This is how your comedy sausage gets made: after Steve Martin made a cameo during Alec Baldwin’s SNL monologue two Saturdays ago, Adam Shankman, who directed the duo when they hosted the Oscars together, thought “hey, those two should make a movie together and I should be involved.†And now, that is something that seems like it might happen, with Shankman directing and New Line interested. What would the movie be about? As specific as anyone can get at this point is that it’ll be “a bit of Trading Places meets Grumpy Old Men.†Haha, OK! Sure, that’s almost a movie idea.
So, to recap: the screenplay you have spent the past five years rewriting over and over again, obsessing over structure and throwaway lines of dialogue, will almost definitely never get made. Meanwhile, a dude in Hollywood thought “hey Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are funny†and he will sell a movie before he even has an idea for one. What a business!