My blog entries are better than Ken's blog entries

I'll come right out and say it: Ken and I are a bit competitive. Most of that competition has found a healthy outlet in video games. First with Combat, which we played on Ken's old Atari system. It's a simple game, but the battles got very intense. And frustrating. Some days we really felt like killing each other. So naturally, we wanted more.



Next came Ready 2 Rumble, which we played on a Sega Genesis I got on eBay. This game was better because we were able to beat each other to a pulp. It was a virtual pulp, but I believe Ken actually punched me one time, he got so frustrated. Clearly, this was starting to get out of hand. So we took the next logical step.




We got an Xbox and a game called Halo. We were no longer punching each other. We were killing each other with shotguns and rocket launchers. Not only has the weaponry been taken up a notch, but so has the trash talk. Here's a typical exchange:

Cinco: Wow, I really destroyed you. (concerned) Are you okay, Ken? Should we take a break?

Ken: Oh, you want me to try now? Because I was just playing around. Let me show you what happens when I actually try.

We now play Halo 2 on two Xboxes connected to two TVs. It's a long way from Combat.


You'd think this would be enough, but, sadly, we don't limit our competitions to the game console. At this point we have turned into a contest everything that can possibly be turned into a contest. When we give blood, we compete over who fills their blood bag fastest. This is sick, I know. I am not proud.

Except for the one time I got the blood services woman to admit that my blood was purer than Ken's. That was a great moment.

Quoting Cinco

Ken here. Periodically I'll be posting interesting things said by our pal Cinco. Today on the way back from a meeting, Cinco said...

"Does that airplane have a mustache?"

It did.

Ken Needs Help

I was going to try and keep this blog professional, but clearly Ken has other ideas. So I'm going to go right out and say it: Ken needs help.

He's in his mid-30's and plays with dolls.

This picture here? That's Ken's dream. It will probably spark several, "Seriously, is there any way to get an action figure of myself like that?" fantasies. Ken, these are unhealthy fantasies. Stop them. Now.

Remember that video that was all over the internet a while back? Of that kid pretending to be a jedi? Ken makes that kid look cool.

He buys every Star Wars figure that comes out. He hasn't liked the last three movies, but he still buys the figures. Even the one with Yoda riding on some sort of crazy flying bug. He knows it's wrong, but he can't stop. It's a sickness. Please understand that I'm not criticizing Ken in any way. I love Ken. I feel sorry for him.

And I want him to get help.

Ken's thoughts

Why We Love Cinco.

By Ken Daurio

Cinco just got a cell phone. That's right, it's 2006 and he JUST GOT HIS FIRST CELL PHONE. How is this possible? How does someone live today without a cell phone connected to his or her hip at all times? Now, it's not like Cinco's a technophobe, the man has Tivo, an iPod, HDTV, he edits HD movies and records his own music on his iMac, but somehow is still willing to pull over and find a pay phone. For years I tried to impress upon him the importance of this modern miracle. How it makes our lives easier. More efficient. His response was always the same. "I refuse to become a slave to a phone". He always said it with such conviction. Such passion. I began to wonder... is he right? Am I the fool? Did I buy into the Verizon lie which made me get a sick feeling in my stomach if I left the house without my phone? He's right! Cinco is a genius! As these thoughts buzzed around my head I was interrupted by Cinco. "Hey, can I use your phone?" Now Cinco has his phone. He doesn't know how to check his messages, keep the battery charged, change the ringtone or silence an incoming call in the middle of an important meeting, but...he's trying, and that's why we love him.

Bubble Boy

Cinco here. Eventually Ken will post something. Maybe. Anyway, I was going to write a little bit about Bubble Boy. It's the second script we wrote together. We sold it in '99 as a pitch to Disney. The idea originated with the producer Beau Flynn. As soon as we heard it we loved it. We pitched it to Disney execs Todd Garner and Mark Vahradian. Vahradian loved it instantly, but Todd took some selling. However, he eventually relented.

Then we had a creative meeting with Garner. His issue: the bubble. That's right. The bubble. We had to find a way to get our hero out of the bubble as soon as possible. We attempted to explain that the whole point was that he was in the bubble, thus the title. Todd said no actor would want to spend the whole movie inside a plastic bubble, and wanted him out by the time the second act started. We begged and pleaded and got Todd to accept that maybe the midpoint was better. We couldn't understand what was supposed to happen when he was outside of the bubble. Todd suggested that he be a germophobe, constantly spraying Lysol over everything, and that he could really start experiencing life. For instance, by eating spicy foods.

What could we do? We wrote it that way. The first act remained pretty much the same through all drafts and even through production. In our version Act II began on a city bus, not a bus belonging to a cult (the cult idea was Michael Kalesniko's--although the idea of Gil and everyone being named Todd and Lorraine and most of the dialogue was ours). Slim the motorcycle guy was in the first draft and never really changed (except making him Hispanic once Danny Trejo was cast). Vegas was added much later. The freaks and the freak train, including Dr. Phreak, were in the original draft, although all of that dialogue got rewritten. The stupid town that thought immunities were contagious and tried to kill Jimmy was in the first draft.

The Indian ice cream man was, I believe, a Todd Garner suggestion after the first draft was delivered. We had him accidentally kill a cow, and took it from there. We also made it an "Ice Cream & Curry" truck. Sequences which got cut: Bubble Boy helps a girl win a karaoke contest...Bubble Boy helps a loser kid named Louis become cool at a birthday party...Bubble Boy escapes an attempted seduction by two obese sisters when they rescue him from a freezer car.


Pappy and Pippy were our creation. I can still remember the moment we came up with that scene, having Jimmy say "Pappy!" over and over as he realized Pappy was dead, cracking each other up.

I have to say, the original draft was more thematically cohesive. I know that sounds nuts, since most people think of Bubble Boy as a stupid movie, but at one point it was smarter. Really.

Anyway, Michael Kalesniko was hired to rewrite our script, and his biggest contribution was to make it more of a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World story--we had Jimmy meet people and leave them behind. Kalesniko turned it into an expanding chase. After the movie was greenlit we were brought back on, and rewrote the script, bringing stuff back, creating new stuff, but keeping the idea of the expanding chase. It led to a lot of fun stuff--like the decision to make Jimmy's mom Slim's Wildfire, one of (in my opinion) the funniest moments in the movie. Kalesniko also was able to convince Disney to keep Jimmy in the bubble all the way through the movie, the way he was in our first treatment.

But at some point the director Blair Hayes decided he was a writer and started to rewrite all of the scenes. This was halfway through the shoot, right around where Jimmy meets the freaks. He dumped all of our dialogue and wrote his own. That scene ended up having to be completely re-shot. You get the idea. The script and story started to fall apart. I feel like Blair did a great job with the first 30 minutes, but once he started rewriting Act II (although there were still good jokes here and there) the movie kind of fell apart. Act III he left alone, and I think it holds up pretty well.

Okay, that's enough for now. There's so much more to tell. Ken...?

Special

Cinco here. The first script Ken and I wrote together was called SPECIAL, a comedy about a guy who pretends to be disabled in order to get an autographed football for his fiancee's son. The script was optioned by MGM in February 1999. Commercial director Steve Chase was attached to direct, and Luke Wilson was attached to star. But when Steve met Luke things went awry--Steve wanted to push the envelope too much for Luke's taste. Steve wouldn't compromise, so the studio let him go. Unfortunately, the damage had been done, and Luke was out as well. It languished at MGM (although they renewed the option once) and now we've got it back. We filmed a short starring Michael Rosenbaum of Smallville (here's the imdb link
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381613/) which played at festivals. The script was named one of the Ten Best Unproduced Comedies by the WGA (read the script at http://www.wga.org/uploadedFiles/special.pdf). And most recently a Germany company bought the rights to our script and made it. It's still called SPECIAL and is due to be released in Germany this fall ( http://www.german-films.de/archive/film_view.php?film_id=1445). So by the end of the year we will be huge in Germany. That's me pushing Ken around in the picture. He's not pretending to be mentally handicapped--that's just the way he looks.

Welcome to our blog

Hi. We are Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, screenwriters. We've written the film classics BUBBLE BOY and SANTA CLAUSE 2. We created this blog as a way to avoid writing on the projects we're actually being paid to write. We will discuss the ups and downs of writing in Hollywood, the screenwriting craft, and what we had for lunch. Come back soon for more writing goodness!