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studio would have to be behind it, of course, but it’d be a drop in the Hollywood bucket. They could hit the kids with a one-two punch that sells the DVDs of the movie and the Silly-String and the Spider-Man shirts and get their lunch-money with Spidey books each month until Spider-Man II: Electric Boogaloo hits the screens. Columbia is happy, Marvel is happy, comic book retailers are happy, and the audience is happy.

It’s easy.

If Marvel doesn't get something like this going for May 3, 2002, my plan to see LARRY YOUNG PRESENTS CAPTAIN AMERICA will have three years shaved off the timetable, true believer. Los Angeles January 26, 2001

There’s a reason they call it The City of Dreams.

I first hit Los Angeles in November of 1991. My boyhood chum, Rick Austin, was then working for MTV-LA as a producer on MTV Sports and on their movie show, The Big Picture . He found himself working on a PR piece for The Godfather III that Paramount loved so much they offered him his pick of upcoming films upon which he might work some similar magic.

Rick, being no piker, instantly said, “ Star Trek VI. ”

“What’s your take?” the Paramount suits asked.

Rick’s a pretty quick guy, so from a running start, he says, “Let’s get a cast member from The Next Generation to call up the events of Star Trek VI on the Enterprise computer, and we can cut to interviews of the actors involved in the movie, talking about the plot, the shoot, whatever, and make it all look like a historical document of the Star Trek universe.” So they said, “Make it happen,” and Rick called me up in Massachusetts, and filled me in and told me if I helped him script it, I’d get an onscreen credit and he’d get me on the Paramount lot to watch ‘em shoot the spe cial. A couple of weeks later I was standing on a transporter pad and sitting in Picard’s ready room watching Rick plan shots with Rob Legato and talking with Guy Vardaman and shooting the shit with Michelle Forbes at the craft services table behind the bridge viewscreen and basically just livin’ the dream.

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