Penn's Nightmare - Screenwriter/Producer Marc Sandler as Simon Penn in the opening nightmare sequence of Shadow Glories. Ziad in Arena - A behind-the-scenes shot of Director/Producer Ziad H. Hamzeh surveying camera angles for a huge 3-day shoot fight scene in the 1500-seat Lewiston, Maine Arena. Photos by Carlos DeMello

I don't remember where the initial idea came from. It was that long ago that it arrived. Twenty-four years ago, give or take a lifetime, pictures began whispering in my mind's eye (if you're a visual writer as I am, you know that cluster of words makes perfect sense) of a story that would eventually blossom into a feature film dream come true.

Shadow Glories is the story of a middle-aged, down-and-out kickboxer, once contender for the heavyweight title, struggling to rebuild his shattered life as he makes his way back home to the lost love of his life and his one last chance at resurrecting his tortured soul. When I conceived the story those many years ago, that log line would've been as foreign to my idea of what the story was about as the personal life lessons I'd learn along the way toward creating the feature film. But as I grew, the story grew; as I aged, the characters aged; as I struggled to make sense of and justify my life's choices, so my characters followed a similarly painful yet enriching path.

But why, of all the stories I'd dream up and scripts I'd actually write, did Shadow Glories come back again and again to be re-lived and re-worked? Perhaps, like one's first love, it remained to me the most innocent, peopled with characters in most need of protection and care. And as I grew older and experienced more and more of life, it became the hauntingly whispered "Rosebud" of my adulthood.

Penn & Jenny - Linda Amendola as Jenny Penn and Marc Sandler as Simon Penn in a tender reunion scene. Photo by Carlos DeMello.

It was the very first story that I absolutely knew I needed to write, and it would be the very first screenplay I'd ever take on - eventually. Story ideas and visions bounced around in my head for a good two years before I put pen to yellow lined legal paper, and only then after I'd moved to Hollywood to end up merely struggling to survive. I'd gone out there from having grown up in Philly, and it was the first time I'd ever really left home. What a shocker. No glamour. No glitz. And certainly no starlets. Just the typical, cliche working-at-odd-jobs and knocking-on-doors life of a young, naive guy with dreams of making movies and no practical method behind his madness to achieve it. Youth, you gotta love it.

But eventually the time came when I finally called my bluff. I was either going to write the thing or admit that I was just a dreamer who should go back to Philly with my tail between my legs. And so I began. I'd write some, then stop. Months would go by. I'd write some, then stop. More months would go by, along with more odd jobs and more knocking on doors. Funny, whenever and wherever I knocked, no one was at home!

Soon I managed to move up in the world from pen and paper to cheap electric typewriter (yes, this was before PCs) and continued writing the story, revisiting it for months, then leaving it for months. Eventually, this monthly stop and go routine turned into years. And every time I returned, my characters became more and more like long lost friends. In Hollywood, they were the only real constants in my life except for the uphill struggle to make my mark.

Then finally I typed the two words I'd longed to see most - The End. Four years after beginning to write - The End. I still have the cork from the bottle of champagne I drank, with the title and the date I'd written on it in blue Bic pen ink. The End. Ah, yes, still the naive little pup. The re-writes, nineteen of them, were soon to begin.

One of the many odd jobs I'd have during those years was as a bartender. And on one occasion I was pouring at a private party in a Beverly Hills saloon for The Actors Studio West. Look! It's Martin Landau and Burgess Meredith and Drew Barrymore (who kept asking me for rum and cokes - she was all of 10 years old)! Suddenly, coming at me and looking somewhat edgy was Sydney Pollack. "Double Absolut on the rocks with a twist," he said. Kicking it back, he asked for another. "Oh, geeze, here comes Entertainment Tonight." He quickly knocked back the other and bolted out the door.

Now every once in a great while life hands you an unexpected gift. As it happened, some weeks later one of my massage clients (did I mention that at that time I was also a have-massage-table-will-travel masseur?) gave me a mailing list as a show of gratitude. On it were the names of people who made over five hundred grand a year and who lived in the most exclusive parts of town. And lo and behold, there was Sydney Pollack's home address. Dare I? Need you ask?! I still remember the opening lines of the letter I wrote him: "Dear Mr. Pollack, you and I recently swapped small talk over a couple of double Absoluts on the rocks at the Actors Studio Party West. Oh, and by the way, I was the one pouring them..." I continued in the letter to say that it was my first screenplay, my first draft, and that I'd appreciate any advice or pointers he'd be willing to offer. Hey, what did I have to lose?

Summer was passing without fanfare. I'd entered the first draft into The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship Competition and continued with more odd jobs to pay the rent. But soon I began getting the first positive acknowledgement on the script as letters began arriving from the Nicholl announcing that Shadow Glories (then titled Sojourn) made the quarterfinalist cut. Four thousand scripts were submitted that year and mine eventually worked its way to the top ten and took semi-finalist honors. Then one afternoon a script-sized package arrived at my door from Mirage, Sydney Pollack's production company. Opening it I found the dog-eared script I'd sent to his house and a personal note from the man himself which included a thanks for sending the material, brief notes on Act One, Two and Three, and well wishes for good luck. It turned out to be a good summer after all, the first since I'd arrived in Hollywood some eight years earlier. And just enough of a perk to keep the flame of faith I had in myself and the story burning.

Flash forward two years (okay, slowly flash forward): an agent was interested in the script. Oh, happy me! There I was, sitting in an A-list packaging agency atop a skyscraper in Century City overlooking the Avenue of the Stars. And my agent and the head of the agency absolutely loved Shadow Glories and were prepared to put the full force of the agency behind it, but with a caveat or two here and there. Add more action. Okay... Make the story line a bit more formula. Uh, all right... Change the ending entirely. Um... Oh, and change one of the lead male characters to a woman. Huh?!

Shooting the Nightmare - Behind-the-scenes photo of Director/Producer Ziad H. Hamzeh, Cinematographer Kurt Brabbee, and crew setting up a shot from the opening nightmare sequence in a resevoir at The Bates Mill, Lewiston, Maine.

After the blood rushed back into my brain, I consulted with just about everyone I knew, and to a person was advised to do as they had asked. Hollywood was finally offering me a key to the club, how could I turn it down after all these years of struggle and sacrifice? And besides, I had more scripts inside me. Now wasn't the time to flex my artistic muscles.

So, I began the re-writes as my agent brought onboard actors with studio deals and producers with successful track records and a brilliant buzz-about-town young director. And with each re-write, each change to the script, more re-writes and changes were requested by all. Meanwhile, my agent kept telling me how much everyone loved what I was doing while dangling bigger and bigger carrots before my eyes: "I can get you eighty thousand, one hundred thousand, one hundred ten, just keep re-writing, keep re-writing." And I did, for an unpaid six months, until one day I looked at my material and barely recognized it anymore. What had I become? I'd been bought and sold and so desperate to succeed, I'd even sacrificed my muse. I wanted out but it was too late. Now people, powerful people, an entire team of powerful people, were counting on me to continue churning out the re-writes I'd committed to.

Then one day, my agent called me to his office. Over lattes and double-stuffed Oreos he informed me that the actress who was to play the character I had changed from a man to a woman had recently had a somewhat brief and torrid affair with the soon-to-be lead actor of the film. He, it turned out, was the one with the studio deal that was to finance the entire feature. Their breakup was a bad one, a really bad one, and it had to be kept on the QT. Something to do with his wife and her husband, I dunno. In any event, the Shadow Glories deal my agent had been working on was dead. The producers bailed. The director found another project. And the head of the high-powered Century City agency overlooking the Avenue of the Stars didn't want to talk about me anymore. "So," my agent said, "What else have you got?"

Well, besides the coronary arrhythmia, I had gotten my first major league Hollywood kick in the chops. But then and there, as I licked the creamy middle of the Oreo first and saved the chocolate cookie outside for last, I vowed to re-build Shadow Glories. Some of the bits and pieces of re-write actually did help to make the script stronger, but I swore that this script, this one was mine. It had been with me for years, my first-born child, and I'd either get it made my way or not at all. One way or another it was going to be something I was proud of. There were going to be no more compromises with this one, no matter what the cost. For some reason beyond reason, I believed in it that much, and once again I poured myself into it heart and soul.

A few more years in Hollywood began taking its toll. After a total of eighteen years there, while having successes as an actor and writer, my life was totally out of balance and worse still, I had all but burned out. As an actor, I was through. As a writer, I was tapped. All I had left inside was the feint dream of seeing Shadow Glories completed on-screen. So I contacted a close director friend, Ziad Hamzeh, whom I had worked with in LA years earlier, and asked if he'd like to partner up on a longshot idea of producing the script into an indie feature film. An independent thinker since birth, Ziad had gotten wise years earlier and left Lala Land to built a life and home in Massachusetts with his wife and children.

Home. It sounded so sweet. Shadow Glories the script was re-worked, re-built and stronger than it had ever been, and Ziad and I began working on assembling a sort of guerilla pre-production plan of attack from opposite ends of the country - an almost impossible task. So since there was nothing left to lose, I gave away, sold, or threw out just about everything I owned and left for New England on mere faith and instinct. I eventually got a job working nights as an assistant manager of a small hotel while teaching screenwriting during the day and putting the rest of my efforts and energies into building the Shadow Glories business prospectus and working with Ziad to further tighten the script.

A half-year later, Ziad and I found two indie executive producers, with direct contacts to deep pocket investors, who absolutely loved the script. They raved that it was just what they'd been looking for as their next project. We worked hard with them for months until one day the e-mails started arriving with requests for changes to the script: add more action; make it more formula; and oh, by the way, can you change that ending entirely?

So here I was again, faced with the proposition that with these executive producers and their direct links to financing, we would no doubt be making the feature film within the year. And as ever the dutiful screenwriter, I listened to their script change requests, even incorporated a few, but the more I incorporated, the more they wanted changed. It even got to the point where they were asking for a word of dialogue here and there to be removed or replaced just to suit their liking.

It was deja vu all over again - and in Massachusetts no less! Whodda thunk? But Ziad and I had been cut from the same cloth and burned by the same fires. So at the risk of having to start from scratch all over again, we fired the execs and struck out on our own one more time.

Ziad Directs Marc - A behind-the-scenes shot of Director/Producer Ziad H. Hamzeh directing Screenwriter/Producer Marc Sandler who plays Simon Penn. Photos by Carlos DeMello.

An investor who Ziad and I had approached just prior to the firing had decided to buy into Shadow Glories for one-tenth of the budget. But now we had to go to him and inform him that we had fired our executive producers, and that more than likely it would take another year to build new contacts to complete the financing. With our hearts in our throats and a fire in our bellies we met with our solo investor. And within five minutes of our conversation he said, "You know, I re-read the script and prospectus again last night. I think the timing for this story is perfect. Here's what I want to do. How about I finance the entire thing and give you guys total creative control? I'll be the moneyman, you be the artists. That's what you do best, that's what I do best. And together we'll all win."

Ziad and I looked at each other as our jaws slapped the floor. We'd gotten it all. Everything. The works. "Um..." we said in unison, "okay."

Four days later, on a handshake alone, a check arrived at my door for the entire budget of the film. Ziad went into pre-production high-gear like I'd never seen him before, I continued honing and honing the script to a fine edge, and by the end of summer 2000, Shadow Glories was a naive guy's-with-no-practical-method-behind-his-madness twenty-four-year-old dream come true.

So, I've got to wonder: is there a moral to my life's love story - a love for my story, my characters, my muse, my dreams? Well, let me put it this way, if after all this I have to spell it out for you, you're probably not ready to hear it anyway.