Does anyone here know what a “screenplay movie” is?

A “screenplay movie” is a movie that actually resonates because of the screenplay.

Most of the movies at the top of the box office in the IP era are *not* screenplay movies. They’re Hollywood movies.

They’re designed to sell tickets and merchandise. Their impact is based more on the filmmaking – the big set pieces, the flashy production value, the huge star power – than anything that’s written on the page.

It’s not that writing these movies is easy. Far from it. Hollywood movies have their own set of challenges brought on by managing multiple points-of-view (the studio, the director, the actors, 20 different producers), many of which conflict.

Imagine receiving a note from the lead actor to make their character funnier then an hour later receiving a note from the head producer to make the lead character more serious. That kind of conflicting feedback is not uncommon.

But the bulk of Hollywood movies are about laying out a clear three-act structure and managing exposition so that the audience can clearly follow what’s going on. You are solving issues that are more technical than artistic, which is why these movies are less rewarding to work on and less rewarding to watch.

“Screenplay movies” put more thought into the characters, take more risks inside the plot, have more to say through their themes, and generally make you think and feel a lot more. They are designed to connect with you rather than whack you across the head.

Here is a list of the top 10 movies at the global box office in 2023:

1) Super Mario Bros — $1.36B
2) Barbie — $1.34B
3) GotGVol3 — $845M
4) Oppenheimer — $777M
5) Fast X — $705M
6) Across The SpiderVerse — $688M
7) The Little Mermaid — $568M
8) Mission Impossible7 — $552M
9) Ant-Man3 — $476M
10) Elemental — $468.6M

Surprisingly, five of them are screenplay movies and five of them are Hollywood movies. I say “surprisingly” because, usually, the top 10 is dominated by Hollywood movies. Do you know which ones are the screenplay movies? I’ll give you a second to make your picks.

The Hollywood movies on the list are…

Super Mario Brothers
Fast X
The Little Mermaid
Mission Impossible 7
Ant-Man 3

The screenplay movies are…

Barbie
Guardians of the Galaxy 3
Oppenheimer
Across The Spider-verse
Elemental

I know a lot of people loved Super Mario Brothers but let’s be real. It’s positioned as a product above all else. I wouldn’t be surprised if AI is writing all the Fast & Furious scripts at this point, the writing has become so insignificant. Did anybody even write The Little Mermaid? Aren’t they just using the same script as last time? Mission Impossible 7 isn’t as bad as Fast X in the writing department. But that franchise clearly prioritizes stunts over everything else. And then Ant-Man 3 is part of the Marvel machine. They probably have a studio exec leaning over a poor screenwriter’s shoulder saying, ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘rewrite that part,’ after every sentence.

With the screenplay movies, we’ve got Elemental, which I’m guessing is a screenplay movie because Disney puts a lot of thought into their screenplays for their original films, a valuable lesson they learned from Pixar. I haven’t seen Spider-verse but everybody tells me it’s got a great screenplay. I almost put Oppenheimer on the Hollywood list because Nolan prioritizes directing over writing. He’s more about his vision than getting the screenplay right. But he cares so much about these characters, and characters are the most important screenplay ingredient of all, that I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. James Gunn has always been a screenplay-first guy. And you can tell he wants to move people with Guardians of the Galaxy. He doesn’t just want spectacle.

And then you have Barbie.

Barbie is an anomaly. It is a screenplay movie in a Hollywood movie body. Which is why, even though I didn’t agree with its message, I commend the writers for what they accomplished. Cause what they accomplished is amazing. They made a billion-dollar movie that actually makes you think, that actually gets people talking.

I told you, when I went on my recent family reunion, everybody in my family had an opinion about Barbie. That’s so rare these days. But it’s because the movie is a “screenplay first” concept that it’s resonating. It’s trying to say something rather than trying to draw audiences in. It just happened to be a product that everyone wanted to see. Which is how they used to make movies. They’d make gambles like this.

And for those of you who are saying, “Carson… blah blah blah… it’s Barbie. It’s international IP. Everyone was going to see this no matter what.” I don’t agree with that. I think if they went with the Hollywood version of this, it would’ve looked flat. It would’ve looked uninteresting. It would’ve still made money. But it would not have come anywhere close to 1.3 billion.

“Barbie” should be encouraging to every screenwriter out there. It shows you that when a good writer has a strong vision, they’re better at this than all the studio heads combined. The artist is the only one in the equation who wants to take risks. The studio and the producers hate risks. Which is why the movies they spearhead feel so average. They never hit you on an emotional level.

Here is this latest weekend’s Top 10 along with their categorization…

1) Gran Turismo – 17.3 mil/17.3 mil – Hollywood
2) Barbie – 17.1 mil/594 mil – Screenplay
3) Blue Beetle – 13 mil/46 mil – Hollywood
4) Oppenheimer – 9 mil/300 mil – Screenplay
5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – 6 mil/98 mil – Hollywood
6) Meg 2: The Trench – 5 mil/74 mil – Hollywood
7) Strays – 4 mil/16 mil – Hollywood
8) Retribution – 3.3 mil/3.3 mil – Hollywood
9) The Hill – 2.5 mil/2.5 mil – Screenplay
10) Haunted Mansion – 2 mil/62 mil – Hollywood

I was rooting for Gran Turismo and happy for its first-place finish. Even though it’s a subdued winner, it should get director Neil Blomkamp another directing project. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, we’ll find out. But a part of me still roots for him, at least until we get District 10. The movie just couldn’t overcome its benchwarmers status. The cast (Orlando Bloom?) makes you think that someone at Netflix made a mistake and accidentally put the movie in theaters instead of on the service.

Poor Blue Beetle. These DC movies can’t overcome their association with the former era of DC. Who wants to see a superhero movie that they know has no future? But even if that wasn’t the case, the CGI on this Blue Beetle guy screamed “cheese factor 700 thousand.” It just didn’t work. It was an ill-conceived superhero project from the outset.

The movie I was most intrigued by on this list was Strays. Not because I wanted to see it. But because it’s a physical manifestation of how confused Hollywood is right now. It used to be that if you pitched a movie like this in a room, the response would be: “A movie with real dogs that’s raunchy and R-rated? So you can’t bring kids, cause it’s too raunchy. And you can’t bring in adults because adults don’t want to see a movie about dogs on an adventure. Who’s going to show up to this movie???” The pitch would die before the writers could ask if the studio preferred two brads or three on their drafts.

But, these days, nobody knows what’s going to do well or not so they throw stuff at the wall. On some level, I admire it. It’s a bold move. But, in the end, it turned out the old school thought process was correct. This concept actively discourages both ends of the audience spectrum from seeing the film.

I’m just glad that, after looking the box office up and down this week that screenwriting still matters! I don’t know why I thought it didn’t matter at the top of the box office. I guess I assumed that the top 10 movies were always going to be machines that placed screenwriting at the bottom of the priority list. But it’s clear from Barbie’s success (as well as some of these other giant films) that if you want to really connect with audiences, giving screenwriters a concept and “getting the f**k out of the way,” a la Michael Jordan circa 1989 in Cleveland, is the best way to go. :)

Quick Reminder – Logline Showdown Deadline is Thursday, August 24th! Have a script and want to see how the concept measures up against real-world competition? Enter Logline Showdown and battle it out with four other contestants!

What: Logline Showdown (feature scripts only)
Send: title, genre, logline
Deadline: Thursday, August 24th, 9:59pm Pacific Time
Where: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com

A lot of you are probably looking at the box office this weekend, seeing Barbie take the crown once again, twiddling your fingers together mischievously, and whispering to yourself, “Yessssss. Yesssssssss. Take that, Carson. How wrong you turned out to be.”

And to you I say, “Okay, Barbie, let’s go party!” For the love of Sugar Baby Ken, I’m all for Barbie’s success. I want people seeing movies at the movie theater. I support every soldier fighting that war, even if that soldier would prefer that women and men live on opposite sides of the planet. I’m KIDDING! (But not really)

What I’m more invested in, at the moment, is The Last Voyage of the Demeter entering the box office ring. I hear you chirping from the peanut gallery. “Last Voyage of the Demeter? What the heck is that??” The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a cool little concept about a ship that inadvertently finds out that it’s transporting Dracula’s coffin. And when Dracula gets out, all hell breaks loose.

It’s a perfect setup for a spec script. You’ve got this contained ship in the middle of the sea. Nowhere to hide. It’s the 19th century, so no one to call either. And then you’ve got that strange attractor we were talking about on Friday, with Dracula himself being on the ship.

What’s crazy about this movie is that the spec has been kicking around for almost 15 years (it was a big spec sale way back in the day from Bragi Schut). And now, after all that time, it’s finally been made (by the director of the cool little movie gem, “Troll Hunter”). As someone who understands more and more every day just how difficult it is to get movies made, I can’t help but celebrate this accomplishment.

A lot of you have probably looked at the post title and thought, “Has Carson lost his mind?” Answer: Maaayyyyyybe. “This movie barely made six million bucks this weekend. That’s about as fail as failure gets.” Let me explain something to you: If you write a spec script AND IT GETS A WIDE THEATRICAL RELEASE, you have won. You have won the godd****ed screenwriting lottery.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a theatrical release for a movie? The amount of competition that goes into obtaining just one of those coveted slots? Especially today, when there are less theatrical releases than ever. Throw an original spec into the mix and the odds get even worse. Studios do not like releasing original material. It’s too much of a gamble.

So why didn’t Last Voyage do better? I think whenever you have a horror movie that traverses too far off the beaten path, it’s trickier getting horror fans interested. Ironically, the thing that sets this horror movie apart – the fact that it’s on a boat in the 1800s – is probably why people didn’t show up.

People can relate to scary people in masks in haunted houses (Insidious). They can relate to freaky dolls (M3GAN). But it’s harder to relate to something that you could never, yourself, experience. When’s the last time you were on a creaky old ship having to escape a monster?

Of course, nobody here has been on a spaceship with a face-hugging alien following them through the corridors and that movie, “Alien,” did all right. There’s a big difference between these two films though. Alien was a masterpiece. Masterpieces trump any and all box office logic. They’re so good that people go out and tell others about the film which means everyone goes to see it.

The large majority of movies are not masterpieces. So they can’t depend on that advantage. I think the setup may have been a mite too unfamiliar when it came down to it. And while vampires are cool, it’s unclear if Dracula is cool to the young crowd. Even as the OG vampire, there’s something a little dated about Mr. Dracula. It’s too bad people feel that way because the movie actually looks atmospheric and good!

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a serendipitous title when you think about it because it’s one of the last holdover specs from the days when you could still sell spec scripts. It made me wonder, what now? Now that they can no longer pull from that well, what will they pull from?

We’re reaching that point where the studios don’t have archives to plunder anymore. Demeter was one of the last spec sales that everyone agreed should be a movie.

Does that mean it’s Barbie and Marvel sequels for the rest of our lives? Maybe. But maybe not! Shall we talk about the pink elephant in the room? No Barbie sequel announced?? Does anybody find that strange?

Usually, when you’re a studio and you have a director you love in your fold, you make a deal immediately to get their next movie. It’s why directors like Christopher Nolan stayed at Warner Brothers for so long before the weird Tenet-Covid soap opera.

But Greta Gerwig did not sign up for a Barbie sequel with Warner Brothers. Or any movie with them. Which you would think, if WB liked the film, they would’ve done. Keep in mind, this all would’ve been before the movie became an unexpected super-hit. Before a movie is released, there’s always a lot of doubts, always a lot of second-guessing. As crazy as it sounds, maybe the people at Warner Brothers didn’t like the film. And now they’re regretting the heck out of their “wait and see” strategy.

Because instead of Barbie 2, Gerwig has signed a giant deal with Netflix to spearhead a Chronicles of Narnia franchise. Franchises can take up to 7-10 years of a director’s life. Which leaves the future of Barbie in total disarray. Would Gerwig try to sneak in a Barbie movie between Narnia movies? I’m not sure that’s going to happen. Which puts Warner Brothers in the awkward position of trying to find another director INSTEAD of re-hiring the director who just became the highest-grossing female director ever. How do they plan to spin that?

Another side note in this odd real life story is that Barbie being a feminist screed puts it squarely in the liberal storytelling aisle. Whereas Chronicles of Narnia is basically a retelling of the Bible. It seems like an odd choice, particularly because if Gerwig were to attempt to re-interpret Narnia to divert it away from its conservative roots, she would surely receive a ton of backlash from the Narnia audience.

It’s all rather confusing, weird, and slightly salacious.

Getting back to Last Voyage, what’s crazy is that this is a concept I would still tell a screenwriter to write RIGHT NOW. It still has all the ingredients for a great spec. Maybe that’s why the spec script and the feature film have never had a harmonious relationship. What’s good for one isn’t always good for the other. And to further confuse things, Last Voyage would probably make a perfect streaming movie, while Chronicles of Narnia feels like a theatrical release.

Does anything in Hollywood make sense?

It’s no secret that the industry is going through a transition.

The move away from original concepts at the box office as well as the rise of streaming has confused the marketplace in ways that probably won’t be settled for another five years.

The best way to explain it is that streaming has tried to pick up the slack on the original concept front and the results have been a mixed bag. We’ve gotten red-headed step-children like Ghosted, Red Notice and The Gray Man, which are more “shy concept” than “high concept.”

But there’s also been some golden children. Army of the Dead comes to mind. The Tomorrow War. Palm Springs. With these movies, we’re talking legitimate big ideas, the kind of “spec-y” material that gets industry folks jazzed up.

But I must be honest in saying that I’ve been questioning the value of “high concept” (or “flashy concept”) lately. It used to be the highest form of currency an unrepped writer possessed. Nowadays, the kind of script that gets a writer noticed is muddier than ever.

Take a movie like Extraction, on Netflix. Good movie. But how reliable is it that such a nuts-and-bolts action spec is going to get you noticed? That film was dependent on its direction to work. It was the furthest thing from a script-friendly concept.

You also have these screenwriting success stories that revolve around voice. Christy Hall, who wrote “Get Home Safe.” Shay Hatten, who writes all the John Wick stuff. He broke out because of his sixth gear writing style. Simon Rich, who’s positioning himself to be the next Charlie Kaufman. Emerald Fennel, with her eerie revenge story, Promising Young Woman.

So then, should writers forgo concept and write something that best showcases their voice?

The answer to that is a big fat “no” and I’ll tell you why. Because the one thing that has been true of Hollywood ever since its inception is that NO ONE WANTS TO READ YOUR SCRIPT.

They don’t. I love reading and I can’t even read your script. Not because I don’t want to. But because I’ve got a million other scripts to read so I don’t have time.

Now imagine someone who doesn’t like reading at all! How do you get them to read your script?

There are only four ways.

1. Already have a relationship with them.
2. Someone they respect must recommend the script to them.
3. There’s a monetary benefit to reading the script (an agent reading a project that already has funding to see if it’s right for their actor).
4. It’s a really good idea.

We know we can’t do anything about number three. And both one and two are dependent on you getting the script to someone in the first place. Which leaves us with number four. You have to come up with an idea that entices readers to want to read your script. And it has to be the best idea possible because, as we’ve established, nobody wants to read your script. So you have to make your idea irresistible.

I don’t think writers internalize this truth. A good way to cross that barrier is to imagine yourself pitching the script to a friend. That’s where you really know if your idea is a winner or a dud. A friend catches you off guard and asks you what your script is about.  No matter how well you explain it, it always ends up sounding boring (or weak, or bad).

Most writers live in Delusion Land when it comes to their movie ideas because they’re biased and have an emotional attachment to their ideas. Telling them their idea is bad just makes them want to prove you wrong. So let’s use this as an opportunity to remind you what makes for a good concept.

STRANGE ATTRACTOR
There are a lot of movie ideas out there that sound decent at first. Yet there’s clearly something missing. That thing is usually the strange attractor. The “strange attractor” is the element in your idea that’s unique enough to set your concept apart from others. A kid who gets kidnapped by a local serial killer and imprisoned in his basement is a dime-a-dozen concept. A kid who gets kidnapped by a local serial killer, imprisoned in his basement, and has access to a phone that can connect with all the killer’s previous victims is a concept with a strange attractor.

MARKETABLE
Would it require mountains to be moved to market your idea? Is your idea about a 19 year old selling bed mattresses in 1997? Is it about two nuns questioning their faith? Is it an impressionistic account of an American family’s rise and fall over two decades? I’m not saying these movies don’t occasionally break out. Aftersun is about a woman’s memories with her dad when she was 11. It would definitely fall into the “unmarketable” category. But remember that you’re not pitching people an already-finished movie. You’re pitching them a script and trying to get them to read it. How many of you have even seen Aftersun? If you haven’t seen a beloved movie that’s already finished and available for only 5 bucks, why would you think anyone would want to read your unmarketable premise, which *IS NOT* a movie that won a dozen awards? If you’re going indie, at least try and get *ONE* marketable element in there. Even Bones and All had cannibals. Even the indy-est film ever, “The Whale,” had a 600-pound man. Even “Pig,” had a truffle pig. Think about how your movie would be marketed to know if your average reader would be interested in reading it.

THE ‘ALMOST’ CONCEPT
The ‘almost’ concept is the fake Rolex of the screenwriting world. It looks good at first. But the closer you inspect it, the less it holds up. It basically amounts to using a lot of high concept buzz words that don’t add up to anything real. Here’s an example: “An advanced AI algorithm figures out a way to create the first real vampires, werewolves, and zombies, which are inadvertently released into the population.” Look at all the high concept buzzwords here. “Advanced AI algorithm.” “Vampires.” “Werewolves.” “Zombies.” It must be a good idea, right? No. Because it’s an inelegant collection of surface-level elements that lack a compelling narrative.

IRONY
Irony is the biggest concept cheat code you’re ever going to find. It’s actually quite difficult to come up with a good ironic concept, which means that, when you do, your idea is going to stand out. One of the reasons that The Lost City was a hit was because it had a fun ironic premise. The dopey clueless model on the book cover of all her romance-adventure novels is determined to save the author when she gets stuck in a real-life adventure. The great thing about ironic movie ideas is that they’ve proven they can stand the test of time. 1983’s Trading Places is about a poor guy who trades places with a rich guy. We all love watching a rich person who’s all of a sudden penniless. Or a poor person who becomes a millionaire. We all love irony.

PUSH THE ENVELOPE
Not everyone likes to write big flashy movies. But, if you’re going to write something smaller, you have to find ways to turbo-boost the idea or I’m afraid people just aren’t going to be interested. Promising Young Woman walked a dangerous line with some of the scenes in the script as well as its main character’s actions. Black List script, Magazine Dreams, about a disturbed man obsessed with bodybuilding, gets uncomfortably gnarly. If you’re thinking of writing an idea that’s both small and lightweight, you’re making things sooooooo hard on yourself.  If you’ve got one of the things listed above (irony, strange attractor, marketability) it can work. But if not, you need some edge. Look to push the envelope, usually with your main character. The Joker is the ‘best case scenario’ outcome of this strategy.

In the end, idea construction comes down to creativity. It starts with inspiration – you saw something and it gave you an idea for a movie. You then have to be honest with yourself.  Do I have a legitimate movie idea here? When I was in high school, I saw my friend’s brand new litter of puppies and I thought, “That would be a great idea if the puppies were all real smart and could communicate with humans.” So I came up with a drama idea (not comedy idea) about smart puppies. Again, just cause you’re inspired doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Once you have the idea, come up with the best way to present it. I’ve told this story before – screenwriter Ben Ripley’s first six drafts of Source Code centered around a detective trying to figure out why a train crashed. Once Ripley moved the script inside the train, in the mind of a character who keeps waking up on it every eight minutes, the idea came alive.

And from there, you have to field-test it. Ask people who have told you before that you have bad ideas what they think. If several of them are really pumped up about the idea, you probably have something on your hands. If everyone’s lukewarm or gives you that pleasant, “Yeah, it’s not bad” response? Or starts asking a lot of confused questions?  Throw the idea away. There isn’t time for you to waste on an idea that you’ll find out six months down the road wasn’t any good in the first place.

Feel free to field test ideas here in the comments. I’m going to ask for an amendment to the field-testing, though. If you are replying to someone’s idea, you must rank it on a 1-10 scale. BE HONEST. We’re trying to help people here. Not send them off on a wild bad-movie-idea goose chase. And writers? I’ve found that most people rating you on a 1-10 scale will rate you one number higher than what they really think. Just because most people don’t want to be mean. So if someone gives you a 6 out of 10, they’re probably giving you a 5 out of 10.

You can come to me as well. I will give it to you straight. My logline consults are $25. You can e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you want one!

For reference, I’ve done a few hundred logline consults this year and I’ve given about ten 8’s. A couple of 8.5’s. No 9’s or 10’s. And I use “7” as my floor for whether you should write the script or not.

Genre: TV Pilot – Half-Hour Comedy “Documentary”
Winning Logline: A parody of ‘makeover’ reality shows, Beyond Help with Handy Andy follows overconfident yet completely incompetent “Handy Andy” Cornwall as he travels the country documenting his attempts to fix everything from failing restaurants to broken marriages, in the hopes of selling his half-assed reality show to a network. Look out, America. He’s helping!
About: Today’s pilot script won the TV Pilot Script Showdown, a rare opportunity for TV writers to battle it out on the, otherwise, feature-focused Scriptshadow. It comes from Scriptshadow vet, Colin O’Brien (CJob).
Writer: Colin O’Brien
Details: 36 pages

Adam Devine for Andy?

The half-hour comedy, once the cornerstone of the TV industry, has fallen on tough times.

They say that feature film comedies have become non-existent and that’s because everyone can get their comedy fix on TV. But where is that comedy show that’s giving us earth-shattering knee-slappers these days?

A lot of today’s comedies seem to want just as much drama in them as humor. Succession. Barry. Shrinking. The last bona fide “everyone watched it” TV comedy was The Office. Ted Lasso was pretty big but I don’t know if it got anywhere near “Office” level.

The most interesting half-hour comedy show I’ve seen lately was Jury Duty. It follows a fake jury during a fake Los Angeles court case where one of the jury members is a real person who has no idea that he’s participating in a facade.

It was fascinating, kind of messed up, and doing something different with the struggling comedy genre.

Let’s see if Handy Andy can carve out its own slice of the comedy pie!

Andy is a 40-year-old dude who just decides, out of nowhere, that he’s going to start one of those “fix it” reality shows. He only has one employee, the non-English speaking Miguel, who holds the camera for him. It’s not clear how Andy gets production sound for his shoots.

Andy’s first fix-it job is the Carters, a family living in a slightly dilapidated house that the city may tear down if it doesn’t start looking nicer soon. Simon, the father, Vanna, the wife, Sandra, the teenage daughter, and Kevin, the young son, are reasonably happy to have someone who’s going to take care of this issue for them.

The problem is, Andy has no idea what he’s doing. Nor does he listen. So despite the outside of the house being the part that needs to be fixed, Andy focuses on the inside. For example, he buys a slightly better couch for the living room.

Also, Andy doesn’t really have a production plan, so he just sleeps at the houses of his clients, which is the first sign to the Carter family that they may have signed up for something they shouldn’t have.

After Andy does several pointless things around the house, he finally decides to work on the outside, and when the Carters are gone, he re-does their driveway. The only problem is, he places their car on that driveway before the wet concrete has set. Which means the car is now stuck in the driveway.

That’s it for the Carters, who not only fire Andy immediately, but warn everyone in the community about this scam reality show host. Problem is, Andy is so clueless that he doesn’t care. A few days later, he’s on to his next assignment: a restaurant. What ever trouble is Andy going to get into there?

Beyond Help is an amusing pilot.

But, if I’m being honest, I was hoping for more laughs.

Every 15 pages or so, Andy would say something that made me chuckle. For example, Andy has this wife who’s left him. And he still thinks they’re going to be together. So he shows a picture of her to the camera. But, of course, because she hates him, he has to blur her face out.

This is my beautiful wife, Jan. You can’t actually tell she’s beautiful because we had to blur her face for legal reasons. You know how that is. (shrugs) Anyway, her loss. I’m sure once the show’s a hit she’ll come crawling back. (sad smile) Because I’ll tell you one thing, they can’t blur her out of my heart.

Little jokes like that always make me smile.

But I’m not watching a show like this to chuckle or smile. I’m watching a show like this to laugh. And I don’t think there was a single LOL moment for me in the cleverly titled, Beyond Help.

The problem, in my opinion, was that the execution of the comedy was too safe and predictable. You don’t want to hear either of those critiques in comedy feedback. But I’d ask Colin, where are you pushing the envelope with the comedy? Where are you giving us that unexpected joke or doing comedy we haven’t seen before or pushing the limits of the “documentary format” half-hour comedy? Or just giving us a genuinely fresh joke?

Again, Jury Duty gave you a character who didn’t realize he was in a comedy. Which created some highly interesting moments.

Even the 15 year old Office was pushing the envelope. One of their most famous episodes was titled “Gay Witch Hunt” and you watched Michael try to find out if anyone else in the office was gay after finding out the shocking truth that Oscar was gay.

Part of the problem is that I don’t understand what Andy’s comedic core is. With Michael Scott, we know that his defining comedic characteristic is his desperate need to be liked by everyone in the Office. He was more concerned about being the “cool boss” than he was doing good work.

Leslie Knope’s defining characteristic in Parks and Rec was her undying optimism for improving the community despite the fact that her department was created specifically to do nothing.

I don’t know what Andy’s primary comedic characteristic is. He just seems to be clueless. I’m not sure that’s enough. Note how with The Office and Parks and Rec, the main character’s defining comedic characteristic was in direct opposition to what needed to be done. Michael wants to be every employee’s friend. But if you do that, employees aren’t going to be incentivized to work hard. Leslie Knope wants so badly to help the community. But the government doesn’t want her to work at all.

I suppose, once people meet Andy and realize he’s an idiot, they don’t want his help anymore. And I guess that’s the primary obstacle creating comedic conflict? But just as I wrote that, I’m not convinced we’re getting enough out of this character.

Also, some of the comedy feels dated. Miguel is a clueless non-English speaking Mexican who never understands what Andy says to him. This feels like Napoleon Dynamite humor circa 2004.

On top of that, the world-building here has a lot of holes in it. Andy is broke yet he still has enough money to buy a new couch for the family. Andy is broke yet he can afford to re-do someone’s driveway. The rules were confusing. And while you may think that it doesn’t matter in a comedy as long as it’s funny, that logic only works when the rest of the script is firing on all cylinders.

When it’s all said and done, Beyond Help reads like a lot comedies that come across my desk. Which is that the overall concept makes you laugh. But when get into the nitty-gritty – the execution – nothing is elevating above the page.

It’s a reminder of how hard comedy is. Once you come up with a funny idea, a lot of writers think the work is over. But the real work has only begun. You gotta go through every scene and honestly ask yourself how funny it is on a 1-10 scale. And then keep rewriting until every one of those scenes is at least at a 7 out of 10 on the funny scale, but preferably at an 8 out of 10 or higher.

The majority of the current scenes here were at a 4 or 5 out of 10 on the funny scale. That’s not good enough. Especially for a pilot. Producers and audiences will give you leeway on season 3 episode 4. But the pilot has to sing. It’s got to be next level. And when I read this pilot, I didn’t feel like Colin was giving me everything he was capable of.

Moving forward, it would help if we got to know Andy’s real life a bit. The thing with comedy is that the audience needs to know who the character is in their real life so they understand the dynamic of what they’ve been thrust into.

I couldn’t place who Andy was in his real life. Was he just some dimwitted idiot who decided to do this job one day? Or was there a progression that led him to this point? For us to understand the comedy, I think we need some insight into that, either through 5-10 pages of main character setup or, if you wanted to be more artsy, you could intercut flashbacks of how Andy came upon this idea throughout the pilot.

I’ll now call upon the comedy experts of this site to give Colin some funnier prompts to work with. What scenarios can we explore in the Handy Andy universe that are going to give us more laughs? Cause I still think there’s something to this idea. But it definitely needs a jolt to the comedic heart. It’s way too casually executed.

Pilot Link: Beyond Help

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

What I learned: I need to first see that Jim Carrey obsessively lies in Liar Liar for the comedy in that movie to work. It’s only once I see his dependence on telling lies that I’m able to laugh when he can no longer tell them. This pilot needed that. I need to know who Andy is in the real world before I can appreciate who he is in the fix-it world. Cause he can’t just be a generic moron. That’s not funny enough.

SUPER SCRIPT CONSULTATION DEAL!!! – If you e-mail me and mention today’s pilot script, “Beyond Help,” I will give you 200 DOLLARS off a feature screenplay consult (4 pages of notes) and 100 DOLLARS off a pilot script consult.  E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com by the end of the weekend!

I tried to go see Barbenheimer this weekend but I didn’t see the Barb or the Heimer. And it wasn’t my fault! I have been going to the movies for the past 3 years and the rule that has always worked for me is that if I go before noon, all the theaters are empty.

That wasn’t the case on Friday. When I arrived at the Grove – at 9:30 am mind you! – I saw a wave of pink. It was as if I was on some boat in the middle of a cotton candy ocean during a glitter-stoked hurricane.

There were a total of 4 seats in the first three Barbie showings and they were all that seat in the front of the theater all the way on the right.

So I said, “Okay, no problem. I’ll just see Oppenheimer.” But then, to my utter confusion, all the Oppenheimer showings were sold out as well! What the heck is going on here, I said out loud to myself, to which a nearby glob of hot pink-clad men responded, “Okay Barbie, he’s not invited to the party.”

Through my deductive skills, I arrived at the theory that families had come to the multiplex and split in two distinct directions the second they neared the concession stand. The women headed to Barbie and the men went off to see Oppenheimer. Which left me out of the movie loop for the weekend because I’d already had plans for Saturday and Sunday.

So what I think I’m going to do is go and see Oppenheimer tomorrow and write a review for Tuesday. It shouldn’t be hard to get a ticket for a historical biopic on a Monday morning, should it? The Barbenheimer train can’t possibly have that much steam.

Strangely enough, I’m okay with this delay. It just builds up the anticipation even more. We don’t get to feel anticipation for films like we used to. These days it’s superheroes all the way down and their promotional campaigns are all so orchestrated and predictable that we know exactly what we’re getting by the time we walk into the theater.

Oppenheimer’s and Barbie’s campaigns harken back to the days when Hollywood still left some mystery on the table as to what you were going to see. The reason for that is that all of Hollywood’s market research up to this point has told them that audiences are more likely to show up if they know exactly what’s going to happen in a movie.

Director Robert Zemeckis used to get a lot of flak for this because he began the trend of showing you the entire movie in the trailer. And when people complained about it, he said, “Sorry, this is what the research tells us. That you guys want to know what’s going to happen ahead of time.” And so every other marketing campaign started doing the same thing.

But the reality is, every movie is different and should approach its marketing campaign differently because some movies benefit from a sense of mystery. I’ll never EVER forget the marketing campaign for Cloverfield. That trailer showed up out of nowhere with nobody knowing it was coming and then there was no other information about the movie until it came out. Surprise surprise, it became this huge unexpected hit. There need to be more creative people on the marketing side who think like this in 2023. And Oppenheimer and Barbie prove that a few still do.

Cause I think a HUGE reason these movies both did so well was that each had a curiosity factor to them.

Plus, whoever made the decision to tell Nolan to take the giant pole out of his a$$ needs their own Academy award. The “got Nolan to take a pole out of his a$$” Oscar. This genius idea to pair Nolan with a Robert Downey Jr. who just drank 14 cups of coffee did something I thought impossible – make Nolan look like a fun guy.

Nolan is so far up his own butt when he talks about movies that he’s become a parody of an auteur and it doesn’t help when he makes sweeping mistakes in his films, mainly on the screenwriting side. The guy is still working towards building the most exposition-heavy library of films of all time. And I’m assuming this film is only going to add to that Guiness book of world records.

So when you think you’re the bee’s knees yet you’re inundating us with second-rate pollen, we’re not going to be as tolerant of your “I am the arbiter of cinema” persona.

But watching Nolan desperately try not to laugh at everything Robert Downey said but being unable was so endearing that it made me see him in a whole new light.

I think Nolan studies not just how to make great movies but also how to be perceived as an all-time great artist. He’s, no doubt, studied the way people like Alfred Hitchcock talked to the media and the way Stanley Kubrick created an aura around him. Everybody knows how Kubrick used to say to his lead actors that when the press tour came around, he would tell them how amazing the actor was if the actor went out called him the greatest director he had ever worked with.

Relating this all back to this weekend, what does the 155 million dollar take of Barbie and the 80 million dollar take of Oppenheimer mean?

If every box office tells a story, this one is telling studios that the days of superheroes ruling the box office are over. I’m not saying no superhero movie will ever do well again. But Marvel so oversaturated the market that it’s impossible for anything other than one or two superhero movies to break out during the year. Cause we’re tired of them.

So much so that we’d rather show up for a plastic doll and a 3 hour talky period piece about one of the most depressing subjects of the last century.

Marvel did this to themselves. They drank so much of their own kool-aid that they thought we’d like shows like the 200 million dollar Secret Invasion, a Marvel misfire that’s been so badly received, it will alter the way Marvel shows are greenlit moving forward.

But seriously. The way these two movies are being received by audiences is screaming to studios, “We want something different!” Are those studios going to listen? History has told us, no, they aren’t. Hollywood is terrified of moving away from proven models. They get very nervous in times like these where they’ve been unable to predict how a movie would do.

Just a few weeks ago, Barbie was being projected for a 60 million dollar weekend and Oppenheimer for a 45 million dollar weekend. It was only because of early ticket sales that those numbers went up. Not because Hollywood figured that out on their own. Which means they were nowhere close to understanding how well these movies would perform.

Which isn’t supposed to happen, by the way. Hollywood has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into being able to gauge what a movie’s return will be. If they’re off by even 20 million bucks on that opening weekend, it shines a light on the fact that they’re not good at their jobs. But being off by 100 million dollars? That means they’re utterly clueless.

I’d make the case that this is the most important box office story of the last five years. Movies like this aren’t supposed to perform better than Marvel movies. They aren’t even supposed to perform better than Mission Impossible movies. And throw Sound of Freedom in there as well. When a small conservative-leaning film is beating out a 400 million dollar film on certain weekends, Hollywood has lost the thread in regards to what audiences really want.

I’m supportive of this change. Even if it means more big-budget biopics during the year. Because you’re not going to get people out into the theater without some variety. Barbenheimer proved that this weekend.