I remember a few years ago when they leaked some information about how Brave New World was going to have a dozen hulks. And I said, “Hell yeah!” I want me a dozen hulks. Hulks are awesome.
But I guess making hulks is one of the most expensive things in the Marvel computer-generated world. So they only gave us one hulk. And now Brave New World has fallen to under 30 million dollars for its second weekend box office take. Which means it’s probably making less than 500 million total throughout the world.
That number is relevant because the benchmark for Marvel success is a billion dollars worldwide. So, if you’re only making half that, that’s a problem. It’s a problem for the movie and a problem for the franchise as a whole.
But let’s get back to those hulks for a second. If this movie had 12 hulks, would I have gone? I would’ve. Seriously, that would’ve made the difference. Because when I go see a Marvel movie, I want something bigger and badder than the last Marvel movie. And the last Marvel movies have given me three Spider-Mans and the iconic pairing of Deadpool and Wolverine.
You did this, Marvel. You raised my expectations. So when you only give me a subpar superhero and one hulk, no, I’m not coming to your movie. You were the face of raising the bar. Every movie either released a new superhero we wanted to see or gave us something bigger. Brave New World does neither.
So they’re going to have to figure that out. They’re close to having to pick their Avengers lineup and I don’t know if there’s anyone to pick. We’re at risk of She-Hulk making the team. If I were them, I would pay Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and Tom Holland each a billion dollars and make them the leaders of the team.
From superheroes to super screenwriting, we are in Week 2 of The White Lotus and I’m hooked. It’s a darker hotel than usual but I’m here for it. I loved the second episode.
What’s funny, though, is that the excellence of the writing, here, is so nuanced that it’s hard to explain why it works so well. Because someone said last week, “I’m surprised you like this show, Carson, considering it goes against everything you preach on the site.”
I sort of understand what he’s saying. He’s saying that my screenwriting template for success is GSU (goals, stakes, and urgency) and really great structure. White Lotus doesn’t really use either of those things. Or, I should say, when it does, it does so in less obvious ways.
But, the reason that I love White Lotus despite it not having GSU and despite a less-than-obvious plot, is that it aces the other half of screenwriting, which is building interesting characters and creating interesting relationship dynamics.
Because it’s perfectly possible to write a good scene that doesn’t have GSU. The way you do it is you create conflict. If you can create an interesting line of conflict in a scene, the reader will be hooked by the desire to see resolution to that conflict.
Think about it. If I put two characters at a table and had them talk about their days, and each of their days were mildly entertaining. Each of them laughed at each other’s summary. If I wrote that scene, that’s not going to be a very good scene. Seeing two people remember and agree has no drama to it.
But, if one of those characters just found out that his 100 million dollar company back home is about to fall apart and there’s a good chance that when he gets back, he’ll be sent to prison. And, also, if that character (in this case, the father) goes to talk to his family and they’re all having fun and trying to include him in that fun, but his mind is somewhere else entirely? Now we have a scene!
Because we have conflict. We have an unresolved issue – in this case, with one of the main characters – and that means that, until that issue is resolved, he’s (the dad) going to bring conflict into every scene he’s in. That’s drama.
That’s a somewhat complex version of conflict but Mike White isn’t above using simple forms of conflict to create drama in a scene. In one scene, for example, the three 40-something girl friends are passing our weirdo family at the breakfast table and one of the friends realizes that she’s met the mother before.
So she stops at the table and says to her, “We know each other.” And she pitches this whole weekend that they shared on a mutual friend’s baby shower. In the scene, the mother just stares at the woman. She gives her nothing. Which forces the friend to try harder. She explains that they spent so much time together and that she’s still in touch with the baby shower mom. Which only results in the mother acting less interested.
It’s a simple scene. One person wants to connect. The other person doesn’t. But it’s effective. You watch that scene and you feel the cringe for the friend. That’s all conflict. Something is out of balance and we watch in hopes of it coming in balance.
That “out of balance” formula can extend to positive feelings as well. One of the oldest TV writing tricks in the book is putting two characters around each other who are not together – but who we (the audience) want to see get together.
If you write a TV show and you don’t have that storyline in your show somewhere, you’re doing it wrong. Cause it’s such a reliable storyline. You have so much time to fill in a show, you can’t afford not to put it in there because audiences eat these storylines up. Ross and Rachel. Jim and Pam. Mulder and Scully.
Here, we have these two workers at the hotel. The guy, a guard, is clearly in love with the girl. But she seems like she’s more on the fence. Boy do I want him to get her. I want them to end up together. That “will they or won’t they” tug of war that takes place in every scene they’re in? That’s conflict.
It’s also how you keep a show going. You have to create multiple unresolved dangling carrots that viewers have to keep watching in order to eat.
So, if the formula for success is that easy, why do so many shows fail? Because there’s an essential ingredient to the dangling carrots that, if not met, the carrots become rotten.
WE HAVE TO GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE CHARACTERS.
That’s what Mike White does so well. He makes you care about these people first. THEN he starts weaving in these plot elements, such as the dad’s company falling apart, that create these fresh carrots we want to sink our teeth into.
What happens with bad writers is that they create thinner characters than White. They don’t establish the characters well. They don’t make it clear what each character’s flaw is. They create weak character personalities. They create uninspired seen-it-all-before relationships between the characters that feel stale the second they’re introduced.
Therefore, when they try and dangle carrots, we don’t care. Cause we don’t even care about the donkey walking the carrot.
I continue to be amazed by Mike White. I think he’s a genius. I was worried that he couldn’t pull off the three-peat. But so far, he’s pulling it off with flying colors. Mighty impressive considering his last name is White.
