HAVE YOU ever wondered how Hollywood makes so many bad movies? If the movie-making process was random, then some small percentage of films every year would be good just by chance. Yet the product put out is so relentlessly bad that it defies probability: The people who make movies must be doing something to make movies bad. Trying to put your finger on this something is difficult, but not impossible. Every once in awhile the producers of a bad movie leave behind some clues.

Suspect Zero is one of those rare cases. Zak Penn wrote the script for Suspect Zero in 1995. It made the rounds in the development world in Los Angeles for a couple years, attracting attention and getting Penn famous. For good reason: Suspect Zero was one of the great scripts of the ’90s, and it developed an almost legendary following on the killing floor of the Hollywood sausage factory.