Hollywood loves crazy

The writing partner and I are pitching for a rewriting assignment. We've heard the basic idea from our manager - it's not exactly groundbreaking, but, at this point, beggars can't be choosers. So we go to meet with the executive, who's read a couple of our unsold scripts and likes our style.

Now, he's paid money for this script already but wants a completely new take on just the idea alone. We do the dog and pony show outlining where we'd go with the idea and he likes it. He asks us to develop an outline. We ask to read the original script. He says no. According to him, the script is so horrible that he doesn't want us to read it or it may kill some brain cells. Did I mention he paid money for this script?

We ask why the original writer isn't doing the rewrite. We're told that the writer is completely insane and impossible to work with. We politely probe how this script sale happened. Turns out that the exec lost a bidding war for another property and this was the first script he saw with the same premise.

I did mention that he paid money for this script right? Oh, and that he didn't buy any of our scripts - the original ideas that he liked from the non-bat shit crazy writers?

That's show business.