The Wannabe

 

Early on, I had a little bit of good fortune. Right around the time "Killer Instinct" came out, I had some downtime, and wrote a screenplay, I handed it in to a few key folks, and for a minute, it had what they call "some good buzz". I got some write ups and some nice press...and all of this managed to get me signed to a pretty big time writing agent. So on a regular basis...I was getting e-mails from all kinds of industry folks.

But one stood out more than the others.

How?

Because it was so obvious they were fake.

Among all the legit stuff I was hearing about, I was getting daily e-mails from the "Matthew Mark Entertainment Group" Led by....a guy named Matthew and a guy named Mark. Apparently they were 2 guys, but I think it was just one weirdo. Because all the e-mails would say "Hi It's MAtthew ha ha" or "Hi it's Mark ha ha" (I know, what's funny about saying one's own name? It gets better)

So the MATTHEW MARK ENTERTAINMENT GROUP were supposedly big time. They wanted to help get this screenplay made. They would ask me to send it to them and I'd say "ok, it's copyrighted...what's your address?" and he'd say "I don't want to say, I'm pretty famous" so I'd say "Ok, what's your last name?" and he'd say "I don't want to say". Fair enough. I never sent him anything. What I should have done is ignored the Matthew Mark Entertainment Group. But it was too weird to look away.

The next e-mail, Matthew Mark says he's on a film set, and they had to blow up 15 cars. It's a film he's funding and he had to get 15 dodge vipers to explode. And summary to his film? "Have Family? It does not matter. Have Friends? It does not matter".

Funny enough, a few weeks later...after some random e-mail from him I asked "what is the name of that movie you told me about?" and he says (I'm not making this up) "LEGALLY BLONDE 2"

In his defense, I have not seen Legally Blonde 2. Was this the summary of that?  "Have Family? It does not matter. Have Friends? It does not matter. ELLE WOODS is BACK. LEGALLY BLONDE 2". Oh and what part of LEGALLY BLONDE 2 did 15 dodge vipers blow up?

This guy was a piece of work, however, he wasn't trying to con me, he never asked for money or anything, he just really wanted me to think he was this huge Hollywood guy. One day, when asked about the Internet Movie Data Base, he said "I have no idea what that is" (editors note...it's this www.IMDB.com)

It gets better. Matthew Mark says he slipped a copy of the script (which I never sent him because he didn't have an address or a last name) to his very good friend SEANN WILLIAM SCOTT.

Right after his e-mail? I get an e-mail from an e-mail address "STIFLER9" and how does it start? "Hi this is Seann William Scott ha ha" I was like "OH COME ON". Seann William Scott would really use an e-mail handle of "STIFLER9"? That's like Harrison Ford's e-mail address being "HANSOLO1"

It does get interesting. Matthew Mark wanted me to believe him so badly, he set up a cheesy website. It was one of those free sites that's address is really long. It was all about "Film" and to throw in a Hollywood touch, it had a whole thing about Scientology. A week later the site was down.

Then Matthew Mark Entertainment got sloppy. He wanted to get free movie tickets....so he sent out some marketing e-mail where you have to give 5 e-mail addresses....and there it was. His last name. It said "Matthew **** wants you to win free movie tickets by clicking here!" So I threw his name into a search engine. And, believe it or not, he's not in Hollywood. He lives in Indiana. He telemarkets lightbulbs over the phone. He never funded LEGALLY BLONDE 2. So it was obvious, but now I knew who this guy was. He e-mailed me later that day and said he was hanging out at JLO's place and gave her a copy of the screenplay. I wrote back "well then you need another copy of it. Want me to send it to your Indianna address?" and he said "That will be fine" and aside from a an e-mail petition he sent me to get Ryan Seacrest's talk show back on the air, that was pretty much the last I'd ever heard of Matthew, Mark, and Stifler 9.

The screenplay everyone was clamoring for? It never happened, it went into what they call "turnaround" which means it went to "no mans land" for screenplays. Too bad, because STIFLER9 really would have been great in that movie.

Seriously though, this guy was weird, but harmless, there are tons of con men out there, not just in this business, but everywhere. Just be careful.

Wow that last line just felt like one of those NBC "the more you know" public service announcements.

Take care and be well,
TIM