Me, Harvey Weinstein And Police Academy 8

Harvey Weinstein sitting at his desk, me on the other side. It’s a pitch and I’m goddamn Pedro Martinez. Gonna pepper it up, blow his socks clean off. Harvey’s bemused, running his fingers over the fronds of a fichus and playing at “who gives a rat’s ass about you, kid, me and Gwynnie got a two-o’clock and your ass ain’t Tarantino.” So I get down to business, stare at him till he can’t help but lock eyes with me and I say it flat out. “You’ve lost it, big man.”

“What’s that?” he asks.

“No Oscar this year. Barely a Golden Globe. The Miramax days are over and you’re one sad sack of potatoes. Know what I mean, double XL? What your career needs is a shot of adrenalin and I’m the doctor to deliver it.”

He points at me. “Watch it, Starmer. Thin ice, pal. You have to know I make and break punks like you every day…”

Doesn’t faze me. “And we both know you haven’t made a good film or broken a box office record in many a day. So let’s settle down and listen up, kay?”

Harvey growls, a real gut growl, vitriol and Ethiopian dark roast fueling the rumble. But I laugh. He’s no grizzly, that’s for sure. Winnie the fuckin’ Pooh. I got the moxie and I got the pitch, and this son of a farmer is gonna hear me out. And he is gonna like it.

“Starmer,” he says, “you ain’t got a movie to your name. Hell, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve never even been published. Yet you found your way into my office, and the one thing you do have, well that’s moxie…”

“Goddamn right, boss. That and a degree in Cinema Studies from NYf’nU. So you see, I’m not here to be trifled with. I’m here to deliver you a franchise.”

“Spider-Man?”

“Better.”

“Shrek.”

“That ogre’s played, jumbo. No, what I bring you is a franchise with a name, a following, and a cast even Altman would fan his face over. Gold and green, boss. Oscars and cash.”

Harvey points to his watch and shrugs his shoulders. A challenge. You better believe I’m up to it. The Frisco Kid, I reach down to my Jansport backpack and draw that screenplay as quick as all get out, throw the sucker down on the desk with a mighty thump. As the oak creaks underneath its 300-page weight, he spies the title.

“You’re kidding me,” he says.

“That rolodex of yours better go as high as Guttenberg,” I say plainly. “And, don’t patronize me. Kidding is not in my nature.”

“Police Academy 8?”

“Well they’ve already made seven. If you’ve got a better title, I’d like to hear it.”

Heaving his bulk, Harvey stands up from the desk and gets nose to nose with me. “Cold Mountain,” he says. “The Aviator. Those titles ring a bell?”

I don’t budge. “Sure do. A couple of flops that didn’t win squat.”

“Prestige pictures, son!” he booms. “I stage events! I orchestrate lives! I give the world something to invest their precious emotions in! And you…you waltz in here with a Police Academy movie!”

This is when I smile, a real shit-eater of a grin. Then I sit, cross my legs all casual-like. And I say, “But this ain’t no regular Police Academy movie. First off, it’s not a comedy.”

His breath, stained with cigars and Altoids, is all he’s giving me. A little huffin’, a little puffin’, but nothin’ to tell me to quit. So I go on.

“Eastwood. That cat can play it dark. I mean the grizzled old fool wins Oscars, we all know that. We can call him. Actually, no. Let’s get Fincher. Maybe Aronofsky. Ferrara even. Someone not afraid to get a little nasty. This is not your Momma’s Police Academy film.”

Harvey takes a step back. He says, “My mother…”