Here’s the way I see it. 2020 and 2021 don’t count. They were weird years. A lot of weird stuff happened. How can one focus on his screenwriting career when he can’t even sit down at a coffee shop for six hours and complete one page of his script, for goodness sakes! Or can’t go to a movie theater where he can properly procrastinate? Here’s the good news. Those days are over. Covid is disappearing in 2022. Who said that, the CDC? No. Try the CRC. The Carson Reeves Consortium.

Myself, along with my esteemed board of trustees, have put in a word with the leaders of the free world, minus the president of Finland, of course, and have decided that enough is enough. Once these presidents and prime ministers learned of the reason I demanded an end to Covid – that screenwriting everywhere was suffering – they were immediately on board.

But the CRC didn’t stop there. They demanded that I – yes, yours truly – personally give screenwriters two opportunities to break out. And so I created the ANYTHING GOES AMATEUR SHOWDOWN along with the FABULOUS FIRST ACT CONTEST. Both of these competitions are going to revolutionize screenwriting. Well, maybe not revolutionize. But they’re going to give you two deadlines so that you actually get some writing done ya lazy asses.

ANYTHING GOES AMATEUR SHOWDOWN

What: An amateur showdown where any genre is accepted. I will choose the five best-sounding concepts to compete against each other at the end of February. You will then vote on the best one. I’ll review the winner.
When: Entries are due by 10pm, Pacific Time, Thursday, February 24th.
How: You need to send me your title, genre, logline, why you think the script deserves a shot on the big stage, and, of course, a PDF of your script.
Where: E-mail your entries to carsonreeves3@gmail.com and put “Anything Goes” in the subject line.
How Much: Free

THE FABULOUS FIRST ACT CONTEST

What: Starting March 1, I will spend a month guiding you, scene by scene, through writing your first act, the most important act of a screenplay.
And?: Whoever has the best first act, I will develop the rest of the script with you, guiding you through several rewrites. Once we’ve got the script in shape, we’ll go out there and try and get it made.
When: Entries will be due on May 1. You can start sending your first acts to me on April 1. I’ll give you details on where to send them as we get closer to the deadline.
How: Anybody who is thinking of entering this contest, I want you to begin a two-month Battle Royale of all your script ideas. I want you sending these ideas out to friends and asking them which one is the best. You will need a strong concept to win this contest.
How Much: Free

I wanted to start the screenwriting year off with some motivation for you guys and, unfortunately, found out that hiring several thousand Benihana chefs to go to your personal places of residence and do that really scary sword attack thing they do until you write three pages of a screenplay was going to cost me a couple million dollars, so I came up with an alternative. Some screenwriting resolutions. I’m going to give you ten resolutions but you only have to pick and adopt three. Choose wisely.

Resolution #1 – Write for at least two hours a day.

One of the fastest ways to get better is to write more. If you want to get good at anything, you have to prioritize it. So if you can’t carve out two hours a day to write, I would ask you, how much do you really want to be a screenwriter? Cause it doesn’t sound like you want it that much. Think about it. When has anyone ever become great at anything that they didn’t dedicate at least two hours a day to? Open up that laptop and don’t leave until those two hours are up.

Resolution #2 – You will find out if a concept is good BEFORE you spend six months writing it.

This has to be one of the most common mistakes I run into. People send me loglines for consultations all the time ($25 – carsonreeves1@gmail.com) that are so problematic, there is no version of a screenplay that can save them. The issue? They’ve already written the screenplay. Look, I understand that when we get an idea we love, we just want to write it. We have such tunnel vision that we don’t care what anybody else thinks. But screenwriting is an emotionally taxing endeavor. You can only write so many scripts that don’t go anywhere before you give up. For that reason, you don’t want to waste any of those slots on a lousy idea. Send your logline out to some friends and ask them for brutal honesty. Is this any good? And don’t get defensive. If five people aren’t that excited about your biopic into the origins of banana bread, consider another idea.

Resolution #3 – You will read at least 25 unproduced screenplays.

I thought that I knew everything about screenwriting before I’d read a single unproduced screenplay. I then read 1000 screenplays and learned 50-100 times as much about screenwriting as I knew up til that point. I read 1000 more. Same thing. 1000 more. Same thing. The biggest thing that reading screenplays did was shine a light on all the blind spots I had. When I read a beginner screenplay, I’d see them doing the same things I did in my scripts. “Oh,” I realized, “I can never do that again.” Or when I read a really good screenplay, I’d notice how much clearer and visceral the prose was than all my screenplays. It helped me identify where the bar was. Before reading scripts, I thought the bar was so much lower than it actually was. 25 screenplays is 1 screenplay every 2 weeks. You can do that.

Resolution #4 – Improve your biggest weakness as a writer.

What’s your biggest weakness? Is it plot? Structure? Character? Dialogue? Concept? Theme? Do your scripts lack conflict? Do they not build? Do your second acts get progressively more boring? Whatever you’re bad at, set aside some time every week and work on it. You can do that by googling, “How to write good second acts” and read 50 articles on how to get better. You can write a practice script that specifically focuses on the thing you’re weak at. For example, if it’s dialogue, you can write a practice script that has two characters in a house that’s almost all talk. So many writers ignore the things they suck at. But if you want to get good at this, you have to strengthen your weak links.

Resolution #5 – Write out a plan for the year.

I know we all make fun of Vin Diesel now (and believe me, I’m right with you). But there was a time when that dude was the biggest movie star in the world. And I remember him saying in an interview that, when he was a nobody, he sat down and wrote out this very specific three year plan. He’d write and shoot a short film. He’d submit it to Sundance. He’d use it a promotional tool. He’d get an agent off the buzz. He planned the types of roles he wanted his agent to send him out for. He had it all mapped out. That’s what you need to do. Divide the year into four quarters and have a goal for each quarter. If you want to get even dirtier, set clear goals for every month. Too many writers operate under this lie whereby they wait for inspiration to strike. Unless you want to snap your fingers and see a decade go by, that’s not how you become successful. Come up with a plan and execute it to the best of your ability.

Resolution #6 – Add one new writing weapon to your arsenal.

I’ll never forget the day I learned about dramatic irony. It was like I’d seen all of these great movies and shows with these scenes that always worked and yet I could never quantify what they were doing to make them so awesome. Then I learned they were using dramatic irony – the act of telling the audience something that a key character in the scene was unaware of. John McClane meeting Hans Gruber up on the roof and thinking he was a hostage. There are a bunch of little screenwriting weapons like this that can improve your writing. Suspense. Scene agitators. GSU. Using conflict in every scene. Adding a ticking clock to a scene. Identify one of these, read up on it, then become an expert at it. Your writing will take off.

Resolution #7 – Shift your mindset to a positive place.

In any artistic pursuit, everybody who’s on the outside has a level of disdain for those on the inside. A lot of it comes from a belief that you’re better than a lot of them. And you don’t understand why they’ve made it and you haven’t. I’ll be honest. In some cases, you are better than someone who’s making millions of dollars screenwriting. I can think of two names right now – one who’s about to have a major movie release – where everybody who’s ever won an Amateur Showdown is hands down a better writer than those two. But here’s the thing. It doesn’t help you to expend all that energy being frustrated by that. In fact, it hurts you. It’s much better to focus your energy on writing a great script. I know some people won’t agree with me on this. But I’ve found that, in my life, when I focus on just coming up with good content and not worrying about other peoples’ success who are less talented than I am, I write much better and I’m much happier overall.

Resolution #8 – Come up with one great character.

Most of the scripts we write are born out of an idea we have for a movie. And that’s fine. I’m all for coming up with good movie ideas and writing them. However, this often leads to us retrofitting characters into that idea. Idea first. Character second. Yet when I look at all of the greatest movies throughout time, the one constant I see is great characters. Neo, Jack Sparrow, Travis Bickle, James Bond, The Terminator, Hans Landa. So I’m imploring you to try something new. When you come up with your movie idea, I want you to ask the question, “Can I create a great character within this idea?” So you’re attacking the script on two sides, both conceptually, and as a show-stopping character vehicle. A great character is going to turn a good script into a great one.

Resolution #9 – Speed up your plot.

I have read, maybe, 10 scripts out of 10,000 that I could argue moved too fast. However, I could point to several thousand screenplays I’ve read that moved too slow. The reality is that most scripts move slower than they should. This is because we assume we need to include more than we do. But as I was telling someone the other day, one of the things pros are really good at that amateurs are not, is that they can do in one scene what amateurs take three scenes to do. So their scripts move along a lot faster. I’m not saying you need to redefine the way you write. But any little opportunity you have to move the story along, take it. You don’t want to sit inside any section for too long in a screenplay. Save that for when you write your novel.

Resolution #10 – Finish 2 Screenplays, no less, no more.

You should be shooting for two scripts a year. That’s one script every six months. Which is totally doable if you’re writing 2-3 hours a day. The problem I’ve found with writers who only write one script a year or one script every two years is that they’re not developing their overall screenwriting skills because they’re only improving the skills that help them write that one story. Every script challenges you in different ways. So if you want to get better as a writer, you need to write more than one script. On the flip side, I don’t think you should write more than two screenplays a year. The writers I’ve run into who write 3, 4, even 5 scripts a year – their scripts are sloppy. They’re not developed properly. It’s more of an ego thing for them. And look, I’ve been there. I was once writing scripts every two weeks. I bragged to everyone I knew about it. But, looking back at those scripts? They were terrible. Two screenplays is the perfect amount. That’s what you should be shooting for.

I’m really excited for what this year is going to bring the screenwriting world. Especially here at Scriptshadow. I can’t wait to see which of you break out in 2022. Happy New Year!!!

Does the ballsiest franchise sequel since Fury Road deliver on the wild chances it takes?

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: 50-something game developer Thomas Anderson starts to believe that the game he’s developed, “The Matrix,” may be rooted in reality.
About: Pretty much every major creative in town has come to WB with a Matrix pitch over the past decade and a half. But it took Keanu Reeves becoming an action star again with John Wick for WB to finally greenlight the fourth film in the series. The movie’s production was suspended when Covid hit and Lana Wachowski seriously considered scrapping the sequel. The cast, however, desperate to see it completed, convinced her to keep going. The script was written by Lana and her Sense 8 writers, David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon.
Writer: Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell, and Aleksander Hemon
Details: 2 hours and 27 minutes

Let’s be real.

When you’re showing up for a Matrix review, you’re showing up to either hear, “GREATEST MOVIE EVER” or “WORST MOVIE EVER.” Anything in between is an insignificant opinion.

Well, if that’s what you’re hoping for, you’ll be disappointed in this review. Because Matrix Resurrections takes some chances that are so wild, you can’t help but admire them, even if the end result isn’t as good as you want it to be.

This is a spoiler heavy review. You’ve been warned.

Our movie starts inside a new version of the Matrix where a fresh-faced female character, Bugs, runs into a sleeker younger copy of Morpheus. They watch a familiar scene from the original Matrix, where Trinity beats up a bunch of cops then runs for her life. But there’s something off about the scene. Trinity isn’t quite… Trinity.

Cut to the real world, where we meet an older Thomas Anderson (Neo), who’s a rich game developer. The game that made him rich? The Matrix. Thomas Anderson has no idea where these ideas and concepts for “The Matrix” came from. But he’s created a trilogy of games based around a trio of characters – Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity.

After a suicide attempt, Mr. Anderson has been seeing a therapist and is starting to believe this therapist is manipulating him. So when Bugs comes to him and tells him that his game is based on something that really happened, it’s like Thomas knew it all along.

Bugs releases him from the Matrix, where we learn that both Neo and Trinity are being kept in special isolated containment units. Their pairing seems to be the central force behind the new Matrix code.

Bugs brings Neo back to the newest underground city, Io, where we meet Nairobi (from the Matrix Sequels) who’s now 80 years old. Nairobi is upset that Neo is here because she’s worked hard to keep peace with the machines. His arrival puts everyone at risk.

Meanwhile, Neo becomes determined to release Trinity (“Tiffany” in the real world) from the Matrix, so the team forms a plan. Bugs and Morpheus will handle the physical side of getting Trinity. But it will be up to Neo to convince Trinity/Tiffany to take the red pill. That won’t be an easy task considering Tiffany doesn’t know Neo, doesn’t believe in the Matrix, and has a husband and two children.

Yet when Neo arrives, Tiffany finds herself drawn to him and finally gives in. Once the Matrix realizes the power couple have teamed up, it initiates its “swarm” protocol, whereby every single person on the planet becomes a kamikaze killer. It’ll be up to Neo and Trinity to escape a city where the entire population is after them.

When you first realize what The Matrix has done with Neo, you become giddy. “They’re not really going to go through with this, are they?” you wonder, excited. And when you realize that that’s exactly what they’re going to do, your expectations for Resurrections rise from a 5 to a 50.

I never would’ve guessed in a million years that they’d build a Matrix sequel around the meta concept of Neo making a Matrix video game. Not only was it a bold choice, but it made sense. Thomas Anderson used to be a coder. He’s had these intense dreams all his life about this “Matrix” world. Naturally, he would capitalize on that, making a game out of the concept.

The addition adds some new ideas to the mythology. Was the original Matrix ever the Matrix at all? Or was it only a video game modern day Thomas Anderson created? That was what was so great about the Matrix. It was such a head-trip that, afterwards, you and your friends would discuss what it all meant, putting forth various theories that ranged from dumb to downright ridiculous.

It was the early section of this movie that held so much promise. You got the sense that Lana actually had something to say.

The problem with most sequels is that they’re conceived through a faulty process. The lens through which every movie should be conceived is that a writer has something they want to say. For example, James Cameron really wanted to say something about humanity destroying the planet in Avatar. It’s the need to get this view out there that gives the story the necessary energy to keep an audience invested.

When there isn’t a *need* to tell a story – when instead you’re just doing it for money, or because your career is in a slump, or because the studio won’t stop bothering you about it – the script exhibits a decidedly less energetic pulse. We can tell that it isn’t a life or death desire from the artist to get this story out there.

So I was encouraged by this seeming desire to say something. The story felt original. The dialogue purposeful. I had no idea where the story was going but I was excited to find out.

However, the second we get to the underground city of Io, I knew Resurrections was as dead as Dozer. Zion was a movie killer in the sequels. As was Nairobi. Yet you’re bringing both those elements back in major forms? I don’t want to turn this into a “why the Matrix sequels were terrible” thread because I’ve already written about that ad nauseam. But the brilliance of the Matrix were the scenes that took place inside the Matrix, not in the muddy CGI infested underworld.

The unfortunate reality of Resurrections is that every 15 minutes of Resurrections is worse than the previous 15 minutes. The story builds (we’re moving towards the extraction of Trinity). But the energy and the momentum fade. The Wachowskis are masters at undercutting their own narratives.

A narrative needs to move, especially a sci-fi narrative. The pacing of the original Matrix was relentless. There wasn’t a single moment that could’ve been cut. Here, with the Io stuff and some of the talkier scenes, like when The Analyst plays a game of bullet slo-mo with Trinity’s life — they dragged on, killing any momentum the story had.

Another issue is that Resurrections has a huge character problem. Bugs, the franchise’s flashy new toy, has very little to do other than verbally facilitate Neo’s second emergence from the Matrix. I don’t know what the heck they were doing with Morpheus, who is some sort of half-Morpheus who isn’t really Morpheus but he’s trying to emulate Morpheus. So he does a lot of dancing and irreverent joke-telling. It’s bizarre.

Agent Smith is now some dude who kinda dislikes Neo but also kinda likes him. At one point, they even team up. I don’t profess to know what Lana had in mind with him but he didn’t work. Maybe that’s because they wanted Hugo Weaving in the movie but couldn’t get him at the last second so they had to adjust the storyline.

Neo, meanwhile, says very little throughout the movie. Not only doesn’t he say much. But apparently, Neo only has a single power now. To hold his hands up and blast energy away from his body. I waited the entire movie for badass Neo to show up and and start doing crazy Neo sh#t. Bu it never happened. It was reminiscent of another failed sequel that I shall not mention the name of. Only that it rhymes with “Duh Blast Redeye.”

And Trinity, who arguably gets the most exciting storyline here, is absent for the majority of the second act. She really only shows up in the third act. And since, like Neo, she hasn’t said a whole lot, we don’t feel close enough to her. That’s something that really bothers me about the Wachowskis in general. They give these stupid side characters 18 page monologues. Yet their main characters can go a dozen scenes and barely utter 10 words.

It’s pretty clear that Lana didn’t get enough money to make this movie. The one great thing about those Matrix sequels is the extremes they went through to create set pieces that nobody had seen before. I mean, they built their own highway! They spent 40 days shooting a single scene (the Neo vs. 100 Smiths fight). There’s none of that insane dedication here.

The train scene was sloppy. The fixed set piece scenes (like the warehouse) felt rushed with little attention to detail. The swarm motorcycle chase was so dark you could barely tell what was going on.

While I can blame some of this on a less-than-adequate budget, Lana could’ve ditched Io and spent that money on cooler fight scenes inside The Matrix. That’s exactly what they did in the original film. The original Matrix script featured a trip to Zion but WB wouldn’t pay for it. So they had to ditch it. Should’ve done the same thing here.

There’s a lot to learn here if you’re a screenwriter. The biggest lesson one should take is that what happened in The Matrix Resurrections is the same thing that happens to almost every amateur screenplay. Which is that the writer comes in with a head of steam, spends a ton of time getting that first act right, then gives 80% of that energy to the next 15 pages. Then 60% to the next 15. Then 40% to the next 15. So the script keeps getting… not necessarily weaker. But it doesn’t have the same energy that it started with. So, if you’re a screenwriter, make sure you’ve put just as much time into what happens on page 70 as you did on page 10. Cause there’s nothing worse than watching a movie getting more and more boring as it goes on.

I don’t know what history will say about Resurrections. It seems to have some champions out there. I do commend them for trying something different. Not many franchises will take the big swing Lana did. But just because you go for the home run doesn’t mean you’re going to hit it over the wall. Sometimes you barely make contact and the ball dribbles out to third base. That’s probably the best way to describe this movie – bullet-time dribbling down the 3rd base line.

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

What I learned: The original Matrix proves the value of combining multiple purposes into a single character. In the original movie, Trinity both recruits Neo and is his love interest. She has two purposes. In Resurrections, Bugs recruits Neo and that’s it. She doesn’t have any other purpose. As a result, she gets lost in the story once that purpose is fulfilled. The lesson here is that when you have a character, give them multiple story purposes if you can. It’ll give them more to do and make them feel more integrated into the story.

Tonight I will be watching The Matrix Resurrections. Tomorrow, I will have the review for you. In the interim, I’ll be praying for a Christmas miracle. As much as I want this movie to be great, I can’t help but look at the Wachowskis’ body of work and see them as screenwriting warmongers. They place emphasis on the wrong things way too often, overcomplicating their narratives, carpet bombing the very fabric of their stories. So I know that hoping Lana Wachowski will learn from every mistake she’s ever made in one single leap is asking a lot. But boy would it be awesome if she pulled it off.

The irony is that The Matrix was built on the most basic classic storytelling template there is – The Hero’s Journey – sticking to it like a tadpole to water. That original film was a model of simplicity. Why did The Wachowskis move away from that in every other movie they made?

Of course, this was not the first time we’ve seen The Hero’s Journey launch a franchise. It was most famously done with Star Wars. Adhering to that simplest of storytelling formulas resulted in a 10 billion dollar empire.

So what is The Hero’s Journey? Why is it so powerful? And how come, despite its insanely positive track record, more screenwriters don’t use it? We’re going to answer those questions right now.

The Hero’s Journey is a storytelling template that breaks down a story (or, in this case, a screenplay) into a series of beats. We meet our hero living his life. He goes on an adventure. He defeats the monster and comes home. Along the way, he battles a flaw within himself that he eventually overcomes, which results in him becoming a better person (In The Hero’s Journey, this flaw is usually a lack of belief in one’s self).

More specifically, the hero is called on an adventure, usually by another character. The hero will refuse this call because it means change and the hero, like all humans, is uncomfortable with change. However, the hero eventually acquiesces, either on their own or due to changed circumstances (Luke Skywalker’s aunt and uncle being killed by stormtroopers, for example), and off he goes.

The hero meets a series of characters on his journey, each with a specific purpose. You have the mentor, the ally, the trickster, the guardian, and the shadow, to name a few. Some of these characters will help our hero. Some will hurt him.

Most of these characters engage our hero in the adventure portion of the story, what we know as the second act. The primary directive of this act be a series of obstacles thrown at your hero that test him, each trying to prevent him from achieving his objective.

The last stage of The Hero’s Journey is the only stage that doesn’t mesh with the Hollywood movie formula. This third act is known as “The Return,” and follows the hero back home after he’s defeated “the monster.” While there are some examples of this in modern cinema (Mad Max: Fury Road comes to mind), most modern movies defeat the monster and follow with two or three scenes totaling ten minutes tops.

There are 17 sub-sections of The Hero’s Journey and while I’m not going to go through all of them, I’m going to show you some of the major ones and how they line up with the original Matrix film. It should be noted that even Joseph Campbell recognized that every story is unique and that not all story beats will be applicable to every film.

The Call To Adventure – This occurs when Neo goes to the dance club and meets Trinity, who tempts him with finding out what the Matrix is.

Refusal of the Call – This happens when Morpheus is guiding Neo out on the ledge of his building and Neo says, “F%$$ this,” giving himself up to the agents.

The Crossing of the First Threshold – Campbell describes this stage as, “leaving the known limits of his world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm.” This occurs when Neo takes the red pill and travels through the mirror.

The Road of Trials – “The road of trials is a series of tests that the hero must undergo to begin the transformation.” The Wachowskis attack this one pretty literally. This is when we see Neo jump across the building, try to identify agents, and, of course, fight Morpheus in the dojo.

Woman as the Temptress – “In this step, the hero faces those temptations, often of a physical or pleasurable nature, that may lead him to abandon or stray from his quest, which does not necessarily have to be represented by a woman. A woman is a metaphor for the physical or material temptations of life since the hero-knight was often tempted by lust from his spiritual journey.” This occurs when Neo goes to the Oracle, who tempts him with being “The One,” only to find out that he is not. Of course later, we realize that she needed to tell him this for him to ultimately understand, through his own inner transformation, that he is The One.

Apotheosis – “This is the point of realization in which a greater understanding is achieved. Armed with this new knowledge and perception, the hero is resolved and ready for the more difficult part of the adventure.” This occurs when Trinity tells Neo she loves him, giving him the confidence in something greater than himself. He is now ready to save Morpheus.

Atonement with the Father/Abyss – “The hero must confront whatever holds the ultimate power in his life. In many myths and stories, this is the father or a father figure who has life and death power. But it doesn’t have to be the father. Just someone or something with incredible power.” Unlike Star Wars, there is no father storyline in The Matrix. You could argue that Morpheus is Neo’s father figure. But he’s not the antagonist Neo must battle, like Luke with Vader. Instead, Matrix reflects the broader view of this stage, “Someone or something with incredible power,” aka defeating Agent Smith and the other agents when he stops the oncoming bullets in mid-air.

The thing I’ve found with The Hero’s Journey, and any screenwriting template, for that matter, is that the further down into the template you go, the less effective staying true to the template becomes. That’s because every story is unique and has its own set of challenges that don’t fit perfectly into a template. To that end, you should try and hit the major beats (such as defeating the villain), then pick and choose which of the other beats best apply to your story.

However, you should follow the first half of any storytelling template as closely as possible. Those early beats tend to be universal. It’s only when your script gets into those latter stages that it becomes its own thing and, therefore, should be treated less strictly.

The main reason I wrote this was to remind people just how powerful The Hero’s Journey template is. It’s arguably the best bet for creating a universally loved story that will be celebrated for decades. Look at what the template has yielded. Star Wars. The Matrix. Lord of the Rings. The Wizard of Oz. Harry Potter. Does it get bigger than those movies??

I think the reason screenwriters don’t use it that much is for a couple of reasons. One, it’s more organic to the literary world. We can see that in Lord of the Rings, Wizard of Oz, and Harry Potter. When you try and do it in the movies, you tend to have to squish it together more. Which is why most of the films that use it expand out to multiple movies in order see the formula play all the way through. Also, any story that sends a character into a strange world or strange universe is going to cost a lot of money.

So you either have to be clever and come up with the world’s cheapest hero’s journey. Or be a well-known director with enough clout to demand 100 million bucks. It’s not out of the realm of possibility. The Wachowskis had only made one small film before The Matrix (Bound) and then shot The Matrix itself for 60 million bucks.

If you want to write the next billion dollar franchise, I don’t think there’s any question that the place to start is The Hero’s Journey. How can you argue with these results?

I will see everybody tomorrow for my most anticipated movie of the year! Matrix Ressurections! I can’t wait!

Note: These next 10 days are going to be weird so grab a notepad and write this down. I’m doing the weekly article tomorrow instead of Thursday because Matrix is coming out on Wednesday and I want to review it Thursday. So I’m switching those two days around. I will be sending out a newsletter by the 27th. And I probably won’t post anything next week but you never know. Us Americans are trained by our government to feel guilty when we don’t work. So we’ll see what happens!

Genre: Children/Holiday
Premise: Twas the night before Christmas and five kids have to find three items to save their foster father’s home from being repossessed.
About: This script finished with 10 votes on this year’s Black List. Writer M. Miller Davis has spent much of the last decade working on production crews. He has also written for several small TV shows. But this is his breakthrough moment as a screenwriter.
Writer: M. Miller Davis
Details: 104 pages

Tis the season!

You would think it would be easy to write a Christmas movie. You’ve got eccentric characters like Santa Claus, Rudolph, Ebenezer Scrooge, Frosty the Snowman. And Christmas is such an emotional holiday as it’s built around family and connection and healing. The ingredients are there for a good screenplay. And yet, like every genre, it ends up being a lot harder to write these things than you think.

You know what they should do? Writers should start adapting Christmas songs into movies. There are so many beloved Christmas songs. And Hollywood loves themselves an adaptation. Why not? Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. Sounds like there’s a story to that one! Am I just giving out free money at this point? Maybe. Either that or free embarrassment. I’m sure we’ll find out which at some point.

Right now, though, we’re going to find out if Operation Milk and Cookies is as good as its title. Jump in the back of Santa’s sleigh with me and take a magical journey into the world of getting to read a screenplay in just five paragraphs.

12 year old comic book nerd, Henry, 11 year old selfie-obsessed, Nadia, way too big for being 13 years old, Tomas, and 9 year old cute little oddball, Astrid, have just found out that their foster dad, Brian (described as “a Paul Rudd type”), doesn’t have enough money to pay this month’s mortgage. Which means that they’re going to be kicked out of their house on Christmas!

With only two days before the holiday, the foster siblings come up with a plan to raise money by shoveling sidewalks and selling old partially destroyed barbie dolls. After their entire day’s work results in making 5 dollars, they prepare for homelessness.

But then they happen upon a nice old man’s home, who invites them in. His house is filled with Christmas decorations and he’s warm and sweet, even making the kids cookies! He tells the kids a story about when he was a kid, he researched how to find Santa and learned that Santa couldn’t resist three things: Cocoa butterscotch cookies, a golden fir pinecone, and something that represented Christmas spirit.

The kids put a second plan together. They’ll find these three items by tomorrow night (Christmas Eve), luring Santa to their home, and ask him to give them money to pay for the mortgage so they don’t get kicked out. Their mission is soon complicated, however, by a group of bank robbers who are using an old cookie factory as a hideout.

Realizing that the kids can rat them out to the cops, they go all ‘Goonies’ on them, chasing them around town. This is happening, in addition to, Brian trying to find them. If either party finds them before they can locate the three items, Santa won’t show up, they’ll lose their house, and it will be the worst Christmas ever!!!

Sometimes you read a script that does everything technically right yet you still find yourself not invested in the story. That was the case for me with Operation Milk and Cookies.

I mean, the story has a classic GSU setup. We have a clear goal – find these three items. We have clear stakes – if they don’t, they lose their house. And we have clear urgency – they have until tomorrow, Christmas.

We have the ‘next level’ stuff as well: a legitimate set of obstacles that get in the way of the characters’ objectives throughout the second act. That comes in the form of the bank robbers, who chase them.

So what’s wrong here? Why didn’t this light my yule log? Well, there could be a couple of things. Sometimes, when you follow the formula too rigidly, the plot becomes predictable. And Milk and Cookies is definitely a standard plot. It’s very straight-forward with virtually no twists or reinvention involved.

The second possibility is the characters. Usually when plot and structure are on-point and you’re still not enjoying a screenplay, it has something to do with the characters. But this is where it gets tricky. The characters in Milk and Cookies weren’t bad. There’s this cute little storyline where Nadia gets her hands on a cell phone for the first time and goes absolutely nuts with it, becomes obsessed with selfies. There were a handful of fun little character moments like this.

However – and this is a mistake I see in 95% of amateur screenplays – there was nothing exceptional about any of the characters. The kids were all kids we’ve seen before in these types of movies. They were fine. Absolutely fine. But “fine” isn’t good enough. Nobody remembers a screenplay for characters who were “fine.”

You need at least one main character to be exceptional. You need to take risks with them. Do something different. That’s the only chance you’re going to write a character who pops off the page. I’ll give you a perfect example. Jojo in “Jojo Rabbit.” A kid who has Imaginary Hitler as his best friend. That was a huge risk. I remember when I reviewed that script and people were getting butt-hurt about it in the comments. “Why would anyone create a movie that made Hitler sympathetic. This is awful!” The script went on to win an Oscar.

But the point is that that was a risky choice. I’m not saying you have to take that extensive of a risk in a script like this. But you have to take some risk. And I felt like the writer was playing it safe with all the characters.

The reality is, this is how most screenplays are written. With writers playing it safe. Which I understand. It’s scary to take risks. Especially in this day and age where one wrong comment could get you canceled for life. But let’s be real. The best art always has some risk attached to it, whether it be through the concept (Eternal Sunshine), the characters (Joker), or the plot execution (Parasite).

With the Matrix sequel coming out tomorrow, that’s the perfect example of risk. They made a movie about people living in a simulation, and when those people fought each other, they only fought with kung-fu. How does that even make sense? I don’t know. But it captivated the world and influenced movies for the next 20 years.

Even Cauliflower, the top-ranked script on the Black List this year, a script I didn’t like, took some big risks. It made some weird choices. I didn’t like the final product but that’s the reason why so many people don’t take risks. They know there’s a bigger chance of failure. Still, I would rather read another Cauliflower than I would another Operation Milk and Cookies.

I understand that some people may argue this is just a fun Christmas movie. It’s not meant to be Jojo Rabbit. But I would push back on that. You don’t have to take Academy Award level risks to write a good script. You can take a risk with just a single character. Come up with one wild weird memorable character. Like Bill Murray’s gopher-obsessed weirdo grounds manager in Caddyshack. You do that and people will remember your screenplay.

I wanted to like this but it just didn’t leave enough of an impression on me. I felt like I’ve seen this movie many times already.

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

What I learned: Split a goal into parts to give yourself more plot. In the “Goal” part of GSU, you can often run into a situation where a single goal isn’t big enough to give you a 100 page plot. If that’s the case, split the goal up. They just did this in Red Notice with the three jeweled eggs. And the writer does it here with the three items (Cocoa butterscotch cookies, a golden fir pinecone, and something that represented Christmas spirit). It’s an easy and effective way to ensure that your plot doesn’t end on page 45!