Welcome to Development Hell

you know that next week we're bringing you something completely new.

Many years ago I had an adventure in Hollywood.

Me and my friend Steve pitched a movie idea to a whole list of studio bosses in fancy

offices all across Los Angeles.

We waved our fingers in the air, we jumped up and down, agents called us from their

cars, we put them on speaker, there were offers, there were stars, it was a deal.

And then nothing happened.

And I got my first lesson in Hollywood, which is that most things never happen.

In fact, maybe the best things never happen.

There's a phrase they use out in Los Angeles to describe the purgatory where once promising

scripts go to die, development hell.

And our idea here at Revisionist History is to do a little mini-series, half a dozen or

so episodes, where we tell development hell stories.

Call up a screenwriter or a director and ask them to tell the story of the story that got

away.

And it turns out there are a ton of great stories about great stories that got away.

You know what the analogy, the best analogy to your world is?

If you work in the drug industry, most people who are researchers for drug companies will

spend their entire career working on drugs that will never make it to the market.

It's the same thing.

So it's like this weird thing where there's these incredibly smart people who are doing

all of this brilliant work and nothing they do will ever see the light of day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a little bit heartbreaking.

Oh, it's heartbreaking, all right.

And funny and weird and fascinating.

It's a glimpse into the Hollywood that never happened.

We're going to start with the story that got me going on this adventure.

My wild ride around Los Angeles years ago with my friend Steve.

I must say the entire time we were with Leo, I was like so hopelessly starstruck.

And from there, we're going to talk about a sci-fi story with a twist that was a little

too twisty for the movie business.

He kicks down the door and he points his gun and then the hacker turns around and it's

a child.

We've got an amazing biopic about the world's most famous chimpanzee, an utterly insane

musical about Elvis as a cab driver, and so much more.

Not to mention an unhealthy amount of name dropping, celebrity gossip, and endless digressions.

Oh my God.

At one point during one of these interviews, I looked across at my producer Nina and realized

she was crying.

And then I realized I was crying.

And guess what?

When you listen to that little bit, my guess is that you'll be crying too, unless you have

a heart of stone.

And if you have a heart of stone, maybe this podcast isn't for you.

You can hear Development Hell right here in this feed starting February 29th when we'll

be dropping the first two episodes, two for the price of one, then weekly after that.

And as always, you can hear all of Revisionist History ad-free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus.

So, it's actually, it's actually an incredible story.