A: What Do You Mean If?

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The Hundredth
Monkey…I remember the phone call like it was yesterday. See, my partner and I had just gotten an actor attached to our first screenplay, the movie was greenlit, and there was an article in Variety. So when a guy called me about it at home, rookie me figured it was just some screenwriter-adoring reporter calling to lavish more attention upon moi.

Hah.

In fact, it was another screenwriter. A pissed off screenwriter, in fact, who found it rather “odd” that I had written a screenplay that was EXACTLY LIKE HIS!

EXACTLY!

See, mine was about an idiot who went to Mars on board a space shuttle, and his was about an idiot who went to Mars on board a space shuttle.

The similarities, you see, were astounding.

Now, honestly, I felt for the guy, but as Hyman Roth once said, this (cough) is the business (cough) we have chosen.

There are thousands of screenplays developed every year. Only a hundred or so will get made. Given that another thousand will get developed next year, and so forth and so on, it seems quite likely that the original screenplay you’re working on is not as original as you think. It’s mostly original, but somewhere, someone’s got something that’s at least a wee bit like it, and possibly a large bit like it.

Yes, that means the day after you finish the final rewrite on your spec script about three Dutch riflemen who track the Yeti across the Sahara, you’ll be in competition with another Dutch riflemen Yeti Sahara project.

It’s almost inevitable.

Call it The Hundredth Monkey phenomenon.

The story goes like this. Supposedly, a researcher was observing macaque monkeys washing sweet potatoes in the ocean. One monkey taught another how to do this. Then another taught another. The 99th monkey taught the 100th monkey how to do this, and then lo and behold, suddenly all the monkeys on the island instantly knew how to do this.

Critical mass had occurred. The idea had “caught on.” It was “out there.”

Of course, the hundredth monkey phenomenon is baloney.

Still, you will find that the sheer volume of screenwriting competition will be enough to duplicate your efforts. Don’t freak out. In fact, be happy. This is actually great news.

You want this.

If you are a good writer, nothing will elucidate your skill more than an excellent rendition of an idea twelve other people have tanked, kapish?

And if you hear that another studio is developing a similar project, and you intended to write something commercial, well…obviously you’re writing something commercial, right?

So take a deep breath. Good writing will win the day, and similar stories can easily co-exist. If Antz couldn’t kill A Bug’s Life, nothing’s going to kill your script.

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