Revisionist History - Welcome to Development Hell

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. On February 29th, Revisionist History is returning with Development Hell, a series of untold stories about Hollywood projects that never left the page. There's a Philip K. Dick adaptation with a twist too shocking for the studios, a biopic about an exotic pet, and Malcolm’s own misadventure trying to adapt his bestselling book, Blink. Coming soon!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. Years ago, I had an adventure in Hollywood. Me and my friend Steve pitched a movie idea to a whole list of studio bosses and fancy offices all across Los Angeles. We waved our fingers in the air. We jumped up and down. Agents called us from their cars. We put them on speaker. There were offers. There were stars.

It was a deal. And then nothing happened. And I got my first lesson in Hollywood, which is that most things never happen. In fact, maybe the best things never happen. There's a phrase they use out in Los Angeles to describe the purgatory where once promising scripts go to die. Development hell.

And our idea here at Revisionist History is to do a little mini-series, half a dozen or so episodes, where we tell development hell stories. Call up a screenwriter or a director and ask them to tell the story of the story that got away. And it turns out there are a ton of great stories about great stories that got away. You know what the analogy, the best analogy to your world is? If you work in the drug industry, most people who are researchers for drug companies will spend their entire career working on drugs that will never make it to the market. It's the same thing. So it's like this weird thing where there are these incredibly smart people who are doing all of this brilliant work and nothing they do will ever see the light of day. Yeah, yeah.

It's sort of, it's a little bit heartbreaking. Oh, it's heartbreaking, all right. And funny and weird and fascinating. It's a glimpse into the Hollywood that never happened. We're going to start with a story that got me going on this adventure. My wild ride around Los Angeles years ago with my friend Steve. I must say, the entire time we were with Leo, I was like so hopelessly starstruck. And from there, we're going to talk about

a sci-fi story with a twist that was a little too twisty for the movie business. He kicks down the door, and he points his gun, and then the hacker turns around, and it's a child. We've got an amazing biopic about the world's most famous chimpanzee. An utterly insane musical about Elvis as a cab driver and so much more. Not to mention an unhealthy amount of name dropping celebrity gossip, and endless digressions.

Oh my God. At one point during one of these interviews, I looked across at my producer, Nina, and realized she was crying. And then I realized I was crying. And guess what? When you listen to that little bit, my guess is that you'll be crying too.

Unless you have a heart of stone.. Unless you have a heart of stone. And if you have a heart of stone, maybe this podcast isn't for you. You can hear Development Hell right here in this feed starting February 29th, when we'll be dropping the first two episodes. Two for the price of one, then weekly after that. And as always, you can hear all of Revisionist History ad-free

by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. So, it's actually, it's actually an incredible story.