So… I’m aware writing reboots pitches and scripts, etc, has a whole range of challenges if you don’t personally own the IP and aren’t a big name producer. But for those of who have a real passion in this area, who want to see a particular project made, what is some genuine advice on how to achieve this?
Beyond the obvious like find out who owns the IP, etc. I’m talking about if you have the pitch and pilot script written, know who the IP owners are (want ultimately to pitch it to them), but don’t have an agent or manager yet and don’t have a big network (yet).
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I would network/build relationships with the IP owners, Julie Lamont. It might lead to them listening to your pitch and reading your script. And check out The Stunt List (www.officialstuntlist.com/submit-2025).
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Definitely spend some time networking and letting people see you. It's the single biggest thing you can do for yourself in the beginning.
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The way I've seen reboots from unknown writers work is this: go into the universe of the story and tell the events from the completely opposite angle. flip the story on its head and present a totally new perspective.
The obvious example is Wicked. The guy who wrote the novel wicked, which was later adapted into a musical, then adapted into a 2-part mega feature, realized there was a story in the Wicked Witch's villain character that hadn't been told and wrote his book. That book was read and enjoyed by the musical writers (who were fairly established at the time) and the rest is history
Another great example is Ratched. An unknown MFA grad student writer at Loyola Marymount University took his favorite movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and re-imagined the story from Nurse Ratched's point of view. The pilot was sharp and had a great vision for a series. The writer Evan Romansky pitched it at a student pitch fest and a manager liked it enough to check out the script. Then after reading and liking the writing, the manager signed Evan and went to work eventually getting studios bidding against each other to make it, eventually ending up with Ryan Murphy for Netflix.
Other examples are Maleficent and Tangled, which were both reverse engineered by Disney Animation's internal teams after they saw the success of the Wicked musical.
So step 1, if you don't own the IP - first reimagine the IP as something totally new. Use the universe and world, but be original and do something totally different with it. Be wary of just writing the same story in the same world as it becomes harder to distinguish your work. Find a new angle and attack it. Villain as hero/anti-hero is a super convenient one to use.
Step 2, find a champion. For Evan Romansky (Ratched), that champion was a random manager at a random pitch fest, who didn't have to read Evan's work by any means, but the idea impressed him in a 10 minute pitch, so he did. For the Wicked writer, he just published his book and it became a word of mouth success. Two established musical writers took notice, saw it's potential, and ran with it.
If you've written your pilot already, my advice would be pitch managers on the idea. Studios likely won't hear writers out on the IP they own, but if you can find a champion in a manager, they will be able to bring it to the IP-owners on your behalf or have a realistic discussion with you about it.
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thanks Pat! that’s really helpful.
I haven’t gone all out making it totally different. Although I very much put my own spin on it. The original is a tiny IP where the concept was good but the actual idea was very badly executed onscreen. And like a lot of media from that era in the genre it’s set in, the original was racist, sexist and a lot of other “ists”.
I l’ve looked at it from the view of “what if, instead of having it all about a bunch of sexist dudes, we added a couple of strong female characters, made the tone a lot darker, and explored deep themes not just superficial action and tropes”.
My favourite tv shows to watch all tend to be ones with “expanded universes”, whether it be ones like Andor (although Star Wars generally is a bit and miss), 80s/90s era Star Trek, and the “Bellisarioverse/ Lenkoverse” (eg JAG/NCIS and Hawaii 5-0/Magnum PI etc). oh and current ones like Elsbeth (spinoff) and Matlock (reboot).
I actually quite like how different the Matlock reboot is to the original (I’m probably giving away my age by saying I watched some of the original when it first aired). it really shows how you can take a concept and totally change it while keeping the spirit of the original.