The scene was part of “The Best That Could Happen,” a novella of perfect, imaginary hitchhiking encounters, within Carsick. There was no Harris, and there was no five million dollars. There was only one problem with Harris’ offer: It was a total fantasy. “You pay me back if it ever breaks even.” “I explain that I had a development deal to make Fruitcake,” Waters writes, but on the eve of that dark holiday comedy’s production, “the recession happened, the independent film business as I knew it fell apart, and now all the distributors and film financiers want the budgets to be under $2 million, which I can’t do anymore.” His traveling companion told Waters, “I’ll back it,” pledging five million dollars cash. They talked for a bit about movies before Harris asked the (five) million-dollar question: “How come you aren’t making a movie?” According to his hitchhiking chronicle Carsick, his very first driver was “Harris,” “an art school type” with a sideline in weed dealing who called himself a fan. We’ve selected it as one of the posts we’re republishing for our 10th anniversary celebrations in May 2017.Įarlier this year, John Waters - whose last movie, A Dirty Shame, was released a full decade ago - finally got the offer he’d been waiting for all this time.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2014.

Million dollar cinema studio