I lived in Spain for years, doing a variety of writing and "reading" projects for "producers" in Marbella who have no idea who van Sant or Rohmer or Gitai are. Lots of Scandinavian, British and Dutch co-productions film in Spain, not just for labor costs but because there is bright light in winter. It's conceivable that Elviro has vetted scripts for co-prods of a Rohmer production; the deal might circulate through up to 100 prodcos from London to the Costa del Sol, but the money often leads to Marbella. "Sexy Beast" with Ben Kingsley had a lot of Marbella finishing money. And it is also probable that Elviro knows little about movies, their history and almost certainly their commercial worth; few script readers anywhere, Hollywood included, are interested in anything but eventually cobbling together a deal of their own. The ignorance of people within the movie industry about their own industry is legend, even in Tinseltown. Elviro even points out that he thinks he'll become a "developer" soon.
The sad fact is that people with access to money are much more important to the film industry than writers or readers are. And there is money in Marbella. Idle, rich-time silly money, lots of which needs to be laundered. A bad movie is a better way than a good bar to launder cash.
Also, should point out that script readers are unionizing, getting fired, and are generally in a terrible state in Hollywood's current atmosphere. I am exaggerating only slightly when I say that most script readers here are hoping NOT to find a script to recommend to their bosses or contacts at the production companies.
It would be interesting to know what the names are of the "ten" movies Elviro has read which resulted in green lights. And if he cannot supply the names -- which I understand -- how about the box office? And why "around" 10 movies? Most script readers talk about their credits in very finite terms: more likely to say 3.7 movies made as a result of their reads rather than guess at a number like 10. Nobody in Hollywood -- or Marbella -- would say "around" 10 movies were produced from the 200 screenplays they've read.
And 200 screenplays read in Hollywood over three years would be about ten grand in income. With the funny money in the Costa del Sol, a semi-literate person might be able to squeeze three times that much out of their "producers." That's still only ten grand a year. It's a horrible, horrible way to make a living, especially for a writer. You can go to Blockbuster to see how potentially good stories get dumbed down by committee into the tripe on the shelf; every script reader I know in Hollywood is a desperate cartoon out of Jim Thompson or B. Traven.
