This is awesome.

william goldman wrote about this process, and it's a weird one. one that comes to mind is that he wrote a screenplay for greenlight dude at a studio. dude loves it. dude leaves studio before it is greenlit. new greenlight guy comes onboard. says he will never do the movie. goldman wants to buy it back. greenlight guy says no. goldman can't figure out why. eventually someone tells him: if new greenlight dude greenlights it, then if it succeeds, he gets no credit. 'of course,' they'll say, 'dude before you greenlit it, so you didn't do shit.' however, if dude releases it, and it gets made, and it is successful, people will say, you dumb motherfucker how could you let it go?

a strange business.

Zero sum game of competition, like those articles recently talking about how humans choose financial gain relative not to their current standing, but relative to that of others.

People would rather be the only small winner than a medium winner among big winners.

For other references, see wotak's 'small w' syndrome.

I find it mind-blowing most movies are made based on one very small paragraph of exposition. I went through and read about 40 of them along with his comments.

It might be a neat thread, all of us pitching loglines. I'll go start it.