Rudy Rucker has a great blog entry (an excerpt from his memoir-in-progress, Nested Scrolls) about Hollywood's 11-year-attempt to make a movie based on his novel Software, which is one of my favorite science fiction novels.
The scripts kept getting worse—we were up to version ten before long. The film agent I was using then, Steve Freedman, told me that by now Phoenix had spent over a million dollars on test shots and discarded screenplays. I was alarmed that they'd thrown out so much money on such shit. But Steve said it was all good."The million dollars makes Medavoy pregnant. If he tries to back out, I say, 'No, you're pregnant, you've got to make the film.'"
I had one last meeting with Mike Medavoy. He finally wanted my advice on how to doctor the script. They flew me to LA first class, and a limo picked me up at the airport. Like so many people in LA, the driver was talking about the Business, and she was happy to hear I was going to a script meeting.