Good news for fans of Wayne’s World, the 1992 hit comedy about two overgrown Illinois metalheads who have their own cable access show. Twenty-three years after Wayne’s World 2 was released, there is finally a Wayne’s World 3. The bad news is it is in script form only and is in no way connected with Mike Myers, who created the characters on Saturday Night Live, co-wrote both films and played Wayne.
Instead, it is the brainchild of Trevor Schindeler, who came up with his script idea (entitled Wayne’s Leisure World) in 1993 and has been trying intermittently to get someone – anyone – to read it. Producers, directors, stars, agents: they’ve all been on Schindeler’s list.
But none has shown the slightest interest. He could paper his bathroom with the rejection letters he has received, each one reminding him that unsolicited scripts will not be read and wishing him luck. Now he has set up a crowd-funding page with the goal of raising $2,500 to purchase “outdoor advertising” in Los Angeles so that he might break into what he refers to repeatedly as “Fortress Hollywood”. Schindeler claims that all he wants is for his screenplay to be considered. “I could rest easy if someone inside Fortress Hollywood had read the screenplay and told me it sucked. I could move on. What motivates me is that I know that I have a hilarious screenplay sitting in my computer collecting dust. I want to share it.”
Writing a screenplay based on characters owned by Paramount Pictures may not be the best route into the movie business. If I were Schindeler, I would write some short films, and try to get those made – if they are good enough, they might even be accepted into film festivals, in which case they would attract positive attention from industry professionals, including the agents against whom he rails impotently.
I haven’t read Schindeler’s script for Wayne’s Leisure World but I’ll come right out and say this: I don’t think his single-issue career path bodes well for it. Writers need to be flexible. Anchoring yourself to one script for more than two decades to the apparent exclusion of all other writing work does not suggest devotion or commitment. It sounds delusional.
In fairness, the billboard idea is not entirely misguided. Schindeler was probably inspired by the example of Eric D Wilkinson, who took out a full-page ad in the Hollywood Reporter to pitch his script idea for Die Hard 6 to the makers of the series. While Wilkinson’s idea wasn’t commissioned, another of his scripts has since been picked up.
I’ll repeat that for the benefit of Schindeler: another of his scripts has since been picked up. Irons in the fire, fingers in pies, don’t put your eggs in one basket – there is no shortage of metaphors out there to help Schindeler.
And that’s even before we get to his complaints about the closed shop of Hollywood. It may not be the wisest tactic to berate publicly the very people with whom one is attempting to ingratiate oneself. Schindeler describes his crowd-funding endeavour as variously a “campaign”, a “crusade” and a “struggle” against “Fortress Hollywood”. Suddenly his wish to get a comedy script read has turned into a battle to bring down the establishment of which he longs to be a part. If this is his attempt at a charm offensive then it needs work; at the moment he’s putting all the emphasis on the “offensive” and precious little on the “charm”.
Myers himself reportedly wrote a third Wayne’s World movie, though nothing has been heard about that for several years. I’d rather he turned another of his characters into a film idea, such as his SNL superhero Middle-Aged Man, whose powers include the ability to comprehend mortgages. But if there were to be a third Wayne’s World movie, Schindeler may have come up with a promising concept without even meaning to.
In 1994, the Nightmare on Elm Street series was revived ingeniously with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, in which the stars and director of the original film were terrorised by Freddy Krueger, the monster they had created. Krueger wanted them to give him a new lease of life by making another sequel. A similar idea could work in reverse for Wayne’s World 3.
Picture the scene:
INT. A LIVING-ROOM IN SUBURBAN ILLINOIS - NIGHT
WAYNE CAMPBELL, 53, a divorced father of two, is slumped on a sofa watching old VH1 documentaries, noodling on his guitar and wondering where his life went. Suddenly he notices a figure lurking in his garden clutching what appears to be a baton.
This is TREVOR SCHINDELER – a hapless wannabe writer. And that isn’t a baton. It’s a rolled-up screenplay …
