success in my book. And then we will move on to the next one. Um, I think you know, it's really easy to get battered down by trying to get a movie made because but movies are so hard to get made, and so much as that of that is out of a writer's control. For me, it's all about what I can control. And what I can control is coming up with ideas, writing them, putting them in the best position to try to sell them. Um, and then you know, we go from there. Like I've had we can get into it, but like I've the the the amount of things that you can't control, a movie to getting made, is mind-boggling. And like I have I have two great stories we can talk about when we when we talk about some of that stuff. But um, you know, for me, my my sort of uh thesis has been write scripts and try to sell them.

SPEAKER_04 16:59

So um I'm gonna uh ask a I think I I can't wear the best way to phrase this question. So when you lost your health insurance, did your pregnant wife at any point in that quarter or just afterwards say to you, It's all very well that you've written a movie with a not yet famous wrestler. Um can you go and get a real job, please? Because we're bringing your child into the world and it doesn't seem like this is going to be a sustainable way of bringing up a family.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Uh, I don't think she she never said that out loud, but it was clearly um, you know, everyone I was feeling it at the time. And, you know, she's um my wife is a is a is an excellent writer wife and and is very stable and doesn't have anything to do with the business, and it's great. Um but I think I do I do think that it was sort of a change from what the norm was, right? She never we both grew up in the Midwest and she was sort of more familiar with the you know, paycheck every two weeks, and you know exactly what the salary is and all these things. Um and you know, I've never really I've never really asked her um what she sort of thought, but she never she never gave me the ultimatum where it was like this is the only one. But I mean I I know that I definitely felt it. Um just because it was, you know, that's the what life was telling you at the time. Like this had to be this had to be something uh that worked. Um so I just had to try I just had to trust myself and trust my voice and try to write a movie I wanted to see.

SPEAKER_04 18:36

Yeah. Um so this will be a slightly lazy question, I'm afraid, but uh hopefully an excellent answer. Do you have a couple of great stories about films that didn't get made?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

I do. I mean, there are so it's like it it goes both ways. Like sometimes there are very there are not great stories that are just boring, which is you know, um you sell a script to a studio, um you get your one rewrite at it, you get some notes in, you rewrite it. Everyone just sort of says, I don't I don't know what's going on here. Maybe they hire another writer to rewrite rewrite you, um, which is always you know the call, which is like we're gonna go a different direction, and you're like, Well, I guess this was mine, but yeah, then that's always like, Oh, we're gonna hire a new writer. Like, that's how these movies get made, which is true, but then that's like then you hear about someone getting you get rewritten, and then it just sort of goes away. Or even worse, they buy it and they're just like, no, we're not gonna hire anybody else. Like, we're just done spending money on this project. Uh, this project's not going anywhere. Um, on the other hand, we've I've had um, there's a project that is very, very near to my heart um called Yellowstone Falls, which is a script I wrote um almost 10 years ago. It was on the blacklist. It's a very it's a unique script. It's um, I don't want to say it's like a I hate the word like calling card, but it's a script that I get remembered for a lot because it was very, it was there was very little dialogue, and it's about a family of wolves during a zombie apocalypse in Yellowstone National Park. And so like the whole movie is basically we're following a fan a mama and her three pups, and they're being chased by zombies through Yellowstone, and it's like sort of a battle for survival. Very few human characters, but um that movie's been through the ringer. Uh, we we had a we had a version of it where we had sort of a uh a director came on and sort of beefed up a female role, and we had a we had a we had a star ready to go. We had a schedule, we were locked in, and then it turned out that the that the actress's husband was on a TV show, and the TV show shooting schedule got picked up, got moved up to where our window was. And they said because they have kids, um only one of them could be working at a time. So he had to go to work, so she couldn't make our window, so she had to drop out. When she dropped out, the director dropped out, everything fell apart, and then the TV show that the husband was acting on got canceled, and so the whole season was over. And so you're just like, you get that call where it's like we're making the movie, then three weeks later, you get the call where it was like, sorry, the actress can't make the window because they moved a TV show into that window, but then they canceled the TV show, and you're just like, What the fuck just happened? Like, why couldn't we just make this movie when we were gonna make it? And um after that, this is even this is my best, this is my best Hollywood story of all time. Is um we get it going again, we get it set up. Um, we get a great director, uh Louis Leterrier is gonna make it. Um, and he's very French. And we're gonna go out and we're gonna shoot these wolves like Out in the wild, and that's going to be a great thing. And they want to breed wolf pups because we want to use actual wolves rather than CG to uh to show it. And uh a company comes on board and they're ready to green light it and they pay $250,000 or some ridiculous number to impregnate a wolf so that we can have wolf pups so that we can train and go shoot them. And the wolf didn't get pregnant. And so wolves can only get pregnant like once a year. They pay to inseminate. The insemination doesn't take. We don't have wolf pups, so we can't go make a movie. And then I think everyone sort of looked around and was just like, wait, are we really gonna make this movie where we have to like impregnate a wolf and the wolf can't even get pregnant? And everything fell apart. And so it's like you get you, and again, that's the same thing where they called me up and they said, We're making this movie, we're impregnating a wolf, and then the wolf didn't get pregnant. And so, and the best part about this story is the script is still alive. We're still, we're hopefully, I mean, knock on wood, there's you know, we're we're we're still working towards that. That was the script that I had to put aside during the strike because I'm still working on that, and hopefully we're gonna get that going in the new year. But um, you know, when when when you have something that you love dearly almost get made that falls apart because an animal didn't get impregnated, you sort of start to realize that I really shouldn't be tied up in things that I can't control. Because I like, I mean, I try I could try to get the wolf pregnant, but I don't think it's gonna work. And so, you know, at that point, at that point, why am I stressing about stuff uh that's completely out of my control?

SPEAKER_04 23:39

So I'll be honest, I'm slightly wary, having lived in LA for 10 years, of people saying this is my best Hollywood story. Um, however, I think uh unimpregnated wolves and zombies is is as good a Hollywood story as I think you're gonna hear.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Only in Hollywood, right? Only in Hollywood.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

A, I think there's a metaphor in there somewhere. B, I I personally feel listening to the story from the outside that this wolf sabotaged you somehow, that they didn't want the movie made and actually worked hard to not impregnate themselves. And there's a whole other story that they tell of Hollywood trying to come in and you know do their thing to her.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

And she wanted it, she wanted to tell the wolf story her way. She maybe she just should have had it.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

A contract negotiation issue, and she wanted a bigger trailer and they wouldn't give it to her. These are you know things we'll talk about later. But um, let's let's get you uh moving forward to this moment in time around the creation of Lyft, because the movie we want to talk about that's um obviously a huge success right now on Netflix and around the world. You I think I saw you post that you had written a feature that wasn't working, and this was sort of the thing you sort of segued into. Was there like any when you were writing Lyft, did you start to feel the magic of this script? Because sometimes when you're writing something, you're starting to get the sense that this the pieces of this are working better than other things I've done, or was its success a surprise to you?

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Um this is a great question because it is born it is born out of a direct failure. Um I think the the sh the short answer is I liked it, but I also tend to like everything that I write. And so you you get I think it's sometimes it's the only way you can finish is if you actually think you're writing something, you know, when you get to page 60 and you got 50 more to go. Sometimes you liking the project is the only thing that gets you to the end anyway. Um, but um I did, I felt good. I felt good. I felt very con I felt confident that we were gonna sell it. And that was exciting to me because I like to make money and have a career. And so that was good. That's I I would say I would go so far as that. But again, like knowing that three years later it would get made with Kevin Hart and be the number one movie uh in the world. I don't, I don't think I I think every I think I you always dream about that. Like I'm writing a script, I'm literally I'm writing a script right now that I took a break to come on this podcast with. And I think the last five minutes before I came up here, I was just like, oh man, this would be so good if so-and-so is in it. And it's like we're gonna win an Oscar and this is gonna be amazing, right? Like I think you have those feelings, I think are sort of healthy delusions of grandeur that kind of keep you excited about the material. Um, but I can't say that there was anything specific about Lyft um in the writing that made me think, oh, this one will be the one that breaks my 15-year dry spell. Like I sort of to kind of go back to say, you know, where lift came from. I uh during the pandemic, um I and sort of during and after the agency action that we had, um, I switched agencies and I had I had just I signed with Verve during the pandemic because they had sort of signed the contract before. And I met David Boxbaum, who I really liked, and we just it it felt good. So we I signed there. And um, I kind of had finished up a few little assignments or whatever, but it got to the point where it was like, okay, Dan, what do you want to do next? And I thought I had this great idea for a um a contained aura in a small town where it was going to be this um this, you know, the evil. Well, we don't know that she was evil healthcare practitioner, opens up this hospital in the small town where she gives healthcare to everyone in town for free. And it was this like idyllic little town, and a family moves there, and then shit goes bad. And I was like, oh, that's a high concept. It's kind of a little bit different than what I had been done. I was like, I was really jacked about it. I thought I had like a really strong first 40 pages. Uh, the ending was a little loose. I didn't really know, but I finish it up, I send it in to my agents, and my agent, you know, this is the agency that just signed me. They haven't read anything new for me. This is like my big coming out piece. Uh, and they read it and we get on the phone, and like, no, it's clear that nobody likes it. And like, I remember I just told the story at the premiere because my agent was there, but it was like, I'm I'm on the my agent calls me and I'm driving my wife and two kids to the beach uh during the pandemic, and it's like we're finally going somewhere and trying to do something fun. And like you put it on the speakerphone and you tell everybody to shut up so that you can like listen in, and they just fucking rag on it, and you're just like, Holy fuck, this is bad. We like pull in and I'm like, and um and so they, you know, they had some ideas, they were like, Well, we want to, you know, they they had criticisms, but they had helpful notes, and they were like, Well, what if you did if you did something like this or something like that? And I sort of sat there, and really for the first time in my career, I like looked at the notes and I understood the notes and I knew what they were trying to do, and I just said to myself, I don't, I don't fucking want to do this. And like, um I just I I didn't give up, I just said, I don't, I don't, I, I don't want to chase this this one anymore. And it was a weird moment for me, but I think it was kind of a big learning moment, which is I think, again, in the feature world, you put so much time into a script and you work on it for months, and you get this baby all shined up and polished and ready to go. And like, I wasn't even gonna give it a chance in the marketplace. I was just sort of like pulling the plug early. And I called him up, and I'm just like, you know, I like I like your notes, but I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna write something new. And everyone was like, okay, fine, I guess. And so uh I put that to the side and I looked at the list of ideas I keep in my email. And gold plane was an idea that was always that's been on that was on the list for almost 10 years. I had the idea for lifts uh 10 years prior than when I wrote it. Um at the time, there was this article about how they transferred gold on a plane. Like if you were flying from London, Missurick, in the underneath your feet in the regular cargo hole, there would just be a wooden crate with gold bars in it, and you would have no idea. And I said, Well, that's a great idea. You know, they should try to steal it. And I had come up with a pitch 10 years prior to writing it. It was sort of during like after 12, the after 12 rounds period. I went in, we pitched it a few places, uh, and everybody said no, because it was sort of like a crazy heist movie, but it was all sort of execution dependent. And, you know, to your question earlier, we said, well, was it easier to set up projects with 12 rounds? It was like, not really. They were like, Oh, you wrote 12 rounds, which is a fun action heist movie, but we want to see you do this on the page. Um, and so it just sat there for 10 years. And I had just had the failure with this one script. I said, We're in a pandemic. I want something fun, I want something, you know, clever, I want something that that, you know, give people a good time at the movies. And I looked at it, I said, gold plan. I'm like, that's still a fucking good idea. And I looked back at my old outline and the twist still sort of worked, and I was just like, fuck it, let's go. And so uh I wrote it fairly quickly uh in about three or four months, uh, even before we went out and and we sold it.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Oh, it's a good feeling. I I want to go back for just for one second about that moment where you put that script to the side. And I know a lot of people, our peers, you know, consider screenwriting like building a spec house, and you build a spec house and then you try to sell that spec house. And if no one buys the spec house, it just sits there. But I often I I often make the comparison that our job is more like first chair at a symphony where we we have to practice. And some of our scripts end up just being practice, but that's okay. The first chair at the Carnegie Hall doesn't begrudge all those hours spent at the piano or the violin or whatever learning their craft so they could be the first chair. And so whenever something moves on from one of my scripts, I'm like, well, that was just getting me to my chair, right? That's not the thing that's gonna pay the bills. But let's let's you know to kind of just justify those moments of you know, feeling like, oh my God, I gotta walk away from six months of work or a year of work. But to you, like, you wrote the script three months, you've turned it in. Um, tell me the this phone call that comes in. Now it's a two-part question, and then uh because I we need to get through this. Um, like I want to hear these two pieces of the story, but it's one, I want to hear the response of your agents, the second this call now that you get when you turn and lift. One. And two, I want to hear your reaction to getting Kevin Hart, because that has to be like a huge piece of news.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

It does, and it's uh not how you think. Uh so so I we set the script in, and everyone was very, they were all very positive, like, oh, we like this, this is good, we're gonna try this. But it was sort of, I remember distinctly, right? It was the script was gonna go out on a Monday. And I remember, like, and again, it's like I had never taken a script out with Verv. Excuse me. And so it was very calm. Like everyone was very, it wasn't, it wasn't this big, like, oh, this is amazing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah what it was. It was just sort of like, okay, we've got a list of producers, we're gonna take our shot. And I even remember speaking with my, I've had my manager for a very long time, and we've we've sold many specs together. And it was just like, I don't know, I just remember it being everyone was just very focused and they had a very good plan for it. And we got it to the right producers, and Simon Kimberg read it and and Matt Reeves, and they took it into Netflix, and it was just a very uh, it was almost like a sale that it just happened very quickly, and it was very cool. And they, you know, we sent the script out on Monday morning, and we had a they called me at like Tuesday at like nine o'clock at night. Netflix called and we had a deal. Like I was the kids were putting the kids to bed, and we made a deal on the phone at like nine at night, and it was amazing. Um, but another thing that is sort of unique about it was they bought it. Netflix really loved it. We got on the phone, they said they want to make the movie on our first call. I get a bunch of notes. Um, but Lyft was originally written as a female-led movie. Um, I had the idea, I had sort of the outline on my computer was for a male-led movie. But in writing it for the spec marketplace, I said, you know what? I haven't really seen, I know that Oceans did Oceans 8, but I haven't really seen like a team-led female ice movie. And so to make it a little bit more unique for the marketplace, I made it a female lead. And everybody liked it. We got it in, Netflix had some notes, we close our deals, it takes a little bit. And they basically they told me to, they told me to start writing on like a Tuesday, my rewrite. They're like, here's your notes, go, it's Tuesday. They call me up on Wednesday and they're like, you need to stop. And I was like, well, what what what the fuck is this? And the producers called and they said that Kevin had a deal with Netflix, didn't know what his next movie was going to be. Uh, they brought him in and his team into the meeting, and they were basically like, Here's here's everything we've got. Like, what do you want to do? And he, you know, I don't think he loved anything that he sort of saw. And they saw the log line of Lyft, even though it was a female lead, and they said, you know, we would love Kevin to sort of Kevin wants to do sort of more of an action space and sort of break out from his like typical roles. And we would love for him to do this. And so they read the script as a female lead, and they were like, if you can make this female lead Kevin Hart, we want to do this movie. And so then they call me up, and like, I'm like, okay, I'm I'm thinking about who I want as my female lead or whatever. And I'm literally standing like 10 feet behind of where I'm doing this call right now. I remember it exactly. And they're like, So Kevin Hart wants to do it. And I was like, Does Kevin want to be the like sidekick male character? And they're like, No, no, no, you have to rewrite it so that Kevin's the lead of the movie. And I was like, well, shit. And then of course, everyone's next question is, can you do it? And luckily, I had the outline for the male lead still from all that time. And I said, you know what, it was actually always gonna be this. And there was like a few, there was like a few things that I think some of the it actually helped sort of flipping the roles of the characters and things like that. And you know, what was I gonna say? I'm like, sure, I can do this. And um my I'll I'll be quick. My favorite story from the development of the movie is they say, Dan, you have to make this Kevin Hart. And I said, No problem. I'm shitting bricks, right? I sit down, I start writing. The first act I think comes out pretty well. And I'm like, feels like Kevin. It's got it's a little more, it's a little funnier. I think this is really strong. It's Friday at three o'clock. I send those pages to the producers thinking, all right, you guys will call me on Monday, you'll let me know if this is we're on the right track, and we'll keep going. I send the email at like 3:30. At 4:30, they they call me and they're like, we love these pages, we're sending them to Netflix. And I was like, Oh, so I I don't I don't usually send to the studio before it's all done. Like, what are you guys sure? And they're like, we got to do this. And so I'm like, oh, this is amazing. Like, they're really excited. Um, they're gonna send them to Netflix, and Netflix is gonna call me on Monday or Tuesday next week, and we're gonna see where we're at. I go to dinner with my wife, and at 7:30, Netflix calls, and they're like, you have to go home and don't stop. And I was like, holy shit. And they're like, we they're everybody was like on board, they really wanted Kevin for the movie. And I basically rewrote the script in three weeks, um, with everybody constantly checking in on me. And we got the script there and we got it to we got it to Kevin uh over his 40th birthday party, I think it was, in Mexico over the 4th of July. He finally read it, he came back uh from break and he's like, let's make this movie. And we were to the races.

SPEAKER_04 38:10

Amazing story. So I had a Kevin Hart question, and you've just given me a whole Kevin Hart section unexpectedly. Um uh, but I guess this this goes to the point about Hollywood. As you say, there's so many reasons movies don't get made, and you had a good store, and you've got you know a hundred other stories where it went wrong for different reasons. And I love the fact that a movie that wasn't even meant to be this movie suddenly ends up being this movie because that's the weird world that's completely unpredictable for all of the executives and producers and agents who all think they know what they're doing. It can go as simple as he didn't like anything else, he loved yours, and you rewrote it, which I think that's the that's the dream, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

It is, it's it's it's uh it's as likely or unlikely as the wolf getting pregnant, right? Like it didn't there was nothing again as a writer, I can control what I wrote. And so I wrote the script, people liked the script. It my writing the script and having it, you know. I I don't want to say that I always I always you never like to call your script good, but it was good, right? It was good, people had it, they talked about it, they had it on this list, they had bought it. But all those other things were out of my control that sort of just suddenly intersected. And, you know, I do take I I I do think that I did a very good job switching from a female lead to Kevin, and that is what got us the got Kevin and got the movie made. So I don't I do think that I I have some ownership of that success, but there's so many other crazy shit that had to happen that it's like, you know, people ask, they're like, and you we even sort of asked earlier, like, is there a difference between Lyft and um you know the script space race that I sold to Universal uh, you know, eight years ago? And not really. I mean, maybe Lyft is, you know, you look at some of the ideas, whatever, but it's like sometimes these things are so unpredictable. Um, you'll make yourself crazy trying to predict them. So uh I just really focus on you know what I can do, which is let's let I'm gonna keep writing scripts and about movies I want to see, and you never know what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

Bearing in mind that I've never been on a movie set and I haven't written things and and so on. So Kevin Hart obviously he's having a reasonably successful period of his career, it'd be fair to say. Does he know that you haven't had a a movie out for the last 15 years? And does he care that who you are? You know, he he sees a script, but is there any sort of Kevin Hart comes up to you at the premier and gives you a hug and says, you know, after 15 years, I'm really pleased I could make this movie with you, or there's then no none of that.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

No, and and I also think that that's a big it's not a it's not a misconception, but I think that in today's the way today's movie industry works, and again, it's very much uh what can you do for me today? So, you know, I I you know I've I I've also sort of thought of it the same way what someone had sort of asked me before was, oh, did you when you were working with Verb and you had sent them a script that they didn't like, were you worried that when you sent them Lyft, they were just gonna not like that because the one thing they read from you they said no to? And I was just and uh to be honest, like the thought hadn't even really crossed my mind because it's such a if you're no matter where you are in your career, um you're always as good as whatever the next thing you write is. Um you could have you could have had, you know, I didn't make a movie for 15 fucking years. Like nobody cared when the script came in and was the movie that they wanted to make. Um and and and the same goes, you know, whether you've written flops, whether you've whether you've never written a script that's ever gotten purchased before. Like if you write, if you bring the goods, no one is gonna care about your resume. Um and I know, like I know there is this sort of pre-conceived notion that that it's and because like it works the same way, right? Like even people who you know, obviously there are people who are on the A-list who get hired for jobs regardless of what their output has been, right? There are I'm not gonna say that there's not this the group of writers that have sort of leveled up and and can sort of do their own thing or whatever it is. But for the large part of it, whether it's good or bad, whatever you've done before only does so much that it's really what you're producing on the page in that moment, in that project, that is gonna that that's gonna determine whether you find success or not find success. Um not that the rest of it's not in there, and there could be some preconceived notions, but I I find by and large, um, if you do the work and write the script and it works, then you're good, then it's gonna work.

SPEAKER_04 43:21

Brilliant. Uh I I fear that what you've just said might end up being the answer to the next question, but I'm gonna have to ask it anyway. Uh unfortunately, we are at the wrong end of the podcast. Uh, so we have to now ask the final question, which is if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody wanting to enter the industry, what would that single piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_00 43:43

I mean, it would obviously be, you know, write your spec is is kind of my motto. It's my motto on Twitter, it's my motto for everything. I've I've had great success. Um, and again, for you know, it write your spec. I've had two movies made off of spec scripts, which has been great, but also. The 15 years in between were pretty good years. Like I had lean years, I've had big years. Um but I I I like to I like to tell people, like in my mente group, it's like you can make this your career. You can you can earn health insurance, you can get a great pension, you can do this if you keep doing the work. Um but I will say we since we sort of covered that, I would go to my next piece, is just you know, Lyft was a movie. I told I told Gary, uh the director, F. Gary Gray at the premiere. Um and making a movie is you know, once Kevin got involved, and we got Gary, like there's a whole other story of, you know, I would I would they had brought in a few writers to do some work, they changed some things. You know, it's not if you're to read the the spec script that was on the blacklist, that's that's pretty well circulated. There are definitely changes from what I had originally written. Um but I told Gary at the premiere, I was like, the movie finished, and I was sitting there and I just said, you know, I said, that's what I fucking wanted to do. Like when I sat down, like I can I can hem and haw and I can sort of say, Oh, I would have liked it if this happened rather than this, or I didn't quite like that change, or I wish it was something like this. But by and large, that was the fucking movie. I was like, it's gold on a plane, it's a team that comes together for a fun, clever heist movie with tons of crazy shit happening, and they change a fucking plane and they steal it in midair. And it was like, that is that is what made me want to write the screenplay. So it's very gratifying to see that on the screen. And I would just say, if you are sitting down to write a screenplay, you know, find that thing in your vision of like, why do I want to make this movie? Like, what why do I want to write the script? Why would people want to see this movie? Like, what why am I doing this? Like, it can't just be, oh, I want to sell a script or you know, whatever. Like, if you're gonna sit there and do it, like I think that it's the writer's job to sort of imbue it with whatever that vision is. Um because again, even if they don't make the movie, I think that's what helps sell that script is uh having people read a script and be like, okay, this is this is a movie. Like, I see this, I see what we're trying to do here. And luckily for me, I like I said, this time we found Netflix, we found Kevin, we found Gary, all the producers from the moment they read that script, they said this is the movie we'll want to make. And so, regardless of uh choices or changes or or different things from my script to whatever the final script was, like none of that matters. Um, to me, this was always the movie we were trying to make, and that's the movie that's that's on your screen.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

Amazing. Daniel Conker, the first guest, I think I can say, to have both the number one movie on Netflix and fail to impregnate a wolf during a zombie apocalypse. Thank you very much indeed for coming on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Thank you, guys. It's been great. I do want to add, by the way, that it you when you write your memoirs in 10 to 15 years, that you need to be called impregnating the wolf, my Hollywood story. Thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

I'll do it. I appreciate it, guys. You guys have a great day.

SPEAKER_04 47:14

Cheers. Thank you for listening to this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss brought to you by Scriptation. Thank you as ever to James Launch for the music, and thank you to our loyal listeners. And if there's any showrunners out there who want to hear their fellow showrunners abused uh and ruffled around and put under the microscope so you can hear their stories of rejection, failure, and adversity, please send them our way. If you are interested in following us on social media, no, I've lost track.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

I am at NEBslin on Twitter or X or whatever Elon Musk now calls it. And thanks to Elon Musk, I'm also at Noah Ebslin on Hive, Scoutable, Blue Sky, Threads, Mastodon, MySpace, French True, and I'm sure it's