"I was really scared," he said. "I know how I felt about the children of famous filmmakers; that's how people would think of me. The perception is that you're talentless, you're a spoiled brat, and more often than not you have an alcohol or drug problem. So! That was the idea going in: 'This is what people are going to think, and they'll never think I deserved it.' Most people try to break from obscurity by going to film festivals; I was looking for obscurity. I wanted to be just another tape that got submitted."

He financed his first short, the kidney-theft comedy Operation, by selling advertising for dorm-room calendars at USC: "I thought, 'Could I ask my Pa for $8,000? I probably could, but if I do this calendar thing, then one day, if I'm at a panel on a film festival...' " Zing! Commercials followed, then Thank You For Smoking — the rest is twee history.

For the first time in years, though, Ivan topped his son: The producer/director spent 15 minutes elaborating about the development of Animal House, from its National Lampoon sketch roots to the script's first pass at Universal — which apparently could have gone better. "I remember we showed the first or second draft to the studio," he said. "They read it and said, 'This is the worst script we've ever read. This is horrible.' Nobody was interested in making this movie. We wrote about 15 drafts over a two-year period, and we kept saying, 'Look, you guys don't understand — this could be the funniest movie ever made.' Because what we thought in our young arrogance was that no one's speaking this language — the language of my generation. The Baby Boom generation had no comedic filmmakers; the closest thing we could sort of identify was M*A*S*H. ... It changed the way comedy was approached."

Reitman and company eventually wore the studio down with help from another comic. "There was some Richard Pryor movie that had a very good preview and that Universal also hated," he said. "So they said, 'Well, we hated that one, and it turned out OK; let's go make this Animal House thing."

"This is how the industry works," Jason replied. And we guess we can be thankful for that.

"There's no moral high ground where money is involved," said Mark Urman of independent distributor ThinkFilm. "The fact is the door was still open. If someone was continuing to talk, then the deal wasn't done. There's an etiquette and rules, but that's only for British gentlemen. In Hollywood, there are no rules." [...]

When asked if she and [producer David] Sacks had spoken about the dispute, [Paramount Classics co-pres Ruth] Vitale said they did and all Sacks could do was "stutter." She said she got the same response from veteran William Morris sales agent Cassian Elwes, who was representing the film at the festival. Sacks said in a statement: "I want to be clear that only one studio, Fox Searchlight, bought the movie. Although we had negotiations with Paramount Classics, no deal was ever concluded."

Elwes, who could not be reached for comment, is reportedly trying to work out a deal between Fox and Paramount to settle the issue before it ends up in court.

Asked if legal action is possibility, Vitale didn't rule it out, adding, "I hope not."

Urman seems to think that Vitale doesn't have a leg to stand on.

"Where are they going to go?" he asks. "The handshake court? About the only thing Ruth Vitale can do is stick pins in a Cassian Elwes doll. At the end of the day they'll work something out."

Thus a new and brilliant Hollywood catchphrase is born. All over town, tentative deals will fall apart with a shrug and the blithe retort, "What are you gonna do, take me to handshake court?" And for aborted deals a little further along in the negotiating process, there will be the threat of an appeal to the higher-circuit "blowjob court."

• Huffing and puffing over 'Smoking's' undone deal [LAT]