David Wayne Spade, Happy Madison Productions, Sam Weisman, Paramount Pictures David Wayne Spade, Happy Madison Productions, Sam Weisman, Paramount Pictures David Spade, Happy Madison steals movie treatment, idea, premise and work from writers, exploits unsuspecting dolts scottsdale arizona

I actually made peace with david spade.

He sent me a few bucks. It was less than half what the stimulus check was. I bought a playstation 4 pro with the money.

Thanks for the advice you gave. It rings true 100% and gives me a better understanding of how and why things played out the way they did. 

I was flawless in my performance of duties:  Except of course in pursuing payment for your services.  20 years later, you are nothing to them - if you were nothing before.  You have no claim any longer at this point.  The other thing to consider is that the position may have later been determined to be unpaid.  I know actresses who agreed to simply have their name in the credits in exchange for not being paid.  Ron Howard, for example, made some of his first movies with personnel who were unpaid in order to receive exposure.  I don't know what your specific situation is, but this sort of thing is typical in the entertainment business...

During the filming of Jerome I showed a 15 page idea I had for a film called (former) Child Star. I passed it around and on the day David visited the location shoot I was asked by one of the three producers if David could keep my paperwork. I said "yes, I'd like to sell this idea. See it made in to a movie." It was made into a movie.. with the first act pretty much exact and acts two and three added by David Spade and Fred Wolf.  If you were interested in actually selling an idea, you don't give away your paperwork for anyone to see.  What you do is hire an agent for the agent to sell to a production company, or enter into negotiations for yourself to actually sell the idea to a smaller production company.  Production companies generally don't deal with the public at-large.  Did they take advantage of you?  YES.  Did you allow it to happen?  Absolutely!  Do you have a claim against the company?  NO. 

What you did was give away your idea and the fact you passed it around on the set is an indication you were actually interested in giving the idea away.  They saw you as someone totally unsophisticated about their industry - which you are - and you gave away something of value, perhaps in the hope they may reciprocate with an offer for your idea.  Doesn't work that way.  I'm guessing you never researched about how to sell a movie idea? 

Ideas to veteran writers with big-time agents ranges between $15K-$20K, with a follow-on to complete the script, and that doesn't include the 15% for the agent.  For someone like you, without an agent, and without a completed script, might literally be worth a few bucks.  It's just the way the industry is.  Even if you have a completed script with the germ of an idea, they pay you maybe $5K to get lost, and then hire someone to do a complete rewrite.

Best of luck to you....