Tis the end of the year and that means it’s time to break down the 2019 box office! At first glance you see a bunch of Disney movies and think, “The only lesson here is that Disney is taking over the world. Why write anything anymore??” But if you go deeper, there are lessons to learn. And let’s not forget that there’s a whole new outlet for spec writers to sell scripts called Netflix. Netflix is obsessed with 20-something rom-coms (To all The Boys I’ve Loved Before), Christmas films, and high-concept comedies (Murder Mystery, any Adam Devine vehicle). They’re not afraid to make big original action movies like Triple Frontier, Bright, and Six Underground. And they even dip their toes into serious stuff, like Extremely Wicked and Private Life. If you’re only concerned with getting your spec script sold and made, you should be meticulously charting the movies Netflix is making.
When it comes to traditional box office, however, spec scripts should be seen more as an interview to get in the game. If you want to be the next writer on Mission Impossible, write a script that indicates you would be a good choice to write the next Mission Impossible. Pro tip, though. Don’t write a Mission Impossible clone. Give us a memorable concept with strong character development inside a kick-ass story. For example, Chris Terrio broke in with his script, Argo. On the surface, Argo was a serious film about slipping into Iran and saving a group of stranded Americans. But the film was ALSO about using a FAKE STAR WARS MOVIE as a ruse to get into the country. Well guess what film Chris Terrio just wrote. Rise of Skywalker! I GUARANTEE JJ saw or read the Argo script and that stuck with him when he was trying to think of who to hire.
So let’s take a look at the Top 20 domestic earners of the year:
Again, if you’re looking for spec script successes, this isn’t an encouraging picture. Disney has the top 4 movies, 6 of the top 10. And those numbers are going to jump to 5 and 7 once Rise of Skywalker finishes its run. For Disney haters, take joy in the fact that not all of their films hit. Dumbo and Malificent were big bombs for the Mouse House. Even though they have the tippy-top marketing geniuses in the world, they still make mistakes.
Get Disney out of your mind. I want you to focus on the number 8, 10, 11, and 12 movies. “Joker” is based on a famous comic book character, yes. But it doesn’t have a single super hero set piece in it. It’s pure character exploration. By the way, I say character “exploration” instead of “development” because it’s easier to explain what you should be doing. You should be EXPLORING everything that’s going on inside your characters. That simple strategy resulted in a billion dollar worldwide gross. What this tells me is that audiences are hungry for character explorations based on known intellectual property. So while you don’t have access to The Joker because he’s WB’s IP, you do have access to older famous characters, such as say, Jack the Ripper. Could you write a story that humanizes that character? That shows us how he became who he became? It would have to be good of course. But Joker’s surprise mega-success proves that there is an appetite for scripts like that.
“Us” is a writer-director project coming off of a massive hit from that writer, which influenced everything from how much money they put into the marketing to fans of Jordan Peele eagerly awaiting the film. But, as a spec screenwriter, this is the kind of stuff that should excite you. If you write Get Out, you get to write another original script. Another thing to take into account here is that “Us” wouldn’t have been made first. It wasn’t as clean or as cheap or as high of a concept as Get Out. So when you’re picking your next script to write, make sure you’re writing the one that has the best chance at getting made and not that “almost good idea.” “Almost good ideas” are fine once you’ve had a hit. But they never get you that breakout opportunity.
Fast and Furious and John Wick are both action genre sequels to original properties. It is still possible to break in as a screenwriter with an action script. However, action is tricky, as we learned during the Amateur Action Showdown week. The difference between cliche and ‘just original enough’ is as gray as a February Chicago morning. Nobody reads John Wick and thinks, “JACKPOT.” And yet jackpot is exactly what it was. The original Fast and Furious used the age-old cliche setup of pairing an undercover cop with a criminal.
When writers come to me with similar concepts, I always tell them, you have to work harder. This isn’t original enough. And yet, unoriginal action concepts (like Wick and Furious) break through occasionally. My advice is to control what you can control. If you can come up with a snazzy action concept, do it. If you can build more character development (exploration) into your action heroes, do it. If you can come up with a really strong plot that stays ahead of the reader and has couple of genuine surprises/twists, do it. The trick with this genre seems to be that, with all of the scripts feeling the same, you have to do all the little things better than the next guy.
Now let’s look at films 21-40. The casual moviegoer writes these off. They only care that Endgame made 2 billion dollars. But as a screenwriter, you should be obsessed with this block of films. 2019’s 21-40 is basically 1992’s 1-20.
Let’s start with 21, 23, 25, 26, and 29.
All of these are scripts you could’ve written on spec and gotten a Hollywood producer interested in. Yes, Glass was a sequel. But it’s based on original IP with unique characters and a high-concept premise. I still think there are avenues for writers to exploit budget-friendly non-traditional superhero concepts like Glass. There’s that spec that sold recently about a heist into a superhero’s house. There was that admittedly awful James Gunn superman horror film. Stuff like that will get made. You can also switch the genre up. Satire, comedy, thriller. Play around to find a superhero genre combo that nobody’s seen before.
The Upside is a bit of an anomaly in that it’s a remake of a foreign film and a genre (drama with mild comedic elements) that doesn’t traditionally do this well. So I’m not sure there’s a whole lot to learn from it. However, I will say that actors love challenging roles like playing a paralyzed man, which is why, no doubt, Bryan Cranston signed on. And comedy actors love playing serious roles, which is why Kevin Hart signed on. Once you hook a big actor, your movie WILL get made. So it’s good to have that in the back of your mind when you’re creating a concept. Ask yourself, “Are the characters in this script interesting?” Cause if they aren’t, chances are no actor is going to be interested. Even something like Ad Astra, which is a big sci-fi film, needed to make Brad Pitt’s character autistic to get him onboard (at least in the script that was the case – I don’t know if they stuck with that in the movie).
Hustlers speaks to the power of generating lots of unique scripts. Lorene Scafaria was a mainstay on the Black List for a good five years, belting out scripts like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. She was the biggest “quirky” female writer in Hollywood back then and her unique voice got her a lot of fans. So when she put Hustlers out there, people got behind it, she got a good cast, and the next thing you know, she’s got the most surprising breakout film of the year behind Joker. Keep writing, find your voice, get better each script, and good things eventually happen.
I don’t know much about Ford vs. Ferrari but I know any writer could’ve written this script. Nobody has the rights to this idea. I also know that “VS.” movies are an underrated sub-genre. When you see “vs” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Conflict. So conflict is built right there into the title! Add a known entity on each side of that “vs” and you’ve got yourself a movie idea. There have been lots of highly publicized battles throughout history. Find your VS. and you might have a hit movie.
It’s hard for me to write about Rocketman (or its 2018 cousin, Bohemian Rhapsody) because I’d rather rip my eyeballs out with an ice cream scooper than watch one of these movies. But the proof is in the pudding. Music biopics will never go out of style. I still think that you need to be clever about how you approach them, though. Anybody can write a biopic about Jimmy Hendrix, which is why any sane producer will say, “Why would I buy a straightforward Hendrix biopic from you, nobody writer, when I can hire a legit writer to do the same thing, but a lot better?’ However, if you’ve found a fresh angle into a Hendrix story, someone has to buy your specific script to make it. For example, if you write a script about the 10 crazy hours leading up to Jimmy Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock, that indicates more of an artistic creation on your end than a straight forward Wikipedia adaptation.
Finally we have 31, 33, 36, 38, and 40.
I saw Good Boys recently and it’s a surprisingly good movie. They marketed it as “sixth graders swearing,” which I suppose they needed to cause it’s a simple way to get the average moviegoer interested. But it’s actually a heartfelt movie about friendship. Regardless of that, this is the highest grossing straight comedy of the year. And it shows that with comedy being folded into comic book movies and television streaming, you need to think a little more outside the box than the latest Will Ferrell or Melissa McCarthy vehicle. And, as I’ve always said, irony does wonders for a comedy premise. If this was rated PG-13, I don’t think it makes money. The “R” rating sets up the irony of little kids being vulgar and outrageous.
Knives Out. This movie had a lot working against it. The name “Rian Johnson” doesn’t exactly inspire a united front of positivity. And yet it made a ton more money than any of Johnson’s other films that didn’t have Star Wars in the title. Something to keep in mind here is that putting a bunch of unique characters in a contained situation is a great starting point for a story. Cube. Murder on the Orient Express. Bad Times at the El Royale. Escape Room. It doesn’t guarantee a good movie by any stretch. But it remains one of the most exciting setups for me as a reader.
I’m not sure what to make of “Yesterday.” It feels like a concept from yesterday, as in 1997 yesterday. I’m encouraged that there’s still an appetite for big ideas that don’t fit into any traditional mold other than being high concept. I wish we had more movies like that. And I think the reason this one broke out above any other high concept idea in years is that they took the idea seriously. They didn’t wink at the audience and say, “We know this is ridiculous but go with it anyway.” They went all-in and it made the story feel like it mattered. Something to keep in mind if you’ve got a high concept idea you’re writing yourself.
Zombieland Double Tap is a huge hit… if it was made in 2011. Fans only wait decades for sequels when the product is iconic. They don’t wait 10 years for Zombieland 2. However, the original Zombieland remains one of the best examples of how to mix horror and comedy, which is a genre that, when done well, can become a monster hit. But you have to be ahead of everyone else. You gotta be doing things that other writers aren’t doing. I remember Columbus spewing out the hilarious “rules” of how to survive a zombie apocalypse in that first script and thinking, “this is a cut above.” There’s an opportunity for a writer to take the next horror trope, mix in some smart comedy, and write a breakout script. Maybe it’s you.
Finally, we have “Angel Has Fallen.” Yes, it’s a sequel. But it’s a sequel from a project that began as a spec script. As Scott has documented extensively in the comments, this is a sequel that needed to lower its budget so they axed their earlier ideas and focused on a smaller scale character-driven script. And this is something any writer can do. Very few producers have access to the 120 million dollar floor it takes to write a 3500 screen action film. So if you can find an angle that’s more contained with a heavier focus on a hero who’s going through sh%#, do that. It’s actually a great equation to work with. For every theoretical 10 million dollars you have to cut from your script, try to make your action hero twice as interesting. I mean that’s why Joker was so successful. It’s not even an action movie but they stuffed so much into that character that we couldn’t look away from him.
Finally, for those of you who want to be up with the latest trends, this was supposed to be the year that kicked off the social thriller. The Hunt was set to begin that trend before the internet said, ‘oh no you dihint.’ So expect 2020 to be the year of the social thriller instead. I have no idea how audiences will respond. If The Hunt is any example, it should be interesting. But this is definitely a genre producers and managers will be looking for.
Share your thoughts on this year’s box office in the comments section!
