The weekend is here and I’m celebrating it by… shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… going to see A Quiet Place. Gonna see how it holds up to the script, which I loved. This film is like They Come At Night… but with a plot! I heard some crazy things happened during the making of this movie, including director Krasinski changing the entire look of the alien with less than a month til locking film.
Good for him. The film looks great. But now let’s switch to future films. As in YOUR future films. One of the reasons A Quiet Place rocketed up the Hollywood ladder and got into Krasinski’s hands in the first place was because it had a clever premise. Are there any premises today that fit that bill? That’s up to you to decide. The rules to Amateur Offerings are simple. Read as much as you can from each script and vote for your favorite in the comments section. The winner gets a review on the site next Friday.
If you believe you have a screenplay that will light the world on fire, submit it for a future Amateur Offerings! Send me a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and why you think people should read it (your chance to pitch your story). All submissions should be sent to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com.
Title: 1500°F
Genre: Survival Drama
Logline: An estranged father takes his two children for a weekend retreat in the wilderness only to find their excursion turning into a frantic struggle for reconciliation and survival as the local area is consumed by a massive wildfire.
Why You Should Read: Well considering the horrendous fires that ripped through California recently, I thought I’d shoot you over my new micro-script, 1500°F. Word is that the Ventura Thomas fire was burning an acre a minute! To give you some perspective, the entirety of NYC’s Central Park would be consumed in fifteen minutes. This script moves just as fast. And more importantly gives the characters just as much focus as the spectacle. A film that inspired me was Norway’s official submission for the 88th Academy Awards, The Wave.
Title: Labyrinth 2: The Goblin Queen
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Logline: When the Goblin King abducts a nine-year-old troublemaker, her teenage brother is given 13 hours to find her or else both will be trapped forever inside an otherworldly labyrinth.
WhyShouldAnyoneReadIt: I know, I know. But hear me out. This is not a piece of fan-fiction and I’m not obsessed with the original movie (flawed but enjoyable as it may be). I’m just a writer who saw the potential it had and that’s what pushed me to write this. I knew I had to fix the tone, define the world’s mythology, remove the musical aspect, keep the beloved puppetry magic and continue the narrative from the first movie. And this challenge proved to be quite rewarding for me. Let’s hope anybody out there feels the same way as I do. Doesn’t anyone miss a good old-fashioned adventure? I know what you’re gonna say next, so just in case, here are my replies:
“This will never be made” – Never say never. We’re artists and we’re better than that word.
“David Bowie is dead” – Sadly, that is true. But Tilda Swinton isn’t.
“Nobody cares about Labyrinth” – I’d disagree. When it came out, it was a financial disappointment, but over the years, it has become a beloved cult-movie.
“This is not the kind of thing for Amateur Offerings” – Wasn’t there a Star Wars Episode IX script in the mix not too long ago?
Title: The Call of Cthulhu
Genre: Mystery/Drama
Logline: When a Boston archaeologist is appointed executor of his late uncle’s estate, he begins an investigation into a collection of strange manuscripts and weird art indicating Cthulhu, a mystical deity worshipped by an apocalyptic cult, has returned from the dead.
Why You Should Read: They say that Lovecraft is impossible to adapt. I went back and again read Del Toro’s version of his Lovecraft passion project, Mountains of Madness. There were many flaws in his attempt to adapt Lovecraft. I won’t list them all but his biggest flaw was that he picked the wrong Lovecraft to be tentpoled and brought into the mainstream. It’s a hard sell to the studio for a lot of reasons, but I believe by exploring the Cthulhu story-world first, it would then allow him to piggy-back its success to make his dream project. There is untapped potential into what I call a Lovecraft Cinematic Universe, but introducing him into the mainstream as a franchise takes a certain strategy. That strategy must begin with his watershed, quintessential story, the one that lays out the Lovecraft world that we are essentially selling to the public, the one that an entire franchise can be built off of–The Call of Cthulhu.
This is a true adaptation of the source material, which is in the public domain. Lovecraft already does all the work for us with his great stories, he just needs someone to be able to tell them through a visual medium by beefing up his protags and their journey. I believe I have done that with not only this story, but a few others as well. This script explores very real and important aspects of modern man. It asks questions about perception, reality, truth, value and many other cornerstone concepts that philosophers ponder.
I approached The Call of Cthulhu for what it truly is– an epic adventure disguised as a detective story. A Fincher-esque low-lit investigative thriller punctuated with shocking moments, some strong violence and of course, madness. In the end, that’s all it really is. And it definitely won’t need Del Toro’s Hard R rating or $150 million dollar budget.
Title: Stamps
Genre: Comedic Action
Logline: When his surprisingly valuable stamp collection is stolen, an autistic young man uses his unique abilities in a relentless, indefatigable pursuit to retrieve his stamps before morning, before they are stuffed into Fedex envelopes and shipped to private collectors around the world.
Why You Should Read: Reading this script is not going to change your life. It will not give you some esoteric insight into the godhead, improve your vocabulary, grammar or syntax, motivate you to get into politics or heal that grisly rash. You won’t read lines like “The lavender tinged tendrils streamed from the effervescence dawn into the still room like bells in search of angels.” not because I don’t mix my metaphors (I do), but because that shit’s for pussies. It is not the next Star Wars or Chinatown; it is more Adventures in Babysitting than it is Rainman, and it’s not even close. It was designed and written with one goal in mind: To make you LAUGH out LOUD. My promise to you, young reader-san, comes with this guarantee: Three solid lols or your download free.
Title: Greenhorn
Genre: Horror
Logline: A PTSD-afflicted Marine must fight for his own survival when he finds himself held captive in the Alaskan wilds by a family with a horrifying secret.
Why You Should Read: This script has done well in some notable contests and I’d like to see how it fares in the AOW battlezone. Clocking in at a lean and mean ninety pages, Greenhorn is crammed with GSU, moves at a swift pace and has the kind of deeply flawed hero an audience wants to root for. Thanks in advance for the reads.
