The Pitch
(A one-minute drama)
Harvey Weinstein’s Bedroom. He is sporting a silk dressing gown. He adjusts a flower vase on a table and looks at the bottle of champagne nesting in a silver bucket.
H.W.: Come in sweetheart, do come in.
Enters a middle-aged woman (M-A.W) dressed austerely. H.W. is obviously taken aback. It was obviously not what he was expecting.
H.W.: It was you who wrote Three Women in Winter … I thought … nevermind, you’re here now. Do take a seat. I’m sorry to receive you here, like this, but I explained to your agent that I had a full schedule today. But I can give you 7 minutes. Convince me!
M-A.W.: (Uneasy) Seven minutes … not an awful lot of time.
H.W.: So clearly the sooner you start the better. Your agent said it was a serious drama … begin with the story-line_
M-A.W.: It’s about our planet coming under attack_
H.W.: (shaking his head) No, no, no … we don’t do science fiction.
M-A.W.: It isn’t science fiction, Mr Weinstein. The planet comes under attack by a new virus.
H.W.: I can’t have Jennifer Lawrence playing a virus_
M-A.W.: The virus is invisible, Mr Weinstein.
H.W.: Call me Harvey … you were saying?
M-A.W.: It’s a great story, dramatic, heart-wrenching … you see there is no cure, no vaccine, and this virus can be deadly. It has the potential of killing millions. It is totally undiscriminating … Not a single country is spared. There is only one thing to do, government orders a lockdown … closes down everything.
H.W.: How do you show that in a film?
M-A.W.: People are confined to their own homes. They need to wear masks_
H.W.: I did not get where I am today by paying millions to the likes of Jenny Lawrence and then getting her to hide their faces.
M-A.W.: There’s a lot of skulduggery about the commercialisation of masks … and other medical equipment.
H.W.: But where’s the drama.
M-A.W.: But there’s plenty of drama. Husbands and wives fight. Just like in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. But there is plenty of heroism … people who risk their lives to bring food to markets, to nurse the sick, deliver letters, clean the environment … But people want to stockpile, but there’s no food, no toilet paper, sanitizers. Black-marketeering and profiteering are rife. They fight. There are stabbings. Factories close, transport comes to a standstill. Children no longer go to school … nobody visits, marriages breakdown, domestic violence flares up …
H.W.: Hold it, hold it, how do you writers come up with these ideas? I won’t waste your time sweetheart, I specialise in true-to-life drama, but this is too far-fetched, the audience will not buy it.
