How would making more in eight months than most Americans do in several years sound to you? What if I said that all you had to do is write a 110 page document? Well for two young screenwriters in Hollywood, that dream is a reality.
Aaron Buchsbaum, 25, and Teddy Riley, 24, are the masterminds behind a screenplay that took the production companies of Los Angeles by storm last year. Their screenplay El Tigre gained almost immediate commercial interest from production companies, and soon a bidding war ensued. When the dust settled, their screenplay had a price tag estimated to be worth at least several hundred thousand dollars and was sold to Sony.
Their dream started back in college, where Buchsbaum and Riley would throw ideas back and forth at each other while doing their best to ignore the business class going on around them. Eventually both landed entertainment jobs as assistants in Los Angeles, where they were able to make a living while burning the midnight oil to write their screenplay. After eight months of hard work, the young screenwriters passed on their work to their bosses, and the screenplay quickly made its rounds around Hollywood.
El Tigre was included on the Black List, a prestigious annual list of screenplays that have yet to go into production. It's a story that has all the makings for commercial success. An unassuming suburban family goes on vacation to Mexico, when suddenly, the father is mistaken for the ruthless drug lord El Tigre, who has secretly been assassinated. While the father's family searches for him, he gets a taste of life on the wild side, and many lessons and explosions are had by all. Having read the screenplay myself I won't give away too many details, but I can guarantee this is one movie that Hollywood will be heavily promoting in a year or so.
As for Riley and Buchsbaum? They put in their two week's notice as soon as the checks arrived. Both plan on fully pursuing their dream of becoming Hollywood screenwriters, and there's not much reason to doubt them.
"We have a number of original ideas that we're hoping to develop, but we're also open to collaborations with production companies and studios on projects that may already be in the early stages of development," says Buchsbaum. Riley adds:
"The money from the sale should hold us over for while. The next step professionally is to write non-stop. We're crazy hungry right now and looking to hit the ground running."
