Thanks for the Plug TomCruise.com

A few months ago Diablo Cody gave Screenwriting from Iowa a shout out on her Twitter account and I thought that was pretty cool.

Today I just learned that the blog on TomCruise.com just gave a nice plug to my blog Screenwriting from Iowa. It took me about 15 minutes to be convinced that TomCruise.com/blog really was “The Official Blog” from “The Official Site” of the real Tom Cruise.  Then it took another 15 minutes to let it all sink in.

I’m not saying that Tom Cruise writes his own blog (it states there is a team), but since it is his blog, I’d like to at least think that means Cruise is a part of the team and I’m somehow in his radar. And that’s pretty amazing, considering I’m typing these posts 1816.03 miles from Hollywood. It’s up there with getting my an Emmy for the Screenwriting from Iowa blog. I definitely think it will change the dynamics a bit.

The post on Cruise’s blog (August 26, 2010) called Guide for Aspiring Screenwriters Part 1: Story Matters Most When Writing a Screenplay! is a well thought out post that talks about Syd Field, Robert McKee, Blake Snyder, Script & Creative Screenwriting magazines, the Austin Film Festival, Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, NYU, UCLA, USC, and John August’s blog. Pretty much a who’s who in screenwriting. And in there is a mention for this blog;

For a more off-beat look at writing, the Screenwriting from Iowa blog provides screenwriters with a slightly removed take from the Hollywood norm. Scott Smith blogs about how people outside of Los Angeles can have their stories told and sold for production in TinselTown. It’s inspiring for those of us around the world who aspire to Hollywood magic without having to live in Hollywood itself.

Thanks for the plug TomCruise.com.

I’m not saying I have a lunch date planned with Tom Cruise, but this could turn into the biggest thing to happen to this blog. Time will tell.

Now if I were to have lunch with Tom Cruise I would tell him about the conversation I had a couple of years ago on a video shoot with  the great college & Olympic wrestler and coach Dan Gable. Cruise, who was a wrestler in high school, has mentioned that Gable was a hero of his. Writer John Irving was/is developing a script on Gable’s life, and I told Gable that Cruise would be perfect to help them develop the project. Gable said, that it’s impossible to get through Cruise’s people.

Gable is as Iowan as Iowa gets. (He was raised just a few miles from where I’m typing this post.) And as a collegiate and Olympic champ as well as head coach of 10 National Championship teams (at the University of Iowa) he has been called the greatest player and coach in the history of sports. If Screenwriting from Iowa can help make steps in bringing Gables story to the big screen via Cruise that would make two and a half years of blogging very worthwhile.

Cruise and I graduated from high school the same year and I’d like to think we’d have a lot in common and that he’d enjoy my coming of age script. I’d joke with him that in 1983 when All the Right Moves came out (which he starred in) I was in film school at the time, studying acting, and only two years removed from 11 years of playing organized football and wondered why I wasn’t in the film.

I’d also tell him that my all-time favorite low-budget digital film is Pieces of April, starring his wife Katie Holmes. And that movie just happened to be written and directed by Iowan—turned New Yorker,  Peter Hedges.

But for now let me just thank Tom Cruise and his team for the plug. (And I think I could fit in a lunch meeting sometime in September.)

P.S. Just for the record, the other blog mentioned by TomCruise.com is by screenwriter John August who just happened to do his undergraduate work at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. And one of the producers of my favorite Tom Cruise film, Rain Man, is Mark Johnson who earned an MA in Film at the University of Iowa. Johnson won a Best Picture Oscar for his work on Rain Man. I think Tom Cruise and his team understand that talent often comes from seemingly unlikely places.

Scott W. Smith