Will the notorious hell-bent movie producer Don Simpson see how he killed Hollywood? Sex, drugs and movie stars. Based on an award-winning screenplay.
I’m writing it ... read more
“BOSCUTTI’S DON SIMPSON EXPERIENCE” (serial novel)
“BOSCUTTI’S DON SIMPSON EXPERIENCE” (draft manuscript)
How do I bring Don Simpson to life?
I research and outline and cut and order and edit and reorder and trim and amalgamate (and manglemate) and push and shove ... read more
Sprinkle religious words
Sprinkle religious words throughout the text.
Make them double up as verbs, nouns. Not overt or over the top. Ring of stars. Halo of stars, that sort of ... read more
Let’s take a look inside Don Simpson’s bedroom
The headboard concealed a hidden compartment containing a shotgun and machete, the last line of defense against the intruders—be they mob-hired hit men, deranged prostitutes, jilted rivals or psychotic ... read more
Think of it as a cancer
Don Simpson always said the decline of movies started on the inside.
“The failing of the present-day system is quite simply based on the fact that the studio executives are ... read more
Self-delusional
How can Don Simpson be blind to the reality that his life is falling apart around him?
How can he not see he his killing himself?
How can he be ... read more
Don Simpson’s dramatic question
Will Don Simpson discover what killed him?
Open on his death and biopic his way through his life to see how he arrived at the end of it.
Everyone presumes ... read more
Don Simpson’s secret
What is Don Simpson’s deep dark secret? Maybe it’s that when he’s all alone in the dark, all alone where no one can see him, he reads the ... read more
Blind spot
Don Simpson can’t see that everything he hates in everyone else is what he hates most about himself.
How does he come to realize this? When he falls in ... read more
Don Simpson’s fatal flaw(s)
The man had so many flaws it’s hard to pick just one.
He was aggressive, shallow, arrogant, boorish, greedy, selfish, reckless, loud, brash. He was a wild man, a ... read more
What’s the main dramatic tension?
What will carry us through to the end of act two (and then see us through to the end)?
Maybe it’s the story of how a hateful man comes ... read more
Notes, notes, and more notes
Hell, I’m drowning in notes. Pages after pages. Thousands upon thousands of words.
Need to get them into some semblance of order. Just roughly chronological for the ... read more
Don Simpson – Hollywood tour guide
Simpson could stand anywhere in Hollywood and tell you a Hollywood story about what happened on that spot.
... read more
My kingdom for a narrative mode
Hmmm, just can’t seem to land the plane on the narrative style for the damn Don Simpson novel.
Read the novelization of Sidney Lumet’s “Network” (written by Paddy Chayefsky) and ... read more
Don Simpson died January 19, 1996
It was a Friday. The same day an Indonesian ferry sinks off the northern tip of Sumatra, drowning more than 100 people.
On January 7 one of the worst ... read more
Don Simpson had been a cocaine freak for years, without apparent problems
He had it under control. The blow just kept him firing and moving. But years of cocaine can often lead to paranoia, delusions and depression.
More to ... read more
In the middle of a meeting
Don Simpson reached San Francisco in the late 1960s, which is about as close to the Baptist hell as anywhere on earth.
He was working for a showbusiness advertising agency ... read more
Bad boy
That Don Simpson was a very bad boy in Anchorage is not in doubt.
But he left at the requisite age to attend the University of Oregon, where he ... read more
Simpson memo
“The pursuit of making money is the only reason to make movies.
“We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. ... read more
What does Simpson believe in?
“I don’t believe in the auteur theory. The movie is the auteur. It tells us what it needs to be. We’re here to serve the movie ... read more
$60,000 a month
According to reporter Charles Fleming, Simpson’s prescription drug expenses were over $60,000 a month at the time of his death.
... read more
Don Simpson died like a rock star
Elvis specifically, keeling over from a drug overdose on his toilet with a book in his hand.
Simpson’s friends had seen it coming – his own doctor, Steven Ammerman, had ... read more
LOS ANGELES – CAA OFFICES – BATHROOM – 1993
Joe Eszterhas and Don Simpson are standing at the urinal, pissing.
It’s not meant to be a competition. But Simpson is on a roll and he’s not ... read more
Paramount’s micro-micromanagement
More troubling for screenwriters in the 1980s, Paramount’s micro-micromanagement seemed to work.
Barry Diller and Michael Eisner hired additional staff, ambitious young Jeffrey Katzenberg as Diller’s assistant, for example, with ... read more
