THE RATLAND CHRONICLES(THE RATLAND CHRONICLES is a movie you never got to see, because it's a movie script that didn't make it to the big screen, at least not as I wrote it--but you may have seen bits and pieces of it. Well, it's possible. Then again, maybe there's just nothing new under the sun. Or perhaps we just all drink from the same well.)
Int. American Zoetrope Studios. Old factory. Exposed red brick walls. Camera pans left and right.--
I'm sitting in the reception area of American Zoetrope next to the pool table and the receptionist tells me that Francis will see me now.
I walk in to the inner office and Francis Coppola is sitting behind a desk or table (I don't remember exactly), and sitting a little to his left and behind him is a nerdy looking guy with glasses who I figured worked for him.
The actual words spoken have long been forgotten, but this is the gist of it as I remember it.
Coppola: You have a film proposal and a script?
Me: Yeah. I call it the Ratland Chronicles. It's a trilogy.
I wrote it as a trilogy so we can do the first film on a shoestring and if it does okay, it'll be easier to raise money for the other two. No union anything. The first one is called RAGNAROK--it means apocalypse. I was thinking of me as the lead.
Coppola: Give me some of the highlights.
Me: (talking fast and jumping around in my narrative lest I bore him) Well it takes place after the U.S. is destroyed in a nuclear war and the whole country is now bizarre. And it's about a small group of people who travel across the country looking for civilization.
It opens with a dark screen, and then we hear just a few notes of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, but it's been changed a little--the tempo is much slower. I rewrote it a little and I've eliminated some of Wagner's flitty wind sounds and put in some heavy kettledrums and made the whole thing darker and more ominous.
Then, after the titles on the black screen, the music gets a little louder and more notes are played. Suddenly, a big angry, reddish and hot sun rises from the bottom of the screen. We can almost feel the heat coming off it. As it rises, we see in the foreground, and in the middle of the rising sun, the main character, played by me, standing on his head.
Coppola: On his head?
Me: Yeah, well, it sets the stage for what follows in this bizarre new world.
Anyway, as the story unfolds, the main character, ahem, played by me, comes across a couple of trash picking dwarfs named Tick and Tock who live down in tunnels underneath this cow barn. The tunnels are connected up to storm channels and sewer lines and this is how they get around without being killed by the roving bands of bad guys.
I'm thinking, maybe, Billy Barty as one of the dwarfs. I saw him at a SAG meeting and he was complaining that there aren't enough roles for little people. Anyway, the two dwarfs have all sorts of Rube Goldberg machinery made out of scavenged things, including a VW Bus that runs off cow manure that they have in a trailer that they pull behind the bus.
The main characters travel across the country in this bus. That's where all the adventures take place.
Coppola: Well, leave the script with me. I'll give you a call.
FAST FORWARD 1:
Int. Nighttime--Man, me, staring at telephone that does not ring.(Minutes have turned into hours, hours into days, days into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and I'm still waiting for that phone call. Hey, a big director wouldn't say he'd call and never actually call, right? Probably lost my phone number. Probably pulling his hair out wondering how he can get in touch with me.)
One day, I hear that Coppola has a new film out called Apocalypse Now, so I go to see it.
Hmmmm (my eyes get all squinty at this point), some of it seems familiar to me. Not major things, just some of the stuff around the edges. There's even a Martin standing on his head-- Martin Friggin' Sheen, not Martin Friggin' Millard. And, what music do I hear? Wagner's Friggin' Ride of the Valkyries (but it wasn't improved as I was going to do it, Hah!). And, instead of a post apocalyptic world and people travelling in a VW bus, it has a group travelling up a river in a boat in Vietnam.
FAST FORWARD 2:
Int. Commercial Airliner: I'm flying into Burbank for some movie type of thing or other, and I hear a guy sitting in the seat directly behind me saying to someone sitting next to him: "Well, in that film, Francis didn't really do much. That was mostly my...." I turn around and look directly into the eyes of that nerdy guy from Coppola's office again. This time I recognize him, George Lucas.
FAST FORWARD 3:
Ext. Daytime. OC.--Line of people going in to movie theater to see Star Wars. I go in. There I see these little trash picking dwarfs. I wonder if one of them is Billy Barty.
FAST FORWARD 4:
Ext. Daytime OC--I hear that Coppola's nephew, Nicholas Cage, bought John Wayne's old house in Newport. Years ago, I used to date a girl who lived a few doors away from that place. Hey, maybe I'll run into Cage in the market. Better keep my script handy. You never know.
Maybe I can give him my phone number to give to his uncle who has probably been losing sleep all these years because he lost it.
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