Here's my advice to my friends at HBO.
Yes, we pitched Sons of Anarchy to you first.
Yes, we left your pitch meeting scratching our heads, wondering if the executive who was yawning, staring at her watch, putting her feet up on the table, and sighing exasperatedly was somehow testing our resolve; seeing if we were indeed more than just TV, were we HBO?
Yes, we sold the show to
FX.
Yes, you liked our pitch so much you went out and found your own.
Yes, you made a pilot and ordered scripts.
Yes, we will be on the air months before you.
Many people are wondering -- what you will do?
Is there room for two outlaw motorcycle shows?
Should you make 1%?
I say -- yes, yes, yes.
It's a big, rich fascinating world.
Spend some of that endless HBO coin.
Join the
motherfuckin' ride.
I don't know much about your show other than what I've read in the trades ( really good things) and what I've heard in certain MC circles (really bad things). I know you have an extremely talented cast. I love Donal
Logue. Wanted him for our show. Didn't have the money and clout to get him out of his previous deal. You did, you're fucking HBO, man.
Based on the
loglines I've read, it sounds like the bikers of 1% are a group of
meth-cooking under-achievers, a pack of Hells Angels Sweat Hogs and Donal
Logue's character is the bad-ass Mr.
Kotter. And with the great comic power of that cast --
Logue, Abe
Benrubi, James
LeGros, Kim Dickens, W. Earl Brown and Lucy Punch -- I'm assuming the series will have a more comedic bent.
It's really a win-win situation for you folks at HBO. If our show is a success, audiences will be excited about the world. There will be buzz and an appetite for outlaw motorcycle culture. As long as 1% delivers a unique tone and a different
POV of the world, HBO wins. And if our show tanks, 1% has the opportunity to be the take on the MC world that works. And if both shows are successful we feed off of each other. We all win.
I smell a season three cross-over episode.
All
snarkiness aside, I do believe that audiences will be open to multiple shows on the genre. They always have been. People don't fall in love with a show, they fall in love with the characters. If you populate shows with rich, complex characters, people will show up to watch their journeys. It doesn't matter how many other shows visit the same theme, doesn't matter if their riding
Harleys or
Vespas, doesn't matter if they're on
FX or
HGTV.
In fact, I'm sure Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS all have outlaw motorcycle projects in the works. Can you say
CSI Sturgis?
There's been some trade buzz about an old project of mine at Warner Bros., S.I.S.
I began developing this idea with Lorenzo DiBonaventura and Antoine Fuqua over five years ago. It was inspired by Antoine's experience on Training Day and an idea I had for a different kind of antagonist. The Special Investigation Section is essentially a covert ops division of LAPD. Their unorthodox methods often bring them under the scrutiny of the Christopher Commission and the ACLU. These guys are highly-trained soldiers who handle everything from tracking repeat offenders, to terrorist alerts, to kidnappings. They are the go-to guys when the shit hits the fan and no one else can handle the breeze.
Originally, Antoine was attached to direct, but as the project developed, he dropped out to do American Gangster (which also didn't work out). That's when I approached Lorenzo and the studio about directing the film. They liked the smaller, darker version I had in mind and signed off on me directing it. We had a budget, it was out to talent and at one point I believe it was on the slate for 2007. Then The Poseidon sunk Warner's and their slate was wiped clean. I was told that anything that was remotely a marketing challenge was tabled. In-Crime (the script name at the time) was a dark, urban drama -- a marketing challenge with no foreign value. The project was dead.
Flash forward to 2008. The Writer's Strike happens and Warner's is desperately looking for material. They dive back into their development pile and blow the dust off of In-Crime. I got a call from my agents saying the project was back in play. Unfortunately I was neck-deep in Sons of Anarchy without a hole in my schedule until 2009. So as much as it killed me to let this project go, I had no choice.
I'm not familiar with Chris Gorak's work, but I hear good things about him. A masterful storyteller is what I've been told. I've learned to treat projects/scripts like children. You give birth to them, you raise and develop them, but at some point you have to let them go. Other people need to influence and nurture them. All you hope for is that they don't grow up to be bad.
I look forward to seeing SIS grow up. Hopefully it will make me proud.
