You know there’s not a lot to talk about in Hollywood when you’re thinking, “Maybe I should cover Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s divorce today. Maybe there’s some screenwriting tip we can draw from Kanye’s tweets.” I thought I had a juicy nugget to build today’s article around when someone sent me a link to “JJ Abrams’ Episode 8 Treatment.” The presentation was somewhat convincing. The treatment is a series of pictures (as opposed to a PDF) on red paper, the color that makes them hard to photocopy, and therefore preferred by writers trying to keep something from leaking. But I barely got to the second page before my b.s. meter started chirping.
It always amuses me when people say things like, “JJ Abrams doesn’t know what he’s doing! He only knows fan service.” Go ahead and read this treatment. This is what true fan service looks like. Within seconds of Rey handing Luke the lightsaber on the mountain, the two start dueling, Luke immediately jumping into exposition mode. “Did you ever ask yourself how an untrained pilot like you could suddenly fly the Falcon & outmaneuver those Tie Fighters? Then, somehow rendezvous with Han & Chewie shortly after? You know how to pilot the Falcon, because I know how to pilot th eFalcon. You beat Kylo on Starkiller because I was with you… aiding your untrained mind. It’s an old trick Jedi masters used to help their padawans.” You gotta love the ampersands, incorrectly capitalized words, and randomly placed commas, lol.
I was bummed it was fake cause I wanted something to talk about today. But then I realized I hadn’t updated everyone on my producing endeavors in a while. So guess what? I’m going to do that right now!
PRIORITY NUMBER 1 – KINETIC
For those of you who visit the site less frequently, Kinetic is the script that won my contest. The logline is: “Following a harrowing phone call while out on the road, a long haul trucker with a tormented past must deliver a tank of liquid crystal meth before sundown in order to save his pregnant wife.” If you remember, I told you that our number one priority was attaching Gerard Butler. So we first went to Millennium, a production company he does a lot of movies with, and they passed. As soon as that happened, I was able to get the script to Butler’s gatekeeper through a mutual friend. And that’s where it is now.
All I can do at this point is wait until she reads it. One of the most frustrating things about this business is the waiting game. Especially when you’re low on the priority list. Until I’ve got movies under my belt, it’s going to be a grind. And I know that. I’m not afraid of that. If Butler doesn’t work out, I’ve got the next three steps ready for Kinetic. Cause here’s the thing with Kinetic. And it’s something I’ve never really had with a project before: THIS IS GOING TO BE A MOVIE. It’s too perfectly suited to become movie for it not to become a movie. It’s too guaranteed to make money for whoever produces it. It has all the elements that result in a profitable fun film. And not only that. If the execution of the film is as good as this script, it has the potential to become a franchise. So all I have to do is keep getting it to people. There’s no question, in my mind, that, sooner or later, one of those reads is going to lead to the project getting greenlit.
PRIORITY NUMBER 2 – MOTHER REDEEMER
Here’s the logline for Mother Redeemer for those who don’t remember: “After a devout member of a small religious sect receives a sign from their God that she will be the mother of Earth’s messiah, she must find a way to protect her divine child from the cult’s corrupt leader.” Mother Redeemer is an interesting project because I’ve been sending it out and getting lukewarm responses. Now, here’s the thing. I know this is a good script. I read scripts like it all the time. And this is a cut above all of them. But the script is undeniably a slow burn. And what I’m realizing is that the hardest kind of spec script to get people excited about is a slow burn. The spec scripts that work best on the market are scripts like Bullet Train or Kinetic. Stuff that moves quickly on the page. Mother Redeemer is all about ‘build’ and tension and suspense, all of which it does beautifully.
I suspect that the people reading it aren’t sticking with it long enough to lose themselves in it. The reason I suspect that is because the same thing happened to me when I first read it. The main reason the script made it through the “First Ten Pages” round was not because I was enamored with the story. I simply recognized that the writing was strong. Then, when I started reading the script in the second round, I remember being on the fence about it 25 pages in. I specifically remember being tired and wanting to go to sleep. Then I thought, “Ehhh, I’ll finish it up so I have more time to myself tomorrow.” And, from there, every 10 pages, the script got better. And better. And better. And by the third act, my face was two inches from the screen, I was so into it. The dirty little secret about script reads is that nobody owes you a full script read. If they’re bored on page 20, they may decide to not read the rest and tell you they did. It’s not like they’re going to be quizzed about it. I suspect that might be what’s happening here. People aren’t making it past that same threshold in the script that I made it past where the script got infinitely better. So, the writer, Brian, and I, are trying to address this issue and make those first 20 pages read quicker. I still have a ton of confidence in the project. It could literally be made for 3-5 million dollars and it’s got two AWESOME roles for actors: the young pregnant woman (think Margaret Qualley) and the cult leader (think Michael Shannon or Adam Driver). I would love to get a Jennifer Kent (Babadook) to direct this. Ultimately, it’s going to be about finding people who, like Brian and I, are fascinated by the cult world.
PRIORITY NUMBER 3 – MANIACAL
You guys might not know about this horror project yet. Here’s the logline: “A teenager is forced to protect her half-siblings when mysterious masks begin appearing around the world that compel people to put them on, turning them into homicidal psychopaths.” It comes from co-writers Andy Marx and William McArdle. The two made the finals of my contest with their script, Crescent City (“A woman with the ability to control ghosts is forced to protect a witness being hunted by supernatural assassins.”). So why am I focusing on Maniacal instead of Crescent City? Simple. It will cost 1/10th as much money to produce. This is a 3-5 million dollar movie. Crescent City is a 30-50 million dollar movie. It’s John Wick with a female lead in the voodoo world. And it’s a movie I want to make badly. But Maniacal feels like the clearer path to victory, right now. And then, once we get that movie made and the writers have some heat on them, we’ll pitch Crescent City. Because I think Crescent City has the most upside of all of these projects. It could become a HUGE franchise.
The writers and I are currently fixing a few issues with the script. One of the main problems was that the mythology was a little thin. This crazy stuff starts happening all around the world and I wasn’t convinced that the reader understood what was happening. So we’re adding more scenes that give us insight into what’s going on. The thing I love about Maniacal is that it harkens back to those fun horror movies they made in the 80s. Simple but scary. And I love this hook of, what if you woke up one day and everyone was Michael Meyers? It wasn’t just one guy. What do you do? As soon as we get the script right, we’ll start targeting the horror production companies.
REST OF PROJECTS
What else am I working on? Contest finalist, That Wind Come Down (“After taking the fall for a horrific crime and spending twenty five years in prison, a neurologically disabled ex-con must confront his troubled past as he desperately tries to find a kidnapped young woman who’s disappearance may be connected to his past transgressions”) is still in the development stage. The script made the finals mainly on the talent of its writer, Chris Rodgers. But the story needs to go through a maturation process before it’s ready for the market.
I still have to re-read Tighter (“When a Japanese rope bondage workshop is taken hostage by masked intruders, a couple must find a way to escape their captors while tied together at the wrists”) and give Arun Croll notes. I’ve been slammed wall-to-wall with work so I haven’t been able to find the time yet. I found this amazing writer who wrote this great NASCAR pilot about a race car driver who finally gets a chance to shine after the retirement of his famous father but then his father wants back in. It’s basically NASCAR meets SUCCESSION. This might be the best-written thing of all the scripts I have but I’m struggling to understand the TV world. It’s something I don’t know as well as the movie world. So this might take a little longer to get through the system as I educate myself (feel free to e-mail me if you have advice cause this pilot is better than 95% of the stuff on TV right now. It deserves to be made).
I’m also working on a unique tennis project called, “Loser.” Let’s just say it’s unlike any sports movie you’ve seen before and is built around the premise of a professional tennis player who loses… a lot. There’s a script from long-time Scriptshadow reader, Alexander Bashkirov (who’s had tons of scripts reviewed on the site) called “Scorcher,” which is an action thriller with a REALLY fun premise that we’re working on. And there’s a thriller set in India that I hope to share more about in the coming months.
A couple of final thoughts that can double as today’s “What I learned.” Think hard about writing slow-burn spec scripts. They aren’t naturally suited for the spec market, which favors faster moving stories. Don’t get me wrong. If they’re great, they can get you noticed. But there’s no question you’ll have to send your script out to more people than you would if you wrote a more spec-friendly genre. Also, one of the things about sending your scripts out there is that everyone is going to tell you why your movie *can’t* be made. Back to the Future, one of the greatest movies ever, was famously rejected by everyone. The Anchorman creators were famously told by one studio to never EVER send them a script like that again, lol. It took John Lee Hancock, who has a successful career in the business, 30 years for someone to finally let him make The Little Things. The point is, there is no script that automatically goes to the front of the line. It’s always “Here’s why this doesn’t work.” Your job as a producer, or as a writer promoting their own script, is to not take these critiques personally and understand that they’re part of the process of getting a movie made. No movie has ever been made without people persevering through a lot of adversity. If you believe in a script, keep going until the cameras start rolling.
Have a wonderful week, guys. And if you’re a production company or director or financier or actor who wants to be involved in one of these films, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com. Get in before it’s too late! :)
