One of the best screenwriters ever tries to recapture the magic from one of his earlier children’s movies. Does he succeed?
Genre: Superhero/Children’s/Family
Premise: An 11 year old boy meets a man who gives him the power to turn into a superhero.
About: This was written by William Goldman, he who wrote “Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid,” “Misery,” “The Princess Bride,” “All The President’s Men,” and some would even say “Good Will Hunting.” For those who have just started in this career and find yourself struggling, it should be noted that Goldman received horrible grades in his first creative writing class in college. He was also an editor at the college newspaper, and used to anonymously submit his short stories in hopes of being published in the newspaper. He then had to stand by and listen to his co-workers talk about how shitty his stories were. That’s how you earn some thick skin! Later, he would research Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for eight years before writing the script and earning a then record $400,000 paycheck for it. Break out the inflation calculator and you’ll see that translates to a 2.7 million dollar sale in today’s money.
Writer: William Goldman
Details: 141 pages (September 15, 2003 draft)
When I think of superhero scripts I want to read, Shazam is not at the top of my list. I don’t even know what a Shazam is. All I know is that when compared to names like “Batman” and “Iron Man,” it sounds a little… antiquated. It’s kind of like naming your superhero “Wowzow” or “Bizzbop.” How do you compete in a superhero dominated marketplace with a name like that?
However, what I DO want to read is a William Goldman screenplay. The guy is one of the best of all time and understands screenwriting on a primal level. I mean, Misery and The Princess Bride are two of the best screenplays ever in my opinion. True, Shazam was just a job for him. It wasn’t a project he was passionate about, like Princess Bride. But it’s still a William Goldman script. And that alone is reason enough to take a look.
11 year-old Billy Batson is an orphan, an orphan who actually ENJOYS being an orphan. That’s because his uber-hot partner in crime, 15 year old Jenny Richee, is a fellow orphan. The two enjoy each other’s company so much that whenever they’re up for adoption, they do everything in their power to make their potential parents hate them (farting being a go-to tactic – yes, I’m afraid it’s that kind of movie).
So one day, Billy is hanging out in the yard when he’s approached by a strange man who tells him to come with him. Billy obliges for some reason, and the strange man brings him to an underground cave (oh boy, this isn’t sounding good) where an old fogey with a big white beard named “Shazam” tells him that he’s been chosen to become a superhero, a dude named “Captain Marvel.” From now on, whenever Billy’s in trouble, just yell out “Shazam” and he turns into, basically, Superman (I can only imagine how this message would go over with parents – “Follow a stranger: become a superhero!”).
The only catch is that Billy must learn how to fight evil, something he doesn’t know a whole lot about. So he enlists his buddy, Jenny, to help him out. In the meantime, across town, there’s this really scary dude named Sivana whose superpower, I believe, is that he can’t die. Anyway, while I never really saw him perform any magnificent powers himself, he’s supposedly a very feared man. He also has some history with Shazam, which makes him want to kill Billy!
Eventually, Sivana kidnaps Jenny, forcing Billy to become Captain Marvel and save her. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything here by saying he succeeds. The End.
Tone tone tone. Tone is so important. It’s important that your reader understand what kind of movie you’re writing. This script starts out pretty dark, with a prison warden trying to choke a prisoner who’s already dead. We then cut to little boy Billy, who’s farting and burping at his potential parents. I was a little confused for awhile by this sharp contrast, until I finally realized this was a straight kids movie. We’re talking Spy Kids level. Which is fine. But I was frustrated that it took me so long to figure this out, and I believe that’s the writer’s fault.
Now while I loved Goldman’s writing (the guy knows how to make a script move. Go find one of his scripts. Your eyes FLY down the page), this script was so boring! Like, unbelievably boring. Goldman, of all people, should know that the number one rule of screenwriting is: Make something happen. NOTHING freaking happens in this script. Billy is still testing out his powers and learning how to be super on – get this – PAGE 80-FREAKING-4!
Neither our hero or our villain have done anything of significance for over 80 pages. It’s crazy. Where’s the story here! I mean, this is the problem with origin stories in general. You gotta have to establish the hero in his everyday life, then have him get powers, then have him learn those powers. But if you think an audience is going to patiently wait 90 minutes to get through all this – YOU’RE CRAZY!
The problems in this script can be boiled down to that. Nothing interesting happens for forever. The other day we were talking about plot points and making sure something of significance happens every 8 pages or so. I think at one point 60 pages had gone by without a single significant plot point. I’m not so much upset as I am baffled. If you look at The Princess Bride (or even Misery), you see the plot constantly changing and evolving. It’s the very definition of “making things happen.” So you know Goldman knows how to do it. Why he chose not to here, and instead made this one drawn-out story of kids talking…I mean it’s beyond me.
Crippling the story even more is the fact that there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before. If you’re going to throw your hat into a genre, you want to make sure that you’re bringing something different to the table. We’ve seen this origin thing, this “learn your powers thing,” a billion times already. And there’s also nothing special about Captain Marvel himself. He flies. He’s strong. He’s basically Superman. But because he’s not really Superman, we see him as a second rate version of Superman.
I suppose you could make the argument that we haven’t seen a movie about a little boy who turns into a superhero. And I guess that’s true. But if that’s going to be your one trademark, do something with it. Don’t have your 11 year old hero hanging around shooting the shit for 90 minutes, talking about his powers and how he doesn’t know how to be a superhero yet.
On top of this, there are a lot of really cliché choices. For example, in order for Sivana to take down Captain Marvel, he kidnaps Jenny. (sigh) I mean, we’ve seen this choice soooo many times before. And I’m sure we’ll see it again, and it may even be enjoyable. But what bothered me about this version was that it wasn’t organic to the story at all. It was literally like, “I need Captain Marvel. I shall now kidnap his girlfriend!” Nobody’s even DOING anything. They’re all sitting around in rooms or lairs while they’re deciding this stuff. That’s what bothered me so much. NOTHING WAS FREAKING HAPPENING. There was no master plot for the bad guy. The good guy did a lot more talking than doing. People are literally sitting around for ¾ of this movie. It’s baffling to me that Goldman wrote this. Nothing happens!
Luckily, Goldman remains scarily readable during this bore-fest. It’s kind of fascinating to behold. I mean his prose is just so sparse and flows so smoothly, it made a bad reading experience almost enjoyable. But, yeah, if they’re ever going to make this movie, they need to rewrite this script so it moves a lot faster and a LOT more happens. Read my plot point article. That alone will improve the script by 50%. I guarantee it!
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I recently watched this comedian do stand-up who wasn’t getting a lot of laughs. So he turned to the audience and said: “Laugh! This shit is funny!” Well, if you were funny, you wouldn’t need to tell people to laugh. The same approach should be applied to your writing. Don’t tell people how to feel. MAKE them feel. As awesome as Goldman’s writing is, there are a number of times in the script where he says something like, “We are about to see something so much worse we will never be able to forget it.” I don’t agree with this kind of writing. Just WRITE THE THING we’ll never be able to forget. We’ll decide if it’s unforgettable. Especially because, in this specific case, it was something I’d already seen before (a cockroach crawling out of a dead man’s mouth). Therefore, it wasn’t that unforgettable at all, which made me sort of mad at the author for telling me I was about to see something amazing, only for that not to be the case.
