Someone Had The Same Idea As Me (And That Is A Good Thing)
The morning of May 14th 2024 started out like any other. I made my bed, had coffee, moved a chess piece along the board, built an itemized to-do list, and visited my routine news outlets; Variety, Georgia Entertainment, and The Wall Street Journal before the screenwriting work began, but when I came across the upcoming feature film, The Apprentice, my heart sank. For the previous year, I have been developing the same idea about a young Donald J. Trump making a name for himself. I read all the books, dug up old newspaper articles, and even interviewed people who lived in New York City during the 1970’s to understand the culture, but as unfortunate as it was to discover someone else beating me to the punch, I concluded that this occurrence was surprisingly validating.
Before I explain why it was validating, let me first introduce myself. My name is C. Neil Davenport and I am an American award-winning feature film screenwriter. Two films of mine are Called Higher Studio’s coming-of-age comedy, Camp Hideout (2023), and Logan Social Entertainment’s coming-of-age 80’s comedy, Bryn Gets A Life (2022). More recently, I developed a true-crime novel adaptation titled, Eight Years, which won an Austin Film Festival award, and currently I am co-producing a film about Chase Blackburn. I would like to state that my Trump idea was not stolen nor am I insinuating that it was. My intention with this blog is not to debate the weeds of intellectual property law. Instead, I would like to share with you all the reasons why I think seeing your idea manifested by another without your involvement is a good thing.
It is surreal when a stranger generates the same idea as you. When you comes across this occurrence, it is both shocking and profound as it forces you to question its validity. Then after you deduce that it is in fact a real thing and happening… the inner debate is “How the hell did they get the same idea in the first place?”, but when you look at the social consciousness aspect within the confines of a particular society, shared ideas are more common that one would think. Merriam-Webster defines the social consciousness aspect as a “collected awareness of important social issues and the impact they have on people.” So when you develop a story featuring Trump as the protagonist who been in the public eye since before his 60 Minutes 1985 interview combined with the current climate of the American culture alongside the trends of the cinematic marketplace, it makes sense that multiple million people are thinking about the same thing. I am also reminded of two adages which shed light onto the mystery of happenstance. The first is from Ecclesiastes 1:9 which basically states, “There is nothing new under the sun,” and the other comes from my friend, David Strohman when he said, “At least 1000 people have already thought of your idea before you conceived it.” Therefore, in a forest-before-trees perspective, it is not daunting that an idea of mine came to fruition without my involvement.
You must also take into consideration the life of an idea before it is manifested through the filmmaking process. Take Francis Ford Coppola’s upcoming American epic sci-fi drama, Megalopolis, for example. A BBC article shares, “When Coppola conceived it, he was… working on Apocalypse Now (1979).” That means the director has been mulling over this idea about an architect wanting to rebuild a metropolis after a disaster for 45 years! Who is to say that someone else in the world, during that time, did not have the same idea especially since Coppola’s epic is “described as being reminiscent of Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel, The Fountainhead,” as stated by a ABC News article.
Due to these elements, it can be assumed that there is no such thing as an original idea as well every idea is seemingly influenced by another unit of the universe. Decartes’ theory of ideas does an excellent job at explaining this concept. The French philosopher argued that there are three kinds of ideas: innate [ideas spawned by intuition: i.e. The existence of God], adventitious [ideas spawned by sensory: i.e. The awareness of the moon], and factitious [ideas spawned by imagination: i.e. The invention of Pegasus]. So, if an idea is simply a byproduct of influence, it stands to reason that I was impacted by the same elements of culture which influenced the filmmakers who made their movie about young Trump.
My young Trump movie idea was generated back in May 2023. I graduated from grad school and was on the hunt for a literary manager. So, I dug for gold to develop a kick-ass screenplay which showcased my voice and came across the story of a young Trump pursuing his first project. I wrote a rough outline and titled it, HUGE. It is a buddy-love bio-pic about an idealistic yuppie who ambitiously strives to step out of his slumlord father’s shadow by renovating the desolate Commodore Hotel in Manhattan through the guidance of his corrupt lawyer. Think the strategically minded Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004) meets the ruthless Gorden Gekko mentor of Wall Street (1987) to convey the theme of ego. I have always been captivated by the transformation of people as they pursue a goal and my young Trump movie idea is simply that: a character study where the sacrifice of morality is the cost of accomplishment. A few comparable films would be The Founder (2016), and There Will Be Blood (2007).
However, real reason I chose to develop HUGE was based off two things. The first reason is a unit of fascination - Despite how you feel about the man, you have to acknowledge the impressive excavation he took in accomplishing a task which was categorized as crazy especially for a young person. The second reason pertains to how I identified with him while conducting my research. I found I related to the yuppie in three aspects; The first was in regards to the universal trope of a son seeking praise from his father. The second was through the perspective of an unknowingly naive entrepreneur desperate to make his mark on the world and third was in the form of an underdog hungry for mentorship. On the surface, HUGE is the story of a yuppie version of Trump pursuing his birthright, but when you look at the iceberg under the water, it is more of an allegory of my venture of becoming a successful filmmaker.
So, why did I find it validating? Well, to quote Screenwriter Torry Martin during a panel at Trevecca University, he said, “You can fix a bad script, but you cannot fix a bad idea.” Everything starts with an idea which is the core of a product being successful and as a screenwriter, a large part of my job is assessing whether an idea is worth the time to develop. So, the fact that The Apprentice (on paper) tells the same story I conceived a year ago, proves I am assessing ideas correctly. Additionally, the concept of a renowned filmmaker had the same idea as me proves I have a finger on the zeitgeist.
With all that said, the young Trump story has all the makings of a successful film for all the reasons, but true-be-told, its potential made itself present right after I saw myself in it. This was the most important form of validation. The moment a writer can acknowledge their voice in an idea is when they should pursue the development of a story. The adage goes, “Write what you know” and what I know is why idealistically thinking underdogs to crawl through Hell to reach the Heavens. So, the only other question remaining is, will I toss my young Trump movie idea in the bin and move on to another idea within my arsenal or keep working on it?
I believe the answer is to be like Christopher Nolan. A fun fact about the internationally cherished nonlinear Hollywood filmmaker is he wrote a bio-pic of Howard Hughes in the 2000s after reading Michael Brosnin’s book, Citizen Hughes: The Power, The Money and the Madness, but shelved it once he learned of Martin Scorsese’s picture of the legendary tycoon. However, according to a recent IndieWire article, Nolan dusted off his Hughes script after the success of Oppenheimer (2023) and is rethinking the narrative. That is what I believe I will do with HUGE. I will pivot to other projects and in the meantime gather some experience in the realm of business so when I return to it, I will have a clearer message. Plus films about political figures will never go out of style. You see this with Adam McKay’s portrayal of Dick Cheney in, Vice (2018), Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012), and the upcoming bio-pic of Ronald Regan by Sean McNamara. In the meantime, I cannot wait to watch Scythia Films’ The Apprentice in cinemas… if it gets distributed from Cannes.
IMDb describes it as how Trump started his real-estate career in the 1970’s with the help of his infamous lawyer, Roy Cohn. It is directed by Ali Abbasi who headed the remarkable film, Border (2018) and written by Gabreil Sherman who developed the introspective television miniseries, The Loudest Voice (2019). On another note, as per The Hollywood Reporter, the film received an eight minute standing ovation which is only a minute under the praise of Martin Scorsese’s film, Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). So, you will have to derive to your own conclusions given the source. I just know Jeremy Strong (Succession) as Cohn and Sebastian Stan (Captain America: The Winter Solder) as Trump will knock it out of the park.
In conclusion, if you have ever experienced this moment where someone outside your sphere of influence is working on a project which closely resembles your idea, do not panic and do not stop creating. If you pivot and pursue another idea, great — the world will always be interested in what else you have to offer and if you continue working on the shared idea, fantastic! The world cannot wait to see your version of the story. Whichever direction you choose, develop it with the same passion you had before and keep this quote from Oscar Wilde in mind. He once said that, “an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” Most ideas are trivial. Sure, they have the power to change the world, but they can also die after a sneeze. So, pursue the ones which gnaw at you. Develop the ones which pull on your heartstrings, and share the ones which keep resurfacing despite how deep you bury them… and if a stranger finetunes them before you get the spotlight, take notes.
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Genuinely,
