For 60 minutes, Hawkeye was a dud. Then something happened that turned it around. Today’s review discusses what that was!

Genre: TV Show – Superhero
Premise: After a college archer steals the suit to Hawkeye’s nemesis, Ronin, Hawkeye must protect her from a growing list of villains who want to kill her because they think she’s the infamous villain.
About: This is the FOURTH proper Marvel show to premiere on Disney Plus. The series is led by creator Jonathan Igla, who most notably was a writer on Mad Men. The principle director is Rhys Thomas, who teamed up with Seth Meyers to make Documentary Now. The show stars Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld.
Creator: Jonathan Igla
Details: 60 minutes (review covers first two episodes)

Hawkeye is a reminder that when it comes to telling stories, the more generic your setup, the harder it is to create any sort of original execution. You are drawing from the exact same well that hundreds of thousands of writers before you have drawn from.

This is why, when it comes to the four shows that Marvel has aired, Wandavision and Loki have a leg up on ‘Falcon and Winter Soldier’ and Hawkeye. The Wandavision setup was so unique that it had no choice but to give us unique situations. Ditto, Loki, with its wacky time-traveling parallel universe setup.

This is the dilemma Marvel is finding itself in by having so many stories. Where do you find the originality anymore? How do you give us stuff we haven’t seen already? Remember, the whole reason Marvel became the most successful franchise in history is because it was giving us stuff we’d never seen before. It was incorporating cutting edge special effects into a genre that hadn’t gotten that treatment, giving us pulse-pounding sequences like the airport battle in Captain America: Civil War.

But, these days, we’re so used to special effects in superhero movies, we need something else. Something new to excite us. And Marvel hasn’t been giving us that lately. I suppose the conversation in the Hawkeye pitch room was, “What about Christmas?” Is Christmas enough of a differentiating factor to make this show feel fresh? Let’s find out.

Kate Bishop is a 22 year old girl who’s really good at archery, something we see with our own eyes when, at college, she shoots an arrow at the college bell and, in doing so, destroys the bell tower. Why she did this, I have no idea.

Kate need not worry about that tower. Her very rich New York mother will pay for it. Yes, Kate has a trust fund bigger than the GDP of Moldavia. When Kate comes home for the holidays, her mom informs her that she’s marrying someone new, a sleaze-ball named Jack Duqensue. Kate doesn’t trust this guy and follows him to a rich people auction. When robbers arrive at the auction, Kate grabs this really cool looking suit that was supposed to be up for auction and starts running through New York City in it.

What she soon finds out is that this is Ronin’s suit, some notorious evil bad guy who used to terrorize New York. Because Ronin had a lot of enemies, people start coming after Kate. When Clint (Hawkeye) sees the suit on the news, he leaves his family, who’s heading to their cabin to celebrate Christmas in five days, to settle some past beef he has with Ronin.

Once he realizes it’s just a girl, he prepares to rejoin his family. But, by that point, too many people have seen Kate/Ronin and are coming after her. This thrusts Hawkeye into the protector role, which is great as far as Kate is concerned. Hawkeye is her favorite Avenger! Clint will have to solve this growing problem quickly less he not make it back to his family in time for Christmas. Will he succeed? Or is this going to yank him back into the world he so defiantly retired from?

There are actually a lot of solid screenwriting lessons in Hawkeye, the first of which is the value of an urgent storyline. We don’t typically see that in a TV show because it’s hard to keep a fast pace going episode after episode. But there are only six episodes here so it’s a little easier.

By establishing the need for Clint to get back to his family in time for Christmas, you give the story an energy it wouldn’t have otherwise had. Every setback puts more doubt into our minds that Clint is getting back to his family. When you do this well – build an urgent storyline around an emotional plot beat – it pays major dividends.

The question is, how do you do it well? You can’t just scream “I NEED TO GET BACK HOME FOR CHRISTMAS” and expect the viewer to get on board. You have to set these things up. So what we get is several scenes of Clint hanging out with his family before their flight, the most prominent of which is going to the “Rogers” musical together. If you want us to care about people rejoining each other, you must show us those people together and convince us that there’s a connection there. Too many writers ignore this. They think as long as the ticking time bomb is technically in place, that’s all that matters. No, you need to set up the emotional side of things.

The other smart move they made was understanding the limitations of the Hawkeye character and coming up with solutions for them. Let’s be honest. Hawkeye is the least interesting Avenger. Not only are his powers lame (he shoots arrows) but he’s got no personality to boot.

So here’s what the writers did. First, they LEANED INTO the lameness of the character. In an early scene, Kate Bishop chastises Clint for being boring. She encourages him to up his profile and think about marketing more. It’s done in a cute way and results in a fun little conversation. But, more importantly, it establishes that the show isn’t running from its weaknesses. It’s leaning into them. That’s always the better choice, in my opinion. If you ignore the elephant in the room, he only gets bigger.

The second more impactful choice is to give Kate Bishop gobs of personality. She’s fun, she’s self-deprecating, she’s a fangirl. They understood that two personality-less characters teamed together would’ve spelled doom for the series. They needed as much contrast as possible between these two and, therefore, went all in with “Fun Kate Bishop.”

And it works! The first episode of Hawkeye was barely watchable. But the second she meets Hawkeye, the series goes from a 3 out of 10 to an 8 out of 10. Let this be a lesson about the value of character pairings. If you can figure out the right chemistry between the two characters who have the most screen time together in your script, that can be the difference between an average and good script, or a good and great one.

That approach extends beyond the pairing as well. One of the clever realizations the writers had was that Clint is boring in a vacuum. However, if you can find situations where he’s uncomfortable, you can get fun moments out of him. One of the scenes in the second episode requires Clint to get the Ronin suit back from a guy. That guy happens to be fighting in a “Viking Reenactment Battle” in Central Park. Clint must reluctantly sign up for the battle and participate in order to get the suit back. It’s a funny scene.

And, finally, I have to give any screenwriter who says, “I’m not just going to save the cat. I’m going to save the cat with one eye” major props (It’s actually not a cat in Hawkeye, it’s a dog). In order to make Kate Bishop excessively likable, they didn’t stop at her rescuing a normal dog. This dog only had one eye. The craziest thing about this is that, despite being so transparent, it works. It amazes me, sometimes, what we writers can get away with.

Hawkeye is the most feel good show on the Marvel lineup. If you’re looking for a pick-me-up, look no further.

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

What I learned: “Put your character where they don’t want to be” may be one of the most powerful pieces of screenwriting advice there is. Again, the last place Clint wanted to be was at that Viking reenactment battle. Which is exactly why you wanted to put him there.

What I learned 2: Bring the villain closer. A villain inside the family (as is the case here, mom’s new fiancé) can often be more terrifying than a villain out in the wild.

Today’s newsletter is a special one. I discuss the frustrations of a rejection-based industry as well as the two types of scripts you should be writing to have the best chance at penetrating the industry. There’s been some Star Wars news in the past month so you know I’ve got to talk about that. I’ve got a once-every-year super Black Friday consultation deal. I’m only giving three of those away so hurry up and read the newsletter to find out how to get one. One of my screenwriting tips involves considering a high-powered genre that I don’t think any screenwriters know about. We’ve got a Brit List sighting. And, finally, I review a top 5 Black List script written by a longtime Scriptshadow contributor! Definitely worth your time to check this out!

If you want to read my newsletter, you have to sign up. So if you’re not on the mailing list, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line, “NEWSLETTER!” and I’ll send it to you.

p.s. For those of you who keep signing up but don’t receive the newsletter, try sending me another e-mail address. E-mailing programs are notoriously quirky and there may be several reasons why your e-mail address/server is rejecting the newsletter. One of which is your server is bad and needs to be spanked.

It’s the Thanksgiving weekend which means I will be gone for the next four days! OR WILL I? Cough cough. Is someone sending a newsletter out on Thanksgiving? Cough cough. Maybe. #Keepaneyeout.

As we all know, Thanksgiving is a time where we willingly endure a nightmarish travel experience to reconnect with our families, to watch the Cowboys and the Lions while we drink cheap beer, and to participate in a meal that’s never as good as advertised. I mean, seriously, does anyone on the planet really like pumpkin pie? I’m talking even one person?? Can I have the phone number for whoever invented pumpkin pie please so I can give him a proper scolding?

Now, if you’re anything like me, you see the holidays as a sneaky secret time to get some writing done. After all the hugs and hellos and chuckles and uncomfortable political discourse, I burrow into a tiny room that nobody knows about and I start writing. You see, one of the underrated aspects about Thanksgiving is that it’s a highly emotional time. It’s not just the family stuff. It’s the travel. It’s the end of the year. It’s the reminder of previous holidays. Of old friends, old relationships. You don’t want to let all that juicy emotion go to waste. Highly emotional times tend to generate great material.

Which is why I thought I’d remind you that every screenplay requires two things in order to work. Without these two things, a script will die on the vine. They are the oxygen to your script’s lungs. What are they?

1) Give your characters non-stop things to do.
2) Have those things matter.

There is no good script in the history of screenwriting that doesn’t do these things. So let’s look at what they mean.

One of the most common mistakes writers make is they start off strong, with an aggressive first act, then as they make their way into the second act, they can’t think of stuff for their characters to do. They know the characters have to do something. But it isn’t clear what. So they write a bunch of “filler” scenes with characters sitting around talking or going places they don’t need to go. Eventually, they can’t even think of filler scenes anymore and they give up.

The way to avoid this is to make sure your character has a strong goal pushing him forward. This is true for big movies. This is true for small movies. But it’s far more common for the small movies to fail at this. That’s because with big movies, big goals are baked into the concept. Whether it’s the Avengers going after Thanos or The Rock and Ryan Reynolds trying to steal Cleopatra’s bejeweled eggs in Red Notice. The logline itself seems to tell you what the character’s going to be doing for the next two hours.

But what if you’re writing a character piece about a guy whose wife just divorced him and he doesn’t know what to do with his life? In these cases, the goal isn’t as clear. Which means you’ll likely violate rule #1: Give your character non-stop things to do. After Divorced Dan decides what to eat that first night and maybe after he does his laundry, what does Divorced Dan do?

Well, smaller movies typically use one of two things to drive the narrative. The first is a character who’s trying to get his or her life back on track. A good example of this is The Wrestler. The Wrestler is both trying to repair the broken relationship with his daughter as well as get ready for the big wrestling rematch with his nemesis. These two things always give him something to do. Each scene can push one or the other storyline forward.

The second thing small movies use to drive the narrative is money. This is why you see all these small town Coen Brothers films being about money. It’s to make sure the characters always have something to do (get the money). Hell or High Water is another recent example of small-town characters needing money.

But money doesn’t have to be a brief case with 100,000 dollars in it. Or a giant score from a bank robbery. It could be as simple as your hero isn’t able to pay his mortgage at the end of the month, which means he’s going to get kicked out. Once a character’s back is up against the wall, they have no choice but to act. Which means – you guessed it – they now have non-stop things to do. Every scene is going to be about getting that money.

So, to summarize, give your character a goal and they will always have something to do.

This leads us to the second rule, which is: THE THINGS THEY DO MUST MATTER. Let me paint a slightly adjusted scenario of the above movie idea. In our new movie, the hero doesn’t need money by the end of the month to pay his mortgage. He’s going to be fine either way. But let’s say he still wants money. So you put him through the exact same paces as the other character. He asks his friends and family for money. He asks for an advance at work. Maybe he tries to rob someone.


In every one of these scenarios our character is abiding by the first rule – he has “non-stop things to do.” However, there’s one major difference: those things don’t matter. How do we feel if his friend turns him down for money? We don’t feel anything because we know he doesn’t need the money. It’s got to matter for us to care.

Take one of my recent favorite films, Good Time. Brothers Connie and Nick try to rob a bank and Nick gets caught while Connie escapes. Connie has to bail out his brother within 24 hours or his brother gets sent to one of the most dangerous prisons in the state, where he’s not likely to survive. The next several scenes follow Connie trying to scrounge up the money to bail his brother out.

In one intense scene, he goes to his ex-girlfriend, who he recently ghosted, and convinces her to come with him to pay for his brother. It’s a great scene because he doesn’t like this girl anymore but she still likes him. So she’s asking him if this means they’re back together and he has to lie to her and say yes in order to save his brother. But the main reason the scene works is because THE SCENE MATTERS. We know that if he fails to get the money out of her, his brother could die.

That’s not to say all stakes must be life or death. But something has to be on the line in a scene for the scene to work. In my new favorite show, “You,” the main character, Joe, meets with his girlfriend’s best friend at a coffee shop. The best friend hates Joe and wants the girlfriend to dump him. Joe has to make nice with the best friend so that that doesn’t happen. There may not be a big chunk of money involved in this scene but the scene STILL MATTERS. If Joe fails to win over the friend, he could lose his girlfriend.

It’s really as simple as that. If you want to write a good screenplay, give your characters non-stop things to do and have those things matter.

Thanksgiving To-Do List: Get some writing done over the holiday weekend! We’ve got an ANYTHING GOES Amateur Showdown coming up in February so you’re going to want to be ready for that. I’ll be talking about that more as the year winds down. We’ve got a new Black List in a couple of weeks. We’ve got a maybe possibly probably newsletter hitting your inboxes in the next couple of days. And finally, whatever you do, do not – I repeat DO NOT – eat any pumpkin pie this weekend. We must stop the proliferation of this vile dessert. It starts with you.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY! Gobble-gobble.

Genre: Serial Killer
Premise: Based on the incredible true story of serial killer Paul John Knowles and the week he spent with British journalist Sandy Fawkes in the midst of a murderous killing spree.
About: This script finished with 7 votes on last year’s Black List. This is Greg Navarro’s breakthrough script. Am I the only one who thinks this should’ve been titled, “Handsome Strangler?”
Writer: Greg Navarro
Details: 115 pages

Handsome Stranger caught my eye because I’ve been obsessively watching “You” on Netflix, which is about an unorthodox serial killer and the girl he covets. I just finished the first season and it’s about as good of a season of TV, start to finish, as I’ve seen all year. The main thing I like about it is that they do things on that show that you’re not supposed to do in screenwriting. Without getting into spoilers, you won’t believe how it ends.

That’s what I’ve taken from the series – that, as writers, we should be asking ourselves, “What are you never supposed to do?” and then do that. Because if you’re doing something you’re not supposed to do, you’re guaranteed to be original. This is how Louis C.K. became famous. He asked, what are you not supposed to make fun of? Something comics never made fun of was their own children. It was considered in poor taste. So Louis started doing bits about how much he hated playing with his kids. That’s “You’s” secret weapon. It asks what you’re never supposed to do and then does it.

Which brings us to Handsome Stranger, a script that employs the same power punch that “You” does, by putting us in a relationship with a serial killer. We, the audience, know the woman is dating a serial killer. But she does not. That dramatic irony is what powers the story.

It’s 1974, Atlanta, Georgia. We meet a woman named Sandy Fawkes. She’s a reporter out of England looking for her next story in the states. Her last several articles have been weak and her newspaper is thinking of dumping her. Bummed out, she grabs a drink at a local bar and, in the process, meets a handsome mustached stranger named Paul John Knowles (who introduces himself as Daryl).

Sandy is a good 10 years older than Knowles and is the first woman he’s ever met that takes control. He finds himself smitten by her. She feels the same way and so the two participate in the horizontal lambada at a local hotel. Sandy is supposed to head back to England that night but decides to stick around. Knowles needs to head down to Florida to chat with his lawyer so she joins him.

While this is happening, we’re flashing back to a series of horrific crime scenes. Teenagers, older women, men, it doesn’t matter. Somebody is brutally murdering people and since this is the 70s, it’s virtually impossible to find the killer. All they can do is throw their arms up and hope for a lucky break.

That lucky break is coming because Knowles confesses to Sandy that he has big aspirations of being remembered and he’s got a bunch of audio tapes that he’s left with his lawyer. After he dies, which he promises will be soon, he wants Sandy to listen to the tapes and write a book about his confessions. “What confessions?” She asks him. But he doesn’t answer her.

The script executes a major shift at the midpoint, with Sandy and Knowles parting ways. The second half of the script is the cops closing in on Knowles. They connect him with Sandy after Knowles beats the crap out of a friend she introduced him to, which makes Sandy the key to the case. After filling in the last few holes about Knowles’ true identity, the cops catch him. But Knowles never goes to trial. He’s killed by a cop while trying to escape during a prison transfer. Sandy would later go on to write a book about the week she spent with him.

There’s this new sub-genre that’s snuck into the ether I call the “serial killer adjacent” genre. This is when you write about serial killers but not really. We saw this, for example, when Zac Efron played Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil an Vile, where not one killing was shown.

Here, we do get killings. But the focus is more on the relationship between Sandy and Knowles. Since that’s what I have to grade this script on, I’d say the script isn’t that great. What’s awesome about “You” is that we know that the main character, Joe, is dangerous. That he’s killed people who Beck knows. And, therefore, he could kill her. So we’re always on pins and needles when they’re together.

However, we’re never worried for Sandy when she’s with Knowles. We’re told from the pictures on the title page that she will go on to write a book about this guy. So we know he doesn’t do anything to her. And that boils all their interactions down to a bunch of mundane conversations. There is some irony in this awful man falling in love with this girl. But it’s not enough to carry the movie.

I think Navarro recognized this as well, which is why he splits the two at the midpoint, focusing the rest of the story on the cops hunting Knowles down, making it more of a traditional serial killer script. But the structure is kind of odd in that, while he’s on the run, we flash back to a bunch of his murders. I’m not sure why we did that. It almost seemed exploitative, to show all these gruesome murders in a vacuum. Can’t these things just be implied?

I can’t help but feel like there was a better way into this story. The strange attractor is Sandy. She’s the one who experiences something nobody has experienced before. So why isn’t the narrative exploiting that more? The psychological effects of unknowingly sleeping with the devil would be crippling (I’d assume). Not to mention the way the world looks at you after doing so. On top of this, you, Sandy, are making a profit off of it. That’s a pretty complex character study you could have and yet we don’t get any of that from Sandy. She’s more of an ancillary character once her and Knowles split up.

I give the script points for being different. But nothing happened here that grabbed me and said, “This needs to be a movie!”

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

What I learned: How much you show of a killing can really change the tenor of your serial killer script. If you show the nitty gritty details of a killing, even if it’s after they’re already dead, you can make the story very dark. I mean, here, we show the aftermath of a 15 year old murdered girl and it was just too much. Meanwhile, I noticed with “You” that if Joe ever killed someone we liked, they never showed the killing. They only implied it. Which keeps the series light and entertaining. So be careful about how much violence you show because it can have a massive affect on the reader’s response to your material.

Genre: Comedy/Action/Supernatural
Premise: A mother moves her family into the house of her recently deceased father, who was convinced that a portal to hell was opening up at a nearby mountain.
About: Ghostbusters Afterlife finally came out and pulled in 44 million dollars. For a little perspective, 2016’s all-female Ghostbusters had a 46 million dollar opening with bigger stars and no pandemic. So I think that’s a pretty good first weekend for the film. Then again, who knows anymore. A little side note about this film. It was directed by Jason Reitman, who is the son of Ivan Reitman, who, of course, directed the original Ghostbusters.
Writer: Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman (original characters by Harold Ramis and Dan Akroyd)
Details: 2 hours

It’s hard to talk about Ghostbusters Afterlife without talking about the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot. Because, in most ways, Afterlife is a response to that film. And, actually, you can’t talk about Ghostbusters Afterlife and 2016 Ghostbusters without talking about The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, since Rise of Skywalker was a correction movie in the exact same way that Afterlife was a correction movie. In both instances, the previous films alienated their core audience in search of new audiences, only to see that strategy fail. They didn’t bring new audiences in AND they lost legacy audiences in the process.

Ghostbusters 2016 was such a strange film in that the cast was great. Melissa McCarthy is great. Kristin Wiig is great. Kate McKinnon is great. The problem lay more with the Sony executives who greenlit the film. They decided to lean into the current trend at the time (female driven comedies) at the expense of what everybody loved about the original film, which was that great cast. It didn’t help that Paul Feig had no feel for the Ghostbusters universe whatsoever. He made so many bad creative choices that it, at times, felt like he was sabotaging the franchise. I mean why would you cast Bill Murray in a role that wasn’t his role in the original Ghostbusters? That would be like casting Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role of a concerned accountant in a Terminator sequel.

Now I’m not going to lie. I didn’t have high hopes for this latest Ghostbusters iteration. Reitman hasn’t had the best career after Juno. Even, arguably, his best movie since Juno, that Clooney flying movie thing, wasn’t very good. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to go back and watch that movie and have a more positive reaction than, “Eh, not bad.” Since then, he’s had Young Adult, Labor Day, Tully, and The Front Runner. Raise your hand if you saw any of these.

In that respect, Afterlife could easily have been seen as a metaphor for Reitman’s career, since it was pretty much dead. Yet he somehow convinced Sony to give him a shot at a Ghostbusters movie and here we are. As I sat down to watch this, I did a little prayer for this movie to be good. Being in California, they practically make you take a medical exam to get inside the theater so it was an exhausting ordeal. I needed the next two hours to be worth all the drama of getting in here. Let’s find out if they were.

Afterlife follows single mother Callie, who cares for her teenage son, Trevor, and pre-teen weirdo daughter, Phoebe. The three must move into her recently deceased father’s house (who she never knew) because she has no money and it’s her only living option. Phoebe immediately starts exploring the old house and realizes her grandfather was some sort of weird scientist.

Long story short, her grandfather was Egon Spangler, one of the famous Ghostbusters. By the way, kids in 2021 don’t really believe that the 1984 Ghostbuster event happened for some reason. I think because it was easier on the story if they didn’t. Anyway, Phoebe realizes that Spangler came here because a nearby mountain showed supernatural signs of opening up a portal to hell and wanted to stop it. And since he’s no longer around, that job will be up to Phoebe, Trevor, and their new friends from school.

Let me start off by saying my favorite new actor is the kid who played Podcast. I laughed at every single line of his, no exagerration. I understand why Sony needs to promote McKenna Grace as the breakout of this film but I mean, come on, if you’re being honest? It wasn’t even close. This kid was as good as Cory Feldman in his Goonies prime days.

I would say that Ghostbusters Afterlife is the breakout summer movie of the year (I think that’s when it was originally supposed to come out). Don’t believe me? Here is its competition: Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Venom 2, F9, A Quiet Place 2, No Time to Die, Eternals, Free Guy, Jungle Cruise, Dune, and Godzilla vs. Kong. I would say it’s better than all of those movies. Maybe Free Guy beats it in a death match but it would be close.

It certainly has all the ingredients for a great film. It’s got great characters, the comedy is genuinely funny, it’s got fun action sequences (I’d put the ghost car chase through downtown up against any set piece this year), it’s fun, it’s got heart, it has a few surprises along the way. And as much as I dog Reitman, there’s one thing he’s great at – getting good performances. He gets such great performances out of everyone. I mean I never understood why everyone loved Carrie Coon so much (the actress who plays the mother) until this film. She’s so great in this as a dumpster fire mother who uses her dark sense of humor to hold her family together.

I think detractors would point out the script is formulaic. But what you have to understand is that every studio movie that isn’t angling for an Oscar is going to use formula. It’s going to use the 3 act structure. It’s going to give its characters fatal flaws and inner demons that must be overcome by the end of the story. The challenge, then, is writing a great movie within that formula. You do that by being as creative as you can within those boundaries. The movie falls apart when you shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, it’s formulaic so I shouldn’t even try.” Embrace the formula then do as much as you can within it.

For example, they made this little ghost creature called “Muncher” that the kids had to hunt down early on. They called him that cause he was always munching on poles and metal. They eventually catch him in a ghost trap, but then that trap (and their proton backpack) get impounded by the police. They need that proton backpack for the final showdown so they break into the police station, only to find that the backpack is behind bars and, therefore, there’s no way to get it. Podcast then sees that the ghost trap is there as well and gets an idea. He reaches in, presses the release button, and Muncher pops out. What do you think Muncher then does? He eats his way out of the cage and flies off, giving the kids entry inside so they can grab the proton backpack.

That’s the kind of creative setup and payoff that a lot of writers won’t put the time and effort into. I know this because I read scripts ALL THE TIME where characters have to do stuff like this and the writers invariably use the old, “Do you have a hairpin” trope which they then pick the lock with. You can do it the creative way, in which case your movie will be cool. Or you can do it the lazy way, in which case your movie will be cliche.

(Spoilers) We do get into some heavy nostalgia at the end of the film. The original Ghostbusters do come back. I realize this will infuriate people who hate nostalgia. But not only did I think it was tastefully done (even Bill Murray had some classic Peter Venkmen lines that gave me goosebumps). I think it was necessary. You needed to course correct after the disaster that was 2016 and getting the Ghostbusters ghostbusting again was the only way to do it.

As you know, I’m a big proponent right now of movies that make you feel good. Movies that make you forget the pandemic for a couple of hours. This movie WILL make you feel good. And, honestly, I think the only reason it’s at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes is because there’s a certain subset of reviewers who don’t like that they’re trying to course correct from the previous movie. I honestly believe that 20-something percent was stripped from the score for that reason. In other words, don’t believe any negativity about GBA. It’s the most feel-good of feel-good movies you’re going to see all year.

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: You can get around story problems with a little creativity. I noticed that Reitman wanted a teacher character in this script (to play the love interest for Callie). He wanted Phoebe to go to school so she could meet friends there. There was only one problem. The movie takes place during the summer. So what do you do? These sorts of logistical issues pop up in screenplays all the time. You want to do something but, for whatever reason, the story doesn’t allow it. Just remember, you’re God. You get to create the situation. So just be creative about it. Reitman got his school by introducing summer school into the story. And it actually helped the movie because it was a lot more laid back than normal school, which allowed Reitman to get a lot more comedy out of it. For example, Paul Rudd’s character is a teacher who throws on inappropriate 80s horror movies for the class to watch instead of actually teaching.