Attention, Hollywood

Fred Clark has an idea for you:

Start with the housekeeping staff at a Manhattan hotel. They’ve just learned that their next contract includes no raise, but doubles the employee share of the cost of health benefits. The Norma Rae of this bunch — let’s say Jennifer Lopez* — convinces them to strike, but they have little leverage and she’s struggling to hold the line. These women can’t afford the new contract, but they can’t afford a lengthy strike either.

As it happens, this very same Manhattan hotel is the site of negotiations between the NFL Players Union and the owners. Mixed up in all that is a flashy, loudmouthed Chad Ochocinco-type — let’s say Will Smith — who has tweeted himself into controversy and the thick of this dispute by calling out the other professional athletes’ unions for not supporting the NFL players.

Because this is a movie, his Twitter-offensive works and he convinces a bunch of NBA, baseball and hockey stars to join him in a show of support for the NFL players. That gets us a string of cameo appearances by real-life star athletes, giving our movie its appeal to the lucrative young male audience Hollywood craves. Getting these young males to line up for this movie is a neat trick because, at its core, this isn’t a sports movie, it’s a romantic comedy.

Sure, getting all the necessary athlete cameos (and SportsCenter personalities, don’t forget them) would be a hassle. But still, it’s got to be cheaper than yet another goddamn comic book movie…

So, give Fred a call. You’ve proven many times over that you can do much, much worse.