Great movies that were never made.

Today I started reading Roger Ebert's best-selling book, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie. And I find it very disturbing. Not because he lambastes so many A, B and C movies. But because these turkeys were every filmed in the first place. Why does this bother me so. Because I have in my possession nearly a dozen movie scripts written by my partner, Peter, who is a far better writer than I am or anyone I know.When we pulled up stakes and moved to L.A. in 1990, he got a talent agent at a leading agency with his very first screenplay. Unheard of. That same screenplay immediately got two movie offers. Then Peter turned in his second screenplay which this agency proclaimed even greater than the first. In no time Peter was having meetings with leading producers throughout L.A., some charming, some morons. Soon after that a director was assigned to the project and they collaborated on the upcoming movie. During that time Peter had the joy of dining with the director's movie-star wife and her movie-star sister. Then it all fell apart because the agent was an idiot and screwed up both offers and made lifetime enemies. The project was forgotten, the agent moved to a lesser venue, and within a few years the director died.  Peter and I moved back to Florida, but he didn't stop writing. However, any attempts to secure another agent didn't pan out. So when I read Ebert's comments on these rotten movies, I am very much aware that I have eleven movie scripts so well-written that it would take the world's worst directors to not create a memorable film. But these movies will never be made because creativity and talent is no longer enough. You have to be a salesman, a con man, an egotist, a glib socialite who loves nothing better than booze and drugs and spending his nights in the latest in clubs. Peter is none of these. What he is is one of America's  great unrecognized screenwriters. The good news is that he doesn't seem to mind his lack of recognition nearly as much as I do.