It’s not easy facing the truth. But the truth is what the truth is. The spec market is in the toilet right now. How did this happen? Well, that’s complicated. But for the most part, if you want to know how we got here, look in the mirror. That’s right. The reason we’re in this predicament is you. You haven’t been writing good enough screenplays. It’s not like all the studio heads got together one day and conspired to eliminate spec sales. The specs that have become movies, outside of a few exceptions, have performed badly. And I’ve pinpointed 10 of the worst offenders – the dastardly group that’s gotten us into this mess. Afterwards we’ll try and learn from these mistakes and possibly forge a new path. But for now, we must accept our reality.
1) TRANSCENDENCE – Transcendence seemed like a solid bet at the time. It was a cool thinking man’s sci-fi script, and after the success of Inception, it was assumed that Hollywood wanted more of this. It even starred one of the biggest actors in the world, Johnny Depp! However, what the writer and filmmakers failed to see (as did I – I gave this script a good review), was just how still the story was. From camping the entire story out in the desert to the main character being locked inside a 70 inch screen, there wasn’t any action for a movie that set itself up to be action-like. As I’ve said before, movies work best when they MOVE. Transcendence sat its big ass down in the middle of the New Mexico desert and stayed put for 120 minutes. And that turned out to be 120 minutes of hell.
2) ALOHA – If you want to know why studios are so scared of original material, look no further than “Aloha.” Let me tell you who starred in this movie. BRADLEY COOPER and EMMA STONE! Two of the biggest movie stars IN THE WORLD. And the movie still bombed. Aloha supposedly offered moviegoers what they said they wanted more of – something different. This was an offbeat military romance set in Hawaii. You can’t get any more different than that! The problem was Crowe took “different” too far. This movie clearly didn’t know what it wanted to be. It contained way too many elements (Hawaii, volcanoes, satellites, music, romance, comedy) and eventually got lost in them. You don’t need to see a movie to know when the vision isn’t unified, when the story isn’t clear. All you need to see is the trailer. And nobody knew what the hell Aloha was about after they watched this trailer. So they didn’t show up.
3) THE GUILT TRIP/DANNY COLLINS – I actually thought both of these scripts were fun. But here’s the thing with them. Dan Fogelman was ON FIRE between 2010 and 2011. The guy was the one writer consistently selling scripts for 7 figures. And when that kind of stuff happens, it’s contagious. It makes other studios want to put up big money for high profile specs as well. Therefore, when neither of these films did well at the box office (30 million and 5 million respectively), they were higher-profile failures in the screenwriting world. If each script sold for low-six figures, nobody would’ve cared. But with the scripts costing so much, it’s a direct indictment on high-spending for screenplays. Hence, buyers will be less inclined to take big chances like this in the future.
4) WHITE HOUSE DOWN – White House Down wasn’t just one of the biggest spec sales of the year. It was one of the biggest spec sales EVER. 3 million bucks. And to that end, this may have been the script to bring the casino down. Once a screenplay with that much money behind it bombs, it’s hard to make a case for spending a lot of money on a spec. Now I thought they completely botched the packaging for this movie. They went with the typical hot actor (Channing Tatum) mixed with a total wild-card (Jaime Foxx) and threw in the poor man’s Michael Bay to direct. You can’t just throw random “hot” elements at a project and call it a day. That’s Hollywood packaging. Instead, you need to find a group of elements that work together – that have chemistry. Let’s remember that Die Hard didn’t star Arnold Scwarzenegger. It starred, at the time, a relatively unknown TV actor who was perfect for the part. In the end, this movie screamed style over substance, and when the audience smells that, they stay far away.
5) VANTAGE POINT – For those who don’t remember Vantage point, it was a 2008 film about a bomb that goes off in a crowd and we make repeated jumps back in time to see it from different people’s perspectives (vantage points). The reason I included this script is because here we have this spec-friendly high-concept idea, something fun enough to get a wide release and a big marketing push, and the movie tapped out at 75 million dollars. That’s not bad. But I believe this movie, and others like it, have created this psychological belief that 75 million is the ceiling for a spec screenplay at the box office. Because this movie really did have all the elements to succeed. Good concept. Unique. Easy sell. And still it gets nowhere near IP box office numbers. Films like Source Code and The Grey haven’t helped. Those were both great scripts and solid movies. But audiences refused to give them more than 50 million dollars. This creates this belief in a lot of people working in the industry that spec script movies have a low ceiling. And that hurts us screenwriters.
6) DRAFT DAY – Draft Day was the number 1 script on the Black List and a memorable spec sale. It was yet another project catering to the idea that audiences were looking for something different. However, I have never seen both a lead actor and director on a movie look so bored. Kevin Costner mumbled his way through his entire performance. And the direction was so freaking dull, I wouldn’t be surprised if behind-the-scenes footage showed director Ivan Reitman asleep half the time. This movie needed to be directed with the kind of attitude and zest a young Cameron Crowe displayed (“SHOOOWWW MEEE THE MONNNNEY!”). Instead it was presented as a dull sports caper. But here’s the reality with Draft Day. And I say this as someone who loved the script. It was never a movie. Non-true-life sports movies are really hard to make money off of so unless the execution (acting and directing) are historically amazing (as they were with Jerry Maguire), scripts like this have no chance of doing well in the market. This really shouldn’t have been held against the screenplay market as this movie probably shouldn’t have been made in the first place.
7) SEX TAPE – Sex Tape was a huge 7-figure sale. Sony really went all in on this one. But the movie barely made 30 million. You have to wonder why the company thought such an ancient idea (the lost sex tape concept went back 20 years) would bring people to theaters. In addition to this, they did a horrible job casting. Like god-awful horrible. Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz? In what universe are these two a married couple? I’ve never seen two actors look more awkward together. Unfortunately, despite it being obvious to most everyone outside of Sony that this movie wouldn’t work, the fact that it bombed is still taken out on you, the spec screenplay writer. It’s considered proof that audiences don’t connect well with “original” ideas.
8) THE TOURIST – The Tourist was supposed to be this sexy mystery thriller and I actually thought the script was okay. But here’s where spec scripts get in trouble – when you throw huge movie stars at them and they don’t perform well. Because when a movie like The Tourist goes bad, nobody blames mega-stars Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp for the failure. We’re talking about Hollywood royalty here. Instead, the onus is placed on the script. It must be the writer’s fault. And in some ways, they’re right. I remember the script relying way too much on its twist, a twist that, if you were reasonably intelligent, you saw coming a mile away. But it certainly didn’t help that the script was directed sleepily by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. I seem to be the only person on the planet who thought his “The Lives of Others” was a snore-fest and so wasn’t surprised at all that this was a bore as well. But I think the lack of an identifiable genre was the nail in the coffin here. Was this a romance? A thriller? A mystery? In that sense, it suffered from the same fate as a similar spec-project, Tom Cruise’s Knight and Day. When you’re off in genre nowhere land, it’s hard for audiences to understand what they’re going to see. So they choose to see something else instead.
9) CHAPPIE/AFTER EARTH/ELYSIUM – Sony seems to be the root of a lot of the spec script disasters that have put us in this mess. And that’s unfortunate, because Sony was one of the only studios buying original material. Therefore, the failure of that material seems to broadcast a bigger message to the industry – “A studio that relies too much on original material fails.” After Earth wasn’t a terrible movie but it constantly felt like a big movie trying to break out of a small one. The vanity aspect of father and son working together didn’t help. Chappie was completely mis-constructed from the ground up. This was a kids movie (adorable robot main character) thrown into a hard-R scenario?? Who allowed that?? Eylsium was the best of these three films, but the screenplay was paper-thin and you could feel that all the way through. Even critical plot points like the transport method from earth to Elysium felt like they were thought up in five minutes. What kills me even more about the failure of these films is that they’re all sci-fi, and I love sci-fi.
10) 47 RONIN – I don’t know what happened between the time I read an early draft of this screenplay and the film being released, but someone got into this screenplay and fucked things up. I read a grounded story about disgraced warriors fighting in ancient Japan. Then someone decided to throw a bunch of monsters and dragons in it, I suppose to broaden its appeal. The thing is, you can’t throw dragons and monsters into something without a really well-established mythology. It’s the difference between movies like Lord of the Rings and The Seventh Son. You can feel how well thought-through the mythology is in Rings, where as with The Seventh Son, it looks like they’re throwing monsters on the screen cause audiences like monsters. Ditto 47 Ronin. It just looks sloppy and audiences can sense that, even in the previews, which is why no one showed up to this. And this one REALLY hurt us, guys. Like really really. Because I think this movie cost almost 200 million dollars. And when an original idea costs that much money and it bombs that badly, the entire ‘original ideas’ market is blamed.
So is there an overall theme to the mistakes made here? There seems to be three stages to that answer. One, some concepts (Sex Tape) just weren’t that good to begin with and should’ve never been made. Two, some concepts that were good had lazy execution (Vantage Point). And three, the few concepts that were both good and had solid execution were badly cast or directed (White House Down). As writers, we don’t have control over number 3. But we have control over 1 and 2. And that’s the message I’ve been throwing around here forever. Start with an exciting concept and then give the execution everything you’ve got. Don’t give us the sloppy Vantage Point draft where you only explore 50% of your concept and call it a day. Give us the best script you’re capable of writing at that point in your life.
Now a lot of you may be bummed after reading this article. It’s not easy hearing the truth. But the way I see it, understanding why your industry (the spec screenplay industry) isn’t working is the first step towards fixing it. And I think some good things are coming around the corner. Netflix is moving into the movie business FAST and if that works out, expect the reemergence of the mid-price (30-50 million) movie. That means a new potential spec market will be in play. And, again, all it takes is one big spec success for this copycat industry to get excited about the spec market again. Next week, we’re going to talk about some of those scripts, as I offer up 10 screenplays that could turn the spec market around. Seeya then!
