Thinking about writing the next Spider-Man movie? (Think again.)

Many years ago, a friend of mine — who proudly considered himself a screenwriter despite never actually writing anything — decided he was going to write a James Bond script. Not spec a Bond script. Not imagine a Bond script. No, no — he was going to write one and send it straight to the producers. 

But first, he figured he’d give them a heads up. You know…whet their appetite. Let them prepare themselves for the cinematic brilliance about to descend upon them. 

So off went his letter. 

A few weeks later, he received a very short, very unfriendly reply informing him that if he wrote the script and sent it — or if he even thought about sending it around town — he would be sued into a fine powder. 

And that was the end of his Bond career. 

So, boys and girls, what have we learned? 

We’ve learned that you do not write for an established film franchise. You don’t write James Bond or Indiana Jones or Iron Man or Spider Man or Batman or any other character whose face is already on lunchboxes. The people who make those movies only hire top tier writers — the ones with résumés, awards, and possibly their own parking spaces on the lot. (And even then, half the time the script still gets rewritten by twelve other people.) 

Agents and producers want new writers to write original material — original stories, original characters, original dialogue. They want to know what you sound like, not what your version of a 60-year-old British spy sounds like. 

Sell a few scripts that carry your voice and only your voice, and then — maybe — you’ll be in the running to write the next Bond flick. 

But please…no letters.