Films Not Made

Musician and playwright Natalie Weiss has come to resurrect her children's show concept, DJ Natalie's Neighborhood, which she pitches as “Pee-wee’s Playhouse meets Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood set to a DJ beat”. The series is rooted in her real-life, viral "Baby DJ School" and features Natalie as the host alongside her zany puppet roommates in a magical Brooklyn apartment, including Ms. Hay Hay, the glamorous horse diva, and LD the glow worm lighting designer. The core premise is teaching kids musical concepts and ASL to solve everyday problems.

Despite getting her foot in the door with top-tier executives at networks like Netflix and Sesame Street, Natalie learned the industry was shifting away from adult hosts in favor of child protagonists. The executives "wanted sanitized boring Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood".

Natalie got a renewed sense of purpose, leaving her energized, as she states, with a "total fire under my ass. I just want to work on this again."

Come to the playhouse "where beats are dope and life is good."

https://www.natalieelizabethweiss.com/
https://www.instagram.com/djnatalienyc/

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#DaveedDiggs #DonaldGlover #BillyPorter #AyoEdebiri #AliWong #KeeganMichaelKey #StephenRoot
#FilmsNotMade #DJNataliesNeighborhood #BabyDJSchool
#NatalieWeiss #KidsTV #PuppetShow #UnmadeProjects #KidsMusic #IndieFilm #ChildrensTelevision
#PeeweesPlayhouse #MrRogersNeighborhood #Brooklyn #MusicEducation #ASL #PodcastLife #HollywoodDevelopment #WhatIfWeMadeItNow #HollywoodStories

Adam Schartoff of Filmwax Radio is a veteran nearing 900 episodes interviewing everyone from Gus Van Sant to Werner Herzog. Filmwax began in 2011 as a small film series in a Brooklyn bar, quickly evolving into a podcast by 2012.

Adam, Avi and Amy discuss the biggest challenges in getting a film seen, changes in distribution, incorporation of AI, and working from the heart.

We asked his dream guest: Jim Jarmusch, the ultimate New York indie filmmaker he’s been "orbiting" for 15 years. Put that wish out there! Find Adam’s terrific archive at FilmwaxRadio.com.

Dan Mirvish, co-founder of Slamdance, comes on to talk about the unmade film that haunted him for years. Stamp & Deliver was a darkly comic postal western — think No Country for Old Men meets Office Space — and it got closer than most. Sets were built in Austin. Brittany Murphy auditioned. Ed Asner and Peter Fonda were in. Neil Young was going to produce and score it. Then 9/11 happened.

We go through the whole story, run the original script through our AI pipeline, and give Stamp & Deliver the trailer it never got and still deserves. Our film executive Meredith also stops by with notes — and sounds exactly like every development meeting you've ever sat through.

If you love indie film, hollywood stories, development hell, and the ones that got away — this one's for you.

https://linktr.ee/atomicfondue
https://substack.com/@danmirvish
https://www.danmirvish.com/Stamp-Deliver
next film, Atomic Fondue (still raising money!)
https://www.danmirvish.com/Atomic-Fondue"

Go to https://filmsnotmade.com/ for info on the show, transcripts and more.
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#FilmsNotMade #UnmadeFilms #DevelopmentHell #StampAndDeliver #PostalWestern #Slamdance #IndieFilmHistory #DanMirvish #IndieFilm #IndependentFilm #FilmHistory #AIFilmmaking #GenerativeAI #AITrailer
#FilmPodcast #HollywoodStories #Screenwriting #MakingMovies #MovieTrailer

It's been over 25 years since Matthew Rhys first read the script of The Amateur Pornographer. This project broke the heart of writer-director Christopher Monger.

In this special Backlot episode, actor Matthew Rhys, along with Ian McNiece and Meryn Williams Davies, share and read two scenes from the original screenplay. Chris and producer Ted Hope are in the room, reinvigorating the passion behind the script and desire to bring this Welsh film to life.

Christopher said, "Seeing Matthew Rhys and Ian McNeice and Meryn Williams Davies read a couple of scenes made me both happy and sad.  Happy in that, yes, I think it is a good script; and sad because, no, it did not get made. When I re-read Amateur Pornographer I was filled with the excitement I had when writing it."

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Christopher Monger, a Welsh native, was fresh off the Miramax release of his film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain starring Hugh Grant. His next project was to shoot in a small town in Wales, and producer Ted Hope felt it was a sure thing. The Amateur Pornographer was nearly made with a young Matthew Rhys and later got traction at HBO, with one note: Could the film be set in the United States instead of Wales?

Christopher Monger IMDB
Ted Hope’s Substack “Hope for Film”
Check out our curated Letterboxd List for some New York mid 90s indie classics to go with our Ted Hope-Good Machine vibe.
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