Magic words

Absolutely, definitely, create your own character with his own traits, quirks, and personality. It would be much more fun, plus you wouldn't have all the hassles of trying to get permission to use Indy (and it would be nearly impossible for you to obtain permission to use the Indy character; it's a billion-dollar franchise).

Your story sounds interesting. You'll need to work on your logline however.

There's nothing wrong with trying to obtain permission. Last year (2010), someone tried to get John Cleese for a film in South Africa, and they just asked even though they didn't expect to get him and now the result is in the cinema. It never hurts to try.

Of course, it's much more likely you won't get the permission, so be prepared for disappointment and don't be disheartened if it does happen.

ronald fenton said:

I'm not a new writer, I've been writing since soon after being sent to prison. I wrote daily, for hours on end, while in prison. Used a yellow #2 and a legal pad to write my novles and screenplays.
But this is the first time that i ran into this problem.


I wrote a short story that I want to turn into a novel and screenplay. I plan to work on it for the entire next year if need be.

Title: "Magic Words".

Logline: Two christian researchers, on a trip to the Sinai Peninsula, looking for proof of the Hebrew exodus, stumble upon an ancient tomb that holds bones and a clay tablet with mysterious writing on it.

They take the tablet ot an Egyptologist to get read, but he can't read it because it appears to be Sumerian, Babylonian, or ancient Hebrew writing, with a touch of Egyptian. The Egyptologist refers them to a sumerian reader for interpretation. The sumerian reader can read it. He reads the first line and the earth quakes. He reads the second line, and a plague of locusts comes out of the round. He thinks he sees a curse on the reader in theird line, so stops there and advises the guys to put the tablet back where they found it and forget about it. they don't.
They go a Rabbi, he reads the third line and spontaneously combusts into flames.
One of the guys wants to sell the tablet to the highest bidder. He wants to use the power of the tablet to experiment with the words. The other guy says "two guys can keep a secret, if one of them is dead", then shoots his pal in the head.
Desperate and alone, the remaining guy decides to visit a museum in Jerusalem, talks to a scholar who recommends he go see a guy named "Indiana Jones" for help in determining who was buried in the tomb, the origin of the tablet, and what to do with it.
He goes to see Indy, but the first sumerian reader has decided to kill him, steal and bury the tablet. As they leave Indy's house, an attempt is made to kill them.
In Jerusalem, another attempt is made to kill them. At the tomb site, they get in a shoot-out and the guy dies.
Indy is left alone to discover who is in the tomb, the origin of the tablet, and decide what to do with it- as the sumerian reader tries to kill him and steal the tablet.
END

I know that i can't use Indiana jones without permisssion, so i started to pursue that permission.

When i was writing it, i had no intention of creating an indiana jones type guy in the story - it just happened.

I was going to create my own indiana jones type character and name him a new name. but i just went with indy, and it flowed real good for me because i had indy in mind.


what would you do? Keep indy and seek permission to use the name in the story? Or make up a new indiana jones chgaracter?

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Not to rain on your parade, but there's just simply no way in the world that you are going to get the rights to use the character of Indiana Jones which is, in itself, one of the most valuable intellectual rights commodities, outside of Star Wars and Star Trek, in the world.

The rights to IJ are owned by George Lucas. The movies, the TV series, the novelizations, any use or depiction of Indiana Jones -- he controls the rights.

And he's been so protective of those rights that it literally took him close to twenty years after the third sequel before they were able to develop a version of a fourth movie that he was willing to sign off on before going ahead with production.

It's great that you have ambitions as a writer and that you want to pursue them and most of us who have been inspired and excited by characters in movies and books often can't help but imagine those characters in other stories and other adventures.

If you want to write something like that simply for your own pleasure or as practice in writing, there's nothing wrong with that, but you shouldn't have any expectation that you'd ever be able to sell it, so long as the name Indiana Jones was attached to it.

Nor should you expect to simply change the name to something else and submit it -- because if the character is recognizably Indiana Jones under a different name, he's going to be clearly recognizable as such to anyone who reads it.

What you need to do is to create a new character -- not Indiana Jones, under that name or a different name, nor the guy from any other book or movie, but somebody that's original to you and to your voice and your experience, in whatever adventure allows us to see how that new character grows and changes and faces challenges the way Jones did.

NMS

I heard there was a period there where Lucas/Spielberg were asking agents for pitches and/or spec scripts for a new installment of Indiana Jones. The result, sadly, was Crystal Skull. Point is, even the most valuable intellectual property needs new writers. Star Trek got a re-boot that worked out quite well.

I tend to be on the never-say-never team. Nothing is impossible, especially in Hollywood. Believe in your work and don't let tossers screw with it. But, in this case, I agree with NMS. You'll end up wasting a lot of energy and time barking up that tree.

Consider Indiana Jones old news. Come up with a fresher character. Use the Indie character for inspiration. After all, they used characters from old movies for inspiration. Forget about re-heating the past.

Write the future!

ronald fenton said:

Thanks for the comments.
Originally, while i was writing to story, I hesitated to create a new Indiana Jones type, but after some thought I created a new Archeologist/Adventurer named "Badger Freeman", but as i wrote, i thought, "Who am i kidding here, this is Indiana Jones". So I went back and edited it to Indiana Jones.

I know that many times i see "disclaimers"[?] saying something like "Indiana Jones character used by permission". I sent a letter to Mr. Lucas last week, seeking permission to use Indy's name in the story. I'm open to any deal that would allow me to do that.

Originally, i just wanted to send these two christian researchers to the Sinai looking for proof of the exodus, stumble on a hidden tomb, find the tablet and then create a conspiracy to kill them off. But I strayed from the outline and got carried away while writing the story.

I named the two christian researchers Zeke and Roman. After the visit with the sumerian reader, Roman got carried away, and was feeling like it was Gods will for them to use the tablet to bring about the judgements of Revelation with the tablet. He felt like it was time to cause the tribulation. Zeke felt like there was no way to change his mind or stop him, so he shot his friend in the head to keep the tablet a secret.
That led me to have Zeke seek help from a Rabbi. After the Rabbi said the words and burned up, I thought "Oh, great! Now what"? So i had him go to a scholar for advise.
I, the writer, was shocked when the scholar suggested he go see Indiana Jones. I said out-loud "Huh, where did that come from"?
I had him go see Badger Freeman. "Badger" got his name because he digs like a badger when he is onto something at a archeological dig site. And pound for pound, badgers are some mean suckers.
But when the assassins tried to kill Zeke outside Badger's house, and again in Jerusalem, and yet again at the tomb site, I knew this was a job for Indiana Jones.
I had Zeke die at the tomb site, then Indy buried him in the tomb and sealed it up.
Later, while Zeke's body is decaying and the tomb is stinking, Indy has to go back to the tomb to dig around looking for more clues. He goes back to the tomb, unseals it, and finds the "Urim and the Thummin" buried under the bones of the original body.
Indy takes the urim and thummin, and the tablet back to his home in america.
He hides them in his home. Indy goes to see his father for advice. They go back to Indy's house, where there is a "VERY SPECIAL VISITOR" sitting at Indy's desk in his home office.
Indy and his dad walk into the office and see a glowing man, with fire in his eyes, sitting at the desk.

This is how Indy finds out exactly who is buried in the tomb. The visitor dug the tomb with his own hands, laid the body in the tomb with his own hands, hid the tablet and the urim and thummin in the tomb with his own hands, and placed the huge rock over the opening of the tomb with his own hands. He tells Indy that Indy has some of "his" property.

Shit like that can only happen to Indiana Jones.

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You'd think so -- bu then again, if you look at the "adventures" in Dan Brown's books, they're really cut from exactly the same cloth -- the pseudo-Biblical BS, the running all over the world, the ancient apocalytic stuff, the weird assassins, the action adventure stuff.

And yet Robert Langdon is nothing at all like Indiana Jones -- he's this bookish sort of guy who decodes things.

That's the point. You, the writer get to invent the strengths and weaknesses of your hero and then you get to tailor the particular set pieces and adventures that he faces so as to allow your hero to make use of whatever those strengths are -- whether its a chase scene where he has to fight fifty Nazis, or a "puzzle" scene where he has to decode fifty clues -- and then escape from some weird ass albino.

It doesn't *have* to be anything. Or anyone. Only if you get locked into a particular view of how the material has to be.

But the fact is, no story "has" to be any one way. There are always countless approaches to any story premise.

Just think of certain classic ideas -- the "dirty dozen" idea. The "last big heist" idea. The "most dangerous game" idea. Every one of them has been developed into many, many versions -- all of them different.

Because the fact is, if you lock yourself into the idea that it's *got* to be Indiana Jones -- there's a very good chance that it's "got* to be nothing at all.

I remember a number of years ago, on a different newsgroup, we got into exactly the same argument with some guy who'd written an IJ screenplay and was absolutely sure that he was going to be able to send it off to George Lucas and sell it. Did he?

Of course not. I understand the power of positive thinking, but there is also a kind of power that comes from realistic thinking. I might like to pitch for the Yankees, but given that I'm over fifty and have never pitched -- ever, all the positive thinking in the world isn't going to make that happen.

And encouraging that thinking is not going to do me any good. What I need to do is to direct my energies into directions that are more likely to yield positive results.

Even in this business where the most likely shot is a long shot -- there are some shots that are even longer than most.

And however positive I want to try to be and I do want to encourage you to keep thinking and to keep writing -- I don't want you to get hung up on the idea that you will be successful at getting permission to write an Indiana Jones novel or to sell anybody an Indiana Jones screenplay from George Lucas -- and I mean from him, personally, because nobody else is going to give you permission to do it.

And for there to be an Indiana Jones V means George Lucas has to agree, Steven Spielberg has to agree and Harrison Ford has to agree -- three of the most in-demand people in the industry (apart from the larger question of Ford's age which, given how long it would take to develop another IJ movie, might very well make any additional sequels impossible).

Let me put it to you this way -- Frank Darabont, one of the biggest screenwriter/directors working in the industry -- he's won an Academy Award. His movies have made hundreds of millions of dollars.

He wrote an early version of the last IJ movie.

Steven Spielberg loved it. Harrison Ford loved it.

George Lucas rejected it.

If he's saying no to Frank Darabont, you really shouldn't expect him to say yes to you.

But to be really clear, all of these places have major safeguards in place so that requests like yours never get anywhere near George Lucas or anyone who would even be in a position to say yes.

They are opened low, low, low down the totem pole and they are automatically rejected. They are rejected by *policy.*

If by some unlikely chance you get a reply, it will simply be a policy rejection. Thousands of people send in stuff like yours and send in requests like yours -- good, bad, or indifferent.

They won't evaluate it. They're not in the business of wading through that stuff. They will just say no.

I'm sorry if this sounds cruel or unfair but these companies can only develop a handful of projects in a year. Their time is, on some level, their most precious commodity, and they have to protect themselves against the literally tens of thousands of people who want to get to them and shove ideas into their hands.

They have no time to evaluate that stuff, 99.99% of which is a complete waste of their time. They don't even have time to have it evaluated by others -- because those people are busy, full time, evaluating projects that come in from agents who are representing professional writers and producers and directors with track records -- and there are thousands of *them* who constantly want to shove material in front of guys like George Lucas.

I'm going on like this because I want you to understand a bit about the nature of the business, in which I've worked for a good many years.

I want you to understand why I've said what I've said about it not working out for you and not for you to take it as a personal attack or for you to get discouraged about continuing to work on this.

But really -- I think you need to seriously step back from the whole "Indiana Jones" approach.

If you want to wait and see if you get a reply from Lucas, you can -- but you may very well not hear anything, and if you do, and what you get is simply a letter saying, "so sorry" -- please accept it for what it is and simply move on in a different direction with this project.

Because what you learn when you've worked in this business long enough, where you often have to rewrite scripts ten, fifteen, twenty times, is that there's *always* a different direction.

Do what you want to do. Include the Indiana Jones character in your screenplay and pursue the rights. If you're successful, you can come back and share the news with us all here. If not, you'll have to replace Indiana Jones with Badger Freeman throughout the screenplay. Good luck!