The Salmon of Doubt

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 Email:[email protected] 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) 5554545

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 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 forumwww. 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.