Mr. Harvey Weinstein
Miramax Films, Inc.
88 Central Park West
New York, NY 10023
How’s it hangin’ Harv? Low and to the left as usual? Seriously, though, I hadn’t seen you in forever and I can say, as your friend, the Atkins is doing a world of good. You’re down at least one chin and no less of a holy terror for it. Nothing better to temper a man’s fat than by laying low on the pasta and uncontrollable rage for a few months. I speak from experience here; scriptmen know but two kinds of exercise: jack and shit.
Anyway, I thought about our brainstorming session down in St. Barts last weekend and you were right to option Rubenstein’s article on the rare dime transporter; you don’t have to give newspapermen big billing or points and we can take fuck-all liberties with the material sans reprisal. Bottom line, we’ll do it but it needs a punchup and your patented pacing.
O.K., ready? Nic Cage plays rare coin dealer John Feigenbaum on a cross-country flight with the world’s rarest dime. I’m thinking we’d ask him to play the browbeaten shtick he’s banked on recently, plus a splash of Con Air ruggedness, and probably the hairpiece and suit from Lord of War. No one saw that one, right? Does he keep those hairpieces in storage or what? Small favor, Harv: don’t tell Nic I asked about the hairpieces.
So the entire flight, he doesn’t sleep. He’s worried about the dime getting lost or pinched. He’s in first class but drawing glances because he’s dressed in jeans and flip-flops. But let’s make ’em Crocs and pull in a triple-digit placement fee while they’re still hot. And we’ll need suspicious seatmates for Nic, to add color: maybe someone who’s down on the deal, or paid to get tight with him and cop the coin. I don’t know, fill the seats as you will, maybe a turncoat femme fatale, eventual love-interest, Helena Bonham Carter-ish. Or maybe hit younger with a tech-startup computer-expert sort. Can we get Dane Cook? The idea is it’ll be like The Narrow Margin or one of those Agatha Christie everybody’s-a-suspect things.
Now, after the flight lands at Newark, they transfer to a sedan to Manhattan, and we’ll want to spike a chase in there post haste. I mean, we’ll have been locked on the plane for hours, with the taut, psychological thriller stuff, so we need to slap awake our popcorn-stuffing ticketholders. Let’s get the guy who did the stunts for the Bourne movies. I want rolling police cars. I want explosions in Midtown. I want shit flying at the camera so the audience ducks. I think you’ll agree, Harv.
So they beat the gauntlet and arrive at the vault. Maybe the driver’s been clipped just as we started to warm up to the guy; make him a scrappy youngster with a Queens accent. Wait—maybe this could be Dane; can he do Queens?
And for the New York coin dealer, let’s get someone literate and respectable, British, gravitas: Ian Holm, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, whomever. Plummy is your expertise, friend; call in a favor from your period drama heyday. I’m thinking there’s a double-cross, with Feigenbaum dropping off the coin to what he thinks is the buyer’s vault—only it’s a setup!—then we can bring it all back home on a Die Hard-style run through the building.
On second thought, let’s not consider Holm. He was in Lord of War and if we already got the hairpiece and the suit, we don’t want to swipe much more.
So as you can see, we need to make some edits, though one thing Rubenstein got spot-on: this cross country trip is the stuff of intrigue! Can we get something like that on the poster? Needs finesse, but you get the idea.
You pitch ’em, I hit ’em, Harv. By the way, the check is in the mail for that JetSki. I said it in St. Barts and I’ll say it again: that dolphin came out of nowhere.
Yours,
J——
P.S. Title ideas: this is your bailiwick, Scissorhands, but consider: Spare Change, Flight of the Dime, The Rarest Coin. And so on.