You’re not the only movie exec who can greenlight his 5th grader’s movie script, Washburn.

Well, well, Washburn, my old friend, times must be hard at that sad little warehouse you call a motion picture studio. What's with this wild rumor I hear? This crazy announcment in Variety that you’ve signed your kid’s 5th grade English assignment to 'write a science fiction movie script' into production? “The Goo Aliens fight Space Pirates,” is it? Sony Pictures, with a budget of 80 million? With Singer to direct? I see, I see.

If this is some kind of scheme, it will never work. If you think you’ve got some kind of advantage over me, that’s where you’re wrong. Because you’re not the only movie exec who can greenlight his 5th grader’s movie script, Washburn.

My kid’s in the same school. Of course, you’d know that, since you put your little boy Braydon in Hodgington Academy not three months after my Sophia was enrolled. Bush league move, that, Washburn. Did you not consider my Sophia has the same English teacher, and had the same assignment?

“Rainbow Princess Cop” goes into principal photography in six weeks. Oh, and while I have your attention, three more words: Jolie. Gosling. Dench. That’s right: Dench. I sense you’re wincing a bit at that, aren’t you? I am forced to chuckle like a cheap melodrama villain. Mwa-ha-ha, Washburn.

It didn’t have to be like this. Remember the old days, when we were in film school in that wave following Spielberg and Scorsese? We were going to set the world on fire. We could have been partners. But here we are, forty years and countless trophy wives later, these children of our late middle age pitched in heated proxy wars for box office totals that mean nothing, nothing!

Actually, what was I thinking? They mean everything.

Nevertheless, this is the life we’ve chosen. Ever since Goldman made a fortune off of his grand-daughter's Time-Travel Unicorn Bounty-Hunter concept, this is the path the American public has chosen for Hollywood. We merely provide, Washburn, we do not dictate the tastes of a nation. But I digress…

I hear you have no third act, Washburn. I hear the Space Pirates have no motivation. Well, all the fire-breathing black-hole Godzilla clones Weta can render won’t get Blockso the One-eyed Pirate Prince through his dark night of the soul!

Yes, it’s true: Sophia made a copy of Braydon’s script. We know everything.

You thought you could keep this from me? Well, I thought we were friends! But co-chairing the PTA subcommittee on uniforms and field trips means nothing to you. I had to learn it from the front page of Variety like every other schmuck in this town.

I have Michael Bay on hold right now. This is what we call the endgame, my friend.

To conclude, I wish you the best, Washburn, I really do. I consider you my closest rival. Sophia (she really has her father’s instincts for this sort of thing) tells me Pennington’s boy wrote “Pizza Disaster!” (it's lazy and uninspired, the boy simply won't apply himself, even with Adam Sandler on board). And Weinberg’s kids, well, “Nemo Unchained” would be caught in legal limbo for decades. No, it is you and I, my old friend, who will see this battle through to the bitter end.

See you at the Oscars, Washburn. May the best parent win.