My Script about MC Escher Was Stolen By the Makers of “City Slickers 3: The Legend of Escher’s Gold”
It’s not easy being a screenwriter, particularly when you’re just starting out trying to make a name for yourself. Ideas are all you’ve got. And I know stealing is nothing new in this industry, but what’s happened to me is absolutely beyond the pale.
I speak, of course, of my spec script The Dreams of MC Escher, which has been floating around Tinseltown for more than a few years now, and has been optioned twice. After many small, character-driven indie scripts, this was my big stab at an Oscar season biopic — but driving down the Sunset Strip yesterday, I noticed a billboard for an upcoming abomination called City Slickers 3: The Legend of Escher’s Gold. Another summer blockbuster starring the inescapable William Crystal.
To see the brass ring dangled this close to me, only to have it be snatched up by multi-millionaire thieves, is not only disheartening — it’s criminal.
I’ve looked into this. I know that in order to prove the theft of intellectual property, you have to list many plot points and character names/traits that have been stolen. So I went and did that. Here’s an abridged (ABRIDGED) list of what the script for City Slickers 3 has in common with mine:
- Escher’s works are described as “Mind-Bogglin’ Noggin Scratchers”
- A glass of orange juice is knocked over; the person responsible is described as “Unable to give a shit about what they’ve done to the carpet”
- A stairway defies logic; Escher is mentioned during the shot of this imagery
- 19 jumps — there are 19 separate instances of jumps characters do
- The dialogue “You can’t do art like this, Escher! No one will like it! You will never be famous!” is slightly changed to “Escher could do art like this! Everyone liked it! He became famous!”
- 3 flips and a half twist
- Opening credits are described as “Blending into each other in some pretty cool, freaky ways or something — get the CGI guys to figure it out”
- Lead characters in both scripts are introduced as “A yuks-a-minute laffer boy, but a real stand-up hombre when all is said and done”
- Dialogue: “All it takes is a little…perspective,” followed immediately by someone falling to their death
- “MC = emcee” hip-hop joke made in both
- One character puts too much hot sauce on their taco and for the rest of the movie they can be seen drinking water in the background
- There is a hypercube
- Jack Palance’s character Curly is mentioned four times (I admit I may be the writer who’s on shakier ground with this one)
- Escher’s separation with his wife is covered in the same exacting, exhausting detail as Crystal’s lead character, which leads me to think Billy may actually be going through a really painful divorce right now
- Details regarding Holland are missing; instead, the note “Will Go On Wikipedia Later” fill in those gaps
- In both scripts, a mysterious masked bandit named “Rehcse” unlocks the secrets the main character is looking for
- Ducks fit perfectly into fish
- Escher’s tomb of gold is described as “A constantly rotating, interlocking wonderland of delights”
- Someone walks through a mirror and brother, you bet your sweet bippy it looks neat
If that’s not enough to steam your beans as it did my own beans, here’s a sample page of their script. Tell me this isn’t an outright disgrace:
