Studio:
Paramount Pictures.
Production Company:
Mirage Enterprises.
Project Phase: Development Hell.
Who's In It:
Unknown.
Who's Making It:
Michael Tolkin, Steven Gaghan, Michael R. Perry (Screenwriters); William Horberg, Sydney Pollack (Producers).
Premise: The world's wealthiest man, a software mogul, learns how the world will end. With all of his fortune and power, surely he'll try to prevent the apocalypse from happening, correct?
Not really. The billionaire plans to save himself and the other top twenty wealthiest individuals in the world -- then set out for true global domination!
Release Date: Unknown.
Comments: The original Twenty Billion script read as a combination of Monty Python's Flying Circus meets A&E's Biography episode for Bill Gates, then blended with the surrealness of Peter Seller's Being There. Damn. So why didn't it get made? Originally Tolkin was scheduled to direct the picture and had been lining up Mike Myers for the Gates-like role, but the plan fell apart.
Rumors: Unknown.
Scoop Feedback:
[Page draft submitted by 'Widgett', who is going to have a movie written about him someday called 20 Pieces of Pocket Lint.]
May 21, 1998... Last month funny man Mike Myers exited this project; instead Myers will film the big screen version of his SNL-inspired Sprockets sketch. Word on the street is that the film will hopefully begin shooting this July. Already the picture has generated some buzz: the script is said to walk precisely between being black comedy and drama, much like Peter Seller's Being There picture.
The title Twenty Billion derives from the fortune of the world's richest man, a Bill Gates-like individual who has a crafty plan to escape an impending global catatrophe while ensuring his company will survive in the aftermath. With Myers out, it remains to be seen who will be cast as the world's richest man. [Originally appeared in ZENtertainment; reported by 'Widgett', with additional information sent to us by the 'Big Shemp'.]
May 26, 1998... Our first scooper to this particular page informs us that actor Peter Stormare (The Lost World, Fargo) is now being considered for the film's lead. [Scoop sent in by 'Boris'.]
July 14, 1998... We've received a script review from one of our Agents in the field. They give it a a thumbs up and tells us they're looking forward to seeing how Tolken realizes the words on the page into a film.
We've gotten out hands on a copy as well, and a forthcoming review will appear in a new Director's Cut this month...but for now, 'Agent4125' has the floor. Listen up though -- it's filled with STORY SPOILERS but they don't reveal any key secrets that would blow any surprises. Decide now if you want to read it or not...
"I just had the opportunity to read the screenplay for 20 BILLION by Michael Tolkin, Steven Gaghan and Michael R. Perry.
"Bottom line: very amusing, smart and well-observed. I read it in one sitting, which is always a good sign. As you might expect coming from Tolkin, 20 BILLION does for the computer industry what THE PLAYER did for Hollywood -- it's a fictionalized but highly observant warts-and-all look at the computer industry and in particular its number one power-player Dennis Morton, founder of Interface Corp and the world's richest man. He's also something of a nerd. (If you can't figure out who Morton's real-life inspiration is, there's no hope for you).
"The movie flits back and forth in time, using the clever and appropriately thematic visual device of a 'home page' which accesses information about the characters' histories -- at pertinent moments, the screen digitizes, a cursor appears and opens a new 'window' which expands and presents a flashback clip before closing and returning us to the present day.
"The story concerns Dennis' rise from computer geek to world's most powerful industrialist (again, told mostly in flashback) and his sinister plan to, along with a cabal of equally uber-rich CEOs, flee Earth in a fleet of private rocket ships and settle in a survival bunker on the moon for 10 or 15 years -- the idea being to avoid the impending environmental apocalypse that the cabal, known as the Telluride Group, is convinced is imminent.
"Meanwhile, Morton and Interface Corp face plunging stock prices after one of their faulty computer programs kills dozens of miners in an industrial accident, Morton falls in love with his new PR girl and... lots of other cool stuff happens.
"The primary story -- the Earth-fleeing cabal -- seems a little too similar to the story of Ben Elton's excellent novel STARK to my liking, but that aside 20 BILLION is a pretty spot-on and biting satire of Bill Gates, Microsoft et al. While Tolkin's THE PLAYER was based on no-one in particular, Dennis Morton is Gates -- a lot of the comedy derives from the huge house Morton/Gates has built outside of Seattle, including an AI chip that follows you and talks to you wherever you go, the world's tallest water slides and even its own 24-hour food court including a Cinnabon's and Wendy's!
"There's lots of fun to be had here -- 20 BILLION is every bit as sharp as THE PLAYER, although with a slightly bouncier, happier ending. Gates-haters will love it, but Gates himself may have a word or two to say via his high-priced lawyers -- it'll be interesting to see how that pans out."
[At first, CA's operating system decided it didn't like 'Agent4125's email...but when an anti-trust lawsuit was threatened, it backed off.]
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