The Perils of Pitching

According to this link Andy Weir had a pitch for Star Trek that went nowhere.  The linked article doesn't state what the pitch was but goes into greater detail the frustrations with the state of Star Trek.  

J Michael Strazynski had a rather famous pitch in 2004 that rebooted the series in interesting ways.  They didn't go with this at the time instead giving us the 2009 version which led to Alex Kurtzman running the franchise.

Discussing the merits about the franchises and who runs them is outside the scope of this piece.  Two failed pitches above are examples of the business of Hollywood.  It goes something like this:  Producer says "I have an awesome idea for (insert media adaptation here) and I will know exactly what to do with it when it walks through that door."

Andy Weir and Stracynski didn't get past that producer because whatever the idea was it wasn't what he wanted.

If you ever wonder why Hollywood never seems to do much original work it is usually because those original scripts floating around out there act like resumes for whatever IP producer X has in their pockets.  "We're not doing that but we have this other thing over here..."

To use an upcoming example.  Steven Knight (famous for many works but Peaky Blinders is the most recent) has been tapped for whatever the new James Bond film will be from new masters at Amazon.  Whatever his pitch was it must have worked because he landed the gig.  I am cautiously optimistic because one of my favorites of his is Eastern Promises from David Cronenberg-a film that while I like I can't revisit too often because of it subject matter and execution.  

All this is to say don't judge the talent pool by what gets rejected.  Judge it by what gets made.  In the end all that counts is the experience it produces.