Interview: Daniel Turkewitz — Part 4

Scott Myers

12 Sep 2013 • 5 min read

It’s always interesting to interview “first-timers,” writers who break into the business by selling a spec script. Such is the case of Daniel Turkewitz, a proverbial overnight success who spent years of hard work before writing “Tranquility Base” which 20th Century Fox acquired in June 2013 for a reported mid-six figures.

Recently I had a wide-ranging conversation with Daniel about his background, “Tranquility Base,” screenwriting, and what it’s like to finally get that phone call: “They want your script.”

Today in Part 4, Daniel gets into the details about how the script sale went down with “Tranquility Base” and his interactions with a Supreme Court justice:

Scott: If you had to estimate how many pitch letters you’ve sent out over the years, could you even put a number to that?

Daniel: Oh, God. Too many to count. [laughs]

Scott: Hundreds?

Daniel: Sure. It’s a lot. It’s a miserable way to go about things. Unfortunately, I was not smart enough to be born with a father or uncle or cousin in the business, so that was just the way to do things until something happened.

Scott: And something happened. How did the script get to Energy Entertainment?

Daniel: Over the years, I’ve been submitting all my scripts to a bunch of screenwriting competitions. Quarterfinal here. Semifinal there. I had a couple of wins under my belt. I regularly read ScriptShadow. In his blog, Carson Reeves mentioned that the website Tracking Board was going to have their own competition. That was the first year. I looked at the list of judges, and it was an impressive list of judges if you made it to the finals. I thought, “That seems worthwhile.” I entered two scripts, and I made it to the finals. I was in the top 10, and that’s when Brooklyn got his hands on it because he was a judge in the competition.

Scott: How did the deal happen? It’s 20th Century Fox, right?

Daniel: Brooklyn [Weaver] knew somebody at Scott Free Productions. He passed it on to his friend. His friend read it. He liked it, so he personally pitched it to Ridley Scott, who said, “I like this. I want this.” I guess once Ridley Scott says, “I want this,” things start happening. Scott Free has a production deal with Fox, so that got Fox involved. They said, “If Ridley Scott wants the script, we’re going to go buy the script.”

Scott: Let’s take it from your perspective. Where are you in all this? Describe that process of communication where you’re finding out what’s going on.

Daniel: [laughs] Sitting in my apartment in New York, staring at my cell phone, saying, “Ring, damn it! Ring!” I actually got the news…I was sitting in Tom’s Restaurant on the boardwalk in Coney Island on a Friday night, waiting for the first fireworks of the season to go off, and waiting for my turkey burger. I got a text message from Brooklyn saying, “The deal is done. It’s going to Fox.” I immediately bought a t‑shirt from the restaurant since it was now a good luck place.

Scott: What’s happened since you sold the script?

Daniel: They’re still hashing out the contract details. The lawyer jumped in, and they came to an agreement on all the numbers. I’m waiting for the contract to sign. I’ve chatted with the folks at Fox, and they said they’re eager to move on this right away. They don’t want to wait, so even though the contracts aren’t signed, they are ready to fly me out there. I believe sometime next week, I’ll be heading out to LA to meet with everybody, meet with all the Fox people and the Scott Free people and Brooklyn. We’ll start the development process next week.

Scott: That’s exciting for you, I bet.

Daniel: Hell yeah. [laughs] It’s a big relief. I’ve been waiting and crossing the fingers and burning through bank accounts. Yes, it’s quite a relief.

Scott: You’ve got another script you are working on, script number five. Have you completed that?

Daniel: Yeah. Script Number Five is done. That one is a comedy called “Maine, Canada”. The people of Maine get disgusted with the way the folks in Washington are behaving and decide to secede from the nation and join Canada.

For this one I actually got a brief bit of advice from Antonin Scalia. That was quite funny.

Scott: Literally? Advice from him?

Daniel: I had such good luck reaching out to the astronauts with the space script. I thought, “Well, I’m writing a script, now, where a state is going to secede. I need some legal advice.” And who better to get legal advice from than the Supreme Court? So I wrote to all the Supreme Court Justices. Most of them, I got some sort of form letter back saying, “I’m sorry. We can’t help you.” But I got an actual letter back from Scalia saying, “This couldn’t really happen. This issue was settled with the Civil War. This is why we say ‘One nation under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance.” In reality, there’s nothing he put in his letter that made it into the script but it was quite enjoyable just to get a letter back from the guy.

Scott: That’s funny. When that script sells and gets made you can put that on a line in the credits. Right? Script consultant ‑‑ Antonin Scalia.

Daniel: Yeah. That got spread around pretty quickly. I have a brother who is a lawyer. He has a legal blog and he wrote all about it. It very briefly took off and got mentioned in the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Hollywood Reporter. Chris Matthews did a brief thing on it on “Hardball.” I was actually invited to be on a TV show. What’s the guy who keeps getting fired from one job after another?

Scott: Keith Olbermann?

Daniel: Yeah, Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” called me up and said, “Hey. We want you on the show.” But the logistics didn’t work out in time. I thought for sure that was going to be the one that broke through. I’m hoping it still will.

Scott: I love how you reach out to these people, “If I’m going to get legal advice why not go for the Supreme Court?”

Daniel: It’s really a two part thing. With both the astronauts and the Supreme Court Justices the first part, of course, is I want to make my script as realistic as possible. And who better to reach out to? Of course, there’s also the marketing angle. As an unknown screenwriter with no representation you have to do whatever you can do to get people to notice you. If I can say I’ve had actual space shuttle astronauts review my script maybe that moves me to the head of the line. Maybe someone will say, “Well, maybe there’s something to this. Maybe we should read this guy.”

When I started that out, of course, the first thing I did is I reached out to all the Apollo astronauts. They’re really the only ones who have actual name value. I got it into the hands of one of the big 12, one of the people who was on the Moon, Charlie Duke. But I never heard back from him, which is understandable. The man is in his late 70s. He’s got better things to do than give me free advice.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Daniel shares some of his thoughts about the craft of screenwriting.

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