GREEN SHOOTS

LegalDispatch 127

Mar 14, 2025

Howdy.

We have a fairly packed newsletter this week, as I had to skip last week because of deadlines (more on that in a moment).

It could just be wishful thinking, but I’m starting to see little green shoots cropping up in Hollywood lately. My brother just sold a pilot to NBC and got a job in a writers room on a Netflix show. A friend of mine is very close to booking a gig on a returning show. It feels like people are slowly getting back to work. At least, that’s what I’m choosing to read from the tea leaves.

I’ve also noticed an uptick in my own Hollywood work, to wit: I just sold PROJECT FEDERAL to NBC (yes, my brother and I will have competing projects there — fun), closed on a gig to run an animated show for Netflix (call it PROJECT VISTA), and I’m expecting an offer on a feature rewrite job (also, as it happens, for Netflix).

On top of that, I’ve still been busy with my comic work, having just delivered the scripts for the five Bring On The Bad Guys backups and the script for Spider-Man & Wolverine #3. All that plus further work on PROJECT MARBLE. It was a pretty busy — though productive — week.

Put it all together, and I don’t know if things are getting back to normal — and I still know far, far too many people who are hurting — but for the first time in a long while, I feel some hope.

STAR WARS: JEDI KNIGHTS

Because I skipped last week’s newsletter, I didn’t have the opportunity to follow up on the March 5 release of the debut of Jedi Knights.

Even though I consider the script for Issue One to be the weakest of the series so far, the response has been insanely and almost universally (galactically?) positive. Gaming Bible had a pretty terrific piece about the series which noted:

Surprisingly enough, the first issue seems to have done something that no other piece of Star Wars media has done in a very, very long time — it’s earned unanimous praise from the community.
“Great first issue. Awesome art, great spotlight on old characters and some really cool very prequelesque designs for the new characters - especially Vetna Mooncrest,” commented user HeartOfASkywalker.
“The new aliens didn’t just feel generic and brown either. Story was good at weaving in different plot lines efficiently without feeling rushed.”
“This issue actually surprised me with just how good it was. As others have said, the art was absolutely fantastic, definitely some of the best artwork we've seen in a Star Wars comic in a while,” replied user Nevic1984.
“I really enjoyed the beginning of this story too. We got both an episodic one with the civil war, plus an ongoing mystery with Qui-Gon. I'm wondering if the whole series will follow that formula. I also like the new characters introduced too, fantastic start so far.”

I’ll take it.

Clonegeek also wrote in with a question about Issue One:

That was a really good first issue for Jedi Knights. Really nice that the cover was a wrapround one.

Yes! I loved that. Razzah knocked it out of the park and it was very cool of Marvel to go with a wraparound cover as those are all-too-rare these days.

I have a question regarding Aayla Secura's inclusion on the cover because at this point in the timeline (according to Legends [LucasFilm’s banner term for pre-Disney, non-canon Star Wars stories] at least), she would still be a Padawan under Quinlan Vos. If she shows up in the series will she be depicted still as a Padawan? Or would she be recently knighted by then?

Great question. I can’t really speak to the Legends of it all, to be honest, but Story Group signed off on including her on the cover, so I have to assume she was, at least, recently knighted as of the events of Jedi Knights #1.

Thank you for the question!

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Oh, and here’s an exciting piece of news: Because Issue 1 sold out, we’re coming back for a second printing with two new covers. The first will be a “virgin variant” of Razzah’s wraparound cover — i.e., just the art, no text. The second will be a replication of Page 9 by Madibek Musabekov and Luis Guerrero:

Finally, Jedi Knights #2 drops a week earlier — on Wednesday, April 9 — and features the in-canon debut of “lost Kenner action figure” character Atha Prime.

EXCITEMENT

Earlier this week, my youngest daughter remarked that I don’t “seem as excited about what [I’m] writing as [I] used to be.” The comment really struck me, as you might expect. On the one hand, she has a point: Ever since the demise of my LA Law pilot in 2022, I’ve been loathe to fully emotionally commit to anything. In the past three years, it’s so hard to get anything going on the TV/film side that to fully invest myself feels like the emotional equivalent of making a bed in a burning house.

However, I nevertheless remain intensely excited about the TV/film work that I’m doing. In particular, PROJECT MARBLE, PROJECT BRIMSTONE, and the newly-announced PROJECT VISTA are all projects I’m incredibly enthusiastic about. The difference — which I think my daughter was picking up on — is that I’m writing these projects as their own end and not with the expectation that they’ll ever see the light of day. In other words, I’m just as excited as I used to be, but in a much different way and for a much different reason.

WOMEN OF SCI-FI

My wife’s former employer, Creation Entertainment, is holding a charity event saluting the “Women of Sci-Fi” in Burbank, March 22 and March 23. Caity Lotz, from Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow, will be in attendance, along with a lot of other really cool actors.

You can read more about the event here and buy tickets here.

STAN LEE: THE FINAL CHAPTER

There’s currently a Kickstarter campaign running to fund the completion of Stan Lee: The Final Chapter, a documentary about Stan Lee’s final, comic convention-filled days. Here’s how Kickstarter describes the movie:

The events are chronicled by filmmaker Jon Bolerjack who became an assistant to Stan and a fixture of his inner circle. Jon gained unprecedented access and filmed everything he saw. What he uncovered was a thriving market where Stan’s signatures and memorabilia were converted into huge piles of cash and rival hucksters double-crossed each other to control Stan’s fortune. After years of collecting this footage he’s ready to share this shockingly and truly heartbreaking story with the world.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, some controversy has cropped up about both the movie and the Kickstarter campaign. I’m not going to comment on that except to say that I saw an earlier cut of the movie and It’s incredibly moving and, quite frankly, horrifying. While I was aware of the allegations of elder abuse surrounding Stan’s final days, I didn’t have any real sense of the players involved and the horrifying extent of the abuse. This film does a good job of documenting both.

You can learn more about it on the project’s Kickstarter page.

THE TRUTH

During the pandemic, I took advantage of all the sudden free time to write a project that had been burning a hole in my notebook for some years: A legal drama about Alexander Hamilton’s last case.

The case itself is fascinating, taking place mere months before Hamilton’s untimely demise — and actually contributing to its circumstances — and culminating in an bravura performance before the New York Supreme Court, leading to an outcome which — spoiler alert — literally changed the law and remains in effect to this day.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s been hard to get traction on a period piece about an Alexander Hamilton who doesn’t rap or dance. Still, I remain proud of the work and thought — what the hell — I’ll share it with you fine people.

If you’re so inclined, you can download a PDF of the script here.

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GREEN SHOOTS

LegalDispatch 127

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