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The Scoop: Sword of Arthur by Mike Prentice |
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The Scoop: Sword of Arthur by Mike Prentice |
To set the record straight, Mike Prentice, has revealed the sordid story of an innocent work of fan fiction that, through no fault of the writers, came to deceive Indy fans the world over.
He writes:
Mr. Johnson,
Concerning the validity of the "Sword of Arthur" script, I can tell you right now it was not written by Jeffery Boam and, to the best of my knowledge, it is NOT going to be the script for the next Indy film. How do I know this? Because, I wrote it with a friend and neither of our names is Jeffery Boam, it's Michael Prentice and Steven Frye.
The two of us wrote Sword of Arthur back in 1996 as a lark idea. Neither of us are professional writers, we're just fans who enjoy the Indy series. The whole Sons of Darkness fiasco had happened and we felt a better job could be done. So, he and I wrote up the story, I went ahead and did a first draft of the script. We hoped maybe something could happen with it, but mainly, we wrote it in the spirit of fun. We just wanted to write a half way decent story.
Middle of 1997, I made a contact with an individual over the net who claimed he had some good connections to Spielberg. I told him about the Indy script I had sitting around. He told me he could get my script to the powers that be. If you've ever been to the alt.video.bootleg newgroups, you'll know who I'm talking about, a guy by the name of Archer Troy, alias Greg Felix. Type in either of those names on dejanews and you'll read a ton of posts by a lot of other people he ripped off. At the time, though, he seemed very believable and he had come through for me in the past. I sent him a second draft that Steve and I quickly cobbled together. I didn't have time to polish up the new changes and make them fit in with the rest of the material because of a deadline Archer had by which claimed he could get the script to someone who mattered. I had hopes something might happen with it, I doubted it would sell, but maybe it would lead to something. After I sent it, he told me it was read and rejected. After that, I heard nothing and then learned how Archer was a fraud and had conned a lot of people out of a lot of money and other items. The only time I heard anything else about this script was at the Cinescape web site a few weeks ago when they posted the title. They have been very helpful to me in trying to find out the truth about this. I believe what happened is this Archer Troy fellow started trading and/or selling copies of my script under the Boam name.
If you need further proof, here's an attached copy of the script. Post it if you like, I just want proper credit given to it. I'm sending you the same draft I sent out. I've since started work on a third draft that is addressing the problems I just read on your synopsis that have been bugging me for a while (yes, the punching scene made much more sense in the first draft, the young indy flashbacks were the second draft additions, I've never been happy with the final flashback scene.) If you want that, let me know.
Micheal Prentice
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Site Author: Micah Johnson Page Author: Mike Prentice Created: January 25, 1999 Last modified: January 25, 1999 |