This has to be one of the more eclectic group of scripts that have been featured on Amateur Showdown. We got something from every corner. We’ve got jihadi fighters, a slave horror flick, a dad-daughter comedy team-up, and a heist flick with a – stop the presses – original premise. Should be a fun weekend. In the meantime, I’ll be working on the end of the month Scriptshadow Newsletter. I’ll give you a quick teaser. I just saw THE WORST MOVIE OR TV IDEA EVER. I’m talking in the history of ideas. And it got made. And it’s coming out. I can’t contain how frustrated I am that someone actually made this. But to find out what it is, you’ll have to wait for the newsletter. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, e-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: “NEWSLETTER” and I’ll make sure you get it.
Amateur Showdown is a single weekend tournament where the scripts have been vetted from a pile of hundreds to be featured here, for your entertainment. It’s up to you to read as much of each script as you can, then vote for your favorite in the comments section. Whoever receives the most votes by Sunday 11:59pm Pacific Time gets a review next Friday.
Got a great script that you believe can pummel four fellow amateur scripts? Send a PDF to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.
Good luck, everyone!
Title: THE BLACK PETREL
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Logline: A frustrated novelist goes to an old Southern hotel looking for inspiration and finds herself trapped in a nightmare with five strangers and a vengeful ex-slave.
Who am I: A writer trying to feed a hungry audience something delicious.
Why You Should Read: If GET OUT and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET got pregnant listening to a Nina Simone song, this is the baby that would pop out.
Title: SINJAR
Genre: Action / War / Thriller
Logline: A foreign aid doctor enlists the help of a unique unit to rescue her fellow captives and escape through the Islamic State, pursued by a ruthless zealot and a horde of jihadi fighters.
Why Should You Read: “Sinjar” is an adrenaline-soaked feature depicting the realities of conflict in the Middle-East, in particular, the attempted genocide of the Yazidi during the summer of 2014. Imbued in this story are my own experiences of war, terrorists, and the land of Kurdistan…
Blacklist: “nonstop, action-driven thriller that can rival any other shoot-em-up war movie, but what makes it special is the depth of the story that it reveals beyond the set pieces. More than your average action flick, this script digs offers themes and commentary that dig at the heart of the conflict in the Middle East: the history, socioeconomic challenges, and cultural divides that have created that quagmire. It asks poignant questions about the consequences of military conflict, and follows those questions up with real answers from a real, specific point of view.”
Wescreenplay: Consider 8/10
Various: “The writer of this work has crafted a visceral, unrelenting narrative” “a kinetic blast of entertainment.” “the action in these pages is stellar.” “a fast-paced blistering thrill ride.”
Title: Good Blood
Genre: Action-Comedy
Premise: An inexperienced female agent must team up with her overprotective father to stop a bunch of armed yokels from overthrowing the government.
Why You Should Read: It’s a girl-with-a-gun action-comedy featuring a male-female buddy dynamic. In other words, three trends that Carson recommended for comedy scripts. The script has been through a number of drafts, so it should be tighter than my a&$#&le before my girlfriend pegs me.
Writer: Anonymous… for now (Just like Carson was).
Title: Money to Burn
Genre: Heist
Logline: A terminally-ill architect with a troubled past is recruited by a group of would-be thieves who plan to steal $70 million from a government facility that burns retired currency.
Why You Should Read: Money to Burn looks at the American dream turned sour through the prism of real people in real situations. Money means food on the table, pure and simple. The heroes in Money to Burn are what society would label criminals, but they are not Ocean’s 11 style super-cool, super-gifted criminals, they are everyman types who made wrong decisions along the way. Money to Burn focuses on their humanity rather than their criminality. — Money to Burn has a traditional denouement, a major set-piece heist which ends with a unique robbery, but the story is really about how a group of sick, dying men and women learn to live and love while collectively facing their imminent end. It’s a story about a unique support group where you have to be dying to gain entry.
Title: Odyssey
Genre: Western/TV Pilot/Drama
Premise: A fierce pregnant widow makes a deal with a degenerate grave-robber to help her escort a herd of cattle across the Old West while the psychotic creditor that drove her husband to suicide and murdered her father stalks her across state-to-state, determined to make her pay up, or worse.
Why You Should Read: My bread-and-butter trademark is to take a tried and tested genre and write a new interpretation of old tropes. I think we all love westerns for the grizzled stares, the melodramatic music, and the collective fantasy of a lawless land. I do too. But I’m more interested in what the genre can do in the modern-day, not confined by what your Dad might like to watch on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. Odyssey is a pilot for a mini-series that honors what has already been done in the genre, but also takes it forward into new, exciting directions.
