I believe in fighting for the little guy.
I believe in giving non-traditional movies platforms to do well at the box office.
So I admire Jordan Peele using his muscle over at Universal to get them to give Monkey Man a 3000 theater release.
But the one thing I believe in more than anything when it comes to screenwriting is writing a story that people understand.
Cause it doesn’t matter if you’re a 300 million dollar Marvel movie or a 5 million dollar indie movie – if we watch your trailer and we’re not sure what your movie is about?
YOU’RE EFFED.
You are capital “E,” EFFED.
You can’t tell me after watching the Monkey Man trailer that you knew what it was about. It was all over the place. Which is why the movie barely cleared 10 million dollars on this, its opening weekend, despite getting the holy grail of movie release scenarios: 3000+ theaters.
Peele was trying to give Patel the same career-making break that he got: Make that passion project you’ve been slaving over forever, put it up on the big screen, and watch everyone come.
Except the only people who came were the people who visit sites like this or live in Los Angeles or run errands for busy agents at WME. No actual regular people saw this movie because they watched that trailer and they said, “I don’t know what I’m looking at.”
Don’t believe me? What was the last big movie that released an “I don’t know what I’m looking at” trailer thinking everyone was going to show up and no one did? Beau is Afraid.
How did that movie do again? I’ll give you a hint. Nobody saw it. Why didn’t they see it? Because you watched that trailer and you had no idea what you were looking at.
All this ties back to screenwriting, guys. Come up with a strong, but also CLEAR concept. Make the story simple to understand. If you do those two things, people will read your script. People will like your script. People will want to make a movie out of your script. When that movie is finished and a trailer debuts, people will want to watch that movie. So, lots of people will show up for that movie.
It’s a very simple formula.
I’m surprised Peele, who’s been championing this movie, doesn’t know this. It’s the very reason everyone in the world knows his name. GET OUT was so easy to understand when you saw the trailer: White girl brings home black boyfriend to meet her rich white parents. We immediately understood that simple premise.
I’m sure a few people will chime in and give a couple of examples of complex weird movies that have done really well at the box office. Yeah, it does happen. But it happens an infinitesimally smaller amount of time because the only time those movies do well is when they’re AAMMMMMMAAAAZZZZING and, as a result, the word of mouth spreads. But they have to be perfect in their execution of what they’re trying to do.
So, yeah, if you think you’re capable of making one of the top 30 nontraditional movies of all time, then sure, write something super complex that can’t be conveyed in a trailer. But I mean most of those top 30 movies are top 30 out of luck. George Lucas had a million things go wrong in the making of Star Wars, obliterating his original vision of the film, yet that weird concoction of mistakes somehow resulted in a masterpiece. You just can’t plan this stuff.
But I’m getting off track!
The point is: Come up with a good idea, make it clear, and we’ll show up.
Funny enough, this is the exact reason why two other recent films did poorly at the box office.
We have The First Omen, which barely made 8 million bucks this weekend and then Immaculate, the Sydney Sweeney horror movie that did poorly a couple of weeks ago.
Both films have clearer premises than Monkey Man. But not by much. Note how there’s no way to tell what either movie is about if you just look at the posters. I’m not saying that your movie has to be picture-perfect-poster-clear. But it’s usually a bad omen (sorry, had to do it) if it isn’t. Cause it probably means there’s something not clear enough about your story.
Even the title of “The Omen” is weak-sauce. I see it and I’m not sure what it means or what the movie is about. That’s usually a bad sign. Then the trailer starts and, okay, someone gets pregnant with maybe a demon. And then the rest of the trailer is just scary images. Where’s the story? What’s the endgame???
Remember that old Wendy’s commercial? “Where’s the beef?”
“Where’s the story?”
And then with Immaculate, you’re talking to the inaugural card-carrying member of the Sweeney Fan Club here. If there was anybody who was an easy sell to go see a Sweeney movie, it was me.
So why didn’t I go?
Cause I watched the trailer and I wasn’t clear what the movie was about after the nun gets pregnant. It seemed like she walked around a lot and, occasionally something weird would happen around her, and then she’d walk some more. That’s not a narrative. There is no story in that. If a trailer is having a hard time conveying the basic story, that’s a huuuuuuuge indication that the script is weak.
As much as it pains me to admit, the reason Godzilla x Kong is killing at the box office is because it’s so easy to understand in all three phases of what I discussed above.
The Title
The Poster
The Trailer
But let’s just say that you like to write more challenging offbeat stories. Are you screwed? No. Those stories are actually the ones that get screenwriters noticed. Cause all the readers in Hollywood are reading the same predictable stuff. So some offbeat subject matter with a challenging story is going to stand out, as long as it’s written well.
But that’s probably going to be the extent of how far the script goes. It will get you meetings, which may get you jobs, which hopefully gets your career up and running. But stuff like that rarely gets made into movies because, when it does, it loses people money, like Monkey Man is going to do.
Right now, at this very instant, Jordan Peele is having to make some very difficult apology calls. He’s the one who made Universal release this wide when they wanted to release it on streaming.
We’re going to be having this discussion all over again in a couple of weeks when Challengers comes out, the Zendaya tennis movie. You guys know I liked the script. It was unique. It was challenging. And, unlike most of these scripts, someone took a chance on it and it got made. Which is awesome for the writer.
But no one’s going to see it. Because nobody who watches that trailer is going to understand what it’s about. A sex triangle tennis story? Like, come on, man. I’m Mr. Tennis and I’m not paying to see that movie. I’ll see it on streaming. Which is my point. These scripts get you noticed. If you’re lucky, they get made and go on streaming, which gives you that IMDB credit, which helps start your career.
But if you want that 3000 theater release, you have to write John Wick. You have to write Bullet Train or Smile. Things that people understand in under five seconds.
It’s not a bad thing. Almost every story you’ve ever fallen in love with has been simple. You’re just adding to that legacy.
