If you thought it was hard to get a major Hollywood studio to give you a bunch of money to make a movie, you’ve been wrong all this time. In fact, not only is it pretty easy, there are only 29 steps to making it happen. According to Maria Full of Grace director Joshua Marston, who’s written a simple-to-use flow chart for NPR’s Planet Money, fame and glory can be yours just by following the arrows.
Of course if there’s one thing this instruction manual illustrates, it’s how crappy things are in the system for screenwriters – something we seem to be talking about more and more these days. Not to mention anyone with original ideas.
But enough of the depressing stuff! Show us the money! How do we get the go-ahead on a blockbuster idea? How do we convince the top brass that we deserve their millions? How do we become the next Brett Ratner??
Step one: check out Marston’s chart below.
Step thirty: bury head in hands.