The Wild, Wild Treatment (Pt 1)

(From jplinde.com Close But No Cigar Department)
 
I mentioned in passing a couple weeks back, a treatment I co-wrote for a harried producer at Warner Brothers. I don’t remember his name (hey, it was the nineties) but I do remember sitting in his office, open comic books scattered about a glass coffee. Funny what you do and don’t remember.

​Anyway, it seemed said producer claimed he had pitched a Wild, Wild West movie and another rival producer, famed asshole Jon Peters and ex hairdresser, was about to steal it. To prove ownership, no-named producer was desperate to come up with a story idea that would convince the studio that he was the go-to guy. Well, much like the A-Team…
 
“If you have a problem (little or no money), if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire J.P. Linde.”
 
I met with the producer on a Friday with a promise to have a full treatment or him on or around the following week. Another not so fuzzy memory was the intense headache I had while in the meeting. My head was throbbing and once I adjourned, I skedaddled over to the studio commissary for a tin of Excedrin and a milk chaser. 

My cigarette with Timothy Dalton.

​Standing outside, waiting for the effects of the over the counter pain killer to take effect, I bumped into Timothy Dalton waiting for a valet to return his car. Minimal pleasantries were exchanged while the two of us mutually enjoyed the smooth tobacco flavor of our individual Marlboro cigarettes. Dalton, it turned out, was there to discuss taking over the role of Rhett Butler in the Gone with the Wind sequel, Scarlett. In hindsight, I should have tried to talk him out of it. After several moments, Dalton’s Honda Civic arrived and the extremely underrated James Bond slid into his car and cruised off the lot. If I believed in omens, it might have been a very good one indeed. 
 

​Thanks to the producer, still nameless, I possessed the galleys of a Wild Wild West Coffee table book with a synopsis of every single episode of the show’s entire 104 episode run. I readily admit to having never looked at the resource material and instead promptly called my good friend Tom McComb, my own personal resource on all pop references and television shows of the sixties, who proved to be more than up to the challenge.
 
In a flurry of writing that lasted most of three days and nights, Tom and I came up with the following scenario. Jules Verne, (who happens to have a brilliant and comely scientist daughter) has been kidnapped by the notorious Professor Loveless who will will activate Verne’s atomic device somewhere in the South China Sea. We also added a villainous steamship that doubled as a dirigible, a rocket sled for West’s signature railroad car and even had Artie going undercover, impersonating one Samuel Clemens (the first winner of the historic Mark Twain award) in a Nevada mining town for good measure. And, in keeping with the need for flawed heroes, so popular in the nineties, we made West despondent, drinking heavily over the assassination of his first presidential charge, James Garfield. To say that Tom and I threw everything in but the literary kitchen sink would be an understatement. Writers and comic friends who were lucky enough to get a first look were simply awestruck. Mostly in a good way. I humbly have to admit, that treatment was truly something.
 

I really thought we had a shot. And then, this happened.
  (Stay tuned for the conclusion next week!)