True Hollywood Stories: The Pre-Emptive Strike By The Shore
We already linked to a THR article about Touchstone's acquisition of Blowback in the trade round-up (have you already forgotten?), but we couldn't let the story about how the deal went down go without a spotlight:
[Writer Sheldon] Turner said he, [producers] Panay, Reynolds and others had been rendezvousing Sundays in Santa Monica, meeting for months to develop the story. On Sunday, the group met at the Ivy at the Shore restaurant to prep pitching the project when they ended up having lunch with Walt Disney Co. exec Kristin Burr. Burr craftily heard the pitch and sought out Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group topper Nina Jacobson for a pre-emptive strike.
A great story, but it lacks a little something. The next time they tell it, maybe they can claim that the producers noticed the exec eating her salad, then goaded the writer into stealthily following the executive into the bathroom to slip the script underneath her stall. And by the time the roar of the flush faded away, she was already storming back onto the patio, trailing toilet paper from her heel, yelling to the whole world (she doesn't care who might hear!) that she wants to be in the Blowback business. Yeah, let's go with that version.