There isn’t a whole lot going on in the movie world this weekend. The Superpowered Pet Express, or whatever that movie was called, slinked into first place with 25 million dollars. In a somewhat surprising development, “Nope” only dropped 58% from its inaugural weekend. Some thought, with the weak word of mouth, it would dip as much as 70%. Maybe the film is better than I gave it credit for.
The lack of movie excitement gave me an opportunity to take in the TV landscape, more specifically the rapidly rising popularity of showrunners. Now I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say Shonda Rhimes, Taylor Sheridan, and and Eric Kripke have supplanted the names of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and James Cameron. But people are definitely becoming more familiar with those names. And it seems like when all these splashy directors retire, their namesake in popular culture will not be replaced by new movie directors, but rather by showrunners.
This got me thinking about how big the current TV space is. Some days it seems like there are more TV shows than there are people to watch them. And because there are so many shows, only a select few rise to the top and become what I refer to as, “The Talked About.”
“The Talked About” are the shows that have found a footprint in public discourse. Movie sites write articles about them. Reddit creates subreddits about them. Content creators vlog about them. These shows are hash-tagging their a$$es all the way around Twitter. And, of course, most importantly, when you see the show yourself, you want to tell a friend about it.
“The Talked About” shows are not to be confused with the critical darlings or shows that get a ton of Emmy nominations, even though you’ve never heard to them. A good example would be that show Ramy, on Hulu. It won an Emmy even though not a single person was aware the show existed (which the creator admitted in his acceptance speech). Side note: Go watch one episode of that show and you’ll know exactly why critics loved it despite it being overwhelmingly average. We’ll leave it at that.
I admit this even for shows I loved. I thought “Devs” was great. But I’ll be the first to admit that it was not talked about other than the times I talked about it to myself. I don’t think Severance is a talked about show. I don’t think Hacks is a talked about show. I don’t even think personal favorite, The White Lotus, is a talked about show. The TV landscape is littered with shows like this.
See
The Wheel of Time
Big Sky
Virgin River
Equalizer
New Amsterdam
Loot
The Stand
Lost in Space
The Wilds
The Gilded Age
Foundation
Life and Beth
Invasion
Irma Vep
Good Girls
Physical
The Orville
Outer Range
Night Sky
Our Flag Means Death
I’m not saying you can’t personally like these shows. I’m just telling you that nobody, and I mean nobody, talks about these shows. Meanwhile, you have “The Talked About.”
Only Murders in the Building
The Boys
Squid Game
Game of Thrones
Umbrella Academy
Stranger Things
Euphoria
You
Ozark
Barry
Yellowstone
Ted Lasso
Better Call Saul
Succession
Peaky Blinders
Fleabag
Cobra Kai
Billions
Killing Eve
Big Little Lies
The Handmaid’s Tale
Bridgerton
What We Do In The Shadows
Normal People
Riddle me this: What are shows like Ted Lasso, Billions, and Euphoria, doing that shows like Foundation, Outer Range, and Virgin River are not?
To understand this, you need to break these “talked about” shows down into two categories. Big-budget and Normal Budget. Big Budget would be shows like The Boys, Squid Game, Stranger Things, and Peaky Blinders. Normal Budget would be shows like Barry, You, Euphoria, Cobra Kai, and Better Call Saul.
When it comes to Normal Budget, the formula seems to be, first and foremost, create a really interesting main character. The best bet appears to be a “bad” character who does bad things who we still like, usually because they’re taking on even worse people. Barry, You, and Better Call Saul fall under this category. Even the goofy Cobra Kai is built on this premise, as it celebrates the character of Johnny, a “bad” karate instructor who teaches his students how to defeat “even worse” karate students.
If you’re going low budget and don’t have a standout character, you need to add something to the plot to counter-balance this hole. I’d argue that neither Only Murders In The Building or Big Little Lies had stand out characters. But Murders is built around an intriguing mystery and Big Little Lies is a thriller constructed around a woman trying to escape a marriage. Both shows have genre components that help keep the plot zipping along.
From there, we move into the comedy space, and that’s where it’s harder to pinpoint what makes a show stand out. Ted Lasso is definitely an outlier in that the main character is the nicest guy in the world and endlessly optimistic. Usually shows have main characters with issues that they need to overcome. So I confess I don’t know why that show is popular other than people find it funny. Both What We Do In the Shadows and Fleabag are also really funny, each in different ways. Although I might slide Fleabag into the same category as Barry, Better Call Saul and You in that the main character is heavily flawed, yet we still want to see them succeed.
And Euphoria and Normal People are also outliers in that they cover extremely familiar territory (high school and romance) but do so with unique directing flairs that make them stand out. Euphoria goes deeper into the underbelly of high school than any other high school show you’ve seen. And Normal People is much rawer, and therefore realistic, than any young romance show.
Things get more complicated once you move into these bigger shows. But one thing that pops out at me immediately is that many of these shows embrace a, “We’re not going to sugarcoat s#@t” attitude. The shows aren’t afraid to kill characters off. They’re not afraid to say controversial things. They’re not afraid to be risky or unpredictable. Squid Game falls under this category. Game of Thrones does, especially the early seasons. The Boys. Succession. Billions. It’s been a while since I saw The Handmaid’s Tale, but it felt like that show embraced that mantra as well.
One of the things that’s surprised me in the last five years is how much audiences love a great period TV show. They love that big budget high production value period setting. Yellowstone, Peaky Blinders, The Queen’s Gambit. The more authenticity you can bring to these shows, the better. Audiences really want to live in these worlds. So you can’t half-a$$ your research. The Queen’s Gambit team had been trying to make that project for 15 years. They knew every single thing about that time and place so that when it was time to make the series, it felt authentic.
Then you have shows like Stranger Things and The Umbrella Academy which seem to be outliers in that I don’t think they exist in any clear genre. I’ve honestly never met anyone who’s seen The Umbrella Academy. But it’s definitely a talked about show on social media. I suspect that may be because the media really wants it to succeed. But Stranger Things, man…. I don’t know if there’s anything to learn about this show. It’s like Lost – the ultimate “caught lightning in a bottle” show. Remember how every single showrunner in Hollywood created a Lost knockoff and they all failed? That’s what I mean by “lightning in a bottle.”
I’m curious what you think the reason for Stranger Things’ success is and if it can be replicated. Because I don’t think it can be.
The big thing that inspired today’s post was hearing so much about this season of The Boys that I decided to give it another go. I want to see what it is about the show that makes it so “talk-worthy.” So don’t be surprised if you get a few “Boys” articles in the near future.
We’re back with seven new First Act entries! If you weren’t around last week, I’m doing a public dissection of First Act Contest submissions. I give each entry at least 10 pages. From there, I keep reading until I get bored. If the script manages to keep me reading all the way to the end of the first act, that script advances to the next round. Then I re-evaluate every script that advanced, pick five finalists, and choose a winner. Good news. Another script got through this week! Keep reading to find out which one. And, just as was the case last week, let me know if you disagree with my analysis on any of the entries!
Title: WAR HOUND
Genre: Action
Logline: After being honorably discharged from the US Special Forces because of a failed mission in Syria, a former Army operator returns home to a country he defended but can’t recognize anymore. A call from an FBI agent who masterminded the failed Syrian mission brings him an offer to go to Ukraine as a volunteer and exact revenge on the guy who disgraced him.
Writer: Dimitrije Vojnov
Thoughts: This is cool. The writer of this script has NINE produced films in Serbia. And, obviously, English is his second language. I have mad respect for anyone competing in a contest that isn’t in his native language. Not easy to do! So let’s start with the obvious. AVOID TWO-SENTENCE LOGLINES. I’m okay with them if you have a really complex world to set up (sci-fi or fantasy). Or if you’re log-lining a show, which needs a little more explanation. But this didn’t need a two-sentence logline. My big worry going into this (yes, I broke my own rule by reading the logline first) was that it would be too generic. There isn’t a single element in the logline that feels unique. But that didn’t turn out to be the main problem in the script. The main problem is that the English-second-language issue rears its head so aggressively that the read doesn’t flow. A script MUST FLOW. I know this is frustrating for ESL writers to hear as they’re probably thinking, “As long as the core of the story is conveyed, it should’t matter if there are grammar or punctual errors.” Yeah but a script is dependent on suspending the reader’s disbelief. And the ESL kept breaking my focus. There are people who will fix ESL errors in your script, so that’s an option. I even do it myself but I’m not cheap. Only because I’ve found that it’s not just about fixing grammar. Sometimes you’re making creative choices for the writer, and that requires some back and forth, which is time-consuming. For example, there’s a line in this script: “Parker is charismatic and Cameron’s team is focused.” These are two separate sentences. They should not be combined. And if I had my choice, I wouldn’t mention either. They’re not relevant to the moment and only act to gum up the read. So I’d probably cut that sentence. But, yeah. That’s why this script didn’t advance. If you are interested in ESL help, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com.
Page Stopped: 10
Verdict: Pass
Title: The Law of Worthless Stones
Genre: Action / Adventure
Logline: In 1877 Turkey, when an American demolitions expert inadvertently unearths a billion dollar treasure coveted by a bloodthirsty Ottoman Queen, he must fight for his own life, and the lives of millions, to stop her from funding an all-out war on an unsuspecting world.
Writer: Jeff Stein
Thoughts: I love Jeff. I think he’s extremely talented. He has one of the more unique voices on the site (“An empty bottle of whiskey rolls out of his hand, bumps against the scuffed shoes of a 12-year-old CHINESE GIRL. She is cute, crafty, loyal, and has enough attitude for a dozen Awkwafinas.”). I think he’s won an Amateur Showdown before (Jeff, can you confirm this?). As I’ve told Jeff in the past, his only problem is that he wants to include every single idea he can think of. Whereas I like stuff that’s simpler and more focused. So that’s where our writer-reader conflict lies. — I like the contrast inherent in this opening. We start with the Ottoman War. Then we somehow end up with a cowboy in America. How do these things connect? We’re curious and want to find out. There’s a fun “runaway train” set piece that follows, but something about the writing here is too loose. I’m not *entirely* sure what’s going on in the scene and I find that my concentration is often drifting. I repeatedly have to do the dreaded “back up and re-read that part”.” Sometimes I get the feeling Jeff writes faster than he thinks. We get the benefit of that (wild ideas, imaginative writing) as well as the disadvantage (I don’t feel confident that the writer knows where he’s headed in the scenes or in the story). I’d be curious what you guys thought of The Law of Worthless Stones. The concept sounds cool. But I want to know if my repeated focus-drifts are just my problem or they’re happening to you guys as well. Cause I want to figure out a way to help Jeff here. I would like to give him more concrete criticism so he knows what he has to correct.
Page Stopped: 13
Verdict: Pass
Title: The Sanctuary
Genre: Action/ adventure
Logline: A couple on the run from hit men find themselves shipwrecked on an island paradise where a drug lord hid his treasure, unaware that they are being hunted by wild beasts.
Writer: Mariano Rueda
Thoughts: This one started out really strong. Great cold open. We have, what looks like, soldiers, on a boat, headed towards an island at night. Once they get there, they head into the jungle, then come upon an old abandoned mansion. They’re looking for something. They then come across a cage with a still rotting lion carcass inside. That was the first moment where I was like, “Okay, this is cool.” Again, as readers, we’re looking for things that are original. Stuff we don’t typically see. I’ve seen military guys hop on shore and go try to execute a mission hundreds of times. But when I realized these guys were looking for something more treasure-related, I became intrigued. And the lion carcass snapped me to attention. It was a fresh choice. The rest of the scene plays out well. We then cut to Florida and meet this couple who’s had brushes with the law. I found their dialogue to be a little simplistic. It lacked specificity, which is what helps make your characters stand out. They’re just talking in generic relationship-speak. To the writer’s credit, we get another exciting scene, as the couple is chased by someone. But once they hid on the boat it felt like we’d stuck around the scenario for too long. The dialogue continued to be barely passable. I could feel my interest dropping quickly. When the boat owner fell off the boat, it just felt like hi jinx at that point so I gave up. But overall, this is a top 20% entry. Maybe even top 15%. So there’s nothing to be disappointed about here.
Page Stopped: 17
Verdict: Pass
Title: The King of Ghosts
Genre: Drama
Logline: When a survivor of the Burundian genocide is reunited with his daughter, he must decide between pursuing a new life with her, or remaining with the orphan boy he’s caring for and the violent existence he’s carved out for himself in the underground world of machete fighting.
Writer: No Given Name
Thoughts: You can tell the good writers right away. I liked, for example, the simple but effective description in this script (“KARENGA MUMBOYO (50s) sits with eyes closed. He might be napping. He’s shadow-black and lean and his face is horribly scarred. So are his arms. A man built from pain and survival.”). The writer uses a British character as the engine pushing the story forward (a journalist looking for the elusive Mumboyo, a notorious machete fighter). We then meet Mumboyo himself, who’s struggling to make ends meet in these underground machete fights to the death. And then we have a third character, Zecharia, who’s caring for his ailing sister. The writing is purposeful (it’s clear the writer has a plan, and every scene pushes us forward to accomplish that plan) and the story moves along quickly. We also have a unique world, which I just told you readers are always looking for. So everything felt new and fresh here. Easily one of the best entries in the contest so far. If you’re looking to see what the writing bar is, check out this first act!
Page Stopped: Read entire act (27 pages)
Verdict: Advance!
Title: The Patriotic Hitman
Genre: Action/Thriller
Logline: A sniper assigned by a government agency to assassinate a senator at a public rally catches a glimpse of a suicide bomber in the crowd.
Writer: Alex Beattie
Thoughts: We’ve got character naming problems right off the bat. Jake Ryan? As in one letter removed from Jack Ryan? Mary Swanson? One of the most famous comedy female characters of all time (Dumb and Dumber). I’m not asking for names like Locoio Markopolis. But if you’re not thinking hard about names, that makes me think you’re not thinking hard about anything in your script. With that said, the first ten pages are better-than-average. But it’s all very routine. Even the sniper cold open. You’re going up against American Sniper here with its similar sniper scenario. Your goal should be to give us a sniper opening that’s even better than that, not a notch less exciting. A female suicide bomber who takes out a team of marines? I read that scene every other week. I don’t think writers realize just how common their ideas are. You have to work harder than you’re working if you want to stand out. Nothing has happened in these first 12 pages that’s any different from anything I’ve read before. By the way, this is why scripts like, “The King of Ghosts,” do well. Their very setting is so unique that every single page is going to provide us with something new. Whereas when you write about covert agents, you’re going up against thousands of other covert agent scripts around town. So you’re going to have to move mountains and push yourself beyond your creative limits to find fresh new ideas in that space.
Page Stopped: 10
Verdict: Pass
Title: On the Lam
Genre: Fun Action/Thriller
Logline: A wealthy man who has worked as an underground doctor of assisted suicide for 20 years must condense his fortune, pack up his life’s work, and head across the Canadian Border in order to hideout from the multiple parties interested in finding him, arresting him, using him, or killing him.
Writer: Josh Bullock
Thoughts: I highlighted this one specifically because, as writers, we get so tunnel-visioned that we don’t notice the most obvious things. Look at the genre here and then look at the first half of this logline. “Fun Action” and “has worked as an underground doctor of assisted suicide for 20 years.” Do you see how those two things don’t go together? And worse, they seem comical when read together? This is why you need feedback on your loglines and scripts. If you can’t afford feedback, you must become an expert at seeing your writing through the reader’s eyes. You must learn how to become a different person and then read everything (the logline, the query, the script) as if you’re reading it for the first time. Because when I see something like this, I already know the script is in trouble. And that’s a problem because getting people to keep reading your script can’t happen if they don’t open your script in the first place. But I did open the script and I got what I was afraid of, which was a tonal mismatch. The opening scene is a gun to the back, “I’m taking you out of here,” bad-guy-catches-our-protagonist…. during a screening of Titanic. The dialogue borders on comedic: “Did you know that James Cameron
actually sketched that picture? It’s true. Winslet originally protested the nudity. She only agreed to it when James told her it would be a closed set with minimum crew. So to avoid bringing in an artist, he sketched her himself.” This scene is then followed by an assisted suicide, which is one of the most depressing situations a human can imagine. The two scenes don’t naturally come together. So I would tell Josh that he needs to work on incorporating a consistent tone, both in his loglines and scripts.
Page Stopped: 10
Verdict: Pass
Title: One Flesh
Genre: Horror
Logline: When a disease causes humans to fuse when they physically touch, a cult leader sets her sights on her estranged family as she seeks to spread her vision of love and a new fused human race.
Writer: Evan Job
Thoughts: This one started off strong. We see a group of naked people, all of them with aggressively cracked skin, go to a house at night and then a member of the group, a girl, run into the house and steal a baby, which we realize is hers. As her ex-husband chases her out, the baby fuses to the girl’s skin. I definitely haven’t seen that before, so I was intrigued. We then cut to a different character, Tasha, who also has this rare skin disease. She’s taking care of her father. And a member of that same car group, Anton, comes to her house and wants to reconnect with her. It turns out he’s her boyfriend. This is where I began to lose interest in the pages. Their dialogue felt very simplistic and it went on for too long. A good scene always has a point. We’re then moving towards that point during the scene. For a big long chunk of this scene, it felt like we weren’t moving at all. And the dialogue just wasn’t sharp enough to carry it. “Why are you being like this, Tasha?” “I am not playing this game, I want you to leave.” “I don’t want to leave.” “You’re going to leave.” Something about that exchange didn’t feel sophisticated enough to me. But kudos to Evan for writing a first scene that pulled me in. And this subject matter seems unique. So nice job there as well!
Page Stopped: 16
Verdict: Pass
Share your thoughts on these entries over the weekend! Curious what you think!! Especially about The King of Ghosts.
GET PROFESSIONAL FEEDBACK BEFORE YOU SEND YOUR SCRIPT OUT THERE!!! – I give screenwriting consultations for every step of the process, whether it be loglines (just $25!), e-mail queries, plot summaries, outlines, Zoom brainstorming sessions, first pages, first acts, full pilots, full features. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you’re interested in any type of consultation. I want to help you make your script as good as it can possibly be!
The Scriptshadow Newsletter is either in your Inbox or in your Spam. So go check it out! I talk about Marvel’s Phase 5 and 6, High Concept Showdown, a secret trick to improve your chances of getting that big industry contact to read your script, my spirited thoughts on the Oppenheimer “trailer,” some discounted script consultation opportunities, and all sorts of other goodies. I’m moving the First Act Contest Entry Breakdown Post to tomorrow. So feel free to discuss the newsletter in the meantime!
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Genre: Comedy
Premise: Patricia Ford feels pretty good about trading her South Boston roots for a “perfect” life on New York’s Upper East Side, until everything falls apart and her raucous girlfriends throw her a Divorce Party at the home she’s about to lose. As the night goes from wild to totally insane, Patricia takes back control of her life.
About: Imagine being a writer nobody’s heard of with no credits and then finishing top five on the Black List! This life-changing experience happened to today’s writer, Rebecca Webb.
Writer: Rebecca Webb
Details: 105 pages
I will bet my retirement savings that Aniston plays Patricia.
I’ve put off reviewing the number 3 script on the Black List long enough. But it’s only fair that I give it a shot. Hey, I still remember when I waited two years to review the number one Black List script, Blonde Ambition, thinking it was going to be yet another boring biopic, and it turned out to be great! Can Divorce Party do the same?
I do think there’s something to building comedy scripts around trendy phrases in pop culture. There was a spec script that sold in 2006 called “Bromance” back when that word was a thing. We got “Cougarville” after the mainstreaming of the word “cougar.” And here, we’ve got “Divorce Party,” which follows one of the newer trends, having a party for your divorce.
An additional trait that helps elevate this concept is irony. You’re not supposed to have a party for a divorce. That’s what makes the whole ‘divorce party’ trend fun, and is why someone decided to turn it into a screenplay. Now let’s see if that screenplay is actually good.
We begin in the aftermath of the biggest party ever. A beautiful Hamptons home has been trashed beyond all recognition! Oh, and there’s a dead dude with an arrow in his head lying face-down in the pool. Whatever happened here was really bad.
Cut to several months earlier.
40-something Patricia Ford finds her long-time husband getting pegged by a 23 year old woman in a hotel room, initiating her worst case life scenario – DIVORCE! If that’s not bad enough, her ex-husband takes everything, leaving Patricia with nothing except for one night a year at their Hampton’s home.
Searching for meaning, Patricia visits her childhood best friend, Amy. Whereas Patricia has become uptight and socially conditioned by her rich New York lifestyle, Amy still dances on Boston bar tops and beats up anybody she doesn’t like. She’s the anti-Patricia. And she thinks the solution to this divorce is a DIVORCE PARTY.
So Patricia invites all of her friends to the Hamptons on the one night of the year that she gets the house, and the group buys a ton of sex toys that they then play games with. As they get more and more drunk, they head to a local bar, where they meet a bunch of men, who they invite back to the house.
After each woman explores the sexual potential that their current relationships aren’t giving them, they find themselves, inexplicably, tied up. That’s because… THIS IS A ROBBERY! I guess these men are professional divorce party targeters who systematically befriend divorce parties that have taken detours to local bars then came home with them so they can rob them. Ummm…. Yeah!
So that happens. And after the men leave, our ladies learn a valuable lesson. Which is that divorce parties are dumb. Or maybe that it’s worth getting all your things stolen if it wisens you up and makes you realize that life is hard and you need to keep overcoming obstacles… or something. Or maybe there’s some other lesson here. Oh, and if you’re wondering who killed the dead guy in the pool, let’s just say you’re going to be disappointed.
Divorce Party wants to be the next Hangover or Bridesmaids.
But it’s missing a very important screenwriting ingredient to achieve this feat.
A clear destination.
In The Hangover, the clear destination is finding Doug, the missing groom. In Bridesmaids, the clear destination is the wedding. We know that’s where we’re headed.
Divorce Party doesn’t have that. The destination is the divorce party, so we’re technically at our destination by page 40. Now, what are we supposed to hang around for? Because I’m sorry, but “shenanigans” isn’t enough. The reader needs a destination.
Webb tries to solve this by creating a murder-mystery element. We start our movie at the end, a la Sunset Boulevard, with a dead guy floating face down, in a Hamptons pool, at a house that’s been decimated by the titular “divorce party.” We then intersperse post-party police interrogations of all the women, as we try to get to the bottom of what happened.
The issue with this approach is that nobody seems all that concerned about the dead man. Everyone’s rather blasé about it, which takes the one element that’s pushing the plot forward – the murder-mystery – and neuters it.
Of course, nobody comes to a comedy film for the plot. They just want to laugh. So does Divorce Party make you laugh?
I think if you’re a 40-50 year old woman, it will.
I don’t think anybody else is going to laugh, to be honest. The jokes and writing are highly specific (“Despite Bonnie’s best efforts, the house is still a cross between a Nancy Meyer wet-dream and a wing of the Whitney”). What the heck is “The Whitney??”
That’s not a dig at the script. I’d actually prefer that a comedy target a specific demographic than go with generic poop and fart jokes that are attempting to make 99% of the planet laugh. Even when you’re laughing at those films, the laughs are always hollow.
To Webb’s credit, there’s an undercurrent of drama here that gives the script more depth than your average comedy. There’s a harsh exploration of how terrifying it is for a woman in her 40s to get divorced. And if there’s an underlining theme, it’s that a lot of women hang on to their marriages not because they love their husbands, but because they’re terrified of being alone.
I feel like any screenplay that can connect the reader to some truth hits harder than the screenplay that doesn’t. And Webb seems to have some keen insight into the world of marriage in your 40s.
She also does a good job with the key friendship in the story between Patricia and Amy. You could feel the pain in Amy when Patricia shows up after 20 years, looking for a shoulder to cry on. Some of the better scenes in the script are when the two try and reconcile their broken friendship, with Patricia admitting that she’s been terrible.
The contrast between the characters – Amy doing whatever she wants and not fearing consequences, and Patricia doing whatever she’s supposed to do in desperate fear of the consequences – makes them fun to watch. You couldn’t ask for two people who were more opposite.
Comedy often comes from contrast. So the more opposites you can have bumping up against each other, the better. And when I say “opposites” I don’t just mean people. I mean anything that’s the opposite. One of Larry David’s best Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes involves a Palestinian chicken restaurant located next to a Jewish deli. Two opposites.
Much like the bulk of the 2021 Black List, though, Webb is clearly a newcomer. One of the easiest ways to tell is all the dual-side dialogue. Nobody I know who’s written more than three screenplays uses dual-side dialogue except maybe for one line when they’re really emphasizing two characters talking over each other. Otherwise, it’s a purely beginner habit.
Which should be motivating to you guys. Cause it shows that you don’t have to be perfect to make the Black List.
Divorce Party is a tough call. It’s probably a better drama than it is a comedy. But it’s marketed as a comedy. So… how do I judge this thing? I suppose I recommend it. I very well may be lowering my standards because we’ve gotten so few good scripts off the Black List lately. But it does have a nifty little twist ending that makes you feel good. And if you make the reader feel good at the end of your script, they’re probably going to recommend it.
Script link: Divorce Party
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This is smack dab exactly where you want to be for a comedy script – at 105 pages. You do not want to go ONE PAGE OVER 105 for a comedy.
What I learned 2: An ironic comedic premise is always better than a non-ironic one. Divorce Party is better than Christmas Party. Whereas Christmas parties are expected, you’re not supposed to celebrate something as sad as divorce (where is where the irony comes from!).
Genre: Action
Premise: (from IMDB) When the CIA’s most skilled operative, whose true identity is known to none, accidentally uncovers dark agency secrets, a psychopathic former colleague puts a bounty on his head, setting off a global manhunt by international assassins.
About: This is the Russo Brothers first big film after their Avengers movies, and they’ve brought along their Avengers writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, to write it. The 200 million dollar film is Netflix’s biggest yet. The Gray Man has been in development for a long time and is sort of a peek behind the Hollywood curtain in regards to how complicated these long-running properties are. The Russos’ version of this movie is so different from the original Gray Man project that none of the writers on the previous drafts even get credit. It’s like they only used the title. Which makes you wonder, why not just come up with an original idea? You can check out my review of the original script here…
Writers: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and Joe Russo (based on the book by Mark Greaney).
Details: 2 hours long
In the early 1980s, Francis Ford Coppola famously decried the day when Hollywood started publishing box office numbers. “Now,” Coppola said, “people are only going to produce movies that will make the most amount of money.”
That comment seems a little silly now. Why else would you make movies? For your health? Look at France, a country that still doesn’t care about box office, and the cinematic sludge that comes out of their system. I’m not talking about the one good French film that makes it over to the U.S. every year. I’m talking about the 50 other movies that are all terrible because there’s no incentive to make something that people actually want to see. Is that what we want the U.S. to become?
Well, the streaming revolution allowed us to get a peek into what that process might look like here. Since Netflix movies don’t have any box office, their directors, technically, don’t need to worry about how many people watch the film. It’s why we got such Netflix classics as Mank and Roma (a teensy bit of sarcasm there if you can’t tell).
But now, ironically, Netflix has gone in the other direction, moving away from artsy “who cares how many people see it” movies to 200 million dollar wanna-be-Bond action films. The only difference is that we have NO IDEA if anybody’s actually watching these movies.
If you were just to go by online chatter, a lot more people saw “Nope” this weekend than “The Gray Man.” Which would imply that, if The Gray Man were in theaters, it wouldn’t have surpassed 45 million dollars (Nope’s first-weekend gross). Which sort of begs an opposing question. Just as it seems strange to make small budget theatrical movies that aren’t going to make money, it’s even stranger to spend an inordinate amount of money on TV movies that don’t bring in any money.
If all of this seems confusing, that’s okay, because I would argue that The Gray Man is a confusing project, an action movie without an identity. I have a theory on why that is, which I’ll share at the end of the review.
Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling) is a convicted murderer who’s pulled from prison by his new handler, Fitzroy, to be in a new CIA assassin program. Years later, after becoming one of the most lethal assassins in the world (a ‘gray man’), Six is assigned to kill a target who, as the target lays dying, says he’s also part of the Sierra program, and that Six will be next.
Six grabs a USB drive from Four (I think that’s his name) causing Six’s boss, Carmichael, to turn on him, believing the drive has evidence of his nefarious doings. So Carmichael hires the one killer good enough to eliminate Six, Lloyd Hansen (Chris Hansen), a wise-cracking mustache-twirling (literally!) bully.
Lloyd, a giant weasel and purveyor of such lines as, “If you want to make an omelette, you gotta kill some people,” goes to Fitzroy and orders him to order his own men to turn on Six, which they do. But of course Six escapes. This enrages Lloyd, who then orders a super-hit on him, which means that every single bounty hunting team in the world is now looking to kill Six.
Six teams up with another agent for the first time ever, Dani (Ana De Armas), and doesn’t like it because Six works alone, darn it! When Six learns that Lloyd is holding Fitzroy and his pacemaker-laden daughter hostage, he decides to turn the tables on Lloyd and go save them. But can Six survive going into the belly of the beast? Or will he be Lloyd Hansen’s toast?
These movies are so hard to do well.
You’re trying to differentiate yourself within one of the most cliched well-worn blueprints of modern cinema – the big action movie.
The degrees to which you must differentiate yourself to stand out seem trivial. For example, John Wick’s differentiation revolved around well-tailored suits and tighter, better choreographed, fight scenes. A betting man would say that’s not enough to get audiences to show up. And yet, John Wick is the sexiest action franchise alive.
Meanwhile, Jack Reacher comes out, angling for a “thinking man’s action movie” and it lands with a thud.
In my experience, big action movies come down to nailing four things, in this order: A protagonist we absolutely love, groundbreaking or unique set pieces, a strong villain, and a plot that’s strong enough to keep us invested the whole way through.
Let’s start with A. As much as I like Ryan Gosling, there’s nothing about this character that stands out. I don’t know if this is the writers’ or actor’s fault, but I suspect it’s the writers. Gosling has proven he can play cool memorable characters, such as the “Driver” in the movie, “Drive.” What was the difference? Well, it might be each character’s opening scene. In Drive, Gosling had this really cool escape scene from Staples Center that set the tone for the character. Here, we meet Gosling sitting in a chair, smiling as a man tells him he’s free. Not exactly a, “Whoa! This character is so cool!” moment.
Next we have the set pieces. The set pieces are all okay but I was expecting groundbreaking stuff when we’re talking about the most expensive movie Netflix has ever made. The movie-killer for me was the ubiquitous plane crash set piece. Not only has this scene been done in the last 20 action movies, but they didn’t even do as good of a job as “Man From Toronto,” an action-COMEDY for goodness sakes.
Next we have our villain, Lloyd Hansen, played by Chris Evans. Chris Evans is definitely having fun in this role, and is hoping for a sprinkling of Henry Cavill magic, donning a mustache just like Cavill did in Mission Impossible. But while Hansen is the most memorable thing about this film, I’d argue he’s having more fun with himself than we are with him.
The showiness of his performance often borders on “try-hard,” which breaks the suspension of disbelief, and makes us see Chris Evans instead of Lloyd Hansen.
Finally we have the plot. I’ve long chastised big action films for overcomplicating their plots when the objective for anyone watching an action movie is to turn your brain off and have fun. It’s why movies like Taken and John Wick are so popular. The plots are mind-numbingly simple.
In movies like James Bond and Mission Impossible, you need a pen and notepad to keep track of the main plot, subplots, motivations, double-crosses, and everything in between. I wouldn’t put The Gray man in that company. It’s essentially one guy chasing another guy. But there were too many times where I didn’t understand exactly what was going on.
For example, there’s this whole baby-sitting storyline where Six babysits Fitzroy’s daughter and it took me a full five minutes before I realized it was a flashback. I get that they wanted to create an emotional connection between Six and the daughter, but a five-minute flashback in an action movie??? Come on.
I have no idea how this movie came together. But I suspect it went something like this. Netflix initiated a meeting with the Russo Brothers. They said, “We will hand you a blank check and a high percentage of franchise ownership if you give us our own James Bond franchise.”
The Russos then scoured the town for the best available action property. They found The Gray Man, which had been in development for 13 years and, therefore, was well-known around town. They didn’t necessarily like it so they totally rewrote it into their own version. And that’s what we got here.
The reason it’s not very good is because they never had an emotional attachment to it in the first place. Again, blank checks are big motivators to make movies. I’m not turning a blank check down and neither are you. But personal emotional attachment is the motivator to make GOOD movies. And that seems to be missing here.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: It’s hard to scare or anger or evoke negative emotion in an audience with a jokey villain, which Lloyd Hansen very much is. If we’re not feeling those big negative emotions from a villain, we’re not going to be scared for our hero and we’re not going to want to see that villain go down.
What I learned 2 (dark evil screenwriting tip): When writers want to get credit on a movie, one of the first things they do is change all the names of the main characters from the previous draft. This makes it appear, to later WGA readers who don final credit, that they’ve made the characters up wholesale. We see that done here. Can’t let those former writers get any credit and take our money!
