Part 21: THE ONLY WAY OUT, "You've Got to Know When to Walk Away..."

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We were caught by a Hollywood snake.

June 2024

In the last post, I had asked B at the brand integration firm to reach out to the marketing contact I had worked so hard to get at La Sportiva. He said he'd be happy to reach out to her, yet in the coming weeks, every time I asked him if he'd done it, he kept saying he'd get to it. The last time we spoke, he said he had reached out, but never heard back. Hum...

I was growing increasingly frustrated with B and all of the worthless integrations he kept sending, integrations, remember, that I had to read and respond to. Then one day I was feeling particularly frustrated when one of my Colorado producer friends called to chat about her latest film project. Somehow, we got on the topic of product integrations, and without naming the company or the man himself, I told her how frustrated I was working with him. When I described what was happening, she immediately said something to the effect of, "Oh, my God that sounds so familiar. Are you working with B from X company?"

I said, "yes, why?"

She then told me that she paid B $10,000 for product integration on one of her films and wound up with absolutely nothing. She said the integrations B sent to her were garbage and he simply stopped returning her emails and calls and walked away with her money. She also went on to say that she knew several others in the biz who had also been ripped off by him. Apparently, this guy was quite the scam artist and he'd been running this scam for years.

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I deduced that his business model is such that he makes his money by charging filmmakers a sizeable fee, a retainer, for him to find product integration money for your film. He then charges each brand a fee to find leads for films to be integrated in, which is why he submits every brand to every filmmaker regardless of whether those brands are a fit. It's brilliant, as I remarked in my last post. He has created a win-win situation for himself which means he doesn't have to do a heck of a lot of work to make a crap ton of money. Of course, he does have to actually deliver once in a while not to get completely ousted from Hollywood. And when he delivers, he gets a HUGE percentage of the film's revenue.

Anyway, after I got off the phone with my friend, I decided to do some serious homework. Within minutes, I found numerous websites with independent filmmakers claiming that B had screwed them out of thousands of dollars. Worse, the guy had several lawsuits against him. Crap! My instincts were right. This guy was a scammer. We had to break up with him, immediately because, in the wise words of Kenny Rogers:

"You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run."

I quickly drafted an email to my film's producers, Marty Katz and Steve Schklair, my manager, Stephanie Rogers, and our director, Eric Schwab. I told them about my friend's experience with B. I then included links to the various lawsuits in which B had been named the defendant. I emailed links to stories of various producers who had been screwed by this guy and their complaints.

I told the team how B kept brushing me off when I asked him about contacting my contact at La Sportiva and he confirmed via our phone conversation that he had never reached out to anyone on my product integration wish list. I reminded the team that B almost guaranteed us that we'd have product integration money by this point in the process and yet, after 6 months of working with him, we had nothing, but a ton of integration pitches for top shelf booze, specialty guns, high-end jewelry, and posh resorts.

Within minutes, everyone on the team responded to my email. Marty then called me. He told me he called B and confronted him on the lawsuits, lack of brand integrations and his lack of follow-up with our wish list companies. The man hadn't even submitted any of our proposals to any of the companies to whom we had pitched.

Marty said during the call B didn't even try to defend his behavior. The only thing he said was that the lawsuits were all in the past and they were no longer representative of how he runs his business now. Marty was absolutely disgusted. He told B that we can't be associated with someone like you and terminated the contract verbally. As soon as we hung up, Marty sent a follow-up email to B and the team formalizing the termination.

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I knew out of all of us Marty was probably the angriest. He had paid B a retainer and B had screwed him. Fortunately, the amount wasn't anywhere near the amount he took from my Colorado producer friend, but I don't care who you are, getting screwed out of money still stings.  

And, just like that, 6 months of hard work went down the drain and we were back at square one, trying to find financing for the film. I was reeling again. This industry is full of sharks and even the best Hollywood producers can become their prey. Worse, my THE ONLY WAY OUT inbox was dead.

One of the nicest things about reviewing product integration pitches (for better or worse) was that I had daily contact with the team. To all of a sudden go from daily contact to crickets was hard, really hard. It felt as though everything had just come to a screeching halt, and that was taking a serious emotional toll.

While you wait for the next installment, check out my MAMA FIX IT™ videos on YouTube.

To be continued...

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