So ... we're back. Okay, you probably didn't notice we were gone. But if you happen to be digging back through the archives of production diary entries, you'll notice that there's an unexplained gap of nearly two months(!) where I wasn't posting anything. In fact -- and you'll have to take my word for this one -- the site was down entirely.

So what happened in that time? Well, long story short is that we sent the script to a hot-shot producer or two of our acquaintance, not expecting much -- a little non-fiduciary help, maybe a peek in the Rolodex -- and next thing you know, both parties wanted to produce the damn thing. (And one suggested that we take the site down -- thieves everywhere, you know -- and we acquiesced.)

And thus began 2 months of meetings, yakking, and negotiations. And in the end we had to walk away from both parties. The first because she wanted script changes that we didn't think made any sense, and the other because they wanted to bring in their own people to direct and star. But all the while, they were dangling carrots of budgets 5 or 10 times what we could afford, and big-time name actors.

But we decided to plow ahead on our own instead. Admirable artistic integrity, or idiotic squandering of opportunity? Time will tell, I reckon. We figure we still have enough money to make a terrific movie and get great actors (and we have a line on maybe getting more investors -- hope, hope), so better to maintain creative control, right? Boy, I hope we made the right call.

So anyway, that's the story. Pretty soon we'll be hiring a casting director and setting out to hire actors. We've pushed our start date back to mid-June, but that's still breathtakingly near ... we've got to get our butts rolling.

But the point is, we're back on track, moving forward, rocking, rolling, etc., etc. I'll try to report again on our progress before another 2 months passes us by.