MOVIE IDEAS AT BARGAIN PRICES! Screenwriters can earn lots of dough in Hollywood. But why labor over a screenplay when you can make big bucks merely by suggesting that someone else's book be made into a movie?

Graydon Carter did just that. As reported in The New York Observer and elsewhere, the wealthy Vanity Fair editor earned a whopping $100,000 (plus a "special thanks" credit and an Oscar night nod) for proposing that Brian Grazer produce a film based on Sylvia Nasar's 1998 book A Beautiful Mind.

That sounds like a great deal to me. But Carter had better not count on getting much more six-figure business. The market is just too competitive! For example, I offer the following suggestions at substantially lower rates:

Casino Royale
Ian Fleming
$88,888.95!

Fast Food Nation
Eric Schlosser
$88,888.95!

Foundation
Isaac Asimov
$88,888.95!

I Fu*ked Alec Baldwin in His A*s
Dessarae Bradford
$88,888.95!

Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy
Diana Preston
$88,888.95!

Mao's Last Dancer
Cunxin Li
$88,888.95!

Margaret Bourke-White
Vicki Goldberg
$88,888.95!

Suits Me: The Double Life of Billie Tipton
Diane Wood Middlebrook
$88,888.95!

The Time Traveler's Wife
Audrey Niffenegger
$88,888.95!

What We've Lost
Graydon Carter
$88,888.95!