Things THEY Don't Want You To Know: How else are you ever going to sell a movie? (Star Wars References)

By now, everybody knows that if you make some sort of low-budget sci-fi thing and put it on the Internet, and eventually a high-budget sci-fi guy sees it, you're golden as far as Hollywood is concerned. That's how Ataque De Panico *

*Literally translated, that means "These Taco Bell burritos are eating my insides"

director Fede Alvarez, who is Uruguayan**

** that's racist!

got noticed: He made a film, put it on Youtube, Kanye West saw it, and after that, Alvarez signed a deal with Sam Raimi to make more movies that Kanye West might also see.***

*** Hopefully, they will not be movies featuring the "writing" "talents" of Diablo Cody. Know what I'm saying, home slice?

But suppose you want to be more famous than some Uruguayan who Kanye once noticed?

And, as an aside, has anyone stopped to think about just how much power Kanye West holds? He made Taylor Swift become noticeable, inflicting her "talents" on us for several more years than we might otherwise have had to suffer, and now he is creating directors from thin air -- so if you're looking to make it big, I recommend that you get Kanye to look your way. Who knows what could be next? Maybe Kanye will notice those cute videos you posted of your kids, and the next thing you know, you're raising this century's version of the Olsen Twins?*4

*4 Fingers crossed!

Where was I? Oh, yeah: Suppose you want to be even more famous than Kanye West can make you (as if that's possible?) What are you going to do?

I'll tell you what you're going to do: You're going to do what budding filmmaker Gareth Edwards (the second-most famous Gareth in existence today) did: You're going to compare your future low-budget indie film to Star Wars:

British director Gareth Edwards burst onto the scene with the low budget science fiction film Monsters, catching the eye of everyone in Hollywood. He landed the job to direct a new Godzilla movie for Legendary Pictures, which is being rewritten by Superman/Batman scribe David Goyer. A Monsters sequel is being developed, which Edwards won’t direct. He’s also developing a top secret science fiction film with Russian director turned producer Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, The Darkest Hour, Night Watch). Not much has been revealed about this project, until now. My good sources tell me that the still untitled project is about a young human child (probably around 5 years old) and a robot who travel across the galaxy in search of mankind’s origin in a world void of humanity and filled with robots. Sounds pretty awesome right? Gareth is pitching this project as “a robot Star Wars.”

Sounds almost exactly like Star Wars to me. I mean, except for the parts that sound almost exactly like Battlestar Galactica. I would've pitched it just that way: Picture R2D2 and a kid who's completely unlike that little twit Anakin but still a kid, looking for the original Earth.

I bet that's exactly how Gareth did pitch it, but reporters edited out the Battlestar references because that show ended up so horribly.

But what's really being missed is the genius of pitching something as "_____ Plus Star Wars." Imagine how much more successful movies would have been if they'd been sold to us that way?

Instead of Gone With The Wind, we could have Civil War Star Wars. The Godfather could have been Mafia Star Wars. Every John Cusack movie ever could have been John Cusack Star Wars, and it wouldn't've even mattered that they didn't have anything to do with stars, or wars -- we'd just suck it up anyway.

Or, consider this pitch, for a little movie about a kid who grew up on a desert planet, only to get swept up in a rebellion with a ne'er do well friend and a princess and an old man:

Like a Star Wars, only crossed with Star Wars.

That's gold, right there.

Because I'm such an insider, I've got an early look at Robot Star Wars, which by rights ought to be called that. Here it is: