Read Pluto Walks the Earth, Chapter 30: The Messenger
Chuckie
Like a charm.
The item I leaked to Hollywood Reporter gets picked up by MediaREDEF, Deadline Hollywood, Yahoo News and Ad Age. Just a line or two, but enough to, let’s say, “build a narrative.” The narrative was that Jaynne’s wild-hair notion was actually a production in development. That it was an actual property in play. Maybe even that people were fighting over it. So here’s how the world works: First, we get calls from Discovery, Bravo and NatGeo to see what we’ve got. Secondly, we hear from MTV! The one party who absolutely knew there were no discussions going on between SKELETON and MTV was MTV. But there they were on the line, and next thing you know we’ve had two calls with them and they’re asking for a draft production agreement — which is really just a detailed proposal — for 13 episodes. This puts us potentially in a position for a bidding war. That’s exactly what I was hoping for. But Jaynne is shrieking at me: “Chuckie! Bird in hand! Bird in hand!” So, yes, why be greedy? We decide to formally offer Pluto to MTV. We’re going to come in at $235,000 per 50 minutes, plus 33% of the back end and an escalator for Season 2.