I saw that Moonfall debuted in second place at the box office this weekend, with 10 million dollars. Moonfall, if you don’t know, was directed by Roland Emmerich, who directed movies such as Independence Day, 2012, and The Day After Tomorrow. Emmerich was quoted as saying, in a recent interview, that Marvel, DC, and Star Wars, have destroyed the movie industry, as they’ve made it impossible to create original content anymore.
Some people have pointed out that Moonfall is just another one of Emmerich’s “end of the world” movies and, therefore, isn’t that original either. However, they’re forgetting that Emmerich has a bunch of original movies he wants to make. But the studios are only going to give him money for the movies they know he makes successfully. And big end-of-the-world destruction movies are his bread-and-butter, so they’re the ones they greenlight.
This argument reinforces the question that has been dogging Hollywood for the last two decades: Where is the originality? It’s a question I think about a lot, specifically in regards to whose fault it is that we don’t have many original films. One could make the argument that it’s the fault of the moviegoers. If they don’t go see original movies, then Hollywood isn’t going to make them.
But I would place the onus on the creators. It’s our job to create something so irresistible that people can’t *not* go see it. This is something writers continue to get wrong. They’re so wrapped up in what *they* want to do that they forget they’re trying to create something *for others.*
Our flaw, as artists, is that we are all narcissists. It’s all about “me.” I need to prove “myself.” I want to make art people will love so I can feel better about “me.” Any artist who tells you they’re making art for others is a liar. They’re doing it so they can feel good about themselves. And it’s that approach that prohibits them from seeing movies through the eyes of the consumer.
IP is the exact opposite of this. Nobody involved in an IP property is worried about themselves. They’re only worried about making money. And because that’s all they care about, they’re able to see the world explicitly through the consumer’s eyes. What does the consumer want, they ask? They want that thing they’re familiar with. And it’s this very lesson that helps us understand how we can compete with IP.
The way you compete with IP is by understanding its appeal: familiarity. IP is playing on the fact that people have seen this thing before, are familiar with it, and therefore will likely want to see it again. Spider-Man understood this three-fold. It knew, not only, that you were familiar with Spider-Man, but that you were familiar with the three actors who had played Spider-Man. You went to see that movie due to the familiarity you had with the character and those three actors.
So, when you’re coming up with a movie idea, you want to find something that people are familiar with. A guy with a gun taking revenge on bad guys – that’s a setup audiences are familiar with. A haunted house – that’s a setup audiences are familiar with. The end of the world (yes, Moonfall) – that’s a setup audiences are familiar with.
Once you have the familiar, you add the unfamiliar. Or, it’s more relevant moniker: the x-factor. The x-factor is why concept generation is so difficult. It cannot be measured. It is one of the aspects of screenwriting you come up with on a gut feeling and then you hope, desperately, audiences connect with it.
The reason Moonfall did not do gangbusters at the box office was because potential moviegoers didn’t find the x-factor, the moon crashing into the earth, that interesting.
A key element of a successful x-factor is that it gives you scenes you haven’t seen before. The trailer I saw for Moonfall didn’t give me anything I hadn’t seen in any of Emmerich’s other movies. The reason this is important is because YOU MUST GIVE THE AUDIENCE A REASON TO COME SEE YOUR MOVIE. Three Spider-Mans is a reason to go see the movie. Familiar destruction set-pieces with some vaguely new elements aren’t a reason to go see a movie.
A recent example of “familiar with an x-factor” is the home invasion movie, See For Me. It has the familiar setup of a home invasion. However, it adds a twist. The girl in the house is blind and must rely on an app that connects her to a “seeing” operator, who can see the house through her phone, and tell her what’s happening so she can navigate danger.
Is this a gangbusters idea? Not really. I think it’s okay. But the writer *did* apply the concept-generation formula correctly. Familiar element (so you can compete with IP) and an x-factor (so you can differentiate yourself from others who’ve participated in this same setup).
Another famous movie that applied this formula was Paranormal Activity. The familiar element was a haunted house. The x-factor was that the whole thing was told through snippets of home video. Then there was Alien. The familiar element was the “monster-in-a-box” scenario. You’re stuck inside a location and a monster is hunting you down. The x-factor is that they moved the location onto a spaceship, set it in deep space, and changed the monster to an alien. Still another was Bridesmaids. It took the familiar: raunchy R-rated group comedy. Then added the x-factor: The group was made of all women instead of all men. Maybe the most famous example of this is Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Familiar element: A heist film. X-factor: Takes place inside someone’s mind rather than at a bank.
There is a more daring way to come up with a great concept but we’re walking into advanced territory here, people. You are about to leave the safety net that “familiar” provides for you. Do so at your own peril. In this riskier version of concept generation, you *only* use an x-factor. A famous example of this would be The Matrix. I don’t know what the “familiar” is here other than a guy who’s lost in life. But the x-factor is that he’s living in a simulation and can use that reality to bend the rules of space and time to kill as many people as possible. It’s a straight up x-factor idea.
Just remember that ideas without the familiar element have a bigger chance of seeming “out there” and “weird” to others. That’s because the familiar element GROUNDS the idea. If there’s nothing to ground the idea, we’re not even sure what we’re looking at. A recent example of this would be Tenet. It’s got the x-factor in spades: The ability to physically move backwards through time. But where’s the familiar? Is this a spy movie? Is it a globe-trotting playboy movie? Is it a crime movie? Without any ‘familiar’ to ground the concept, we’re never sure what we’re watching.
It should be noted I see all these ‘x-factor only’ ideas that never make it past a query letter. They’re often the worst ideas as they have nothing holding them together. So while the payoff is high (The Matrix was so awesome it still resonates today), the downside is below sea level. We’re talking Howard The Duck, Joe Versus The Volcano, The Happening, and Southland Tales. So if you choose to go down this route, do so carefully.
As you can see, I’m trying to prep everyone for the month of March, where I’ll be guiding you through writing the first act of a brand new screenplay. You have roughly three weeks to come up with a great concept. As I’ve stated many times before, a weak concept is at the top of the list for what’s holding your script back. So you want to put a ton of effort into finding the right one. Hopefully today’s post gets you a little closer. If you want professional feedback on your logline, I offer analysis for $25. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com. Just know that I’m going to be truthful!
Oh, and tomorrow, I’ll be reviewing a big recent spec sale that attempts to do the very thing I talked about today. We’ll see if it succeeds…
