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SUPER NOTES DEAL (HURRY UP AND CLAIM!) I’m only going to give THREE of these away. Half-off priced notes. You get 4 pages of notes on your feature or pilot script for just $249. If you’re interested, you need to act fast and e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com. And your script doesn’t need to be ready. As long as you pay, you can send the script in whenever. I will give the deal to the 1st, 5th, and 10th people who e-mail me. So come get it!

I reviewed a writer-director Black List script titled, Carousel, just as I was finishing the Disney Plus Star Wars series, “Skeleton Crew.” What do a character study about divorce in Cleveland and a group of kids who travel the galaxy battling space pirates have in common?

One key thing.

To provide ample context, Skeleton Crew was a better show than the last four seasons of Star Wars content. Of course, that’s like saying you’re the brightest lamp in a room full of candles. Lucasfilm phoned in Mandalorian Season 3. Ahsoka appealed to kiddies who liked Star Wars cartoons. Andor was well-written but didn’t feel like Star Wars at all. And The Acolyte was so tone-deaf to its potential divisiveness that it went sour like a bad batch of witch’s brew.

At least Skeleton Crew was fun.

However, in the end, it was never “recommendable” due to its lack of scope. It was about a tiny group of people on a tiny adventure.

Which brings me back to Carousel. Carousel had some great dialogue. It had some strong character development. But you know what it didn’t have? IT DIDN’T HAVE STAKES. Just like these Star Wars shows, it didn’t give us a big enough reason to care.

Now, of course, “stakes” are relative. The stakes of The Brutalist aren’t going to be as big as the stakes in Avengers.

But, ya see, when it comes to Star Wars, a universe where evil Emperors blow up entire planets, something feels off when the stakes of a show are “kids getting back home.” Those stakes are fine for say… The Goonies. But Star Wars takes place in a much bigger universe than The Goonies. So the stakes have to reflect that.

This is the primary issue with all these Star Wars shows. They’re built around mid-level stakes. So they never feel important. The argument Lucasfilm might throw back at me is that I need to change my expectations because these shows are about character development. I’m sorry but Star Wars is not a character-development-first franchise. It is a spectacle-first franchise. And nothing you can do with these shows is going to change that.

In general, as a screenwriter, you want to maximize the stakes relative to the story you’re telling. I can’t remember a single instance where a writer said, “I think we should lower the stakes here” and the story turned out better for it.

Sticking with Star Wars, George Nolfi has been hired as Screenwriter #478 on the Rey Skywalker movie. Also, that Sean Levy (of Deadpool & Wolverine fame) Star Wars movie, which everyone assumed was dead is, somehow, still alive! In fact, Ryan Gosling is attached to star.

I am here to tell you not to take either of these announcements at face value. I can pretty much guarantee that neither of the movies is going to happen. So, why are they still in development? An old Hollywood trick, that’s how. Lucasfilm receives money from Disney. They’re not allowed to just sit on that money. They must spend it. This requires Kennedy to develop projects regardless of whether they’re going to happen or not.

I don’t feel bad for the screenwriters who come onto these projects. They’re going to get paid a lot of money to write a draft, even though they know no one will ever see it. I don’t feel bad for Daisy Ridley. She doesn’t have to do a thing until cameras start rolling so her time is not being impeded upon.

But I feel bad for director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, whose entire career is on pause while she works on a movie that’s never going to happen. They’re never going to greenlight a movie by a director whose most popular film grossed less than 5 million dollars at the box office. It makes zero sense from a business standpoint. So, any pretense that they’re going to make this movie is a joke. In the meantime, Obaid-Chinoy is stuck in a prison. And this is what annoys me so much about Disney. They’re so terrified to fire someone – especially someone like Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who helps Lucasfilm promote representation – that they’d rather string her along to save face. She’s going to be attached to this fake-movie until she’s 60.

Star Wars has only a single successful property left, which is The Mandalorian. And I do think that movie is going to be good. I predict it will be an All-Star team-up of some sort. Don’t be surprised if Luke Skywalker is involved.

But that movie has to figure out a way to navigate the problem that’s haunting all these Star Wars projects. WHAT ARE THE STAKES??? If they are sky-high, the movie will shine. If they are not, it’s going to feel like a Fast and Furious spin-off. You go to the theater, you have an okay time, and you forget what you saw before you arrive back at your house. That’s not Star Wars. Star Wars is supposed to be timeless. If Mandalorian is a “tasty but empty calories” snack, I don’t know if there will ever be another Star Wars film again. I really don’t. Because what Star Wars movie could you possibly make, after that, that would get anyone excited?

Now that I’ve bummed you out with my Star Wars rant, what do you say we gab about something good?

My favorite show right now is Severance.

Average writing keeps you engaged. Decent writing makes you think. Good writing makes you feel. And great writing does all three.

Severance does all three. Particularly that second one.

Mark, the main character, lost his wife. Which is why he severed himself. Being “severed” means you divide your life in two. Half of you goes to work, forgetting all memories on the outside. The other half stays on the outside, forgetting all memories at work.

This seems like a smart move for Mark. He’s consumed by the pain of losing his wife so it would make sense to live half your life not having to think about her. But what about the half that doesn’t go to work? They’re still stuck in hell.

The more you watch Severence, the more questions like that pop up. How would one cope with a life where work never ends? Yes, the second your work day is over, your new work day begins. That sounds like hell to me. So, you’re wondering, why did these guys choose to do this to their other selves? The most logical answer is selfishness. You sacrifice this “other” version of yourself so you can live a life of leisure and never have to work again. That sounds to me like the definition of evil.

I haven’t thought this deeply about a show since Lost. It feels cool to know that I can recapture that feeling with a more sophisticated version of that show.

There are a lot of writing lessons to take from Severence but the two biggest, for me, are, 1) High concept television can work. 2) Deliver on the promise of the premise.

For a while there, a ton of high concept TV shows were dying on the vine, forcing networks and streamers to shift to boring but battle-tested IP. But, if you look at the reason those shows, like “La Brea” and “See” didn’t work, it’s because they were shoddily crafted. You could tell that not enough time was put into the development of the series and the mythology. From cliched characters to lazy plot developments, nothing felt thought-through.

If you haven’t heard about the history of Severence, Ben Stiller and the writer worked tirelessly developing the show FOR YEARS. That’s because Stiller knew it was a complex show that wasn’t going to work without an acute attention to detail. As a result, when it came time to shoot, they were ready. The show was confident, sure of itself, and determined to deliver on the promise of its premise. It wasn’t like all these weak shows where you can sense the writers are trying to figure out the show as they go along (ever remember that show “Heroes” – Exhibit #1!).

Do the work. It’s the most basic screenwriting advice you’re ever going to get but it’s also the best. Do the work. Put in the time. Give it your best shot. And then all you can do is let the chips fall where they may.

NEXT SHOWDOWN

I hope you had as much fun as I did with the first showdown of the year – Logline Showdown. It was so fun, we’re going to do a comedy focused second Logline Showdown this Friday. So make sure you tune in. Remember, I did this with a larger plan in mind. Each month, the showdowns will grow into something further down the line in the writing process. So, this first showdown was about choosing an idea. The second showdown, which will take place on Friday, February 28th, is going to be for your first page. So, that’s our next showdown, people: FIRST PAGE SHOWDOWN. You can start submitting… RIGHT NOW. And if you want to check out the rest of the showdowns on Scriptshadow this year, head on over to this link.

What: First Page Showdown
When: Friday, February 28
Deadline: Thursday, February 27, 10pm Pacific Time
Submit: A script title, a genre, and your first page
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

AROUND TOWN

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey – Guess what, guys? This is going to be the closest thing you get to a Christopher Nolan Star Wars film. How do we know this? Because The Odyssey is a classic Hero’s Journey tale. And we all know that George Lucas obsessively used The Hero’s Journey to craft Star Wars. There are some differences. This story isn’t about leaving home. It’s about coming home. But it’s still got all those classic Hero’s Journey beats. If you haven’t read The Odyssey, it’s about Odysseus trying to get home after the Trojan War and encountering a bunch of obstacles along the way, like the Cyclops and the deadly sirens. Once he gets home, he has to disguise himself as a beggar to take back his kingdom before, finally, convincing his wife that he’s really Odysseus. Another notable detail about The Odyssey is that it’s a pretty clean story. A character journeys from Point A to Point B. Because of that, there shouldn’t be a lot of exposition required. Which is Nolan’s Achilles heel. He spends half of his movies explaining things, which always stifles the narrative momentum. With such a clear goal, we should get a clean exciting story here. And I’m excited. :)

White Lotus Trailer 3rd Season – Let’s get something out of the way. White Lotus is not a “trailer” show. It’s unabashedly character-driven, which doesn’t present well in trailer form. This is a situation where we’re not going to know if that character stuff is working until we’re in the trenches with these characters. And it’s a tall order for Mike White, my favorite writer in all of Hollywood. I still don’t know how he pulled off such a great second season of White Lotus with so little time. I’m never surprised by all the terrible second seasons I’ve seen on TV. Because I know how hard it is, as a screenwriter, to write good stuff quickly. And writers spend, probably, 1/10th the amount of time writing their second season as their first. But, somehow, Mike White wrote an Emmy-worthy season in a tenth of the time. Can he do that again? I don’t know but my instinct is skepticism. Cause the hardest thing in screenwriting is coming up with strong characters. And Mike White doesn’t get to carry any of the great characters he’s written from the old seasons into the new ones (except for a couple). So that means he’s starting all over again. If he pulls this off, it will be one of the greatest writing feats in Hollywood history. I’m not exaggerating. If you want to read my week of White Lotus screenwriting lessons, you can do so here.

Superman Trailer – Superhero movies are baaaaaaaaack! Maybe that’s an exaggeration but this trailer was great. James Gunn is one of the few writers who can balance the grandiosity of superhero films with the heart of character-driven films. We see that right away in this trailer. We do not focus on some cliche shot of Superman and Lois Lane. No, we show Superman on death’s doorstep. And if that isn’t emotional enough, man’s best friend comes along to save him! Opening Day ticket purchase moment right there. That’s all I needed. What I’m impressed by with Gunn is that he takes the emotion right up to the melodramatic line but he never crosses it. He only takes you to the brink. And that’s a huge reason why his films succeed. The emotion is offered but never forced. That, and he’s got that unique voice. He can be emotional, he can be weird, he takes risks. All of these things are what result in a boss-ass superhero film as opposed to Kraven The Hunter.

28 Years Later Trailer – The original 28 Days Later contained a highly risky creative choice. It asked the question: What if zombies were fast? Now, changing the rules of classic monsters has been a go-to throughout history. It’s one of the easiest ways to differentiate your take on the subject matter from the past. But the reason this was so daring was because of the zombie movie’s greatest attribute: since zombies are slow, you can draw out a lot more suspense. You can’t draw out suspense if a zombie sprints at your character, reaching him in 2 seconds. But, 28 Weeks Later counteracted that by making its zombies terrifying. These things looked like they wanted to rip every sinewy muscle from your body until you were just bones. That and it approached its situation from a more realistic place. This felt more like how a zombie apocalypse could go down in real life. 28 Weeks Later was a solid sequel. But I’m not sure anyone was pining for a 28 trilogy. And when I look at this trailer, I see something dark and beautiful. But I also see something depressing and inaccessible. There’s got to be a way in for the reader/viewer. We’ve got to attach to someone and feel that, if they survive, we survive. This trailer does not give us that. Which is why I’m not sure I want to see it. Point blank, it looks too depressing. That’s not why I go to see horror movies. I go to horror movies to be scared. To tap into that feeling of fear. But also to have fun. I think this movie is going to be good. How could it not be with Alex Garland and Danny Boyle guiding it? But I think it’s going to alienate a lot of people. At least based on this trailer.

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Screenplay Review – Test Drive

Genre – Action/Thriller
Premise – A down-on-his-luck car salesman takes a mysterious stranger on a test drive– which turns into a dangerous and unsettling crime spree across the rain-soaked streets of Los Angeles.
About – This made the top 10 of the Black List. Matt Venne has actually been writing for over a decade. He almost exclusively writes horror so this seems to be his attempt to transition to a new genre.
Writer – Matt Venne
Details – 96 pages

Fight Club meets The Game?

The one thing I’ll say about this year’s Black List is that it was concept-friendly. Almost every logline has a high concept or “high concept adjacent” slant to it. That’s something we haven’t had in a good 7 years with the Black List. Most of these scripts could actually be movies.

Imagine that!

And today’s script definitely leans into that high-concept theme.

Cooper Reed is a car salesman at one of the worst dealerships in Los Angeles. Still, he’s somehow managed to sell the second highest number of cars this month. In fact, he only needs one more sale to become salesman of the month. Which comes with a bonus. A bonus he desperately needs to cover the mortgage and expenses of his new child.

Unfortunately, it’s the worst day of the year for selling cars, as the rains are coming down hard in Los Angeles. But just when it seems Cooper is screwed, a mysterious cool dude named Jim Ryder shows up (Old Soul. Cool Motherfucker. Weird Witchy Energy). Jim says he wants to buy a car. All he needs is a quick test drive.

Cooper hops in the car with Jim, not believing his luck. Strangely, though, Jim doesn’t seem that interested in the car. He seems interested in Cooper. He wants to know everything about Cooper, especially what his dreams were before he became a car salesman. Cooper, eager to get the sale, explains that he wanted to be a writer, like his father, who committed suicide earlier this year. The death has been especially tough on Cooper.

Just as Cooper is settling into this share session, Jim has him stop across the street from a bank and says ‘hold on.’ Jim then goes into the bank and ROBS IT! WTF! He jumps back in the car and Cooper becomes an inadvertent getaway driver. Jim then informs Cooper that he has two more banks to rob. And Cooper’s going to help him.

The FBI immediately gets involved, with two agents jumping into action, following Jim around, and trying to figure out the big mystery of the case: Does Cooper actually have a passenger with him? Could it be that Cooper’s father’s suicide has so broken him, that he’s invented Jim? And might this invented Jim have a more nefarious mission? To have Cooper end up just like his father?

This script is sort of like the girl you meet at the bar who’s dressed like Billie Eilish but by the time the night is over, she’s revealed herself to be Celine Dion. I don’t know if that’s the best analogy but the point is, this started off as one script and became a completely different one.

And it caught me by surprise, to be honest.

Cause I was ready to write this one off.

(Spoilers) The moment in this script that got me happened around the midpoint. We get this line, which comes from Cooper’s wife talking to the cops: “It was a real shock for all of us. Nobody more so than for Cooper. Started suffering these horrible bouts of anxiety. Really severe panic attacks. Even experienced a few “hallucinatory events” – which I had no idea could happen in times of extreme mental strain. Eventually got him on some psych meds. Which helped.”

Notice how “hallucinatory events” is spotlighted. I read that and I thought, “oh boy. It’s a Fight Club ending. Cooper and Jim are the same person.”

But then, instead of boring us for the next 50 pages then giving us the twist ending we all saw coming, Venne leans into the question of, “Are Jim and Cooper the same person?” almost right away. Then, in the end (spoiler), it turns out Jim is a real person. It was almost like a reverse-twist.

When I read something like that, I know the writer has put a lot of thought into his script. Because 95 out of 100 writers would’ve gone with the easier “Fight Club” twist. A screenwriter who understands that that’s a letdown and that he needs to go deeper, is a good screenwriter.

And what’s cool about Test Drive is that it still gives us a twist. It’s not an earth-shattering twist. It’s a twist organically born out of the character development Venne’s been setting up all script and therefore more emotionally satisfying. (Spoiler). Here, we learn that Jim was a student of Cooper’s father. He came here because Cooper was on the same path as his dad and Jim wanted to stop it.

That’s what surprised me about this script. It started out as this, almost straight comedy about this wily guy taking a car salesman on a test drive from hell. But the deeper into the script we go, the more we learn about Cooper’s father, who committed suicide, and the script really leans into that reality.

What I mean by that is, a lot of writers will write in character stuff because it checks a box. They might even write that our hero’s father died recently, just like this script. But you can tell the writer doesn’t really care about that death or how it affects our hero. They’re just checking the box they’re supposed to check that makes their character “deeper.”

Instead, you should be doing it like Venne. If you’re going to include something that would have a major impact on your hero’s life, you have to commit to the reality of that. You can’t just say it’s there and hope readers feel sad. No, you have to integrate it into the story, like Cooper’s father’s death is integrated here.

Usually, I give scripts with strong character development good marks. Unfortunately, there was one aspect of this script that was so annoying, it counteracted all that great character development.

The philosophizing.

Oh my god the philosophizing. It’s everywhere!

I don’t want to inundate this review with some of these endless philosophical monologues so I’ll provide you with the shortest Jim monologue in the script: “Truth be told, everyone is “You” and everyone is “I” and everyone is “Me” – that’s our name. We all share that. Especially at the subatomic level where there are literally no separations. No distinctions. Everything One. Including “You” and “Me” and -“

There’s a whole script full of that.

It’s not all that bad but here’s the thing – if you’re going to make something a “thing” in your script, whether that thing is “snappy dialogue” or “killer set pieces” or “quirky characters” or “a twisty-turny narrative” — whatever it is that you’re going to feature in your screenplay – that aspect of the script needs to be great.

Cause if 90 pages of your script is snappy dialogue and you’re only mildly good at snappy dialogue, your script won’t work.

The philosophizing here bounced back and forth between average and decent. It never reached, “Wow, this philosophy is completely making me rethink everything I know about life,” which is what good philosophy should do.

And if you want a good example of that, go watch the original Fight Club. There’s a scene in there that I still think about today, which is when Tyler Durden puts the gun to the guy’s head and tells him to go live the life he’s always wanted to live. It’s not exactly philosophical. But it’s one person getting another person to change their life. That is ALWAYS going to affect the audience more than a character rambling about Buddhism for five minutes.

So that was unfortunate.

As for the rest of the script, Jim is, no-doubt, a character that actors are going to want to play. Even if I didn’t like his philosophy, he’s modeled after Tylder Durden and what actor doesn’t want to play this generation’s version of Tyler Durden?

The set pieces were okay but there was one really good chase scene with their car zipping around the Los Angeles Metro underground, dodging trains left and right. That was fun.

And the script gets better as it goes on. Which is a great asset for a script to have since most scripts get worse as they continue. For that reason, this hangs on for a ‘worth the read.’

Script Link: Test Drive

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Today’s writer is a reminder that, whatever the genre of the script is you break in with, that is the genre you’ll be asked to write going forward. And the more of those you write, the harder it will be to break away from that identity. Venne has made a solid career out of writing horror films. But he clearly wanted to branch out. So he wrote this. Will it be enough to get him a job writing in this new genre? Depends on if the movie is made and if it does well. The point is: make sure, whatever you’re writing, you LOVE that genre. Cause it will become your career.

Let me start by saying that the average logline submission this time around was better than ever before. Usually, every other e-mail I get, I’m rolling my eyes at how poor the logline is. But here, that didn’t happen. So all of you should be patting yourselves on the back for a job well done.

The big mystery for this competition is going to be: Did any AI loglines slip in? Cause I know plenty of writers tried to trick me to prove that AI loglines are better than human ones. For the most part, I think I spotted all of them. But maybe one or two got through. We’ll see.

I believe I responded to everybody who entered, telling them which of their ideas was my favorite. If I said to you, “Probably” or “prob” in picking your best one? That means it was the best of the five but probably not good enough to write. If you want more detailed thoughts on a logline, you can always order a logline consultation. They’re $25. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com.

If you haven’t been a part of a showdown before, the rules are simple. Read all the loglines and vote for your favorite one in the comments. You have until Sunday, February 2nd, at 11:59pm Pacific Time to cast your vote. For the winner, I will dedicate a post on Monday or Tuesday to fleshing out the winning story and where I think you should take it.

One final thing. There were so many comedy loglines that, if I allowed all of them, this would be an 80% comedy contest. And the scripts that come from the comedy loglines here are usually bad. So, I’ll include a few comedies today. Then, next Friday, I’m going to do an all-comedy logline showdown – just because some of these loglines are really good and I want to give the writers some deserved attention.

Okay, are we ready?

Here are the logline entries…

Title: U-666
Genre: Supernatural Horror/WW2/Submarine
Logline: In the final days of World War II, a German U-boat tasked with smuggling high-ranking officials and occult artifacts to Argentina faces chaos when the captain’s son is possessed by a malevolent entity unleashed from the cursed cargo. As the possessed officer wreaks havoc, killing crew and sabotaging the submarine, the captain must confront supernatural terror and Allied forces closing in to exorcise his son, save his soul, and prevent the U-boat from becoming a tomb for all onboard.

Title: The Offering
Genre: Horror Thriller
Logline: A casual boat trip turns into a fight for survival when a young couple learns that their host is a servant to a pair of sirens and is offering them up as a feast. It’s Dead Calm meets Jaws.

Title: The Shot Heard Around in Time
Genre: Comedy
Logline: After traveling back in time and accidentally killing George Washington in a drunken duel, a bookish historian has to assume the identity of America’s first president and win the Revolutionary War.

Title: Nether Cop
Genre: Action, Horror
Logline: A clandestine division of the government, Dark Ops, whose agents employ a device that kills them for three minutes at a time, allowing them to battle demons on common ground.

Title: LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After arresting an illegal immigrant, a border patrol guard must team up with him when a Mexican drug cartel lays siege to the border station intent on killing him.

Title: In the Crease
Genre: Sports/True Story
Logline: In an urban community torn apart by drugs and violence, a disgraced ex-Ivy League lacrosse player seeks redemption by coaching an inner city lacrosse team.

Title: 221C BAKER STREET
Genre: Action-Comedy
Logline: When Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go missing, the city’s only other detective duo finally get their shot at glory just as a criminal mastermind launches a plan to bring London to its knees.

Title: I’m With Cupid
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Logline: When an unlucky in love schlub finds out that his roommate used be Cupid, he coaxes him out of retirement to help him win the woman of his dreams… Only for a rusty Cupid to shoot himself in the foot and fall for the same girl.

Title: PARASAIL
Genre: Thriller
Logline: After the speedboat operator pulling their parasail apparently collapses and dies beneath them, a honeymooning couple find themselves speeding hundreds of miles out to sea, suspended 400 feet in the air, in a passage of water known as ’Shark Alley’. (FALL meets THE SHALLOWS).

Title: Burner Phone
Genre: Found footage/Thriller
Logline: When a teenage drug dealer fails to trash a burner phone after a deal gone
wrong got an undercover cop killed, he has only one hour to retrieve it and erase
an incriminating video before his boss cut all the loose ends (including him). Told
in real time from the POV of the phone screen.

Title: FORGIVE ME, FATHER
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A priest’s illegitimate son uses his father’s confessional to extort money from the wealthy congregation, but when he hears a confession that implicates a hitman in a string of high-profile murders, he attempts his most lucrative and dangerous extorsion yet.

Title: Seven Minutes in Kevin
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a group of misfit high schoolers discover a closet that acts as a portal into the body of Kevin, their school’s popular golden boy, they must navigate his perfect life while trying to keep their secret—and their sanity—intact.

Time is running out to get your loglines in for The Five Loglines Showdown!

As the last entries stream in for the 5 Loglines Showdown…

What: 5 Loglines Showdown
When: Friday, January 31st
Deadline: Thursday, January 30th, 11pm Pacific Time
Submit: 5 loglines, each with a title and a genre
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

….I was reflecting on the kinds of movies that make it to the big screen these days and, like a lot of writers, I thought, “Oh man. It’s all IP and recycled movies.” I momentarily thought, “Why even bother writing a script? Barely any make it to the big screen so who cares??”

Luckily, rational minds prevailed.

First of all, that’s a silly way to look at it. Every movie you see at the box office has a screenwriter – usually several of them – who wrote it, and all of those screenwriters started out writing their own stuff, got noticed with those scripts, and then moved their way up to a place where they could write those studio films.

So don’t get it twisted.

But, the more promising news comes in the form of what I’m about to tell you: Streaming is the new playground for spec script writers. And it’s not like you’re settling that much. Some of these streaming movies have 9 digit budgets. So, instead of crying that theatrical movies based on spec scripts aren’t realistic anymore, take advantage of this new avenue that your screenwriting forefathers never had.

From just 2024, here are 75% of the movies made for streamers (all American – I didn’t include the British ones). And while not every single one started off as a spec, all of these could’ve been written on spec. This is what the streamers are looking for. They don’t care as much as studios do about if it was a comic book, novel, or video game. They just want to make movies.

So, here we go….

NETFLIX

Carry-On – High-concept thriller about a TSA agent who must follow the orders of a terrorist.
Don’t Move – Thriller about a woman crippled by a paralyzing agent from a serial killer. She must escape somehow.
It’s What’s Inside – Body swapping 20-something horror comedy.
The Union – A normal dude must team up with an old flame, who happens to be a secret agent.
Back in Action – Another 2-Hander spy thriller except the two main characters are a married couple.
Atlas – Sci-fi flick that focuses on a rogue robot.
Trigger Warning – A former Special Forces agent must defend her recently deceased father’s bar against a local gang.
Damsel – Die Hard in ancient times with a dragon.
Lift – Big broad Kevin Hart airplane heist action-comedy.
Uglies – Young Adult post-apocalyptic movie about how everyone must get surgery at 16 to become pretty.
Incoming – A comedy about what it’s like to be an incoming freshman in high school.
Lonely Planet – Adult Romance where an older female writer starts a relationship with a young man while on vacation.
His Three Daughters – Three adult daughters return home to take care of their ailing father.
A Family Affair – Strangely enough, another movie about an older female writer who has a relationship with a younger man. This one is more of a comedy, though.
Irish Wish – A woman makes a wish while on vacation in Ireland and becomes the bride in the wedding she’s attending.

HULU

Hold Your Breath – Psychological horror film about a woman living in a house during the Dust Bowl while a dangerous man roams the countryside nearby.
Prom Dates – A high school coming-of-age movie about two girls trying to go to prom.
Quiz Lady – A broad comedy about a serious woman obsessed with a quiz game show who gets a chance to be on the show.

AMAZON

Canary Black – CIA agent on the run.
Brothers – Dark Comedy where two brothers who hate each other embark on a heist road trip.
Killer Heat – A movie about twin brothers where one of them dies and an investigation ensues.
Jackpot – Big comedy where, in a Purge-like future, if you win the lottery, anybody who kills you on that first day takes the prize.
Space Cadet – Legally Blond at NASA.
The Boys in the Boat – Real-life sports story about a rowing Olympics medal in the 1930s, I believe.
Ricky Stanicky – An update on The Hangover template.
Role Play – A man realizes he is married to a secret assassin.
Foe – A hard-drama sci-fi movie about an unhappy marriage and a man called into space to work on a ship.

APPLE

Fly Me to the Moon – A romantic comedy about a woman helping a NASA director beat the Russians and get America to the moon.
Blitz – A World War 2 movie about a kid trying to get back to London while it’s being bombed by the Germans to be with his mom.
Wolfs – Two fixers get stuck on the same job. They despise each other.
The Instigators – Two knucklehead criminals get caught up in a job way bigger than them and must somehow survive the skilled people trying to kill them.
Fancy Dance – A very heavy drama about a Native American woman trying to find her missing sister.
The Family Plan – About a family who must go on the run due to the dad being a former secret assassin.

Are you catching what I’m throwing here? As you look through all these ideas, what do you see?  The streamers are pretty much looking for everything! You’re not limited to very narrow parameters like you are when you’re writing spec scripts for studios.

There are a few main trends I noticed though. Streamers love secret assassins. They love two-handers. And they love action-comedies. So you’ll probably have a little more success with them if you’re writing one of those genres.

Okay, keep those loglines coming! As of the time I’m putting this post up, 5:00pm Pacific Time Wednesday, you have 29 hours to get your five loglines in!

Good luck!

Remember, the Logline Showdown deadline is this Thursday! Details below!

Genre: Drama
Premise: A doctor coming off a divorce must learn to understand his anxiety-ridden teenage daughter while exploring a romance with an old flame.
About: This is the last script from the 2023 Black List that I was interested in reading.  Screenwriter and director, Rachel Lambert, is best known for a film she made recently with Daisy Ridley titled, “Sometimes I Think About Dying.”
Writer: Rachel Lambert
Details: 116 pages

The character of Rebecca feels like an adult Jennifer Lawrence role.

A quick reminder of how to enter Logline Showdown this week.

What: 5 Loglines Showdown
When: Friday, January 31st
Deadline: Thursday, January 30th, 11pm Pacific Time
Submit: 5 loglines, each with a title and a genre
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

This may be the most ironic review I’ve ever posted considering I’m promoting a logline competition in the same post. This is, obviously, one of the weakest loglines you could enter in a logline competition.

To that end, Carousel is a great example of a script that a Hollywood agent would read and say, “This writer has talent,” while simultaneously knowing the script would never go anywhere.

UNLESS the writer was also the director. Which today’s screenwriter is. So she’s figured out a way to circumvent the obstacle. But let this be a lesson to non-writer-directors that trying to get traction with a script like this is like trying to get traction as a tennis pro while playing with a hockey stick.

The script takes place in Cleveland, Ohio, where Noah, the head doctor at a local medical clinic, is dealing with the fallout from his divorce and his deteriorating relationship with his 14 year old daughter, Maya, who’s battling crippling anxiety.

If the recent divorce isn’t bad enough, Noah’s also dealing with the death of his father, who used to run the medical clinic. Noah’s brother, Sam, stepped in to help during the transition but is now eager to move on, leaving Noah unsure of how to move forward.

The one bright light in Noah’s life occurs when Maya falls in love with Debate Team at school. However, Noah will later learn that his former lover, Rebecca, who’s moved back from a high-level political job in D.C., is coaching the debate team.

Noah attempts to weave his way back into Rebecca’s life even if she’s reluctant to reciprocate. Then the two run into each other so much that she figures, ‘why not give it a go,’ and the relationship reignites.

I wish I could give you some splashy exciting plot that develops after this but the above synopsis is pretty much it. That’s all that happens in the script. Which should give you an indication of where this analysis is going.

This is the problem a lot of writer-directors have.

They hide their writing behind their directing. They can make something look like a movie. But there’s nothing underneath it. That’s because writer-directors, except for the superstars we all know, rarely put as much effort into learning writing as they do directing.

Literally nothing happens in this script.

It’s so devoid of any plot points that you might as well have had us follow 5 real people around for a week. Just have us experience life. Cause that’s what this script is. It is trying to mimic real life.

Well, I’ve got news for you.

REAL LIFE IS BORING.

Movies are meant to highlight the most important and exciting moments from life. That’s what makes us want to see them. Cause they feel larger than life. Even writers who like to explore grounded real-life stories know this. Your biggest plot point in a movie cannot be drunk texts on page 103, which is what actually happens in Carousel.

You can probably feel my frustration here because this is one of my pet peeves – writers who place the burden on the reader to be entertained rather than on themselves to entertain. It’s your job, as the writer, to inject DRAMA into your story consistently enough that we stay invested.

That’s not taking anything away from the character development or the dialogue here, both of which I found strong. The attention to detail, particularly in relation to Cleveland, was also strong: “This storied institution of Cleveland is a menagerie of ethnic cuisine and legacy food stalls the size of multiple city blocks. There’s pierogi, kimchee, paczki, salted and cured fish, kraut, sausages served on hard homemade rolls with krauts. Noah, Rebecca, and Maya browse and sample.”

But that’s not storytelling.

Storytelling requires a plot. It requires you to periodically advance the story in dramatically compelling ways.

I don’t think I encountered a single plot point here. I’m not asking for 16,000 plot points, like Deadpool & Wolverine. But can you give me one? Even though I liked the Maya character, as we trudged towards the midpoint, I was hoping she was going to die so, at least the story could have some plot to deal with.

It just makes things so much harder on you, as the writer, if you’re only writing a character study. When characters are only going through internal emotions, that exploration needs to be perfect for the script to work. You have no wiggle room for error like you do when you’re hitting us with a new plot point every 10 pages.

Take Rebecca and Noah. A pretty good exploration of a relationship. But was it good enough to carry the movie all by itself? Not even close. I just finished the script and I still don’t understand why these two have such a complicated relationship with one another. This line from the script explains it best: “She looks up. And there, standing right there in her backyard, is Noah. He is the last person she wants in that moment. And he is the only person she’d ever want.”

Uhhhhh… what?

I don’t care as much about that confusion if I’m enjoying the plot. But if that character stuff is the only source of entertainment in the screenplay, I’m going to demand perfection.

It’s too bad because there is talent on display here.

In particular, there is a sophistication on the character side that you don’t usually see in a lot of screenplays. “When you’ve convinced someone it’s safe for them to love you, you have immense power.” “They talk about whatever topics allow them to feel connected to another man without doing any emotional labor.” “This is Ian all over again. He builds the maze, you run through it, hoping there’s an “I love you” at the end.”

If you love drama and character studies, I would not write feature scripts. I would write for TV. I would write a novel. Both of those give you more space to explore character and neither requires the stakes and urgency movies do.

I’ll leave you with a page from the script which demonstrates just how slow the read was designed.

Script link: Carousel

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: To all the writers who prefer grounded drama, I beg of you to keep this in mind – You’re not trying to win over your college English professor. You’re trying to win over hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of moviegoers. Never forget that when you’re coming up with a story.

People be doggin Flight Risk but I swear on the Delta wings that Sally the flight attendant gave me on a flight from Chicago to Cleveland when I was 10 years old that it was a good script!

Plus we gotta give Lionsgate credit. The studio only gets two number 1 films a year so we just celebrate it when it happens!

I’m not here to talk Flight Risk though.

I’m here to talk American Primeval.

The show has exploded on Netflix, becoming the most watched new show on the streamer.

Let me make something clear to every screenwriter: When you have a show that does well in a genre that the public typically ignores? YOU MUST STUDY WHY.

There are secrets in every breakout success so, if you’re smart, you’ll dissect why something that wasn’t supposed to happen happened.

I sat down and watched the pilot episode of American Primeval and have discovered all the answers.

Come in with a focused sympathetic situation

A lot of times with these TV shows that have a lot of characters, the pilot will jump around, covering a lot of territory, so as to set up the plot. The problem with this is that whenever you dilute the narrative, you lose narrative thrust.

So, I like when a pilot introduces us to a main character, or group of characters, and stays with them. It’s much easier to hook a reader that way. Especially if you create a sympathetic situation with those characters.

When we meet Sara Rowell and her son, Devin, they’re in a bind. They’ve arrived in a dangerous town on the frontier. They don’t have any allies. They’re two weeks late. Sara’s trying to meet up with her husband, yet nobody knows where he is.

We sympathize with that. Because we know that if they don’t find her husband, they’re probably dead. So, emotionally, we’re hooked. And that does sooooooooo so so so much work for the story. If you can get the reader emotionally hooked on your main characters and their situation, you’re golden. American Primeval does that right away.

Drop us into the thick of things

A mistake I see a lot in TV writing is, what I call, “SETUP ADDICTION.” All the writer cares about, in that pilot, is setting up the 15 characters in their show. I get it. TV has a lot of characters. It covers many hours of story. For that to work, you have to tell us who everyone is.

The problem is, when you only focus on that, you don’t actually hook us. You’re telling us, “bear with me while I describe all my characters to you. Then, once I’m finished, we can get to the good stuff.”

No. That’s not how successful storytelling works. You must entertain us ALONG THE WAY. That starts on the very first page. So, here, we’re not just setting things up. We’re immediately meeting two people, a mother and her son, who have arrived at a remote train station, both of whom are looking for the mom’s husband.

Every character we meet isn’t met to say to the audience, “Here I am. I will be one of the characters in the story.” Instead, they come in as dramatic accomplices or foils to our heroine’s goal. That’s how you hook a reader in a pilot. You start the entertainment on page one.

And here’s a pro-tip for you: Come into the story as late as possible. We could’ve easily come into this story with Sara on the train, on her way to town. And it probably would’ve allowed us an easier way to introduce her and her son. But, had we done so, we would’ve started off with a slower, more boring, scene.

By starting the story as late as possible – with her and her son already having arrived in town – we jumped right into things.

Introduce danger above and beyond what we’re used to

The average potential viewer dismisses Westerns because they find them boring. Westerns move slower. Plot beats take longer to get to. The setting is vast but often empty. This genre doesn’t feel exciting enough for most people.

Therefore, if you write a Western that leans into that template, we’ll dismiss it. But, it’s clear right away that American Primeval has no interest in typical Western conventions. It leaned into intensity as much as possible. Even in the slow moments, there were always scary-looking dudes lurking nearby – guys who could snap our heroine’s neck in a second if need be. There is no safety in American Primeval and that’s what’s drawing in people who don’t typically watch Westerns.

That’s a valuable lesson, by the way. When you give readers what they’re used to, they will react accordingly. Give them a bigger, scarier, more intense, Western, and they will clear their Thursday nights out to binge your show.

One of the things that really stuck out to me about American Primeval is when the local sheriff laid out to Sara why she needed to turn around and go back to Philadelphia. You’ve got a brutal winter, fearless outlaws, three of the most violent Indian tribes in the country, bears, wolves, and let’s not forget the crazed Mormons.

Unlike any Western I’ve ever watched before, it felt like there was no way to succeed. If you can create that belief, you will retain 99% of your readers. People are inherently curious about impossible odds. In contrast, if you say, “The goal is difficult but doable,” there’s no reason for the reader to keep reading. Cause you told them straight up that the hero will probably succeed. NO. You want them to believe that YOUR HERO WILL DEFINITELY DIE. That’s how to keep a reader invested.

Urgency In Non-Urgent Scenarios

This next tip is reading crack. Whenever you write period stuff, create an URGENT SCENARIO. Readers are so accustomed to stories set in the distant past unfolding at a slower pace. So if you can create a scenario that feels urgent, the juxtaposition will evoke an unfamiliar and exciting feeling in the reader.

Right from the start here, we learn that Sara’s husband left two weeks ago because she and her son were late. So time is of the essence. He’s two weeks ahead of them. They have to move now!

Give us truth

Finally, American Primeval is yet another example that writing rewards truth.

When you try and lie by creating scenarios that the reader knows are either factually or subconsciously inaccurate, they will turn on you.

One of the things that confused me when I looked into this show is that audiences loved it but critics did not (they gave it a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes). The deeper I looked, the more I realized that critics, who mostly favor progressive storytelling, dislike when Native Americans are portrayed poorly. So they never give stuff like this a positive score.

This opens up an opportunity for anyone who wants to portray controversial aspects of history truthfully. There were some savage natives back in the Wild West and by simply showing that truth, you give the reader a show that feels different from every other show they’ve seen.

If you look at Killers of the Flower Moon, there are no bad Native Americans in that film. Only bad white people. That’s mostly how things are portrayed these days. As a writer, your job is not to mimic what other people think is right.  It’s to seek out the truth and show it. Cause if you can show that truth, you are giving people an authentic experience, which is something audiences rarely experience these days.

All of this is what’s led American Primeval to be the most popular show on Netflix. I was only surprised by this BEFORE I found out who wrote it. Mark L. Smith is a great writer. What better endorsement can you get as a writer than Quentin Tarantino hiring you to write something (he hired Mark to write his Star Trek film).

I also chat with Mark every once in a while. I beg him for that Star Trek script but he always says the same thing. He’d be kicked out of Hollywood if he gave it to me. But I’ll keep trying!

Unless you can’t handle extreme violence, I recommend ALL OF YOU watch this show. It’s a spectacular example of how to write a great pilot script that hooks the reader.