Why do people live in Los Angeles? I understand the appeal: the weather, the architecture, the food, the feeling that you’re in a real place where big things happen—like earthquakes, wildfires, and gay serial killers worshipping Satan. Oh, and car accidents. Last night I had dinner with an old friend, someone who’s lived in Los Angeles for nearly a decade. She just moved into a new apartment that overlooks “the” 405. “I spent the first night crying in bed,” she said, “but It’s not that noisy. Cars pretty much just sit there, especially during rush hour.” She showed me a picture of her bedroom window, and it was even closer to the highway—sorry, “freeway”—than I thought. “Aren’t you worried about an accident? A car could come flying into your place and you’d have no idea.” She shook her head. “I’m more worried about the fumes.”
She offered me a ride home, but I told her that I’d walk. “Nobody walks in LA,” she reminded me. “Well, it’s three blocks away, so I’m pretty sure I can do it.” She turned and scoffed. “Don’t get mugged.” Come again? “Why would I get mugged? I have a gun.” She assumed I was joking (I was), and we hugged and said goodbye. I told her not to get into a car accident on the way home.
I was in town to sell my soul. My “creation,” Rooster Quibbits, was suddenly a “hot commodity.” I was taking meetings in Hollywood and waiting for an offer. They wanted to make a Rooster Quibbits movie, but none of the movie people would let me write or direct, and none of the TV people would hire me as show runner. HBO conceded “consultant,” Warner Brothers promised dolls and letterman jackets, while Netflix had the gall to “offer” me the credit “Based on characters created by Nicky Otis Smith.” You’re offering me what I’ve already done? Isn’t that kind of credit a given. Apparently not: “Not everyone gets credit in Hollywood. You should be so lucky.”
I wasn’t sure if he was even using that expression correctly, because once I thought about it, I realized I didn’t know what it meant. “You should be so lucky.” Is it sarcastic, passive-aggressive? It’s not literal. See, this is what happens when you spend too much time in Los Angeles: you get dumber. Look, I love the city, it’s beautiful and full of incredible movie theaters, but the people out here are stupid. I mean, really. Why would anyone want to move here from the East Coast? I understand if you were born there, or in the Midwest, but for an easterner, what does LA have to offer that New York City doesn’t? I don’t care THAT much about the weather. Just buy a coat.
But I don’t even know why I took that Netflix meeting. I hate Netflix. They’re the only streaming behemoth that’s explicitly set out to destroy theatrical exhibition. “It’s an outdated concept,” said Ted Sarandos, months before Netflix failed to acquire Warner Brothers in a merger that likely would’ve eliminated movie theaters as we know them. I like money, and I’m willing to invest in missiles and computer chips, but I draw the line at killing movie theaters. If I’m going to sell or option the Quibbits brand to someone, they better make a movie out of it, and it better play in thousands of theaters. Otherwise, what’s the point? I make enough money writing about the Quibbitses; I don’t even like new movies, they’re all under-lit and made for nobody. “We’re working on that,” one Paramount executive told me.
He had even more ideas. “We’re going back to the well. Our roots. The core, the heart music: Radio.”
“Radio? The Cuba Gooding Jr. movie?”
“Yes.”
“But he’s retarded in that movie.”
“Exactly. People can say ‘retarded’ again, it’s coming back. Rain Man, I Am Sam, Gilbert Grape, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump—”
“Tom Hanks wasn’t retarded in Philadelphia. He had AIDS.”
“Well, they’re close. AIDS is in the ‘retarded’ ballpark. Besides, AIDS isn’t really in right now—“
“I’m not saying I want Rooster to have AIDS, I just—”
“We’re bringing back retarded protagonists whether you like it or not.”
I stood up. This was too much to take.
“Rooster Quibbits is not retarded. He will NEVER be retarded.”
“Look, let’s be real with each other. Man to man.”
“There are plenty of women in here, let’s hear what they have to say.”
“Not necessary. The fact of the matter is that Rooster is… a talking rooster, so how smart can he be?”
Everyone thinks New Yorkers are rude, which is true, but people in Los Angeles are not only rude but dumb, SO dumb. I started having second thoughts about this whole thing. Even if the Quibbits movie were a massive success, it wouldn’t be mine, and it certainly wouldn’t be the Quibbitses’. The only thing keeping me here was the possibility that someone might offer me a limited option with strict conditions—strict enough that the movie would never be made. Bret Easton Ellis told me he was paid six figures every year of the 1990s because no studio would produce American Psycho, but Edward R. Pressman was determined to get it made, so he kept renewing the deal. Bret’s contract forfeited any further profit participation should the movie ever be made, so when Lionsgate and Mary Harron actually pulled it off in 2000, Bret made no money. Still hasn’t. It’s become an iconic American film, a very good adaptation of an “unfilmable” book” if you ask me. But Bret hates it (he’s kinder in public). He thinks The Rules of Attraction is much better. “Roger understood that book.”
But The Rules of Attraction bombed, and it hasn’t endured to the degree that American Psycho has, or even the awful 1987 movie of Less Than Zero. I can’t tell with Bret… I get the sense that it’s not just the money—well, maybe it’s just the money. He could probably move out of that condo if he had money coming in from action figures, breakfast cereals, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Do I really want to pimp out three people I’ve come to know and love for over a decade? Technically speaking they’re “birds,” but they’re more human than most people I’ve met. Rooster, Monica, and Bennington have people names because they are people. This would prove a difficult concept to explain as I made my way through Hollywood, turning one studio after another down.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter: @NARCFILM