Wow, two posts in one week!

As some of you may recall, after much prompting, I have decided to see if there are people who would be interested in making the Valens Legacy into either a movie or a series. 

 

I have an old friend who works in the entertainment industry. He owns Vertiplex Group, a firm that deals with creating technology and creative works for entertainment. He has been in the entertainment industry for some time now (decades). He has worked on several blockbuster movies; Avatar, Spiderman, and The Da Vinci Code, to name a few. 

 

So, of course, I called him, and we talked about Valens Legacy and how to bring it to the screen. After discussing the book series with him, he read Black Friday, the first book, and thought that yes, this was a prime candidate in today's market. We had several phone calls, and then the two of us started working together to investigate if we could make it happen. 

 

Or perhaps to be more precise, James has been doing the majority of the legwork working on it to see if we can make it happen.  He knows competent people, working with them before, after all. He speaks their language, and they know he doesn't bullshit. But more on James later. 

 

All of this dialog between James and I started in January 2020, so as you can imagine, it's been a slow process with everything going on in 2020! Most people are stuck at home, and the movie and TV production industry has virtually stopped. So we thought, why not try to strike a deal now –it just seemed people needed a story like Valens Legacy to escape!

 

We officially began in March and managed to get a top legal team involved, as there's a lot you have to do upfront these days when dealing with large Hollywood entertainment companies. We also had to develop a synopsis, particular to Hollywood and any other company shooting visual stories. That synopsis needed to be written a certain way, again something I didn't understand but which James was intimately familiar with the ins and outs of.

 

Last month, as a favor to us, our lawyer (a major player in Hollywood and there is no way I could ever have hooked up with a guy like that if it wasn't for James) passed our synopsis over to an exec at a major network (no, I can't tell you who, or even the network). 

 

We weren't expecting a contract, more like testing the waters with a guy whose full-time job is buying broadcast TV shows.  Surprisingly, the guy really liked it and thought a Valens Legacy visual adaptation is appealing. He even gave us an extensive written review of the synopsis and some advice on who might buy it.

 

Fast forward to this last week. James took the concept to two major players, with long track records, and who he knows personally. Both expressed a lot of interest because this is the kind of storyline that falls into their wheelhouse. Each of them requested to see everything we have so far to define a pilot, and we are sending it out this week! 

 

Of course, their request to see all the details doesn't mean that they're going to buy it or sign a contract. If only life was so simple. These people deal with hundreds of proposals every month from agents and associates and turn down just as many. Most don't even get a chance to submit. So just having them ask to see it is pretty damn exciting for me. Mainly because these folks are very busy and not shy about saying they don't want to look at things. James was pretty happy about it too. All of this since a January phone call is a pretty big step for us, and it will be interesting to see where this goes next.

 

More on James: 

Why did I ask James for his help on this? It wasn't just because he's an old friend from back in college or that he works in the entertainment business. A lot of it has to do with the fact that James himself is a very talented guy and very much an artist at heart. He plays numerous musical instruments, has played with many well-known artists over the years, and is on many motion picture soundtracks as a musician while being the best damn Electrical Engineer I've ever known. He's been on Oscar and Emmy winning entertainment works. 

 

He's worked for everybody from NASA to Sony and can also tell and write stories that will let you laugh your ass off. If you're ever going to go for that gold ring, James is the guy you want on your side helping you do it. He's done it before, more than once. The guy is a genius.  And the best part of all of this is if I have to fly out to Hollywood to meet people, he can buy me that pizza dinner he still owes me! :-) 

 

Seriously though, He and I reconnected the first time many years after college when I read this crazy true story about Silicon Valley that he wrote called, 'The Chopping Block.' It's a story about a business deal of greed and manipulation on an epic scale. 

As a 'thank you' to him for helping me and my fans out with pushing Valens Legacy, maybe you can read this book. I can guarantee it will change your view on the working world no matter what you do. It's hard to believe stuff like this happened in the business world, but then again, maybe not. 

 

The Clopping Block Link: