I got my break out of NYU film school.
Six scripts made. Three produced. Plus work-for-hire gigs, including an indie producer who made his fortune in dry cleaning but turned out to be a money launderer. (Didn't know till I read the indictments.)
Took a pen name: Captain Mauzner. Powerful people just called me "The Captain." And I learned everything I know about writing as a business. Starting with how to sell my ideas —
The Pitch Olympics
8 rooms in 2 days with Dennis Leary
Script changes to Sienna Miller mid-rosé bender
Dialogue tweaks to Val Kilmer. In his bubble bath. At the Chateau
Story arcs to Kevin Spacey while he fondled… his Oscar (yes, the statue, get your mind out of the gutter)
A Golden Retriever being prepped for cloning (true story)
What I Learned: Read rooms. Trust guts. Defend what matters. Kill what doesn't. Duck when necessary. (Harvey threw things. Often at me.)
But the real lesson? Start with emotional truth. Every story needs that human hook—whether it's a feature or a two-second headline.
Ask me about Steven Seagal's monk phase. Three months straight at his temple-mansion. Eucalyptus everywhere. And he never once remembered my name.
Factory Girl
Read a book about Edie Sedgwick. Fell for Andy Warhol instead—the real Andy. Scared, catty, codependent. Addicted to detachment and the people who enabled it.
Edie was trickier. Then it hit me: She was Audrey Hepburn in the Upside Down. Same tragic sparkle, more mascara, zero Breakfast.
The story: Girl desperate to be seen. Asexual genius incapable of seeing her. Folk singer named... the lawyers say I can't tell you, but it rhymes with Gob Villain.
The Deep Dive Befriended Factory survivors. Got access to thousands of hours of Andy's recorded calls. Became close with Edie's brother. Script hit The Black List.
The Cast
Sienna Miller as Edie
Guy Pearce as Andy
Hayden Christensen as [REDACTED]
Jimmy Fallon (pre-Tonight Show)
Five months of karaoke with Guy, late nights with Sienna, and keeping a straight face while giving Fallon line notes. We made a movie about people passionately committed to their own destruction. Including the cast.
Factory Girl went cult. Vogue covered it. Tumblr obsessed. Sparked a '60s revival.
Edie died young, but her eyeliner is forever.
My first film. Co-wrote and produced this with James Cox, my best friend from film school. Barely in our 20s, suddenly running a circus starring Val Kilmer, Lisa Kudrow, Kate Bosworth, and (blink and you'll miss her) Paris Hilton.
The story: John Holmes, America's first porn star. Had the charm, the hustle, and the... equipment. Then he traded spotlight for crack pipe and Laurel Canyon thugs. Ended with Hollywood's grisliest unsolved murders. Four bodies. Blood everywhere. Everyone lying about what happened—including John.
The Research
Xeroxed trial transcripts till the courthouse copier died. Interviewed the ex-wife, the girlfriend, and her mother (it was the '70s—don't ask). Built our Rashomon fever dream: multiple versions, zero truth.
The Chaos
Val went full method. Turned his Chateau suite into an art studio/crash pad. One night: Philip Seymour Hoffman talking craft while Stevo from Jackass lit his farts on fire behind us.
Summer camp for degenerates.
The Education
A veteran producer showed me how Hollywood really works. Tentpole cast, shoestring budget. Every scene was a negotiation. Want the nightclub? Cut two locations. Every win cost something else.
The movie flew under the radar, then found its cult. An if-you-know-you-know thing.
After writing, producing, and surviving post, I knew: This was what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I didn’t even have to grow up.
Wonderland
Reunited with James Cox fifteen years after Wonderland. Still standing. Still making movies about men doing terrible things in Los Angeles.
1983: Shoulder pads, suspenders, and rich prep school kids playing investment banker. Daddy's money meets daddy issues. Then fraud turns to murder in the Hollywood Hills.
Ansel Elgort: broke scholarship kid turned killer CEO. Taron Egerton: the best friend. Emma Roberts. Kevin Spacey. And full circle—Cary Elwes as Andy Warhol, with a pitch-perfect wig.
I co-wrote, co-produced, directed some reshoots. But this time I wasn't the kid. I knew the dance—manage chaos, wrangle egos, protect story. Felt like graduation day.
Then the Spacey scandal hit the week we went to market. Distribution vanished overnight. One day pitching at Shutters, next day eyeing the valet stand for a job.
Welcome to showbiz.
Still—we made it. Told the story. And for the first time, I felt like the adult in the room.
Money Gigs
Two I wrote under the name ‘Howard Zemski’ and one I took my name off. Can you guess which is which?
When the Sci-Fi Channel hired me to write SharkMan, I said yes based on the title alone. Then they changed it to Hammerhead Frenzy Island, and eventually just Hammerhead. To save money, it was shot in Bulgaria, in winter, for a tropical island; the actors wore Hawaiian shirts on grey beaches, their breath fogging in the cold. Classic.
When I tell people I wrote Wild Things 4, most say, “There was a 2 and 3?” Sony wanted to revive the franchise, so I pitched twists, betrayals, and steam. Classic Wild Things. Then marketing called with their big idea: Wild Things Foursome!… because of course they did. And of course we did.
The plot was standard: ex–Special Forces guy, kidnapped daughter, Thailand, bullets fly. But the real story? There were two scripts: Steven’s version - rambling monologues about karma and covert ops - and the studio’s version, which had no dialogue and explosions. We shot the studio’s. Steven never noticed.