Disney is the fucking bomb right now.
They are so far ahead of their competition, it’s embarrassing.
A lot of you might say, “Well duh, they’re Disney. They’ve got tons of money.” Oh how quickly youst forget, mon freres. There was a time, less than 20 years ago, when Disney was the laughingstock of the industry. They were churning out dreck like The Emperor’s New Groove.
These days, they have five separate super-film businesses going at the same time:
Marvel
Pixar
Star Wars
Live Action versions of classic fairy tales
Their animated division
And all five of those businesses are knocking it out of the Disney World park. To give you some context, let’s see what the other studios have going for them at the moment.
Fox – Fox is doing okay, but their culture of secrecy and hoarding hurts them. Their big property is the X-Men universe, but that’s dying quickly. They’re lucky as hell Deadpool came along. That should fill their coffers for the next 5-7 years. But outside of that, the studio’s choices are sketchy at best. The Ice Age franchise? Predator reboots? Will we ever get another Avatar movie?
Sony – Sony has been in decline for awhile now. And to think they were the top dog a decade ago. At least they still have Spider-Man and Bond. But even the web-slinger has lost his luster with audiences now that there are 30 other superheroes to choose from. I like to think it’s karma for supporting all those Adam Sandler movies over the years.
Warner Brothers – This is the company that should be challenging Disney, but the guy at the helm, Kevin Tsujihara, doesn’t seem to get it. He wants to play copycat in a media landscape dictated by trailblazers. They have DC and Harry Potter, which are major IP. But as of this moment, I’m not convinced either of those properties will end up in a successful place.
Universal – Universal has Jurassic Park, Minions, Fifty Shades, and the Furious franchise. They also have their monsters universe they’ll be throwing at us soon. As well as Universal did last year, they could be in trouble going forward. The Furious characters are showing their age and I’m not convinced this Monster strategy is going to work. But we’ll see.
Paramount – Any company that tries to reboot The Terminator, which has failed every time someone has tried to reboot it, is in trouble. But they do have Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Mission Impossible.
Lionsgate – On the precipice of becoming a studio super power, Lionsgate now finds itself dealing with YA fatigue. The problem with Lionsgate is that they don’t have a strategy outside of the YA novels. So I don’t know what’s going to happen to them if that dries up completely.
As you can see, nobody comes close to competing with even a single Disney’s prodco, much less their entire company. Which brings me to today’s question: What is Disney doing that’s so good? And can we, the screenwriter, learn from it?
As crazy as this sounds, I think the key to Disney’s success is more emphasis on the screenplay. As Will Smith pointed out a few months ago – the days of being able to pull one over on the audience are over. People tell you immediately – through social media – if something sucks. When you combine that with more alternatives to watching movies than at any other time in history, you bet your ass the story needs to be good.
On top of this, there is more on the line with each movie. Each film must birth an entire universe. So if those early movies in the franchise aren’t compelling, you could lose out on billions of potential dollars for the company. Better believe companies are fighting over the best screenwriters.
So how do you go about writing good screenplays? Isn’t trying to write a good screenplay a foregone conclusion? Nobody goes into a project saying, “Oh man, let’s write the shittiest script we can.” Everyone wants to write a good script. The answer can be found in the culture of each company.
The first component to Disney’s culture is passion. And this dates back to the origins of the company. They find people who are passionate about material and hire them. If that passion isn’t there, every decision made from there on out is going to weaken the product. That’s why Star Wars is kicking ass. It has someone who’s passionate about making great Star Wars movies – Kathleen Kennedy – at the helm.
This is the problem that WB is dealing with. Who’s in charge of that DC franchise? Is it Zak Snyder? Is it Kevin Tsujihara? And are either of them the right people to carry that torch? Do you see them as people who love DC comics the same way JJ Abrams loves Star Wars? Or John Lasseter loves animation? I don’t. And as much as I like Ben Affleck as an actor and director, do I think he stayed up all night when he was 11 years old reading Batman and Superman comics? No, I don’t. So while we’re going to get a cool looking film out of him, something’s going to be missing. And that’s a direct result of the lack of passion at the top of the pyramid.
The next component is time. Creativity requires time. Look at Pixar. They work endlessly on their scripts. And then when they settle on a draft, they “shoot” the movie with temp animation, see what’s not working, then go back and rewrite it again. And again. And again. The Pixar movie you see in the theater is the 10th or 11th version of the film. And that’s why Pixar is at the forefront of storytelling, and why their movies are a cut above the rest. They take their time.
Contrast that with WB’s Suicide Squad, where they said to the director, you have six weeks to write the movie. SIX WEEKS! Are you really going to write a good movie in six weeks? This goes back to the passion thing. Is Kevin Tsujihara passionate enough about DC comics to care about getting the script right? To him, the film is a bottom line in a spreadsheet. Suits work within those time-constraints all the time. So, he argues, why can’t writers? And what do we get? We get a movie that feels like it was written in six weeks.
Now you may say, “Well Carson, The Force Awakens was written quickly too.” That’s true and not true. Remember, they originally wanted to open Star Wars in May of last year. It was the PASSION of Kathleen Kennedy that made her stand strong on a December opening. So Disney did what Warner Brothers would not. They gave them seven more months, enough time to write a better draft of the script. And we got a good movie as a result.
The final key to Disney’s success is they take chances. Rogue One is a huge chance. John Carter was a huge chance. Lone Ranger was a huge chance. Tomorrowland. Into the Woods. Maleficent. Saving Mr. Banks. Most of those movies didn’t do well. But that’s besides the point. If you’re not willing to take risks, you’re not going to end up with anything outside the expected. It seems like Paramount and Warner Brothers and Lionsgate are running some equation to determine what movies they’ll greenlight. The essence of good art is risk. And Disney has kept that spirit in mind as much as a billion dollar corporation can when developing product.
So those are the three lessons you want to take with you into your own screenwriting journey:
Write something you’re passionate about.
Utilize TIME as much as possible when writing your screenplay.
Make sure you’re incorporating risk into your concept and story choices.
