Genre: Contained Thriller
Premise: (from Black List) Two small time robbers become prisoners when they break into a house and discover a ten year old girl chained up in the basement.
About: This one popped onto my radar because they just signed up two actors who I really like. The first is Bill Skarsgård, who played Pennywise on “It.” And the second is Maika Monroe, who played Jay in “It Follows.” The script comes off of 2016’s Black List, where it finished in the middle of the pack with 13 votes. The writers, Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, are trying to take that next step in their careers, as they have, up until this point, only worked with actors like Dolph Lundgren. Not that I have a problem with Dolph “If he dies, he dies” Lundgren. But it’s much better to be writing for two of the hottest young stars in Hollywood as your leads.
Writer: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen
Details: 89 pages

Today we’re going back!

Back… to the screenplay.

That’s right. We’re actually reviewing a script today, folks! Let me hear ya’ll in attendance give me an “Amen!”

I can’t hear you! I said give me an “Amen!”

We’re going to be reviewing one of the standard sub-genres in the spec screenwriting world – the Contained Thriller. Why are so many specs written as Contained Thrillers? Limited location equals cheap. Small character count plus a simple situation equals a fast easy read for overworked readers. And the Thriller genre is easy to market.

If you want to write something that has a legitimate chance of getting made, I’d put Contained Thriller or Contained Horror at the top of the list.

The ONLY reason I’d tell people not to write in this genre? Is because the competition is stiffer than the ubiquitous corpse that shows up in Act 2. That and the limited location makes it hard to keep the plot fresh. Let’s find out if today’s writers pull it off.

20-somethings Mickey and Jules are an aspiring Bonnie and Clyde. Not that they have any idea who Bonnie and Clyde are. You get the feeling neither of them are very cultured. Hell, I’d be surprised if they made it past their sophomore year in high school. Which is probably why they’re robbing a gas station when we meet them.

Because they’re high on coke, the stick-up gets sloppy, and they forget to do the one thing you’re supposed to do at a gas station – fill up your car with gas. So their runaway lasts barely five miles, and the baffled duo stumble up to a nearby farm house with plans to steal a car. After they break in and can’t find any car keys, they explore the basement, where they find a 10 year old girl chained up to the wall.

Mickey wants to jet and pretend none of this ever happened. But Jules looks at him like he’s a monster (which he is. He’s Pennywise). There’s no way they’re leaving this girl here. Mickey reluctantly agrees and when they go upstairs to look for a saw to break through the imprisoned girl’s chains, they run into 50-something homeowners George and Gloria, who’ve just walked in. Mickey and Jules scream at the couple that they’re taking the girl with them, but former salesman George asks them to sit down and think this through. They just committed a crime. Do they really want to make things tougher on themselves?

It’s all a trick to buy time, of course. And the suave George gets the upper hand soon enough. The next thing you know Mickey is tied to a bed with a sexually repressed Gloria ready to turn him into her love slave and Jules is tied up in the basement in place of the little girl they were trying to save. It seems as if Mickey and Jules are 48 hours from becoming human manure. But these two feisty criminals aren’t going down without a fight. No matter how ugly that fight gets.

Remember what I told you last week? 4-6 characters is ideal for a spec script. This keeps your story focused AS WELL AS allows you to spend the time to properly develop all the characters. Every new character you add is time taken away from the characters you already have. So you want to add characters judiciously. That doesn’t mean you never do it. I’m not against movies with 10 characters or even 20 characters as long as the story calls for it. But when you’re writing specs, concepts that focus on 4-6 characters are the sweet spot.

Onto the story. Villains is a classic example of where most successful Contained Thrillers end up – in the “decent” category. Actually, let me retract that. The vast majority of amateur Contained Thrillers end up being terrible. But I’m talking about the ones written by competent writers. Most end up in the “yeah, that was pretty good” category. And that’s because this genre is hard! What’s hard about it is that after the hook, it’s nearly impossible to come up with fresh fun ideas.

Cause that’s where the real writing begins. Writing to where there’s a girl in the basement is the easy part. It’s almost impossible to do wrong because the reader already knows that moment is coming (assuming they read the logline). So they’re excited to get to that point. From there, they give you about a 10 page grace period. A sort, “Okay, now let’s see what you’re going to do.” And what most writers do is retread a bunch of scenes from other Contained Thrillers.

Villains hangs on for awhile. My favorite scene was when George and Gloria arrive and suggest talking this out like adults. A lot of writers would’ve jumped right into the violence or the running around and hiding. This scene worked specifically because it goes against that expectation. Not just that. But George made a lot of good points. You two are criminals. Is saving this girl really the best way to handle this? A lot of writers would’ve written this scene with George spouting out a bunch of movie logic. It was refreshing to hear some arguments that actually sounded convincing.

The stuff where Gloria is prepping Mickey to become her sexual toy was also pretty good. But you could sense that the writers were running out of creative steam. I find that whenever writers dip into weird sexual territory, they’re running out of ideas. Strange sex plotlines contain a certain amount of shock value. But shock is the antithesis of substance. It has a short shelf-life. I’ve encountered a few scripts where the sex stuff was so unique that I remained engaged. But it’s rare. And it turns out I was right. Quickly after this scene, the script turns into a conventional series of scenarios where the characters try and escape.

Another key problem the writers should address before production is that George and Gloria aren’t scary enough. They’re too rational. And so I was never worried that something bad was going to happen to our heroes. If you’re going to lock our characters in a house with two supposed psychos, you need to sell their psychoness. That never happened.

With that said, this is worth the read in that I genuinely wanted to know how it was going to end. That’s my litmus test for a ‘worth the read.’ If I want to read the ending, something’s working. Because the large majority of the time, if you told me I could stop reading a script whenever I wanted, I would stop. These two made me like Mickey and Jules enough that I cared about their fate. Which is saying something. If you’re thinking about writing a Contained Thriller, add this one to the list.

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

What I learned: A recent obsession of mine is differentiation in dialogue, which is a fancy way of saying make sure your characters sound different. Check out these slices of dialogue. The first is from Mickey and Jules after the gas station robbery and the second is from George when he encounters Mickey and Jules in his house.

MICKEY: FUCK yeah! That’s what I’m talkin’ bout baby! You were incredible in there! The way you ripped that thing of chips down? Fuck!

JULES (excited; flattered) I don’t know, I was just, like in the zone you know? I don’t even remember doing it!

And now George…

GEORGE: I understand. You’re the ones with the gun, you’re making the rules. All I’m asking for is a chance to state my case, maybe enlighten you as to a couple of things you may not have thought of. You can keep the gun pointed at me all you like, I just ask that you sit down and listen to what I have to say.

Notice all the ways the dialogue is different. There’s a difference in education level, in command of language, in the use of swearing, in length. If I told you to close your eyes and I read those two blocks of dialogue to you, you’d have no doubt that they came from different people. And that’s what you want your dialogue to do.

Watch “The Ritual” today if you have Netflix. It’s the first good movie Netflix has ever made. More importantly, tomorrow’s article will be about the movie. We’re going to talk about how a single scene can make a screenplay.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: In an unraveling that rivals Taxi Driver, a young woman who moderates X-rated content on a social media platform, becomes unhinged and starts taking her moderation into the real world.
About: Today’s script finished number 15 on last year’s Black List. While this is the writer’s first big break in the screenwriting world, he’s worked in the art department on numerous films, including Stephen Soderbergh’s “Side Effects.”
Writer: Zach Baylin
Details: 114 pages

Imogen Poots for Brie? She looks like she has some darkness in her.

Today’s script is a mixed bag but it’s the good kind of mixed bag. The kind that has raisins and M&Ms in it. If I was teaching a screenwriting class and all of you were sitting in front of me, I’d tell you to read this script because it’s the kind of script that can get you noticed, get passed around, and even sell.

How does it achieve all these things? For starters it’s a simple premise. Simple premise = easy read. Girl starts taking crime into her own hands. Have we seen that before? Yes. But never quite like this is. And that’s an important detail. Hollywood doesn’t mind if you give them “the same” as long as it’s “not quite the same.”

It’s also a CURRENT premise. Writing about something current is always a gamble. Current passes by quickly. Ask anyone who wrote that AOL instant messenger spec. However, “current” allows you to write something that people haven’t seen before. When you’re competing against 100 years of movies, fresh subject matter is invaluable. So sometimes it’s worth the risk.

But what I really like about this script is how the writer approached it. He approached it in a way that allowed him to write big and strong – to charge through the description and dialogue confidently. Not every type of script allows you to write this way. It’s hard to write The Shawshank Redemption with blazing confidence. That script requires a more deliberate pace.

By choosing to move Brie through the narrative at breakneck speed, it allows for a strong consistent writing style, and that has an effect on the reader. It certainly had an effect on me. I found myself almost intimidated by some of the passages and dialogue. Here’s Brie, conveying why her job is so difficult…

“The real problem is – not the P.C. Free speech, open airwaves of it – it’s that there is so goddamn much of it. So much hate. And violence. And pain. And chances are, if you haven’t seen it, it’s because I saw it for you.”

My slurping doesn’t stop there. I love the idea of doing a female Taxi Driver. In this world of randomly placing women in male roles because it gets an immediate green light, changing Travis Bickle into a woman is actually quite clever. Because we’re not used to seeing unhinged female psychopaths, there’s a jarring quality to the unraveling that almost seems rote when you see it happen to a guy these days. This gives the script a hell of a fresh feel.

“Come As You Are” introduces us to Brie Salter, a 28 year old All-American girl who not only wants to change the world, but has actually lived the world. After losing her parents, she joined the army and spent some time in Afghanistan. Now, years later, she lives in the big city and has an amazing boyfriend, who’s just gotten her an interview at one of the biggest social media companies (which remains unnamed) in the world.

George, her interviewer, hires her to work in Moderation, the kind of branch Brie assumes is innocent and easy. But as soon as she’s ushered into the basement (“Brie follows Joy down a staircase like Clarice trailing Chilton into Lecter’s lair”) she learns that it’s anything but.

Brie takes us through the process of moderation, which is mostly straightforward. You see a kid violently bullying another kid, you delete it. But sometimes it gets tricky. A mother videotapes her 3 year old daughter, who happens to be naked, swimming, and now you have to make judgement calls on if people are going to be offended.

Seeing smut and shit and degradation and violence can be managed if it’s taken in small doses. But what happens when that’s all you watch? All day? Every day? It starts to have an effect on you. And soon, Brie wants to fight back. When a girl wants to commit suicide after being bullied but the company doesn’t do anything about it, Brie reaches out to the girl and saves her life.

She then asks, “What else can I do?” She begins using the powerful digital tools at her disposal to hunt down the filth who are posting all this garbage then exposing them to their communities and their schools and their local police departments. Brie becomes empowered every time she takes down a new pedophile.

But as you’d expect, this reckless behavior begins to skew her perception of reality – absolute power corrupts absolutely – and we get the sense it’s only a matter of time before Brie goes too far. When she becomes obsessed with a provocative Ann Coulter like figure, we know that that shit ain’t gonna end with a 1-800-Flowers bouquet and an apology for the misunderstanding.

Shall we continue the love? Actually, while I did love a lot of this script, I had my problems with it as well, the biggest of which is that it starts off so smart, but ends up so silly. Brie starts getting so crazy, it becomes hard to take her seriously. By the end of this movie, she’s a caricature. I mean, she’s threatening the lives of grade-schoolers.

I’m guessing Baylin had trouble finding the balance – figuring out how far he could go. In his defense, our mopey lead character in Taxi Driver ends up with an outrageous haircut. But Travis Bickle always remained the same character. And the level of Brie’s craziness borders on parody.

I was so impressed by that early confidence and that great first act setup, I was hoping for the same sophistication all the way through. Once things single-mindedly became, “Take down all evil white men,” anything that was once below the surface had been drilled and fracked, then scattered on the New York City streets.

With that said, I do believe Baylin has a message with this script and it’s a powerful one. The images and the videos and the constant negativity we view on our computer screens every day is having an effect on us, and that effect is happening so gradually that we don’t realize how serious it is. We will one day. But maybe, by then, it will be too late.

Time to de-bookmark Pornhub?

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

What I learned: Something I talk a lot about is “specificity.” Your writing can’t be general. It needs to be specific. The problem with screenwriting is you also have to be sparse. And some writers mistake that for meaning they shouldn’t add detail at all. You should definitely add detail (or “specificity”); you just want to pick your spots. When you believe a detail or a moment is important, describe it for us in specific terms. When Brie shows up for her first day at work, we get this…

INT. SAFETY NET HALLWAY – MORNING

The walls lined with INSPIRATIONAL POSTERS designed like Nike Ads, sporting Cultish platitudes: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” “Proceed and be Bold.” Brie eyes them with suspicion as they pass.

You could’ve easily written something general here like, “The walls are lined with the usual corporate bullshit.” But because this location is such an important part of the story, Baylin wanted to give you a specific vision of it.

Genre: Drama
Premise: (from Black List) Behind the walls of a maximum security prison, a naive teenage inmate and a rookie correctional officer are forced into a drug- smuggling operation, while a looming conflict between rival gang members threatens to boil over.
About: Today’s script finished number 8 on the 2017 Black List. The Danish writer, Federick Skov, made a documentary about boxing before this, but this is his breakthrough script. Shout out to all of you non U.S. natives who think you can’t break into Hollywood!
Writer: Frederik With-Seidelin Skov
Details: 117 pages

I’m going to throw a new term at you today. “Subject matter bias.” Everyone’s guilty of it. We’re drawn to certain topics and subjects. We’re resistant to others. It’s why when someone loves a movie (say, a YA novel adaptation) but hates another (a superhero film) despite them being virtually identical in all other areas, subject matter bias will usually be the reason.

I don’t like prison movies. I just don’t. I think they’re obvious. I think they rarely do anything unique. So I have fairly high subject matter bias against them. HOWEVER, it should be noted that just like any other perceived weakness in a script, subject matter bias can be overcome. One of my favorite movies ever is a prison movie (Shawshank Redemption). It can be argued that the greatest achievement for a screenwriter is to make someone who usually hates a movie like yours, love it. Let’s see if that’s the case with Sleep Well.

Elias Hernandez is 17 years old when he’s sent to maximum security prison. Poor Elias hit and killed a young girl, then hopped out of the car and fled the scene. Elias arrives at the prison on the same day as Victor Carrier, a 23 year-old aspiring lawyer who’s celebrating his first day as a correctional officer. Whereas Elias’ arrow is pointing down, Victor’s is pointing sky high.

Elias is hit almost immediately with the realities of his new life. As a half-white, half-Latino man, he can’t even find a proper gang to affiliate with for protection. Lucky for Elias, he becomes friends with his cell mate, “Spring,” a worldly dude in his 50s who has the respect of everyone in the prison, even the officers.

But Spring can’t protect Elias from everything, and soon prison yard bullies are poking him for money, threatening to do terrible things to his mother if he doesn’t pay up. Elias has no choice but to start working for one of the big dogs in the prison, Spectro, who uses Elias to distribute drugs to the other prisoners.

Ironically, Victor is faced with the same predicament. Even though he’s supposed to be the good guy, his boss tells him he needs to join the same distribution chain, collecting the drugs (smuggled inside phones) as they come in from the outside.

The story follows each of the characters separately as they fall further and further into the corruption. But when Elias is told he has to kill a man that he’s friendly with, that’s when shit gets very real. Meanwhile, Victor has had enough, and must decide whether he’s going to snitch on the entire prison staff. Both he and Elias will need to decide soon since time is running out.

One of my prerequisites for a movie like this is: Be an expert in the subject matter. If I know more than the writer does about the subject matter he’s writing about, he’s failed. I’m happy to report that Skov knows the prison world. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s spent some time in prison. We learn about stuff like ‘lockdown pay’ and that ‘Ad-Seg’ yard is a different yard from the general population yard. This guys knows his shit.

However, that’s the given stuff. A good script needs to have four other things going for it. One, a fresh way into the idea. Two, an original execution. Three, a good plot. Four, good characters. Let’s take a look at how Sleep Well rates in each of these categories.

FRESH WAY INTO THE IDEA
Sleep Well’s “strange attractor” is that it’s following two characters on each side of the prison system, a prisoner and a guard. That’s better than had they only followed the prisoner. But is it fresh enough? Maybe my subject matter bias is creeping in here, but I need more to move the needle.

ORIGINAL EXECUTION
This is where Sleep Well really suffered. We have a prison movie… about smuggling drugs into prison? We have a major plot beat revolving around… needing to shiv someone? Aren’t both of these things in every prison movie ever? For us subject matter bias readers to be turned, we need something different. Neither of these things were.

A GOOD PLOT
I spent too long trying to figure out what the plot was here. I wanted that big plot point to emerge, but instead was served a lot of tapas sized plot points, such as needing to pay off bullies, and learning to smuggle drugs in. A good plot has an end point in sight and I was never given that. In fact, the drug smuggling stuff was so understated, I assumed it was just one of what would eventually be other, bigger plot points. It wasn’t until the final 30 pages, when the drug smuggling plan started to unravel that I thought, “Okay, I finally know where the story is headed.”

GOOD CHARACTERS
The characters here were pretty good. Elias was easy to root for (a 17 year old kid in a man’s prison – perfect underdog scenario). Spring stuck out as well. But there weren’t any scene-stealers. I suppose some of that can be solved with casting, but I’m a huge proponent of solving as much as you can on the page.

My honest opinion of Sleep Well is that if you have a familiar generic setting – like a prison, or a hospital, or a police precinct – and your script is built mostly around characters as opposed to plot? You should be writing a TV show. Unless Skov is also the director of this movie (which he might be, I don’t know), they don’t make these movies based off specs anymore. A movie needs a flashier and/or bigger plot, it needs higher stakes, it needs more of an ‘event-like’ feel.

For example, if this was about a young prisoner on his first day who gets wrapped up in a touchy prison turf-war where both sides want to kill him and he needs to survive the day before he’s transferred to another prison tomorrow, then you have yourself a movie. But if you’re going to draw the timeline out and meet and focus on the subtleties of the characters and their relationships, why not turn it into a TV show? Not only is that easier to sell these days but it’s going to make you a hell of a lot more money.

I’d be curious to see what prison-movie geeks think of Sleep Well, those of you who have subject matter bias FOR this subject matter. I’m always trying to figure out why people like things that don’t have that flashy component that sticks out and sets the project apart (people who liked Spotlight, for example, which I thought was insanely boring). Let me know what you think in the comments.

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

What I learned: If you’re someone who cares more about character than plot, you should be writing television. Movies are not the best place for character development. I would even argue that features actively work against the creation of compelling characters. I mean who develops a fully-rounded captivating character in two hours? It’s really hard. Whereas when you have the 50-100 hours of story time in a TV show, it’s easy.

Genre: Biopic
Premise: He’s considered by many to be the most popular serial killer of all time. This is his story. Or his version of it.
About: Today’s script landed on the 2012 Black List AS WELL as winning the Nicholl Fellowship that year. Zac Efron is starring. He’ll be joined by suddenly hot again actor John Malkovich, whose been making waves for his gone-viral Patriots playoff game tease. Screenwriter Michael Werwie has been going through that painful waiting – 6 years! – process so many new screenwriters must go through to get to the land of consistent paid work. Well, that time is almost here.
Writer: Michael Werwie
Details: 112 pages

I’m always torn about the Oscars. On the one hand, I love the old fashioned competition of it all. I love movies and artists going up against each other for the big prize. Everyone’s got their horse and their dog, so it’s exciting to simultaneously root for and against the movies you love and hate. There’s entertainment value in that. On the other hand, the awards have become so politicized, both in what the films are about and in who gets pushed, it’s hard to take them seriously anymore.

Not only that, but I find it bizarre that we’re celebrating the best movies of the year, and yet they’re all so… sad. I saw a collage of stills of all the Best Picture nominations, Best Actor, Best Actress, and in all of the pictures, not a single character was smiling. So is the message that a movie that brings joy, that celebrates happiness, cannot be one of the best movies of the year? It’s such a bizarre mindset. The LARGE majority of people who go to the movies do so to escape reality, to be entertained. And the fact that the Academy rarely, if ever, celebrates that really bugs me.

With that said, I recognize that the Oscars are the only way to justify investing in hard-sells. That Jan-Feb-Mar time of year is a virtual marketing campaign for all the nominees. So if you can get on that list, you can make a lot of money, and that incentivizes studios to make/buy stuff other than Iron Man. So I understand that the situation is complicated.

Today we’re tackling a script that will probably be one of the 2019 nominees. With Zac Efron coming off the most resiliant box office hit of the year, The Greatest Showman, this is the movie that’s either going to get him to the A-list or prove that he’s not cut out to be top dog. Does Efron have the chops to embody the most famous serial killer of all time? He certainly looks like a serial killer. Let’s see if the role he’s working with is written well.

Ted Bundy, a handsome young law school student, is chugging around in his car in 1974 when he’s stopped by a cop for blowing a stop sign. Earlier that night, in the area, a young woman was abducted from a shopping mall but managed to escape. The local cops think Bundy might’ve done it. And hence Ted is taken in.

But they don’t have a lot on him. No one else saw him but the girl. So it’s an eye-witness case. Ted is optimistic. He gets his law school buddies to help him out and the next thing you know, they’re putting together an air-tight acquittal.

What Ted doesn’t know is that it was his girlfriend, Liz, who called Ted in. She saw an artist rendering in the paper connected to a separate murder case, and thought it looked like Ted. So when Ted tells Liz with utter sincerity that he had nothing to do with this, a bout of guilt overtakes her. What if she screwed up?

Ted is found guilty of abducting the girl, but manages to escape by jumping out the courthouse window. Gotta love 1970s security. Mustaches, cigarettes, and tough looks. After getting re-caught and escaping again (yes, Ted Bundy escaped from jail twice) Ted heads to Florida where he prepares to start over again. And, what do you know, it just so happens that while he’s there, two girls at a nearby college are killed in their dorm rooms.

The cops move in, looking for the killer, and Ted figures it’s a good time to go on the road again. But he eventually gets caught and is put on trial for the murder of the two women. While this is happening, cases are being re-opened all over the U.S. with similar M.O.’s to the murders of these girls.

Ted is oddly calm about the whole thing. He knows, in his heart of hearts, that he didn’t do anything to these women. So all he has to do is prove that in court. And when his local counsel doesn’t share the same approach, Ted fires them and decides to represent himself! This is what begins the single biggest courtroom circus pre O.J. trial.

Meanwhile, Ted is so steadfast in his innocence, that Liz still wonders if, when she called him in that day, she didn’t start a chain reaction that will ultimately put to death the man she loves, a man who may be innocent. So even though they are no longer together, she heads to the trial to personally confront Ted and find out the truth.

“Extremely Wicked” comes at its serial killer story in the most unique of ways: What if you made a serial killer movie, without any killing? Not only that, but what if we never see even a hint of violence from the script’s subject?

That’s the clever angle Werwie approaches his screenplay from. And while at first I didn’t like it, I gradually warmed up to it when I realized what he was doing. Werwie was putting us back in the 70s, before Bundy was convicted of murder, and showing us exactly what everyone knew at the time. Which wasn’t much. Handsome charming guy. Says he didn’t do it. No slam dunk evidence. It’s saying to the viewer, “You might’ve been duped, too.”

It’s also wonderfully ironic. I mean look at the title: “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile.” Yet we don’t see a SINGLE IMAGE in the movie that represents any of those words. Seriously, if they wanted to, they could rate this movie PG. That’s how much violence shows up in it.

Another benefit of never seeing the murders is that while we don’t sympathize with Bundy, we certainly don’t hate him. Hell, when he jumped out of that courthouse and made a run for it, I was surprised to find myself rooting for him! He didn’t seem like a killer to me. And because the public back then didn’t know what we know now, it’s understandable that people would’ve felt the same way.

Chalk this up as another win for my beat-a-dead-horse advice: Whatever story you choose, find a new angle into it.

That’s not to say the angle was genius. By choosing to avoid the juiciest details of our protagonist’s life, the story lacks any big “wow!” moments, creating a roller coaster ride where all the drops are short and there aren’t any loops. Bundy escaping prison twice was fun. But 60% of this movie is scenes where Bundy is telling people he’s innocent. Those scenes get better as the walls start closing in and he remains defiant. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t get monotonous.

I’m still unpacking this one. I love the audacity of a writer choosing a subject matter then not giving us anything that comes with it. Here’s where I think the script runs into trouble, though. 90% of this script is Ted Bundy. Which means the whole thing rests on if he’s a compelling character. The problem is the script hides 90% of who Bundy is. We only see the smile. And while there’s definitely something chilling about that, it’s hard to dramatize 2 hours of smiles and denials.

This is a tricky one. But I’d say it’s worth checking out.

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

What I learned: This script has me wondering, what if you applied its formula to other genres? What if you made a war script… without any war? A hitman script… without any hits? A superhero movie… without any heroics? My first inclination is that you don’t take away the one thing a subject matter promises. But this script reminded me that the only way to truly write something original is to the think out of the box.

You want female assassins with less than 24 hours to do their job? We’ve got female assassins with less than 24 hours to do their job! We’ve also got World War 2 stories. Terminally ill characters. A dozen true stories based on [insert famous person’s name here]. And let’s not forget a big bag of political scripts (equally balanced between left and right leaning, of course). That’s right, your 2017 Black List has arrived!

First thoughts? I’d say that Ruin (review here) is a worthy number 1 script, though I personally would’ve gone with Keeper of the Diary (review here). I’m pumped as all hell that Logan made the list with Meat (review here). Not just because his script deserves it, but because something unique actually made it onto a list that doesn’t celebrate “unique” the way it used to.

As for the scripts that have gotten me excited to read. “Hughes” sounds good. I’ve always wondered exactly that – why Hughes disappeared. Every article on him assumes the reason, but no one’s come out with anything definitive. I want to know the truth! Even if I can’t handle it.

“Valedictorian” has my interest. I’m a sucker for black humor high school stuff, like Election. This sounds like it’s up the same alley. I wouldn’t normally be interested in a true story about a blind musician, but “Key of Genius” made the list with no manager or agent! That’s hard to do! So the script must have something going for it.

“Gadabout” sounds weird and interesting, one of the few truly original sounding scripts on the list. Definitely want to check that out. Star Wars script “Strongman” is one I’ll open up for sure. I haaaaated that script “Chewie” from a few years ago on the Black List. It was the most copy-and-paste-events script I’ve ever read. But David Prowse, the guy behind Darth Vader, is supposed to have a notorious feud going with George Lucas that’s lasted 30 years. And he has good reason. Imagine you shoot an entire movie only to find out once you get to the premiere that they replaced your voice. Oh, and THAT CHARACTER GOES ON TO BECOME THE BEST VILLAIN OF ALL TIME. Yeah, I’d be pissed too.

Bios, about a guy who creates a robot to look after his dog sounds like a tear-jerker with an angle. Obviously influenced by The Dog Stars. And the biopic about the Dating Game serial killer is probably as fertile as you can get with serial killer subject matter. I’ll check that out. I like the idea behind cab-flick “Daddio.” It’s such a movie-specific idea. And very old-school spec-like. I’ll read that. Oh, and “Where I End” gets the highest concept on the list award. So you gotta give that a shot.

The JK Rowling script is probably worth a read if only because it’s the best writing-related rags-to-riches story in history. Might come in handy if you’re struggling to stay motivated on that rewrite. And, of course, there will be surprises, stuff that looks boring but turns out to be amazing. Like this one from two years ago.

Finally, we have some odd connections. There are two scripts covering subject matter that was seen here on Amateur Friday by other writers. One is covering that Jewish filmmaker who made the Nazi propaganda film (Wyler) and the other covering the origin story of Curious George’s author (George). Goes to show you that everybody’s chasing the same stuff.

If you read any of these scripts that haven’t been reviewed on the site, share your thoughts in any of the Comments sections. Together, we should be able to suss out who the real contenders are and who has really good agents.

THE 2017 BLACK LIST

68 votes – “Ruin” by Matthew Firpo, Ryan Firpo – A nameless ex-Nazi captain must navigate the ruins of post-WWII Germany to atone for his crimes during the war by hunting down and killing the surviving members of his former SS death squad.

42 votes – “Let Her Speak” by Mario Correa – The true story of Senator Wendy Davis and her 24-hour filibuster to save 75% of abortion clinics in Texas.

40 votes – “Daddio” by Christy Hall – A passenger and her cab driver reminisce about their relationships on the way from the airport to her apartment in New York.

32 votes – “Keeper of The Diary” by Samuel Franco & Evan Kilgore – Chronicles Otto Frank’s journey, with the help of a junior editor at Doubleday Press, to find a publisher for the diary his daughter Anne wrote during the Holocaust.

22 votes – “Where I End” by Imran Zaidi – In a world where your life can be saved, uploaded to a computer, and restarted in the case of your untimely demise, a husband returns from the dead, suspecting his wife may have been involved in his death.

20 votes – “When Lightning Strikes” by Anna Klaassen – The true story of 25-year-old Joanne Rowling as she weathers first loves, unexpected pregnancies, lost jobs, and depression on her journey to create Harry Potter.

19 votes – “Breaking News in Yuba County” by Amanda Idoko – After catching her husband in bed with a hooker, which causes him to die of a heart attack, Sue Bottom buries the body and takes advantage of the local celebrity status that comes from having a missing husband.

18 votes – “Sleep Well Tonight” by Freddie Skov – Behind the walls of a maximum security prison, a naive teenage inmate and a rookie correctional officer are forced into a drug- smuggling operation, while a looming conflict between rival gang members threatens to boil over.

17 votes – “The Great Nothing” by Cesar Vitale – A grieving thirteen-year-old girl hires a terminally ill, acerbic philosophy professor to prevent flunking the seventh grade. What begins as a homework assignment blossoms into an unlikely friendship and a new appreciation for life that neither will forget.

16 votes – “Trapline” by Brett Treacy & Dan Woodward – A captive boy’s lifestyle is upended when his abductor asks for his help kidnapping a second child.

16 votes – “When In Doubt, Seduce” by Allie Hagan – The true story of the early relationship between Elaine May and Mike Nichols.

15 votes – “The Expansion Project” by Leo Sardinian – A rookie Marine gets stranded on a hostile planet during humanity’s space colonization with nothing but her exo-suit that’s running out of fusion power.

15 votes – “Newsflash” by Ben Jacoby – On November 22nd, 1963, Walter Cronkite puts everything on the line to get the story right as a president is killed, a frightened nation weeps, and television comes of age.

14 votes – “V.I.N.” by Chiara Towne – As Alex Haley struggles to write the autobiography of Malcolm X, his editor at Playboy assigns him a new interview: George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party.

13 votes – “Come As You Are” by Zach Baylin – An idealistic young woman’s life begins to unravel when her job in social media exposes her to the darkest corners of humanity, sending her on a violent mission to take down not just the web’s most vicious content, but its creators as well.

13 votes – “Hughes” by Andrew Rothschild – The story of writer/director John Hughes, whose emotionally honest high school movies helped to define American culture in the 1980s–but who, at the very height of his success, abruptly abandoned filmmaking for reasons that have never been fully explained.

13 votes – “The Mother” by Misha Green – A female assassin comes out of hiding to protect the pre-teen daughter she gave up years before.

13 votes – “One Thousand Paper Cranes” by Ben Bolea – The incredible true story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl living in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. Years later when she gets leukemia, she hears about the legend that if someone folds one thousand paper cranes, a wish will be granted. At the same time, aspiring writer Eleanor Coerr learns of Sadako’s story and becomes determined to bring her message of hope and peace to the world.

13 votes – “Ruthless” by John Swetnam – After she is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, a former assassin must carry out one last assignment in order to ensure her daughter’s future.

12 votes – “Jellyfish Summer” by Sarah Jane Inwards – A young black girl’s family in 1960s Mississippi decides to harbor two human-looking refugees who have mysteriously fallen from the sky.

12 votes – “Mad, Bad, And Dangerous to Know” by Jade Bartlett – Based on the book trilogy Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know by Chloe J. Esposito. An underdog identical twin accidentally kills her too-perfect sister only to discover murder suits her as she becomes compulsively embroiled in the life of a mafia assassin.

12 votes – “Valedictorian” by Cosmo Carlson – An obsessive type-A student vows to secure the valedictorian title before school ends by any means necessary, even murder.

11 votes – “Brosio” by Mattson Tomlin – Inspired by the work of artist John Brosio. When a man begins to lose all of the people close to him in a series of increasingly absurd natural disasters, he must find out why his world has been turned upside down.

11 votes – “Power” by Mattson Tomlin – When a young drug dealer is kidnapped by a man hellbent on finding his missing daughter, they must team up to get to the bottom of the mystery of the intense street drug known as Power.

10 votes – “Arc of Justice” by Max Borenstein & Rodney Barnes – Based on the book Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age written by Kevin Boyle. Chronicles the landmark civil rights trial of Dr. Ossian Sweet after he was charged with the murder of a white man.

10 votes – “Don’t Be Evil” by Gabriel Diani, Etta Devine & Evan Bates – Adapted from In the Plex by Steven Levy and I’m Feeling Lucky by Douglas Edwards. Google’s Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt struggle with their corporate motto, “Don’t Be Evil,” in the face of their meteoric rise to a multi-billion dollar valuation and a major Chinese hacking incident.

10 votes – “Escape from the North Pole” by Paul Laudiero & Ben Baker – A young girl partners up with an elf, a Russian explorer and a reindeer to rescue Santa Claus from a band of evil elves and save the North Pole.

10 votes – “Fubar” by Brent Hyman – An inept CIA psychologist is embedded on a globe-trotting mission with the agency’s most valuable operative who suffers from an extreme case of multiple personality disorder.

10 votes – “Infinite” by Ian Shorr – Based on the The Reincarnationist Papers written by D. Eric Maikranz. The hallucinations of a schizophrenic are revealed to be memories from past lives where he obtained talents that he still has to this day.

10 votes – “Kate” by Umair Aleem – When a veteran hitwoman is mysteriously poisoned on her last assignment in Tokyo, she has 24 hours to track down her killer before she dies.

10 votes – “Key of Genius” by Daniel Persitz & Devon Kliger – The true story of Derek Paravicini, a blind, severely autistic boy who needed an incredible teacher to help realize his world-class musical ability.

10 votes – “Kill Shelter” by Eric Beu and Greg Martin – A darkly comic crime thriller concerning three groups of people dealing with blackmail gone wrong.

10 votes – “The Man From Tomorrow” by Jordan Barel – The true story of visionary entrepreneur Elon Musk, who after being ousted from PayPal, guides SpaceX through it turbulent early years while simultaneously building Tesla.

10 votes – “Moxie” by Heather Quinn – To combat crime in near-future Los Angeles, the FBI creates supercops based on specific genetic sequences. To their shock, their best candidate is a vulgar stripper named Moxie.

9 votes – “Ballerina” (review here) by Shay Hatten – After her family is murdered, an assassin seeks revenge on the killers.

9 votes – “Escape” by JD Payne & Patrick McKay – When a wrongly accused man is shipped to an Australian penal colony for five years, he quickly realizes his only chance of seeing his family again is to escape the prison with a gang of colors and survive the deadly terrain that awaits on the outside.

9 votes – “Gadabout” by Ross Evans – In 1951, a manufacturing company stirs up controversy when they publish a user’s manual to a time machine called Gadabout TM-1050.

9 votes – “Heart of the Beast” by Cameron Alexander – A former Navy SEAL and his retired combat dog attempt to return to civilization after a catastrophic accident deep in the Alaskan wilderness.

9 votes – “Innocent Monsters” by Elaina Perpelitt – A writer struggling to crack her second novel starts to lose her sense of reality as the book bleeds into her life…and her life bleeds back.

9 votes – “The Kingbreaker” by Andrew Bozalis & Derek Mether – A CIA operative experienced in taking down kings and installing their replacements is brought in to take down a dictator he helped install a few years prior.

9 votes – “Liberation” by Darby Kealey – The true story of Nancy Wake, the most decorated servicewoman in World War II, who led resistance fighters in a series of dangerous missions in Nazi-occupied France.

9 votes – “The Other Lamb” by Catherine McMullen – A young female coming-of-age story set within an alternative religion.

9 votes – “This is Jane” by Daniel Loflin – Based on the book The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan. An ordinary group of women provide 11,000 safe, illegal abortions in Chicago from 1968 through 1973.

9 votes – “Wyler” by Michael Moskowitz – With Hitler laying waste to Europe and the United States refusing to answer the call to war, Jewish filmmaker William Wyler risks his career to make MRS. MINIVER, the most effective propaganda film of all time.

8 votes – “The Boxer” by Justine Juel Gillmer – A young Polish man escapes from a concentration camp in which he was forced by SS agents to box other Jews, travels to America to begin a successful career as a professional boxer, and reunites with the woman he lost.

8 votes – “George” by Jeremy Michael Cohen – The true story of the Reys, the husband and wife team who fell in love, created Curious George, and escaped the horrors of WWII in Europe together.

8 votes – “Hack” by Mike Schneider – Based on actual reports, a horrifying look inside the Democratic National Committee hack and the Russian manipulation of the 2016 election.

8 votes – “Lionhunters” by Will Beall – A rogue cop suffers a gunshot wound in 1987 and wakes from a coma thirty years later, where he is partnered with a mild- mannered progressive detective – his son.

8 votes – “The Saviors” by Travis Betz & Kevin Hamedani – A seemingly progressive suburban husband and wife renting their garage through AirBnB become suspicious of their Muslim guests. As they investigate their visitors, they unwittingly trigger events that will forever change the course of human history.

8 votes – “Strongman” by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson & Dalton Leeb – Based on the confusing, sometimes offensive, borderline-insane memories of David Prowse, the irascible Englishman behind Darth Vader’s mask.

7 votes – “Call Jane” by Hayley Schore & Roshan Sethi – Before Roe v. Wade in 1960s Chicago, a pregnant woman becomes a member of an underground group which provides abortions in a safe environment.

7 votes – “Dorothy Gale and Alice” by Justin Merz – Dorothy Gale and Alice meet in a home for those having nightmares and embark on a journey to save the imaginations of the world.

7 votes – “Greenland” by Chris Sparling – A disgraced father is determined to get his family to what, in four days, will be the only safe place on earth.

7 votes – “Jihotties” by Molly Prather – In an effort to fund their start-up, two women catfish ISIS and get more than they bargained for when the CIA recruits them as spies.

7 votes – “The Lodge” (review here) by Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala (Previous draft by Sergio Casci) – A supernatural evil haunts a woman and her stepchildren in a cabin on Christmas.

7 votes – “Meat” (review here) by Logan Martin – A misanthropic man notices bizarre changes in himself, his wife, and the animals inhabiting the territory around their homestead as they attempt to survive self-imposed isolation.

7 votes – “The Poison Squad” by Dreux Moreland & Joey DePaolo – Based on the true story of Harvey Wiley, an eccentric chemist who conducted the first experiment on human tolerance to poison, which catalyzed a movement resulting in the founding of the Food and Drug Administration.

7 votes – “The Prospect – Michael Jordan uses a year as a baseball prospect to find himself after his father’s death.

7 votes – “Rodney & Sheryl” by Ian MacAllister-McDonald – Based on the unbelievable true story of serial killer Rodney Alcala–detectives have estimated Alcala’s body count to be north of 130 victims. Despite being in the midst of a killing spree, Alcala appeared on and won a date with one of the contestants on THE DATING GAME.

7 votes – “Social Justice Warrior” by Emma Fletcher & Brett Weiner – When a liberal, white, college sophomore who knows exactly how to fix society accuses her equally liberal professor of hate speech, it throws the campus and both their lives into chaos as they wage war over the right way to stop discrimination.

7 votes – “The Thing About Jellyfish” by Molly Smith Metzler – After her best friend drowns, a seventh-grade girl is convinced the true cause of the tragedy was a rare jellyfish sting. Retreating into a silent world of imagination, she crafts a plan to prove her theory.

6 votes – “All My Life” by Todd Rosenberg – After discovering the groom has liver cancer, a couple move their wedding date up and get married before he passes away.

6 votes – “American Tabloid” by Adam Morrison – The true story of Generoso Pope, Jr., who with the help of the New York mob turned a small, local paper into the phenomenon that is The National Enquirer, laying the foundation for tabloid journalism as we know it today.

6 votes – “Bios” by Craig Luck & Ivor Powell – In a post-apocalyptic world, a man spends his dying days with the robot he created to look after his dog.

6 votes – “Cancer Inc.” by Marc Macaluso – The true story of the coporatization of cancer in the United States told through the eyes of a British Wall Street analyst who uncovers the corruption behind the approval of a drug intended to treat prostate cancer.

6 votes – “The Fifth Nixon” by Sharon Hoffman – Watergate as experienced through the eyes of President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary Rose Mary Woods.

6 votes – “The Grownup” by Natalie Krinsky – Based on the short story “The Grownup” (review here) by Gillian Flynn. A con woman who pretends to read auras is hired by a wealthy woman to banish an evil spirit from her house, but it is soon clear that the fake exorcist is in over her head.

6 votes – “Green Rush” by Matt Tente – A paroled ex-con agrees to help his daughter steal medical marijuana tax dollars from City Hall.

6 votes – “Health and Wellness” by Joe Epstein – A sociopath obsessed with self-improvement claws her way to the top of the fitness world, leaving a trail of broken bodies in her wake.

6 votes – “Little Boy” by Hayley Schore & Roshan Sethi – The true story of the man
who dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima and his unexpected journey back to ground zero.

6 votes – “On” by Ryan Jennifer Jones – In a slightly futuristic/hyper-efficient Manhattan, a newly-single book editor purchases a customizable sex android to assuage her broken heart. When her toy’s closed feedback loop starts to alter her personality, she must reevaluate the merits of a perfectly- compatible partner.

6 votes – “Panopticon” by Emily Jerome – A look at the criminal justice and private prison system, told from the perspectives of a new inmate, a correctional officer, and a Wall Street hotshot.

6 votes – “Queen Elizabeth” by Shatara Michelle Ford – An uptight high-achieving, black post-grad who becomes (increasingly) irreverent and (slightly) destructive when she realizes that the life she’s living is not the life she wants.

6 votes – “Skyward” by Joe Ballerini – The true story of two families who attempt to escape over the Berlin Wall using a hot air balloon in 1979.

6 votes – “The Sleepover” by Sarah Rothschild – When bad guys break into their home and kidnap their parents, siblings Kevin and Clancy are forced to confront the fact that there may be way more to their stay-at-home mom than meets the eye.

6 votes – “The White Devils” by Leon Hendrix III – Cassius raises his sons, Malcolm and Mandela, isolated and alone in the woods. They have never met another person in their entire lives. The boys have learned to survive and protect their fragile family at all cost. When they find a mysterious wounded white girl, June, alone and lost in their woods, prejudice, lies and love set them on a collision course with the real world that puts all their lives at risk.