Here’s the strange story of “The Great Masturbator.”

     I had originally written the script as a standard Hollywood script, intended to be shot on a budget of somewhere between ten and fifteen million.   I quickly discovered that Hollywood is never going to make a movie titled, “The Great Masturbator” especially about the richest man in the world.  Bill Gates and Paul Allen are big players in Hollywood, having dumped a billion dollars into Steve Spielberg’s film company Dreamworks.  So I ran an ad in some alternative newspapers around the Pacific Northwest, looking for investors.  I got an email from a guy in Portland.  He read the script, liked it and was thinking of putting up a couple hundred grand to do a mini-budget version of the film ( he had a couple of girlfriends he wanted to be in the film).   So I sat down and rewrote a low budget version of the script.   We consulted with some attorneys about the legal ramifications and were told that if we changed Gates’ name he really wouldn’t have grounds for a lawsuit ( in the film he’s called “Flipper Gates ). 

     A low budget indie producer, therefore, can do a mini-budget version of the film.  As any producer is intensely aware, the movie industry is a brutally competitive industry.   So how does the outsider break into this highly competitive free-for-all?   As I explained to my Portland guy, it wouldn’t be easy.   There are hundreds of film companies and filmmakers producing well directed, well-scripted films.  For the outsider to go in and compete in this highly competitive world, he ( or she ) really needs a gimmick, something that no one has ever thought of before.   Or, to put this another way, a distributor may be looking at a dozen well crafted, well directed meaningful films.   At the same time he might be staring at a film called “The Great Maturbator” ( would have to be retitled “The Great Mastur***or).   Chances are the distributor, being intensely aware that some low-budget kooky spacey film has come along and blown everyone out of the water, would probably be more inclined to distribute the kooky spacey film.   The title would draw in the crowds and if the film is funny and original its going to earn a lot of money for the distributor.   “Masturbator” is a gimmick, but then all of Hollywood is a gimmick.   This is just another way to out-gimmick the big money gimmick boys.

     Money is the name of the game in Third Reich Tinsel Town.   In that connection as we were prowling around Tinsel Town we encountered a Hollywood producer named Kevin Foster.  He produced the Jason series and is known by the acronym, “Captain America” because he has bicycled all around the world, including bicycling across the Great Wall of China.   His advice was to forget about film festivals, film shows and independent distributors.   His formula was to go straight to L.A., rent a theatre and invite the distributors to come around for a looksee.   He’s probably right.  With a film titled “The Great Mastur***or,” there’s plenty of curious distributors who will be thinking “What is this shit?   We’d better go take a look.”

    Finally, “Masturbator” lends itself well to sequels---The Magnificent Masturbator, The Omnipotent Masturbator, etc.  Hollywood has a history of having difficulty in producing sequels to blockbuster films.  If the producer can actually come up with good sequels, in other words, “Masturbator” could turn into a money machine, allowing the producer to retire to Palm Springs and spend the rest of his life drinking rum and cokes and playing golf.  Or, it may allow the producer to produce some other films that he would have liked to make but may have been outside his budget parameters. 

     “Masturbator,” in other words, may hold a lot of commercial potential for the producer.   The immediate goal for the producer would be to try to wrap up a distribution deal as quickly as possible and get some money in his pocket and, if the film is a commercial success, use that leverage to come back with sequels.  Distributors will sometimes back films that they think they can make money on.

     So this is a concept that actually lends itself more to a mini-budget version, and, ideally, it could best be done by rounding up two or three small indie producers who would want to pool their resources and come up with a respectable small budget version.

Tomtongmu@gmail.com