Two Scriptshadow vets make the Blood List!
Cause this is thrilllllerrrr. Thrilllllerrr niiiight. And no-one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike…
Is it normal for homeowners to get mad at you for trick-or-treating at 8am? Based on the cursing assaults I endured this October 31st morning, I would conclude that that answer is ‘affirmative.’ Well excuuu-uuuuse me for trying to get a jump on my competition. On the plus side, these trick-or-treating deniers probably saved me from early onset diabetes. I was only able to consume several dozen Resses Peanut Butter cups instead of my target goal of 200.
It also gave me time to catch up on some entertainment. I finally watched Free Guy over the weekend and while I shouldn’t have been surprised at how good it was, I was surprised at how good at was. You have to understand that this never happens. Someone writes a big-budget movie spec, it gets purchased, it gets made, it’s actually good, and it does well at the box office. I mean, when’s the last time that happened? Eons ago. The studios save their big budget $$ for established IP. They don’t do it for specs.
But maybe that’s changing. Between Free Guy and the success of The Tomorrow War on Amazon, we could be entering a resurgence in big budget spec scripts that get purchased then made into movies. It will be a tepid resurgence. But if the scripts that come out of the resurgence do well, that resurgence will grow. You have to understand that the reason big budget specs disappeared from the landscape in the first place is that they kept bombing at the box office. Specs like 47 Ronin, R.I.P.D., and Transcendence kept doing so badly that studios were finally like, “F#@% this.” And could you blame them?
Remember that the key for any big budget spec is a strong concept, which both Free Guy and The Tomorrow War have. As much as I’d like to say execution is everything, that’s not necessarily true with these giant movies. You need an idea that gets a ton of people intrigued. If you can then execute that idea, it’s the cherry on top of the sundae.
Speaking of big-budget, Eternals finally hits theaters next week. The film, which was directed by the Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, Chloe Zhao, is Marvel’s riskiest project yet. And while we all know risk is the key to writing something great, risk also means your failures will be more spectacular. And from everything I’m hearing, Eternals is a spectacular failure with an aggressive inability to entertain.
The thing I’m most surprised about with Eternals is that Marvel went against the formula it used to become a giant powerhouse, which was to introduce a series of individual characters in their own movies, establish their brands as superheroes, before finally teaming them up. Eternals, meanwhile, started with the team-up. And when you start with the team-up, you’re going to be spending a TON of time introducing and establishing who each individual character is, leaving no time for a story. From what I’m hearing, that’s the main problem with the film.
While I’m curious to see just how bad it is, I’m not sure I want to waste three hours of my weekend and the insanity of trying to find a parking spot at The Grove to see the film. So I’ll leave it up to you guys. Do you want me to review this movie next Monday? Is anyone going to see the film?
The box office this weekend wasn’t wonderful. Dune had a 57% dip, which, to be fair, was better than WB’s recent releases. Antlers proved to be too dark of a horror flick for moviegoers, scoring just 4 million bucks. The big new release was beloved director Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho,” which didn’t do so hot either, also taking in 4 million dollars. Unfortunately, Wright now exists in this tweener world where the movies he makes don’t automatically feel like theater movies. You could easily imagine this debuting on Netflix. Which is unfortunate. While I’m not the biggest Wright fan, he’s one of the only directors out there directing original material. If we keep losing these guys to streamers, the only movies we’re going to see in theaters is Eternals.
If that gets you down as much as it does me, I’ve got something to bring you back up. The 2021 “Fresh Blood” Blood List was released over the weekend and you might recognize two faces. Mainstays Katherine Botts and Tal Gantz both made the list. Tal made the list with his script, “Hide Me Among The Graves,” about a physics student who learns his body was found in a 19th century grave, then must solve a sinister time-travel mystery before his fate catches up with him. Katherine made the list with co-writer Mischa Marcus. Here’s the logline for their script, “House of Mourning:” After the suicide of her Jewish husband, an un-faithful widow must confront her sins, which have attracted a violent demon who threatens her and the other mourners as they sit shiva over seven days of escalating terror.
The Blood List has recently teamed up with Village Roadshow to develop projects and they’ve picked two screenplays from the list this year. The first is, “On the First Day of Christmas” by Casey Giltner. Here’s the logline: When a little girl begins receiving mysterious Christmas presents, her parents realize the gifts have a sinister intent, coinciding with “The 12 Days of Christmas.” The second script picked was “Zero Feet Away” by Jose Nateras. Here’s that logline: A young man’s love life is complicated by his identity as a gay, Mexican-American, Werewolf, while his actual life is put in danger by a mysterious serial killer who seems to be zeroing in on him using a location based hook-up app.
I’m excited about Katherine’s script. I’ve had several conversations over the years about the Jewish religion being an untapped resource for horror ideas. While it seems like Catholicism has been pilfered endlessly for horror mythology, the average moviegoer knows little about the specifics of the Jewish religion. I sensed there were plenty of dark paths within that religion to create new horror mythology. Katherine, along with her writing partner, are finally doing that. Smart!
For those of you confused about the Blood List, which used to categorize its Fresh Blood and Blood List as different entities, they’ve since consolidated and created one singular list focused on finding unknown talent. I believe this was done in order to make a deal with Village Roadshow to produce projects from the list. My only regret is not reviewing Cinder sooner as I’m sure it would’ve made the list too!
Finally, in one of the bigger, “Wait , did I just read that right?” moments of the year, it was recently revealed that Will Ferrell turned down 29 million dollars to be in Elf 2. Now, for all of us looking back at that number, this seems certifiably crazy. But you have to remember, back then, they were giving out 20 million dollar checks to studio comedy leads like candy. Those guys probably thought those days would never end. Well, they have ended, and if you injected Will Ferrell with truth serum, I bet he’d tell you that, if he could do it all over again, he would’ve taken the money.
Since I don’t have access to Ferrell, I’m going to take the truth serum myself and read the Elf 2 script tomorrow. Tune in for the review.
Oh, and if you need some extra Monday reading, here are script reviews from several of the projects mentioned today…
Dune Script Review.
Free Guy Script Review
Transcendence Script Review
Why Transcendence the movie wasn’t as good as the script
Antlers Script Review
