'The Bucket List' and the whole kitchen sink, too

By Steven Zeitchik

Justin Zackham has led the kind of life that makes young people do rash and stupid things -- like work day jobs and write screenplays.

As you may recall, Zackham's the guy who spent years in Hollywood obscurity, only to pick up a pen one day to write a to-do list. That gave him a small but bright idea -- why not write a screenplay about a couple of people who write a similar list? So he gave the premise a little shape, added a little drama (made the characters older and had them dying of cancer), handed them a few adventures and presto, a screenplay was born.

Normally this noble tale would go where thousands of similar stories go every week -- the desk drawer. But Zackham felt good enough about it to send it to an agent, who sent it to producers and -- of course, what else could possibly happen? -a few weeks later Zackham is sitting in Jack Nicholson's living room, Morgan Freeman on one side and Rob Reiner, who's decided to direct, on the other. Development hell? Forget it. The movie gets made less than a year later, comes out a few months after that, and becomes the second highest-grossing film to-date of 2008.

It happens like that every time.

We caught up with Zackham over a few beers recently, and he's as down-to-earth as we imagine he was before life put him on this little carpet ride. He's started an indie production company called Two Ton Films with his childhood best friend Clay Pecorin, who handles the money and business side of the operation. "He can't write and I can't count," Zackham quips of Pecorin, in one of the many moments between them of (mostly) good-humored male trash-talking, the kind you might find on "Entourage."

The two have set their next project -- they'll produce an indie dramatic comedy called "Upstate," from an up-and-coming writer-director named Jessica Goldberg. It's described as "Election" meets "The Ice Storm" meets "American Beaty" -- but "really, it's better than all of those," quips Percorin with mock bravado (we hope).

As for Zackham's creative future, the writer has another screenplay in his back pocket, called "The Monkey Fist," based on his own adventures as a teenage crew member on a dicey Carribean ship. He's also in talks with a few studios for writing and directing jobs.

"I'd like to write and produce or write and direct the movies I'm passonate about," he says. "But I've also got a mortgage and a kid on the way in August so I know I have to keep a balance." So each year he's aiming to do one studio project per year to pay the bills and one personal project to feed the soul.

We love Justin Zackham. And we kind of hate him.

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