April 14, 1999
David Vogel
Walt Disney Pictures
Dear David,
I’ve tried to reach you by phone a couple of times. Perhaps it would have helped if I’d explained why I was calling: I was in the States for a few days and thought it might be helpful if I came across to L.A. so that you and I could have a meeting. I didn’t hear from you, so I’m on a plane back to England, where I’m typing this.
We seem to have gotten to a place where the problems appear to loom larger than the opportunities. I don’t know if I’m right in thinking this, but I only have silence to go on, which is always a poor source of information.
It seems to me that we can either slip into the traditional stereotypes—you’re the studio executive who has a million real-world problems to worry about, and I’m the writer who only cares about seeing his vision realised and hang the cost and consequences—or we can recognise that we both share the same goal, which is to make the most successful movie we possibly can. The fact that we may have different perspectives on how this can best be achieved should be a fertile source of debate and iterative problem solving. It’s not clear to me that a one-way traffic of written “notes” interspersed with long, dreadful silences is a good substitute for this.
You have a great deal of experience nursing major motion pictures into existence. I have a great deal of experience of nursing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy into existence in every medium other than motion pictures. I’m sure you must feel frustrated that I don’t seem to understand the range of problems you have to contend with, just as I feel frustrated that I haven’t had any real creative dialogue with Disney about this project yet. I have a suggestion to make: Why don’t we actually meet and have a chat?
I could be in L.A. for next Monday (4/19) or early the following week. I would invite Disney to bear the cost of this extra trip over. I’ve appended a list of numbers you can reach me on. If you manage not to reach me, I shall know you’re trying not to, very, very hard indeed.
Best wishes,
Douglas Adams
Emaiclass="underline" dna@tdv.com
Assistant (Sophie Astin) (and voicemail): 555 171 555 1700 (between 10 A.M. and 6:00 P.M. British Summertime)
Office fax: 555 171 555 1701
Home (no voicemail): 555 171 555 3632
Home fax: 555 171 555 5601
UK cell phone (and voicemail): 555 410 555 098
US cellphone (and voicemail): (310) 555 555 6769
Other home. (France): 555 4 90 72 39 23
Jane Belson (wife) (office): 555 171 555 4715
Film agent (US) Bob Bookman: (310) 555 4545
Book agent (UK) Ed Victor (office): 555 171 555 4100 (UK office hours)
Book agent (UK) Ed Victor (office): 555 171 555 4112
Book agent (UK) Ed Victor (home): 555 171 555 3030
Producer: Roger Birnbaum: (818) 555 2637
Director: Jay Roach (Everyman Pictures): (323) 555 3585
Jay Roach (home): (310) 555 5903
Jay Roach (cellphone): (310) 555 0279
Shauna Robertson (Everyman Pictures): (323) 555 3585
Shauna Robertson, home: (310) 555 7352
Shauna Robertson, cellphone: (310) 555 8357
Robbie Stamp, Executive Producer (UK) (office): 555 171 555 1707
Robbie Stamp, Executive Producer (UK) (home): 555 181 555 1672
Robbie Stamp, Executive Producer (UK) (cell phone): 555 7885 55 8397
Janet Thrift (mother) (UK): 555 19555 62527
Jane Garnier (sister) (UK) (work): 555 1300 555 684
Jane Garnier (sister) (UK) (home): 555 1305 555 034
Jakki Kelloway (daughter’s nanny) (UK): 555 171 555 5602
Angus Deayton & Lise Meyer (next-door neighbours who can take a message) (UK): Work: 555 (145) 555 0464, Home: 555 (171) 555 0855
Restaurants I might conceivably be at:
The Ivy (UK): 555 171 555 4751
The Groucho Club (UK): 555 171 555 4685
Granita (UK): 555 171 555 3222
Sainsbury’s (supermarket where I shop; they can always page me): 555 171 555 1789
Website forum www.douglasadams.com/forum
[Editor’s Note: This letter had the desired effect. David Vogel responded, resulting in a productive meeting that pushed the movie forward.]
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
A large flying craft moved swiftly across the surface of an astoundingly beautiful sea. From mid-morning onwards it plied back and forth in great widening arcs, and at last attracted the attention of the local islanders, a peaceful, sea-food loving people who gathered on the beach and squinted up into the blinding sun, trying to see what was there.
Any sophisticated knowledgeable person, who had knocked about, seen a few things, would probably have remarked on how much the craft looked like a filing cabinet—a large and recently burgled filing cabinet lying on its back with its drawers in the air and flying. The islanders, whose experience was of a different kind, were instead struck by how little it looked like a lobster.
They chattered excitedly about its total lack of claws, its stiff unbendy back, and the fact that it seemed to experience the greatest difficulty staying on the ground. This last feature seemed particularly funny to them. They jumped up and down on the spot a lot to demonstrate to the stupid thing that they themselves found staying on the ground the easiest thing in the world. But soon this entertainment began to pall for them. After all, since it was perfectly clear to them that the thing was not a lobster, and since their world was blessed with an abundance of things that were lobsters (a good half a dozen of which were now marching succulently up the beach towards them) they saw no reason to waste any more time on the thing but decided instead to adjourn immediately for a late lobster lunch.
At that exact moment the craft stopped suddenly in mid-air then upended itself and plunged headlong into the ocean with a great crash of spray which sent them shouting into the trees. When they re-emerged, nervously, a few minutes later, all they were able to see was a smoothly scarred circle of water and a few gulping bubbles.
That’s odd, they said to each other between mouthfuls of the best lobster to be had anywhere in the Western Galaxy, that’s the second time that’s happened in a year.
The craft which wasn’t a lobster dived direct to a depth of two hundred feet, and hung there in the heavy blueness, while vast masses of water swayed about it. High above, where the water was magically clear, a brilliant formation of fish flashed away. Below, where the light had difficulty reaching the colour of the water sank to a dark and savage blue.
Here, at two hundred feet, the sun streamed feebly. A large, silk-skinned sea-mammal rolled idly by, inspecting the craft with a kind of half-interest, as if it had half expected to find something of this kind round about here, and then it slid on up and away towards the rippling light.
The craft waited here for a minute or two, taking readings, and then descended another hundred feet. At this depth it was becoming seriously dark. After a moment or two the internal lights of the craft shut down, and in the second or so that passed before the main external beams suddenly stabbed out, the only visible light came from a small hazily illuminated pink sign which read THE BEEBLEBROX SALVAGE AND REALLY WILD STUFF CORPORATION.