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Oh, You AEI! Reprinted from The Buzz, November, 1997 by David L. Ulin Kenneth Atchity is in a rush. Reached by phone at his Miracle Mile office, he seems a little out of breath; while he talks, he works what sounds like the zipper on a suitcase. Just back from Louisiana, he's in town for only a few days before flying to South America, where one of the authors he represents is working on a book. For the moment, though, the man described in his own PR as a "21st-century Renaissance man" is tying up some loose ends at Atchity Entertainment International, Inc. (AEI), the literary management firm he founded in January 1996 with partner Chi-Li Wong. AEI is a peculiar company, equal parts manuscript consultation service and literary agency, with an element of motion-picture production house thrown in. Atchity describes it as "a commercial university for writers," but "story factory" might be more accurate, since AEI is designed to generate narratives--narratives that sell. Either way, it seems an unlikely career choice for the former Occidental College comparative literature professor, whose 13th book, The Classical Roman Reader, was published in September by Henry Holt. Atchity , however, considers his academic experience "perfect preparation." The idea for AEI, in fact, took shape during the six years Atchity worked in the movie business, producing 20 pictures for TV and the direct-to-video market, including such neither classical nor Roman titles as Amityville: The Evil Escapes and The Shadow of Obsession for NBC. "One day my partner said, 'you used to develop writers as a professor--let's develop commercial writers from the start.' That's how AEI was born." AEI functions like this: On the editorial side, a subsidiary company called Writer's Lifeline employs 10 editors who work with aspiring authors on "coached rewrites" of their manuscripts. The goal is to develop stories that will sell both as books and motion pictures, with AEI attached to produce. "We want product to take out," Atchity says. "About half the clients we've sold have come from Writer's Lifeline." The company has made about 30 deals, including seven for six figures or more. The largest involves Meg, a first novel by Florida writer Steve Alten that Doubleday-Bantam bought in a two-book deal for $2.1 million after Disney paid $700,000 against $1.1 million for film rights. In may ways, Meg is the quintessential AEI project, light on character development and literary merit, but the epitome of a high-concept idea. A deep-sea thriller about the search for the "carcharodon megalodon"--a prehistoric killer shark that grows to 70 feet and 20 tons--it owes its inspiration to Jurassic Park and Jaws. There's nothing wrong with that of course. Still, there's something troubling about the emphasis on commercial viability as the sole indicator of a book's value, not to mention Atchity's insistence that "we strictly want stuff that's going to work on -screen." Even AEI's lowest-profile titles--The Cruelest Lie, for instance, a literary novel by Milton Lyles, whom Atchity likens to William Faulkner--have been retooled to be studio-friendly. "We explained casting, how Hollywood makes a movie," Atchity says, "and talked to Milton about using a clear three-act structure, so if you're Tommy Lee Jones or Gabriel Byrne looking to make a small movie, this might be the one." He adds, "It's the kind of work nobody did with Faulkner," as if such a makeover might have improved the Nobel Prize-winner's oeuvre. Atchity defends the AEI approach, declaring that "we want to get our writer a lot of money as soon as possible, so he can go on with his life." but while it's difficult to argue with anyone who aspires to see writers paid well, AEI seems to play into publishing's newfound blockbuster mentality, where traditional midlist titles are often sacrificed in the name of economics. Then there's the increasingly cozy relationship between Hollywood and the publishing industry, a synergy that could transform the way books and movies are made. Already, explains Doubleday's Brandon Saltz, "it's become more common for agents to approach studios first...Publishers have a bit of a herd mentality, and we like to see that others have ponied up." The problem with such attitudes," says Penguin Putnam's Nascy Neiman--who at Warner Books shepherded The Bridges of Madison County into print--is that they "suggest the highest peak of achievement is to get a movie made, and I don't think that's true of all books." Atchity acknowledges concerns about the Hollywoodization of publishing, but believes that his "best ally is the 3,000 miles between Los Angeles and New York." He can play both sides off against each other, commiserating about Manhattan snobbery when in L.A. and rolling he eyes about L.A philistinism when back east. But with Meg having failed this summer to make a splash in the marketplace, and only one other AEI title--Cheryl Saban's Sins of the Mother--briefly hitting bestseller lists, Atchity's real rush may be to strike a chord with the book-buying public before studios and publishers start looking for stories somewhere else. |