Thanks, Kel. Good to see you're still around. Not many names on here I recognize any more! I guess a new breed of young whippersnappers have taken over.
Yvonn, here's a long answer to your short question:
We were repped by two other agents prior to the agent we have now, but neither of them worked out. We got those agents based on the submission of a spec.
Here's how we got our current representation: Our Escape Artist script was read by a producer who passed it to Marti Blumenthal, a manager who used to be an agent at Writers & Artists (she represented John Grisham, among others). We met with Marti and signed immediately based on her experience, honesty and, above all, enthusiasm for our writing. Marti got the script out to some name producers and studios and we got several meetings. Todd Garner and Ben Haber at Broken Road read it and really liked it. They called us in and they told us they wanted us to do a rewrite. We got to work and had a great working relationship with them. In the meantime, Ben Haber knew an agent that he thought would love the script - Bruce Kaufman at ICM. Bruce read the script and believed that we'd sell the script. We met with him and he told us that he wanted to sign us. Not only is he a very nice, "real" guy, but he has a ton of experience and an unbelievable client list (including Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey's Anatomy). We were blown away that an agent of his stature wanted to rep us and we jumped at the chance. Three weeks later, the script sold.
If you don't mind - when they asked for a rewrite, was it before or after any deal was made?
I'm curious to know if you did the rewrite for free and if you think that helped turn it into a sale.
Teach me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me the truth and I'll believe. Tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.
Dean, we did do a free rewrite for Todd Garner prior to the LG deal. If a lesser known producer had asked us to do a free rewrite, the answer likely would have been different. Not only has Todd run two studios, but a glance at his IMDB page shows that he is VERY adept at getting movies made. We had no experience working with someone at his level and even if we did not sell the script, we assumed (correctly) that the experience alone would have well been worth the effort expended in the rewrite.
Tony R - one of the few other names I recognize. Thanks for the congrats.
Despite not being on these boards much recently, I still consider myself a Done-Dealer, so if you have any questions that I can answer, I'd be happy to help out.
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