SYS Podcast Episode 072: Screenwriter Mills Goodloe Talks About The Age of Adaline Starring Blake Lively (transcript)

This is a transcript of SYS Podcast Episode 072: Screenwriter Mills Goodloe Talks About The Age of Adaline Starring Blake Lively.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Welcome to episode 72 of the selling your screenplay podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers screenwriter and blogger over at sellingyourscreenplay.com. In this episodes main segment I’m interviewing Mills Goodloe who wrote the film Age of Adaline which is in theatres right now. He talks about his journey writing the script and patiently waiting for it to get produced. It was a long process taking over 12 years. So, stay tuned for that.

If you find this episode valuable please help me out by giving me review in iTunes, or leaving a comment on YouTube, or re-tweeting the podcast on Twitter, or liking it on Facebook. This social media shares really do help spread word about the podcast so they’re very much appreciated.

Couple of quick notes, any websites or links that I mentioned in the podcast can be found on my blog in the show notes. I also publish a transcript with every episode in case you’d rather read the show, or look at something later on. You can find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast and then just look for episode #72. Also, if you want my free guide on how to sell a screenplay in five weeks you can pick that up by going to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free you just put in your email address and I’ll send you a new lesson once per week for five weeks along with a bunch of bonus lessons. I teach the whole process of how to sell your screenplay in that guide. How to write a professional logline, inquiry letter, how to find agents, managers, and producers who are looking for material, really is everything you need to know to sell your screenplay. So just go to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide.

Also a quick plug for the new SYS screen writing analysis service, it’s a really economical way to get high quality professional script notes on your screenplays. All the readers have experienced reading for studios, production companies, agencies, or contest the readers that I’ve partnered with are gatekeepers their exactly the same people who are going to be reading your scripts at the companies you submit to. The readers will evaluate your script on several key factors like concept and premise, structure, character, dialogue, and marketability. Every script with get a grade of passed, consider, or recommend. I’m also offering a bonus if you get one recommend from a reader you get a free email and fax blast to my list of industry contacts. This is the exact same blast service I use myself to promote my scripts and is the same service I sell on the website. It’s a great way to get your script into the hands of producers who are looking to make movies.

Also on the website you can read a quick bio on each reader and pick the one who you think would be the best fit for your screenplay. I’ve actually added a few new readers this past week so, definitely check that out even if you’ve looked at it before, I think there’s four new readers listed on that page that you can choose for your screenplays.

One question I’ve been getting a lot about the studio reader 3 pack is that people are just wondering how they can use it. It’s a $199 right now and which means it’s less than $67 per script read. It’s really completely flexible. So, you can use it however you want, you can have one, you can send, you can buy the 3 pack send your script, have one reader read it, you can get notes, you can re-write it, have the same reader, or different reader read it, you can use it over the course of you know, any number of weeks, or months that you’d like to. It’s completely flexible and you’re just literally buying three script reads in one package and then you can use them however you want. So, if you want a professional evaluation of your screenplay at a very reasonable price so check out www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/consultants.

A quick few words about what I’m working on, I’m still plugging away at my limited location mob action thriller screenplay. I’m still very much on track to be finished with this script in mid June. So, hopefully I’d be done and then I’ll start sending it out in mid June. A good friend of mine from my writers group he really wants to go out and shoot something so we’re trying to figure out what to shoot and how much money we can personally come up with. I’m always on the podcast telling people to just get out there and do something so, hopefully I’ll take my own advice here soon and I’d be getting out there and starting to do something as well even if it’s on a micro budget. I’ve mentioned this many times on the podcast I’ve a lot of script options right now but you know, I’m not really that confident that any of them are going to go, so sometimes as a writer you just want to see something made so, I’m thinking to get something done just get out there and just do it myself, you know obviously with my friend from the writers group so, it’s just a matter of trying to figure out what’s script can be done on micro budget and then start to put the production together. If I decide to do this I definitely would be keeping you up to date and maybe I’ll make it turn it into a little case study on the podcast.

Also I did an online pitch this past week with happy writers its run by Joey Tuccio over at Stage 32, I will link to it in the show notes. I actually had Joey on the podcast last August in episode 32 so, if you’re curious about hearing more from him definitely check out episode #32. It basically works like this. You prepare a pitch for one of your screenplays and Joey actually gives some good advice about how to break down that pitch so, I’m not going to necessarily go through that now. But it’s basically an 8-minute pitch you have your logline, a longer synopsis. You kind of just basically pitch your screenplay and yourself it’s not just the screenplay, you pitch yourself to what your credits are kind of what you’ve done and how you approach this specific story and then you pitch the story. You have eight minutes to do it, the executive is on the other line, it’s online so it’s an internet, he’s on the other line, it’s Skype in this particular case we used GoToMeeting, but I think it’s usually like a Skype call where you’re literally looking at the executive he’s looking at you.

And I pitched one of my screenplays, I pitched a horror-comedy screenplay that I wrote couple of years ago, I pitched that too and I think it could actually be a good service. It’s not cheap I think it cost about $45 per pitch I don’t know the price may vary it may go up over the next couple of months, or years so if you listening to this later the price may not be $45 dollars, but I think it’s $45 per pitch so it’s not that cheap. I think Joey said between 30% and 60% of the scripts get requested so it’s not you know, you talk about, even just going on those odds let’s say you get a third. So you’re talking about $150 if you’re just purely, statistically average you get one of your scripts requested roughly every 2 or 3 pitches, so you’re talking about $150 per script request.

But I think you could actually work in the sense that you know exactly who the executive is that you’ll be pitching so you could research them before hand and you can buy pitches for executives that are looking for the exact type of material that you are writing. And I think if you did this if you really honed in on two, or three, or four executives maybe let’s say four, five executives and you pitch them you’ve had a specific let’s say a horror script and you found four executives that were looking for horror material and you pitch them and then you continue. Even if you got a script request, you didn’t get a script request you will get better at pitching so, I would guess that you can get closer to that 60% success rate if you do this a bunch you’ll get better at pitching. I know this was the first time I’d ever done an online pitch I definitely just from doing one I definitely felt like gee there’s a lot of things I could do better. So, if I did it over and over again I think I would get better and then hopefully your percentage goes up.

But the thing that I think could be really valuable is if you continue to go back to the same executives you know, there is some interaction there like it’s you know, you get on with this executive and you say, “Hey, how’s it going?” and he says, “Oh, hey how’s it going with you?” and there’s just that sort of like it’s a real connection, obviously it’s probably not as good as actually being in the room but it’s not bad. It’s pretty personalized and they will remember you. If you go keep going back to the same executives you know, you pitch him your horror script maybe a few months later you’ve written another horror-thriller script you go back to the same executives and you pitch them again, and if they’ve read your script and they you know, liked if but it wasn’t quite right they’re going to be really high into request that script again. And maybe at some point too you could actually get their email address probably wouldn’t be that hard to track down their email address and if you have pitched them two, or three times and then you track down their email address on something like IMDb pro and then just email them directly when you finish a new script say in reference to the happy writers pitch. Again there would be that personal connection and then I know a lot of people who listens to this podcast, a lot of people who read my blog I know they’re not in L.A. so, especially if you’re not in L.A. Everyone always says, “Gee, it’s so hard I don’t know where to send my script.” It’s like this is a real way to, it’s kind of the opposite approach of what I sell on my site. The email and fax blast is just a total shotgun approach where you’re just pitching you know, literally thousands of producers and this is definitely the other end of the extreme.

So, if you feel strange about using a service like my email and fax blast service where you’re basically just sending cold inquiry letters to people. This is definitely the other end of the extreme where you really you could research the executive, you can find the one that’s right for you and then you really can pitch them and it’s all very you know, they know basically what they’re in for, they’re coming to listen to pitches. So, it’s all you know, works it would just be a real nice way of finding some executives, doing some research, figuring out who’s the right one for your script, pitching them, and doing this over the course of months and potentially years building up a nice relationship with them. So, if you’re interested definitely check that out I will link to that in the show notes and I’ll let you know why I did as I say I pitch one script and the guy did request it so, we’ll see how that turns out and I’ll definitely keep people up to date if anything turns up with that.

So, now let’s get into the main segment. Today I’m interviewing Mills Goodloe, here is the interview:

Ashley Scott Meyers: Welcome Mills to the selling your screenplay podcast I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Mills Goodloe: Glad to be here, I’m glad to have me.

Ashley Scott Meyers: So, to start out I wonder if you could give people a quick overview of kind of how you got started in the entertainment industry and eventually sold your first screenplay.

Mills Goodloe: I started out as an assistant to a director right out of college Dick Dohner and I had a friend of mine who had a connection within this film that he was doing and I got a job as his third assistant, basically picking him up and being his driver and through the course of maybe the first couple of years I was really doing laundry runs and getting cars fixed and so forth. And then eventually started trusting me more with his company and his business and I ended staying with him for 8 years and towards the end of it I was able to produce some pretty large films that he had was making at that time. And my experience also running his company allowed me to read thousands and thousands of scripts and when I left working with him to become a writer I’ve used my knowledge of reading so many scripts and as a capacity as a producer for him and really start thinking about you know, why was some working, why some didn’t work, and why did some go into production, and why other weren’t and just kind of through osmosis through this last few years trying to understand screenwriting and writing through that way. I directed a film right out off the bat and I directed it because you know, I also wrote the script and then the first thing I really sold, the first thing I ever got paid for is this movie Age of Adaline which opens up at on the 24^th and that was sold. Then I had a writing partner he and I had written a screenplay come August and everything after that got the attention of an agent and then through the agent I was able to meet some people and then I sold this that as a pitch to a producer based upon him liking that first script that my writing partner and I had written.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Okay, let me just back up a second. So, you’re working as an assistant did you at that point have some intention like did you know you wanted to be a writer, or at that point you were just kind of figuring out the entertainment industry and the various jobs?

Mills Goodloe: I was kind of a dope you know, I really was I was just you know it was a job, I was having fun and I was in Los Angeles, I was just kind of feeling my way around and I was in my early 20’s and I didn’t really have the foresight to be having some master plan. But after a couple of years working for him it started to kind of figure. I thought that he had a really great job and I thought directing was a great job and being in that position and being you know, kind of an observer of everything that went on I started to say you know, I don’t want to be an agent, I don’t really want to be a producer. I want to be generating something and I could have some control over and it just kind of very organically said you know, writing is something that I’d like to do I enjoy it and once more with myself that I was you know, I’d read some of my stuff that I got to the point where I kind of say, “I think I understand what’s going on as a writer.” And I have to read a lot to do that before hand I don’t think it could’ve learned that through school.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Now did you write as you know, a kid did you write you know, your college newspaper was there any like inkling?

Mills Goodloe: I didn’t, I didn’t. I don’t, no. I was not an English major. I was a business and political science major. I didn’t write any short story as a kid. I didn’t even it was just all, it didn’t really kind of click for me until I start working for him and started working on some for him and it got to the age where I said, “Geez I got to start thinking about what I wanted to do.” And I just very organically started to evolve into writing screenplays, I have a very A typical story than many screenwriters.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Yeah, yeah I don’t know if there’s a typical story but I think that’s interesting path. So, let’s talk about your script you mentioned this spec script August and everything after maybe just walk us through quickly sort of that process. I mean it sounds like I think most people would assume since you were working at the highest level as a producer it would’ve been fairly easy for you to write something and get an agent but the way you’ve kind of said, “Oh, I wrote this script.” And it got a little thing so, maybe you could walk us through that process and just kind of enlighten us to what that…

Mills Goodloe: Well, yeah I was on the other side of the fence and I thought that was the most important thing for me to be doing. I was not on the highest levels of producer I was a paid employee mainly producing physical production for him and when we’re shooting the film during this production and he was a pure director. He was no writer-director and he produced based upon the verge of the fact that he produces his own stuff because he’s a very powerful director. So, but I knew people just through knowing people around and I knew that if I had a script that could at least have somebody read it and somebody pay attention, and what happen was actually I made my first film which is a very, very small independent film through your typical begging people from wanting to make a movie to kind of back up for a second.

I was able to, through that small film I knew some people that worked on the talent side also is from that film, so at least when I wrote a script I knew that they had read it. But you know, that’s not really a huge bearer to entry just because you can get someone to read the script you know, I wasn’t getting you know, Brian Grazer to read the script I was getting mid level talent agent to read the script that maybe could forward it to someone that worked in on the lead side. But even that said if the script it wasn’t any good I didn’t have the obligation to make because I wasn’t even working in that capacity anymore and no one’s going to do  you a favour because everyone’s so busy and they’ve got enough clients and no one’s going to be kind of just kind of, stringing you along. Even though you have the opportunity to have somebody to read your script it better have something that they could see in it and that one fortunately did.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Okay, okay so walk us through that path you got it one of this mid-level assistants and they pass it on to an agent?

Mills Goodloe: To a lead agent, I got two. If someone who I was trying to say, okay can I make this film, another independent film and he was on the talent side at UTA. And he very fortuitously you know, I couldn’t get the movie made and was just you know, how it’s trying to get independent film made it’s just impossible. It was even more impossible then because we were shooting on film and things like that but he went to the lead side to this talent agent name Shauna Eddie and said hey, “I read the script you should look at it maybe you want to represent this guy.” And she read it and I met with her and it’s kind of funny is that I’ve been with that agency now my entire career she’s left, she’s had children, now she’s a producer on project I’m working on right now they’ve always stayed at UTA I’ve never have signed a contract. It was just you know, yeah I’d liked it you know, and then I said why I want to maybe do this pitch that I have and then she set up a meeting and then I told that this Age of Adaline as a pitch and then they started making it and it was kind of going from there but it was a very casual process.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Okay so let’s dig in to Age of Adaline that’s your most recent film starring Blake Lively. I guess it’s going to be released fairly soon. Maybe you can start up by giving us a logline, or a pitch for the film.

Mills Goodloe: The film is about a woman who is born in the turn of the century when she’s 29 years old she hits and accident and she stops aging, and that story picks up in present day. Some 80 years later and she’s lived a hundred years as a 29-year-old woman and all the ramifications of what it’s like to be that person to not been able to get too close to somebody because of course you have of somewhat of a secret there and the story takes place in present day which she starts to fall in love and complications in its due.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Perfect, perfect. I will link to trailer in the show notes too so people can check that out.

Mills Goodloe: It opens up today.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Okay, okay. We’ll definitely yeah at the end of the podcast we’ll definitely go all through the various channels that’s going to be releasing. So, where did this idea come from?

Mills Goodloe: It came from at the time I’d say it was really my beginning of my writing career and I was big fan of Destin d’Amelie the French film and I thought it was such an interesting idea to have this wonderfully, strong, interesting woman in Paris, and I started building from there and then I said okay maybe I could create a woman like that. It was a little bit interesting, different, had kind of a different feel about her and I’ll put her in New York City and then it start backing up into you know, what makes her interesting and then maybe what’s special about her and then one of the things which I did on the script which I was really adamant about is there one buy in the story. And I think a screenwriter you sometimes get into trouble when you start making too many rules and I looked at it like Back to The Future which is a wonderful example of once you buy in to the fact that you know, The DeLorean can be used to take you back to meet your sister and your mother when she was in high school, that’s the only buy in you have to have and I had the same thing where this accident happen and she stopped aging, and there’s nothing else to, do you have to believe there’s no other rules except for that one. There are no rules it’s just as an accident that happened.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Yeah, yeah. So, it sounds like this sort of, I mean that’s kind of the high concept part of this story is that conceit and is sounds like that came fairly late in the process. It sounds like you sort of were developing this interesting character and then that kind of came later. Is that how it went down?

Mills Goodloe: Well you know, when I started writing the script that was all there but the original idea was okay yeah I want to write a story about a strong female protagonist and there wasn’t any films like that and I was very influenced by that strong female protagonist. And it was just only a matter of a couple of weeks after that, that the rest of it kind of came around. It was a matter of years of developing but the big pitch because I sold it as a pitch to a producer was you know, sitting down and saying, “Okay, here is the story, this is her story.” And the big pie concept so to speak is you know, what if you had a woman looks like she’s 29 that’s lived a hundred years, lived the entire 20^th century.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to be clear you had that all thought out once you went in for the pitch. That was developed?

Mills Goodloe: Yeah, yeah. So, the idea about Amelie to then make it a protagonist and then to say wrap a story around it which then led to the pitch, which then to the producer buying the pitch and saying, “Okay go write the script because it think maybe we could do something about the idea.” And then it took 12 years to get the movie made.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Wow, you literally sold it 12 years ago?

Mills Goodloe: Yeah, its 2000 and then 2003 it was sold.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Okay, okay. So, yeah, yeah sometimes it takes these things to get, takes them a while to get going. One question I would have is did you find it to be an advantage that you had a strong female protagonist I mean, it’s kind of like a Hollywood just truism that there’s not a lot of great roles for you know, for women. So, having a great role for a woman can be an advantage but on the flipside you also get producers saying, “Well, with a female protagonist it’s not going to sell as well overseas, it’s not going to sell as well internationally.” And stuff so, I wonder if you got any push back on that, or sort of how you came up now that you’ve been through would you continue to write female driven scripts?

Mills Goodloe: Well, you just kind of answered the question there. It’s the reason why it took 12 years to get it made is back in 2005, 2006, 2007 no one was interested in making a film with a strong female protagonist in any possible way and there’s no you know, you could make it with a Reese Witherspoon if it was a big broad comedy, but there’s zero appetite for it and that’s why from 2005 maybe 2006. I had a writing partner and then the writing partner and I stop working together in 2004 and then for about 4 years you know, I would go a year without even a hit note from him in the name of the script. It was just dead. It was as dead as possibly can be and then I was brought on in 2009 as a solo writer to do a page one re-write on my own script that I’ve written as a theme. And then that started to get in a lot more attention and that got into some financiers and they started trying to put the film together in 2010, but even in 2010 it was really, really difficult once again you know, this is a 30 million dollar film and to spend that on a movie where the lead female is in every frame of the movie it was a tough thing to do and that started changing.

You know, only a few years ago because if you started thinking about it you know now it’s the the YA you know the Hunger Games with Jennifer Lawrence and the Divergent with Shailene and you know, but that’s a female lead in a YA story. Okay but before they did that there was no one even you know the term YA you never had sells like that, okay now you could have a theme, a strong younger female protagonist in a more of an action film. Okay that’s good so I kind of check that box on and if you look at let’s say you know, Melissa McCarthy Oh, now we could have a big broad comedy in a big funny comedy with a lead, okay that’s going to be fine, that’s going to be great. And then you could try and tell a story that was more of straight romantic story everything and I’ve written the Nicholas Sparks adaptation it came out last year you know, once again that’s a two-hander you always have the actor and the actress. So, there’s a lot of feelings that had to kind of be broken in order to get to the point where they would say, “Okay, we’ll spend this much money.” And look at you know the enormous success of Gravity. That also says now you could have a female in very frame of the movie so, this would be interesting to see what happens on the film when this film opens and see how people respond to it where it’s okay, it’s a female lead, and a romantic movie, and she’s in every frame of the film.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Yeah. So, sort of to answer my question would you do it again? It sounds like you’re kind of on the fence, it sounds like this was very, very difficult.

Mills Goodloe: Oh, now I’m definitely going to do it. I’m actually there’s two projects that I’m probably going to be doing next and both of them have female protagonist because its highlight it’s turn. Now, I’m glad it’s happening right now but if you would ask that same question to me five years ago I’d say, ”Absolutely not.” Why write any female protagonist because everyone uses the same excuse of why they not going to make the movie is that you know, who is your draw, there’s only two women that can open up movie. You know, the Jennifer Lawrence, Melissa McCarthy paradigm was never around five years ago. And now they’re arguably massive, now you’re making Ghostbusters with women. It’s completely changed the whole thing. Now the question you should ask me is do you ever want to write a movie as a big male in front of the lead to start because that’s the one that’s starting to die off now,

Ashley Scott Meyers: So, let’s go through your sort of writing process. Maybe you can just take us through you kind of covered it a little bit just in terms of this taking many different passes and different re-writes but what is your writing process look like? Do you write you know, an hour a day? Six hours a day? Eight hours a day? Do you know, binge write ten hours a day? What is your writing process like?

Mills Goodloe: Yeah, I wake up in the morning I start writing until I get tired and then I try to do something else and then I kind of circle around to doing, I think writing though is always you’re always thinking about it and most of the good stuff comes when you’re not really putting too much effort into it. I have a hard time believing when people say they spend ten hours writing, or eight hours writing. I don’t know how you can have focus on you know, let’s say if you’re writing on a very great day you’re writing you know, let’s say someone who writes five pages which is maybe two scenes you’re trying to tell me you spend eight hours writing two scenes. You’ll spend fifty hours writing two scenes but they’re not going to be at the same time you know, you’ll put it away, you’ll kind of look at it tomorrow and I always believe that every time I look at something tomorrow I always change it and I’ll do that through the whole course of writing the script. But I think that’s just that little bit kind of separation you know, you have to write something today and tomorrow morning I look at it I can fix a lot better than I did if I try to do it in ten more minutes from like an hour. In terms of the actual physical actually what I do is I do something that no one else I think does and that is I don’t write in screenplay format until the very, very end when I have to turn in the script. I’ve been doing that my whole career watching I kind of, over the last several years, many years I’ve been doing it and that’s really been freeing to me. So, what I do is I get a word document and I will just trying telling the story, I’ll just put a you know, a bold let’s say it’s a dinner scene and I’ll just start writing a dinner scene of what’s happening, and then who’s there and who’s talking and then dialogue and I just put a bunch of stuffs in there. And after that document by the end of that scene it turned out to be maybe 50, 60 pages and then I just can kind of like I’ve got like two days just putting it into a screenplay format because then you get the screenplay format as parable way to write.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Okay, so that’s almost like a very detailed outline.

Mills Goodloe: Yeah. If you think about it you can also switch to like middle of second act you know, because it might be four, five pages down in your word document whereas if your writing on a screenplay format I can’t go from five, the screenplay format forces you to write linearly from the beginning in order to start building up your pages, but if you started to kind of want to start working something later then you have to write a separate scene and then you start to cut and paste in scenes. I think I also like it because I think it’s freeing in a way you feel like a painter rather than having the pressure of putting like the paint to the brush to the canvass and it’s like this big moment, you’re like just kind of sketching and playing it and your using a word document and it doesn’t feel like you’re really working.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Yeah, yeah. And that just kind of brings me to my next question. How much time do you spend just like mauling things over, writing notes, a lot of writers used like index cards? How much time do you spend before you actually get into this word doc just to start thinking things through?

Mills Goodloe: The word doc begins when if I’m trying to get a job you know, if I’m beginning talking to producers to get a job. It’s the same document. I can start with one page and say, while talking to peers and like I want to know what the film feels like. And then you’ll say, “Well the first…” A one page I can put in this what happens in the first act, and some of the second act, and punch in a third act and then let say get the job you start writing and then you’re like saying, “Okay I know where the end of first act is, I know where the second act is.” Okay, I’ve got to have X amount of scenes in the first act right? So, what’s going to happen in there, then you start making bullet points you know, and then the next scene though it’s like three pages. You’re putting dialogue in there and it gets a little bit more, and more, and more. So it’s always the same document from day one with no index cards it’s just a kind of a stream of thinking. As oppose to saying, “Okay I have the job and I’m going to start on a document that has stayed in and that’s page one at the top and I got nothing. And also in that format you think about you can also play around you can just start writing a bunch of stuff and in there it’s just automatically formatting stuff for you and loglines and all of that other crap.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that’s why a lot of people using index cards for precisely what you’re saying because it’s a screenplay format it’s just such a linear way of writing it.

Mills Goodloe: The thing is you have to write it by hand though on the cards right?

Ashley Scott Meyers: That’s true, that’s true. Yeah, yeah. But you can do I mean there is ways in like doing index cards on your computer there’s different programs for that. So, I want to just step back for a minute like you sold this pitch about 12 years ago. Take us through sort of you know, what happened to your career once you sold that pitch. Did you start to get some other paid writing assignments? Did you start to kind of just move up the food chain even though that script didn’t necessarily get produced?

Mills Goodloe: Yeah, I was able once I started writing on my own in 2005 I was able to start getting some jobs based upon the previous material many of them if not most them never got made. I adapted a couple of John Grisham books and I’d written a spec TV pilot to had to do with minor league baseball and that was good writing sample for Grisham because it had to be the tone of what he wanted to do. He had approval on there then I got one job with him and that ended to being two jobs with him because he liked what I did and I just got assignment work. But you know you can go you know, to a year and a half about getting another job and then you know, I generated a couple of things of my own. I sold a spec to Castle Rock that worked at a bunch of re-writes on that for a long time and tried to get that made you know, it’s always that either writing original stuff, or get an assignment work, and trying to generate as much stuff as you can and then you get to the point where you’re saying I just you know, from what they see is you have to crack.

Ashley Scott Meyers: So, how can people see Age of Adaline? Will it be released theatrically and then eventually hit VOD and that kind of stuff maybe you could just tell us kind of the release schedule?

Mills Goodloe: Well the release its opening on April 24^th in 3,000 theatres released by Lions Gate and its Blake Lively and Harrison Ford and Ellen Burstyn, and it’s a wide release and it’s the only wide release on April 24^th.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Okay, perfect. And then do you know when it’ll hit video demand that’s just down the road some time?

Mills Goodloe: I’m sure whatever the theatrical window is that’s when it’ll be out but it’ll be in the theatres the 24^th of April.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Fair enough and I like to just wrap it up by if people want to contact you, or just follow you along. Do you have a Twitter account, or Facebook account, or blog, or anything.

Mills Goodloe: I have a Twitter account called Themillsgoodloe.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Okay perfect and I will track that down and I will link that in the show notes so people can kind of follow along and see what you’re up to. Well, Mills I appreciate you’re coming on the show this has been a great interview it’s really interesting to hear your story.

Mills Goodloe: Alright, terrific I appreciate your time.

Ashley Scott Meyers: Perfect. We’ll talk to you later.

Mills Goodloe: Alright, take care.

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In the next episode of the selling your screenplay podcast I’m going to be interviewing director Jarret Tarnol and his brother who is the writer Brent Tarnol and they recently did a film called See You in Valhalla starring Sarah Hyland. We really dig in to the specifics of how they got this film made so keep an eye out for that episode next week.

To wrap things up I just want to touch on something that Mills talked about in the interview. I think it’s interesting to hear how this film took 12 years to actually get finished. It was surprising to hear but I really shouldn’t have been surprised. I actually had a script like this myself. I wrote a film and I think I finished the first draft in 1997 of the script called Inheritance. I optioned it a couple of times and eventually optioned it to a guy named Anthoni Stutz who ended up producing the film in 2012. So, that’s actually more than 12 years. It was renamed Rushlights so, if you look at my page on IMDb it’s a film that’s now called Rushlights. Again my original script was called Inheritance. He optioned it as I said in 1999 he ended up purchasing the script and producing the film in 2009 and it took him three more years to get through post-production so it’s that’s a total of 14 years from the time I first met him in 1999 to the time he actually purchased in 2009 it was ten year later and then obviously three more years. So, you’re talking twelve, thirteen years for that script to go for and really I had written it two years before that so, a fifteen year process to get that script actually finished. And I have scripts that I you know, wrote around that same time which still are not produced and I still have hope that they will one day be produced so, it can take you know, more than fifteen years.

I often would get questions from people about how long it takes to get a movie made and sometimes it can happen superfast, sometimes things just work out right actually my first, first script I ever sold was a movie called Dish Dogs. Those guys optioned it they had a six month option and within a year they were done. The option lapsed at about six months they purchased the script when right about the time the option lapsed six months later and then they went into production and purchased the script. So, that from start to finish you know, it took me and my writing partner and went probably six months to write it maybe six, seven, eight months to write it and then you know a year to get it produced so probably less than two years I would say is the absolute minimum. From the time you start writing a script to the time that movie is actually finished. I would say minimum two years process but as I said it can take probably anywhere from two years, to ten years, fifteen years, or even longer and I don’t think that should be something that’s negative, or pessimistic I think that’s just kind of the reality. I don’t think there’s any real average for how long it takes to these things to get made. Anyway that’s the show thank you for listening.