Airplane Bloggin: Delayed in Phoenix Addition

After the mishaps of this past week (booking a car in the wrong airport), having only one way flight booked, and the early exodus (mixed bag there) of associate producer David, I ended up staying a few extras days because of the severe weather in NYC and my general flight malaise – I hate it, it makes me nervous, and I loathe the airport and waiting for flights. Besides, I still had some more work to do and it was only Monday. I took a few more meetings (fast growing sales agent and production company New Films among them) and booked for today, Thursday. Unfortunately, Jet Blue was sold out through Saturday and I didn’t have anywhere to stay beyond Thursday morning (I stayed with Jay, my former roommate, since vacating the Riot Hyatt (so its called because of Led Zeppelin fame) on Tuesday). The cheapest ticket I could get was US Air, but its through Phoenix, which means an extra hour or so and two takeoffs and two landings. Not my favorite. And now, I am delayed in Phoenix. At least the airport has wireless.

I actually have a free hotel room in Bev Hills all next week, courtesy of my publicist and her Oscar Party at the Beverly Wilshire (though the room is at the Luxe?? – same owners??) but since I have work to do in NYC and nowhere to stay over the weekend, and I’ve put myself on a strict budget, I am flying back.

Anyway, enough bitter-like detail. This is supposed to be interesting. Supposed-to-be. It hasn’t been, even Dawn doesn’t comment anymore. Who needs ambien? So I am talking to myself. Am I talking? Hello? Echo?

Moving on.

This week was momentous for one thing in particular. The My Brother trailer is live in 19 markets, in front of Tyler Perry’s movie, Daddy’s Little Girls, which opened yesterday across the country, and it expected to do minimum 30 million between Wednesday and Sunday. They are on 2200 screens or so, we’ll be on 35 to start (unless something magical happens). Still, though, the trailer placement in front of this very popular title in every theater in which we’ll be playing is huge, and despite our difficulties, our distribution team at Code Black deserves some kudos for making that happen with AMC (where we are exclusively playing our first phase release).

We are on a ridiculously tight budget marketing wise, and every cent is being allocated to driving the audience into the theaters for opening weekend. As a result, looks like no opening premieres in LA or in NYC. Rather, we have a big party with the Special Olympics in Washington DC on February 27th, and some kind of opening nite, non-red carpet reception for the movie in Houston, where co-star Christopher Scott and his family live. If you don’t know, Chris and Donovan Jennings, who portray the character James in the movie, at different ages, both have Downs Syndrome. They are the first African American actors with a developmental disability in history to portray leading roles in a feature motion picture. But they have more in common, now. They have both won acting awards at film festivals. Chris won the Founder’s Award for Acheivement in Independent Cinema at the HBO American Black Film Festival (where the movie took Best Picture honors) and Donovan won the Youth Spirit Award at the International Family Film Festival in Los Angeles. All in, the movie has won some 26 awards, making it perhaps the most awarded black film since The Color Purple. I think it has four best pictures, four best actors or actresses, and numerous other honors and recognitions. Vanessa Williams has been great, making efforts to attend as many festivals as possible. I think she is going to the Santa Barbara Black Film Series awards next week (schedule permitting) where My Brother is the Film of the Year and she has been awarded a humanitarian award for her work with individuals with a developmental disability. Go Wilhemina Slater.

Slaughter script notes came in from all sources, and we’re getting started on what I know will be a very productive rewrite. Bobby and Nathan have received the notes, and its spurred some ideas about ways to tighten up the story. I am excited about getting the next draft so we move that much closer to rolling the camera.

In other news, this damn cough is back. It disappeared in Park City, returned last week, and now its back with a vengeance. I thought maybe it was the cat at Liberty, but its been a problem in LA too. Im running out of ideas. Have any? I don’t smoke (nothing, for the most part) and I hack like a two packs of strikes a day man. Whats up with that. I don’t feel sick at least, but I sound like I have an incurable disease. Its quite the pick up line.

That’s all for now. Looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonite. If you’re cute and in NYC, drop me a line. I spoon to the left.

Grumpy.