So the other day I received an e-mail asking, “Hey Carson. Where is that post of yours where you tell people how to write a script in one weekend?” I laughed and replied, “There is no such post.” What a silly concept, writing a script in a weekend. Those wacky Scriptshadow readers come up with the wildest ideas.
Cut to 3 hours later…
OR IS THAT THE GREATEST IDEA EVER!?
The more I thought about it, the more the whole thing intrigued me. What if you had to write a script in a weekend? Or WANTED to write a script in a weekend. Could it be done?
I suppose it could. But it would require meticulous planning, a dedication to staying on schedule, and a willingness to succeed against all odds. Here, my friends, is the one and only guide for writing a screenplay in a weekend.
FOOD PREPARATION
You need to stock up. Not on good food. No no no. On bad food. I’m talking Twinkies. I’m talking Coke. I’m talking potato chips. I’m talking cheese puffs. You need to be in a free-flowing ladida mood. The more spaced out and loosey-goosey your brain is, the better. That’s where the crispiest yummiest ideas exist. Healthy food is for the left side of the brain. And the left side of the brain is only going to hurt you here. It’s too analytical and gets in the way. You’re going to be calling on the creative side of your brain. And that’s where the junk food comes in. So stock up and make sure you have enough so that you won’t have to make a second trip to the supermarket. You won’t have time for it.
CONCEPT CHOICE
There are only two types of scripts you can write in one weekend. One is the dialogue-heavy script. Romantic comedies. Comedies. Dark comedies. Or dramatic movies with a ton of dialogue. Think John Hughes or Marry Me. Uncut Gems could work. Get Out was dialogue heavy. The other is the SUPER SIMPLE STORY. Something with a clear goal and not a lot of characters. Rocky comes to mind. Clear goal: Win the heavyweight championship of the world. “Nobody” comes to mind. Clear goal: Get my daughter’s bracelet back. “The Invisible Man” comes to mind. There are only, like, three characters in that movie. And the premise is achingly sparse (a jealous invisible dead boyfriend haunts his ex). Your script must be suuuuuuu-per simple if you’re going to pull this off. Don’t try to write The Godfather. Don’t try to write Inception. Don’t try to write House of Gucci. Don’t even try to write Coda. You don’t have the time to map out complex plots or complex character storylines. Everything has to be SIMPLE TO THE MAX.
SCRIPT PREPARATION
I get that anyone who tries to write a script in a weekend is insane and insane people don’t like to prepare. They come up with an idea, they’re inspired, they want to start writing it so they do so RIGHT NOW. But remember, where scripts go to die is in the “I don’t know what to write next” phase. This phase occurs more often when you’re not prepared. So spend about two weeks figuring out as many major story beats as you can. Then write those down in an outline doc. So, if you were writing SpiderMan: No Way Home, some major beats might be, the Doctor Strange multiverse activating scene, the bridge fight with Doc Ock, the first time they imprison all the villains, the arrival of Multiverse Spiderman 1, the arrival of Multiverse Spiderman 2, and the Statue of Liberty fight. Figure out, roughly, what page each of these moments will be on in your screenplay and you’ll now have a series of checkpoints to write to. If you don’t have time to prepare, that’s fine. But you will need to be an expert at “No Judgement,” which I’ll talk about in a second. You also want to know as much as possible about your characters. What their flaws are, their backstories, their personalities, and, most importantly, what they bring to the table that no other movie character in history has brought. While the truth is that, when you write a script in a weekend, you’ll be finding out a lot of these things on-the-fly. It doesn’t hurt to know a thing or two ahead of time.
THE SCHEDULE
You will be writing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. If you work on Friday, take a sick day. You won’t be able to pull this off in two days, I’m sorry. If you have to work on Friday, try to get off early. Because in order to write this script, you will need 30 hours of writing time, which averages out to 10 hours per day. Friday, you will be writing from 10-7 (9 hours) or 3pm-midnight if you had to work in the morning. You do not get time off for lunch. That’s why you bought the junk food. You will create a circle of this food around you, various bags of chips and cupcakes, to minimize any need for getting up. I call this the food moat. In the latter stages of writing, late Saturday and Sunday, there will be small animals and annoying insects that will nibble away at the outer edges of the food moat. Do not concern yourself with them. Let them enjoy the party. Every great artist needs an audience. As for going to the bathroom, I ask you one simple question: How bad do you want this? Saturday is 10-8 (10 hours) and Sunday is the final stretch at 10-9 (11 hours).
SCRIPT LENGTH
Your script will be 90 pages long. Not 97 pages. Not 93 pages. It will be exactly 90 pages long. Why 90 pages? Because the math works, that’s why. 90 pages in 30 hours comes out to 3 pages per hour. Is that a lot of pages? Sure. But don’t worry. The reason we favored those simple concepts was so writing 3 pages wouldn’t take long. Most professional writers can belt out 7-8 pages an hour if the pages are all dialogue. So 3 pages should be nothing. True, I have zero statistics proving the 7-8 pages per hour thing, but when you’re writing a script in one weekend, statistics that sound mildly believable take precedence over facts.
NO JUDGEMENT
Remember that the biggest obstacle to writing is the crippling belief that nothing you ever write will be enough for your parents’ love… I mean SELF-JUDGEMENT! The biggest obstacle to writing is self-judgement. It’s you not liking the scene you just wrote enough. It’s you thinking, “Nothing I’ve written so far is any good.” It’s you doubting the concept you came up with in the first place. That voice in your head is going to have to take a vacation if we plan on achieving our goal. And when you think about it, you should be pumped about that. You have permission to write WHATEVER THE HELL COMES OFF THE TIP OF YOUR BRAIN and you don’t have to feel bad for a second about it. I know the critical brain is important for creating art. But we don’t have time for the critical brain right now. We’re too busy writing. So just write your ass off, never judge anything you write, and if you have any doubts, that’s what the cupcakes are for.
FUN-FACTOR
You are writing an entire screenplay in a weekend. Let me repeat that. YOU ARE WRITING AN ENTIRE SCREENPLAY IN A WEEKEND! Therefore, you should be having fun. This is why you became a writer, right? To write? Well, you’re achieving the Mount Everest of writing feats – you’re writing a screenplay in a single weekend. Let’s have fun with it. Leave all your grief and your second-guessing and your negativity at the door. There’s literally no point in writing a script in a weekend if you aren’t having a blast while doing it.
PUT THE SCRIPT AWAY FOR A MONTH
Don’t read the script for a month, if possible. Then, pick it up, and read it. There are times where you will want to kill yourself. But I guarantee there will be moments of greatness in there, things that get you excited. You now have to decide whether there are enough of those moments, or if those moments are powerful enough, to warrant putting together a rewrite plan. Because I’m sorry to inform you but your script that you wrote in one weekend will not be good enough to show anyone. Not yet anyway. That day will come in the near future, hopefully, once you’ve rewritten it a few times.
Let me finish by saying one more thing. For many screenwriters, writing is an excruciating process. They’re balancing so many plates. They’re measuring themselves up against the best writing in the world. They’re trying to do something special. They’re terrified of cliche. The thought of writing even a single memorable scene is the equivalent of erecting a second Empire State Building. For those screenwriters, this may be the perfect anecdote. A throwaway weekend where you go back to the days when writing was fun. And what do you lose if you write a crappy screenplay? One weekend? One lousy weekend is all you lose! So why not pull out that old idea you’ve always wanted to write and try it out? You might surprise yourself.
And let’s not forget the Amateur Showdown deadline is next Thursday, the 24th, at 10pm Pacific Time. So if you don’t have a script to enter yet, this might be the perfect opportunity to write one. All entries should go to carsonreeves3@gmail.com and should include title, genre, logline, why you think your script deserves a shot, and a PDF of your screenplay!
Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A group of illegal time travelers must perform the, quite literally, heist of the century, in an attempt to steal a special time piece that, when operated, will change the course of history.
About: This script sold to Original Films and Paramount recently in a competitive situation. I didn’t realize it when I read “Relay,” but the writer, Macmillan Hedges, wrote a Black List script from a couple of years ago called Cosmic Sunday. So my entire review of this script was written before I went back and found that out. I only bring that up because, if I had known, I would’ve been better prepared for what I read today.
Writer: MacMillan Hedges
Details: 119 pages
Now today’s script is more my speed.
We’ve got time travel.
We’ve got heists.
We’ve got… well, do we need anything more than time travel and heists?
Let’s find out.
When we meet Jack Ledger, he’s stealing something from the past while being chased by his nemesis, Zoey Beckett, a time travel cop determined to take him down. This chase is special because, although they are in a foot race in the 100 year old Bismark Hotel in San Francisco, they are jumping through pockets of time. It’s 1910, it’s 1953, it’s 1969, it’s 1992. We have no idea what’s going on here and, unless you received a 1600 on your SATs, you’ll probably never find out.
Jack is able to escape to 2025 (our present) but his criminal boss, Whitechapel, betrays him, siding with Beckett and sending Jack to prison. Ten years later, Jack is released. And Jack knows why he’s released. It’s so that Whitechapel can track him to all his other time travel buddies so he can put them in the slammer as well!
Jack doesn’t care. He’s got other things on his mind. He wants to break into “the vault,” the basement of the time travel headquarters. It’s there where all the things that have been stolen from the past are being kept, including his “timepiece,” the special thing that allows you to travel through time (I think – more on that later).
To achieve this feat, Jack will need to construct a crew of people throughout time… and some from the present. Or maybe mostly from the present and a couple from throughout time. It’d be cool if they were all from throughout time but since this script was so confusing, I can’t definitively say where everyone was from. The point is, he needs to construct a “Mission Impossible” crew.
Oh, by the way, we’re told how time travel works here. During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a fault line was established that reconstructed time and space. Any structure along that fault line can be used to travel back through time. The older the building, the further back you can travel. Which is why really old buildings in San Francisco are so valuable to time travelers.
Anyway, for reasons that are still confusing to me, you can’t just go steal something and bring it back to the future. It’s better if you use the “relay” technique. This is where you set all your crew members in different years, and then have each heist member in the chain give it to a person who then puts it in a pouch, where it is then picked up many years later by someone else, who then puts it in another pouch and hides it for someone 30 years from then, and so on and so forth. We’re told this is done because it’s harder for the time police to catch you, if I’m to understand the rules correctly.
The ultimate goal seems to be retrieving Jack’s old timepiece. Unfortunately, we won’t know why he needs the time piece until the very end. So hold onto your shorts and get ready for one final wild twist!
Today’s script is a giant reminder that when you write time travel movies, they need to be simple. In a way, Back to the Future ruined time-travel movies because they made it look so effortless. In reality, getting these things right is nearly impossible, which is why you have to rewrite them to death. That’s what Gale and Zemeckis did. They rewrote Back to the Future so many times, their typewriters broke.
Nobody does that anymore. As a result, you get scripts like this, which have all these big ideas, but you need an industrial sized shovel to dig all those ideas up and assemble them into any sort of cohesive narrative.
The number one rule of time travel scripts is: DON’T OVERCOMPLICATE THE TIME TRAVEL PART. It’s clear, here, that the Relay rules only make sense to the writer and no one else. I don’t say that flippantly because it’s a mistake all screenwriters have made at one point or another. They write a script with incredibly complex rules and simply assume that because it makes sense to them, it’ll make sense to the reader as well.
Here’s the information we’re given about time travel in the first act. There’s something called a “timepiece” that you must have in order to time travel. I think. I’d say I’m 80% sure about that. But when you steal things in the past, instead of, you know, just taking them back with you, you for some reason have to put them in “time caches.” Little pouches. And then, in the future, you can conceivably retrieve your pouch and retrieve what’s in it.
Except you can’t just create a time pouch in 1910 and pick it up in 2025. You must have someone pick it up in 1930 and put it somewhere else. And then someone else pick it up in 1960 and move it. And then someone pick it up in 1980 and move it. And so on and so forth until we reach 2025.
Anyway, so our hero, Jack, rescues his buddy, Brigance, in 1910. They then jump to 1951. Keep in mind, I was told that you needed a timepiece to time travel and we were told that Jack got his revoked from the time travel police in the opening scene. So they don’t tell us how he is still able to jump back to 1910. They only tell us, in a side note, that “it will be explained later.” I’m serious. That’s an actual note in the script.
So I’m guessing that they jumped to 1951 because Brigance had a timepiece and he used it for both of them? Maybe. Who knows? But, for some reason, despite Brigance being able to jump them to 1951, he can’t jump them any further. For that, they need Jack’s timepiece, which is in a local church that is acting as the time travel police headquarters. I do not think the police have the timepiece in this year, though. I believe it’s still in 2025. Which is funny, cause we then jump to 2025. Except I thought we couldn’t jump to 2025……..
I think you get the idea of how confusing this is. But in case you don’t, here’s a standard line of exposition from the movie: “First we need to acquire equipment, map out each time period in The Upstart, place TimeCaches for each handoff through time and acclimatize to our designated time periods — find the specific moment for each change to the alt. timeline.” And another: “The VaultMaker never worked in The Upstart. But Whitechapel will keep a descendent nearby. As a security protocol. So we need to find that descendent. That’s how we can get access to the vault.”
Not that anyone who’s producing this will listen to me but I am making a promise to the producers of this movie that if they don’t massively – and I mean MASSIVELY – simplify the time travel in this script, this movie will fail. I know this because I have read every single time travel script of significance from the last 30 years. I know which ones succeed and I know which ones fail. And the ones that fail are the ones that have massively overly complicated rules such as this one.
I was so disappointed by this script, I can’t even tell you. I was thrilled when I saw it in my e-mail, particularly after yesterday’s yawner. Finally, we have a cool new script in a genre I like! But within the first ten pages, I knew the script was toast. Literally nothing made sense. All this crazy stuff was happening with no context for how it was happening. It was like watching a really intense dramatic dialogue scene in a foreign film without subtitles. You see that everyone in the scene is really emotional yet you can’t understand a single word they’re saying.
If I take a step back, I think I can understand the writer’s vision here: Let’s make a big time travel heist movie. In theory, I love that idea. And, if I’m making an argument for the script, the writer *is* doing what I tell everyone who writes high concepts to do. He’s creating a story that can only exist inside his movie and no other. The heist here is extremely unique.
But there are very few movies that can work which are swallowed up by exposition. And here’s something it’s pivotal to remember as a screenwriter: You decide how much exposition your script will need when you decide how many rules your script will have. The more rules you have, the more explaining you will have to do. That’s what doomed this script. There were so many darn rules that the characters spent the whole movie explaining them, and even when you’re doing your best as a writer to get all of the rules into the screenplay, it won’t matter if there’s too much to keep track of. I tell this to writers all the time: readers are not robots. We don’t simply download whatever you write. There is a limit to what we can process. And scripts like this stretch beyond our processing limits.
Everything needs to be massively simplified here for it to have a shot at being a good movie.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Since you will inevitably ask the question, well then how did this sell? It’s the perfect example of the value of coming up with a big exciting concept. If people love your concept enough and want to make your movie, they will overlook weaknesses in your script. And the more they like the concept, the more they’ll overlook. This combined with the fact that The Tomorrow War set off an industry-wide need for big sci-fi ideas, and that’s how we came to this sale.
Genre: Drama?
Premise: In 1992 a seaplane crash in a lakefront community sparks a relationship between three young sisters and the mysterious, injured female pilot.
About: This script finished Top 30 on last year’s Black List. Jessica Granger has been writing on some TV shows over the last few years. Most recently, she wrote an episode of the La Brea.
Writer: Jessica Granger
Details: 103 pages
There are some scripts you pick up and, within minutes of finding out what they’re about, know there’s very little chance of you liking them. They just aren’t your thing. And that’s fine. Not every movie has to be for everyone. But this is where it becomes challenging to review a script because if you’re bored by the subject matter, it can be hard to gauge whether the script is any good or not.
I do know this. Regardless of whether I enjoy the subject matter, I can tell when dialogue is good. I can tell when a writer’s voice is fresh and unique. I didn’t like the highly controversial screenplay, “Get Home Safe.” I, in fact, hated it. But there’s no way I was denying that voice. That voice was stronger than any script that came out that year.
So I guess I’m saying, there are ways to determine if a script has value even if the subject matter isn’t to your liking. And that’s what I’ll be looking for today.
The year is 1992. It’s rural Connecticut. A beautiful place with lots of trees and lakes. But you wouldn’t know if it you talked to our 16 year old protagonist, Isla. Isla hates Connecticut and wants nothing more than to get out of this miserable town as soon as possible. Her younger sisters Elliot (13) and June (10) are a little more tolerant of their town. But maybe they just need to catch up to Isla in age and then they’ll want to escape as well.
One day, while canoeing in their lake, a small plane crashes in the nearby water. They hurry over and help the pilot, Sky (30s, half African-American), until the boat medics can show up. Later, they learn that Sky is the daughter of some guy from around here who just died. That and she’s really mysterious. She left here when she was Isla’s age and hasn’t been back since!
The mystery is answered not long after it’s posed. Sky is gay. And her father didn’t approve. So she ditched town and became a bush pilot. That’s not a play on words, I promise. She came back for the funeral and, once she’s heeled up, she’s going to leave again.
The girls take an interest in Sky, especially Isla, who finds her cool and empowering. So they make up two excuses to hang around her. One, Isla wants to interview Sky for a local radio show she does. And two, they’re going to help her fix up the crashed plane so it can fly again. Sky is resistant at first, but eventually warms to Isla, seeing a bit of herself in her, and the four develop a friendship, if only for this one summer.
So, since I can tell you’re all dying to know: Did the script make up for the subject matter with a strong voice and kick-ass dialogue?
Unfortunately, no. The dialogue was standard. And I would actually categorize this as the poster child for a voice-less script. That sounds like a diss but it actually isn’t. Not every script needs the overly-inflected voice of its author telling the story with flash and panache. One of my favorite directors ever, Robert Zemeckis, was known for having no voice. He just wanted to tell a good story.
But therein lies the problem with Candlewood. I just don’t think it’s a good story. It took me forever to figure out what the story actually was. For a long time it seemed like it was about three sisters getting to know a random bland 30 year old woman. There were no goals. The stakes were lower than sea level. And the urgency was non-existent.
Eventually, I realized, it was a coming-of-age story.
It was about this girl, Isla, trying to figure out what to do with her life. A young person living in a small town that they want to escape is the pre-text for some successful movies. But it was all told in this really blasé casual way where nothing ever felt that important.
I think that Sky being gay was supposed to be this intense plot point that made the story feel big and important. But there are so many movies and TV shows covering this subject matter right now that sexual preference goes right through the front of the head and out the back for the large majority of audience members. You gotta give us more than “Character X is gay” to move the interest needle.
I think the big mistake this script made was one I encounter every so often. Which is that when you write these “stuck in a small town coming-of-age” stories, the tendency is to have the story mirror the slow lazy environment of the setting. But if you do that, you risk the story feeling too casual. Which is exactly what this felt like.
One of the ways to offset this is to include some monster stakes. Make the stakes sky-high. That way even though the story is slow, we feel like it’s building toward an important conclusion. Sky had zero stakes attached to her story. And I didn’t give a crap if Isla left town or not. To be honest, I found her ungrateful. She grew up in this idyllic town and her single mother is doing everything she can to prepare her for life and it’s not enough for her.
When it comes to coming-of-age stories, I much prefer when writers come up with a PLOT. Instead of plopping your characters down in a town and having them wander about, dealing with whatever randomness comes up that day, give them something big and important to do. The classic example that comes to mind is Stand by Me. They could’ve easily written that movie so that the four kids stayed in town and dealt with jerky bullies for 2 hours. But by creating this road-trip aspect, they provided their coming-of-age movie with purpose and structure. Going on that trip to find the dead kid is what made it feel like a movie.
I think the hope here was that Sky was a strong enough hook to make this a movie. She was, in theory, just as compelling as four kids traveling by themselves through the woods to find a dead body. I couldn’t disagree more. I found her to be both boring and predictable. Again, we’re seeing gay characters doing so much more these days than deal with parents who don’t accept their sexual preference. I feel like that’s a very dated storyline. And yes, I know this is set in 1992, but that doesn’t give you a pass. It’s still dated character storyline.
There wasn’t anything in this script I could connect with, unfortunately.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I think writers still make the mistake of forgetting that they’re writing A MOVIE. The two hours that someone sits down to watch a movie must be time significantly better spent than doing something else. A movie is supposed to be a special experience. It’s supposed to be something someone leaves thinking, “Wow, am I glad I saw that.” Writing a slow casual story where the biggest plot moments register a 3.3 on the Richter scale, that’s not good enough. Or else write for TV. TV allows for these slower stories to take shape. But not movies. Movies need some thunder behind them. And this script was a light drizzle.
I got involved in a wild and rather impromptu Super Bowl party so I don’t have the time or mental bandwidth to put together a spectacular post but I do want to remind everyone that the “ANYTHING GOES” Amateur Showdown is happening next week. “Anything Goes” means you can submit any genre of script you want. Entries are due at carsonreevese@gmail.com by Thursday, February 24th, 10pm Pacific Time. Include your title, genre, logline, and why you think it deserves a shot to be featured on the showdown. And, of course, make sure you attach a PDF of your script should I choose to feature it!
Okay, now let’s get to what I really want to talk about, which is the “Nope” trailer, Jordan Peele’s new movie. Before I get into what I thought about the trailer, I want to make it clear that I’m trying to be objective about this. Because what happens with every breakout success such as Jordan, is that the story has to evolve. You can’t just keep praising a director for every movie they make. It’s happened with, maybe, five directors throughout time. For everyone else, the masses need a new storyline to stay interested.
So when I think about Jordan Peele, that’s what I think about. I wonder if he’s on the same path as M. Night. M. Night had a great first film (I’m talking about Sixth Sense, not his two tiny indie dramas), a much celebrated second film (Unbreakable) that, in retrospect, hinted at his weaknesses as a storyteller, and then a third film (Signs) that made everyone rethink if Night was the genius they all thought he was. From there, his movies spiraled out of control.
Here’s how I see Peele’s career so far. He wrote an amazing script in Get Out. It was so good. Those of you who’ve been on the site for a long time know I praised this script well before it became a breakout hit. Now, what’s important to know about the Get Out script is that Peele had been working on it forever. I think he said he’d been rewriting it for 10 years. Which is why that movie was so tight and strong.
Peele didn’t spend nearly as much time on Us and it showed. What started out as a cool idea – a home invasion movie where dopplegangers try to kill a family – became an outrageous sci-fi horror flick that involved hundreds of miles of underground tunnels where doppelgängers prepared to kill their above-ground clones. And let’s not forgot about all the bunny rabbits that were, for some reason, in the movie. Us was a cool movie. I thought the overall experience was fun. But, on the whole, it felt untethered, odd, and way too raw.
Next up came Candyman, a film that Peele produced instead of directed. I tried to warn everyone that the original Candyman movie made zero sense and that there was nothing an update was going to do to change that. I mean, the main villain is named the Candyman and yet the movie focuses on bees. When a story tells you it doesn’t make sense, trust it. So it wasn’t a surprise when that movie did poorly.
Now comes this trailer for “Nope” and it’s a conversation piece, I’ll give it that. Upon first glance, it’s a strong trailer. It’s got some unique imagery. It feels different from films competing in the same genre space. And it’s got a great look to it. Peele knows how to create an event around his movies. This feels like something you have to see.
But if you look closer, there are some concerning things going on, a potential house of cards scenario. We have horses. We have men on motorcycles with mirror helmets. We have scary women with creepy fang mouths. We have… alien hands? We have a hole in the sky that sucks you up.
I’ve been doing this for some time. And when I see a bunch of things that don’t organically go together stuffed in a trailer, it almost always implies a film that will be messy. I hope to be proven wrong. But I already saw this brewing in “Us.” I mean, the bunnies, man. The bunnies! Great weird image for a trailer. Absolutely zero reason to include them in the film.
Remember when you saw the trailer for Get Out? You knew EXACTLY what the movie was you were going to watch. EXACTLY. Compare that to this film. Do you know the movie you’re going to see here? I don’t. And that has me worried.
Today I have a special treat for you, an interview with David Kessler, the writer of the new Johnny Depp film, Minamata, which comes out this Friday! The movie follows photographer Eugene Smith, who famously documented the effects of mercury poisoning on the citizens of Minamata, Kumamoto, Japan. A little backstory on this one – I consulted on the script many moons ago for David. David kindly credits me for helping him get the script in shape for what would, ultimately, become his first major writing credit.
1) Let’s start with you, David. When did you start writing screenplays?
I started writing screenplays in the mid-’90s while living in New York and working for myself as a graphic designer and a copywriter (WFH waaaaaay before it was a thing.)
My first script was a biopic about the 1950’s doo-wop child star Frankie Lymon. I had tracked down the former members of his group, The Teenagers, who were also (still) living in New York and very much not teenagers anymore.
After I had finished spec’ing the Lymon story, it was announced that “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” was going to be made by the director of Selena, Gregory Nava, and that turned my screenplay into 120 pages of scrap paper.
2) Until the point when you wrote Minamata, how many screenplays had you written in total?
Five finished ones (the Lymon biopic, a terrible thriller I have little memory of, a coming-of-age adaptation of my terrible novel, a comedy based on dating, and a rom-com I re-wrote too many times for too long).
Plus 2 TV pilots, 4 TV specs (a Will & Grace, a Curb and two Seinfelds) and a short film. And a handful of feature treatments.
3) What would you say were a few of the most important screenwriting lessons you learned early on that allowed you to write such a good script in Minamata?
That you need to write bad scripts (see above) to get to good scripts. There are very few Sorkin-esque prodigies. It’s a craft. Your first chair is going to be a rickety bunch of wood but your 500th one will be much sturdier (and be worthy of selling).
And always be learning. I read your blog every day and still read screenwriting books and articles, watch YouTube videos about the craft, and screenshot little bits of advice I see on Twitter.
Plus, it may take a few genres / scripts to find what your “lane” is. Even though my first script was a true story / biopic, it took like 18 years to circle back to that niche.
Also, scripts and movies are supposed to make you FEEL something. If I didn’t scare you with a horror story or make you cry with my drama, I feel I failed.
And the bar is really, really high.
I once had a full-time job writing movie poster lines about 15 years ago – I read 2 to 3 scripts a day and these were things in production – Juno, Hancock, Enchanted, Stepbrothers – you realize you gotta be as good as the pros for studios to make your movie instead of Scott Frank’s or whomever’s.
Stepbrothers made me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe in my cubicle (the testicles on the drums scene in particular). The Mist gave me nightmares after I had read it.
4) For my own egocentric needs, have there been any tips you’ve learned from the site in general that have helped you become a better screenwriter?
Oh tons — I bought your e-book years ago and I read the blog every day and screenshot a lot of your “what I learned”. And often go back through the archives. The Goal, Stakes, Urgency tip I come back to often and I even remember I think Jersey Shore was an influence on that somehow.
Here’s something I screenshotted back in 2017:
Another from the comments:
5) Now let’s get to the juicy stuff. Here on the site, I advocate for writing genre material with strong hooks. Minamata is a passion piece and, one would argue, the complete opposite of that. What advice would you give to someone who wants to write dramas or “low-concept” material? How do you write in this space and find success, like you did? Is there a game plan one can follow?
That’s hard to answer. Regarding the sale and having it been made, it’s like asking, “How do I win the lottery?” or “How do I find the love of my life?”
A lot of things need to fall exactly in place at the exact right time. I got very, very, very, very lucky.
Once I ran the numbers on the odds of my spec getting made with a movie star of Depp’s stature…I think the number came to .00004%.
I had caught Mrs. Smith (the widow of Gene Smith, who Depp plays in the film) at a time where she was willing to explore a movie deal again (she had been approached many times over the years and even had had meetings with Anthony Hopkins, Ang Lee and Scorsese in the ’80s or ’90s, with Hopkins to play her husband).
AND I had known a person from the comedy world from 13 years earlier who took the sketch class I had but the one right before mine but came to our class’s show – she gave it to her manager. This manager happened to have worked at a photo magazine in the 1970s, so the subject matter sparked her interest.
AND Johnny Depp knew of Gene Smith and admired him and his work because his friend, the late photographer Mary Ellen Mark, had taken Smith’s classes in the 1960s and had told Depp Gene Smith stories…
6) Quick question here: Did you know Depp liked Gene Smith ahead of time or was that pure coincidence?
That was a wonderful coincidence. I was told when Depp was in the office and the staff was updating him on the projects the company was developing, someone said, “Oh, it’s the story about this photographer named W. Eugene Smith who goes to — ” And Depp had (nicely) cut them off and said “I know who Gene Smith is.”
I had no idea about his relationship with Mary Ellen Mark or that she had taken classes from him, most likely at The New School, where I had gone to college.
7) Okay, got it. Continue…
All those people and moments had to have aligned for Minamata to get made (with Depp – see below for the attempted-Jeff Bridges path).
None of this is to say you shouldn’t write your passion project.
About half the projects on The Black List feel like passion projects (some have rights issues that inherently prevent a sale – like, say, the making of The Empire Strikes Back from the guy who played R2D2’s point of view or whatever.).
But they can attract attention. And demonstrate your ability and voice. I seem to recall getting some general meetings off Minamata before Depp’s company wanted it.
Being John Malkovich was probably a passion project / written to (further) showcase Charlie Kaufman’s unique voice. But then Spike Jonze asked his reps for the “weirdest script that could never get made” after he was sick of reading “regular” movie scripts. And Kaufman’s career took off.
So my point is, even if your script doesn’t get MADE, the script could MAKE YOU.
8) How does one get their script to an actor as big as Johnny Depp?
Through the normal, respected channels. My manager knew his “people”.
Someone took a recent script of mine (now granted, this person is married to a ridiculously famous person) and put it in the mailbox of their immediate neighbor, a famous actor, with a note. That didn’t work (despite them knowing each other).
But even if you don’t share a property line with a famous actor, don’t shove your script in their mailbox. It’s not how things are done.
But the Depp thing wasn’t a straight line. They initially passed but called back like 10 months later.
9) Okay, can you tell me about that? Did you find out the reasons why they initially passed? Was it one of those instances whereby the agent was making decisions for Depp and Depp never even knew about the submission?
Something like that happened with another project, but I didn’t find out what happened with Minamata until years later: The person at Depp’s company who had read it liked it and passed it up to his boss and they turned it down.
That first reader then later got a promotion and was offered to shepherd a project and he said, “I can’t stop thinking about that Minamata script.” And his boss said, “Well, if you feel so strongly about it, go for it.”
9) Also, I understand that you had Jeff Bridges attached for a while but that didn’t work out. What happened? Any cautionary advice you can give writers there?
Yeah, no one tells you this, but actors aren’t attracted to / “stick” to scripts – they are attracted and “stick” to directors who have a script or a project for them. They want to be directed. They want to work with the directors their peers have worked with (and maybe won their peers awards from working with those directors).
Look at Leonardo DiCaprio’s whole M.O. – for the last 20+ years he just exclusively works with A-LIST, top-shelf directors (Cameron, Eastwood, Allen, Scorsese, Nolan, Mendes, etc.). There’s no up-and-comers. He won’t “Bruce Willis” it with an up-and-comer like Tarantino like Bruce did with Pulp Fiction but he’ll sure work with him when he’s Tarantino.
On the “mailbox” script mentioned above, some big producers came aboard later and the first thing they did was go to directors they knew and to the reps of directors, not actors. The dream cast in our heads had to wait until a director was attached.
Scripts lead to producers which lead to directors which lead to actors which leads to studios / investors. All those elements are links in the chain.
So there were a few moments Bridges was interested, well, more like intrigued, but he wouldn’t budge if they wasn’t a director, even when there was a significant producer attached.
10) Okay, so did Depp only sign on when there was a director or did he come on first? (If he did sign on without a director, why do you think he went the opposite route of all these other actors you mention)?
The entire time the script was being developed at Infinitum Nil (Depp’s company), him starring was never discussed. And this was over a period of a year and half or more.
Now that I consider it, it may have been because there was no director attached.
And Depp himself did call director friends and associates and a cinematographer he had worked with for years to direct (him). He also hand wrote a note to another A-List actor / director to enroll him. Some responded to the material and Depp as Smith but had other professional and/or personal commitments.
When Andrew (Levitas) expressed an interest in directing it (I believe he was already attached as a producer), he and Depp met for a meeting that was supposed to be two hours which stretched into nine hours. I believe they talked about Smith, art, photography, visual touchstones, and their vision(s) for the material.
11) When did you find out that he was committing to star and what was that moment like?
I guess I found out when Andrew came aboard as a director — it was kind of stunning. Not only was I going to have a Johnny Depp movie — my first movie was going to be a Johnny Depp movie. I mean, I had grown up watching Edward Scissorhands, Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood, Blow, etc.
What was a particular thrill was, one of the producers (the original reader, Jason Forman — and later, another writer on it) sent me a photo of Depp in rough makeup at some point after that: a beard, a beret and holding a 35mm camera — Depp had had his makeup person do a test when there was a break in shooting something else.
I printed that out and tiled it so it was hanging over my bed, taped together in like 10 sheets of paper to remind myself it was real.
Still, I was always worried something would happen — like with financing or Depp’s schedule. You always hear about money falling through like with Dallas Buyers Club and other indie movies. I almost didn’t believe it was going to happen until I got paid and then like a couple weeks later was flying to Serbia, where we shot it.
12) Why do you think an actor such as Depp, who tends to be drawn to very interesting roles, liked this part so much? I guess I’m asking a bigger question here, which is: What kinds of characters are big actors interested in?
Smith was really in Depp’s wheelhouse – he was an artist to his core, rejected societal conventions, he had a fondness for drugs and alcohol (as did Hunter Thompson — who Depp played twice — and Jack Sparrow), and could be a real pain-in-the-ass and wasn’t afraid of making scenes but also had real heart. He was very larger-than-life.
But to your broader question: actors like playing interesting, complex, layered characters who say and do “cool” things. They love characters that are funny (Apatow characters), wicked smart (Imitation Game, The Social Network, Limitless, A Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting) – just memorable in some way.
13) Finally, is there some advice you can give from your personal experience that none of the film schools or screenwriting sites give on what it takes to get your script made into a movie? Does that “secret advice” exist?
There’s no secret – find unique ideas for movies (I just stopped working on 2 W.I.P.s when a recent collaborator / mentee of mine came up with a doozy and I pushed those two former ones hard to the side and I wrote the first act in 4 days), always be learning, find the HEART in your scripts / make me FEEL something, find and make friends in the same racket, read this blog, strive to be better – as good as the best, put yourself in a spot where you can be lucky and the odds can tilt slightly in your favor.
Minamata opens Friday in select theaters!
