Have you ever heard of “The Hype Man” screenwriting tip? Of course not. It’s ONLY in this month’s Scriptshadow newsletter, a newsletter that does a deep dive into the difference between good screenwriting and bad screenwriting. This newsletter includes the latest movie from one of the most innovative directors ever, a new movie from one of the most underrated directors ever, and a movie from the director of Jumanji. And you know what? The movie from the director of Jumanji might be the best one! I also review a script that reunites two Hollywood mainstays who could’ve disappeared off the face of the earth if their movie hadn’t been an unexpected hit 20 years ago. Finally, we continue to rev up for Mega Showdown this month. Start sending in those scripts!

One thing I didn’t have time to get into in the newsletter was the new season of The Bear. The Bear has been one of my favorite shows on TV these last couple of years so I’ve been super-psyched for the third season. I’m now three episodes in and my alarm bells are ringing.

One of the signs of a brilliant artist is that you’re never sure what they’re going to do next. You look at guys like Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Ruben Östlund, and every time they come out with a new movie, it’s inventive and different and unexpected.

Then you have guys on the opposite end of the spectrum. Directors like Wes Anderson, Terrance Malick, David Leitch, and Matthew Vaughn, who keep making the same movie over and over again. The movies vary in quality and can sometimes even be good, but they never give you that amazing feeling you get from a truly original artist.

Christopher Storer, who created The Bear, is in danger of creating a third variation of director, which is someone who tries so hard to be unique with each new iteration that he’s actually becoming predictable.

Storer so badly wants to be perceived as an artist that he’s lost sight of how to tell a story. The first season of The Bear was a traditional (and brilliant) exploration of running a fast food restaurant. It was so well written in part due to the irony at the top of the show – that the fast food joint was being run by a 5-star chef.

The second season was nothing like the first. Storer bucked the traditional A to B narrative structure and told 8 self-contained stories, many times focusing on individual characters as opposed to the ensemble. The season had more highs than the first but also more lows, as it was all heaped in a giant pile of discombobulation. But Storer displayed a propensity to radically experiment. For example, in the big final episode, the main character spends the entire time in the freezer.

With the third season upon us – and keep in mind I’m only 3 episodes in – I’m starting to predict what Storer will do, which amounts to anything nontraditional. A 30 minute opening montage episode of stuff we’ve already seen is a “Get real” moment for him. That’s film school nonsense. Then the second episode all takes place in one room. Another film school faux-genius choice that, when we saw it the first time on the show, it was cute. Now it’s getting annoying. And the third episode was just people running around the kitchen getting angry in real time. We already did real-time. So this is starting to feel played.

With 7 episodes left, I’m going to guess at where Storer is going next and while I don’t expect to be 100% right, I expect to be mostly right. Because he’s showing his hand. He wants to be lauded as an artist and so he’s doing as many weird film-school things as he think up.

There will probably be an episode that focuses on the clock in the restaurant and while we HEAR everything that goes on in the restaurant, we stay on the clock the entire time. There will probably be an episode that takes place from the POV of a utensil – my guess is a spoon – for the entire running time. The ending will be the spoon being thrown away in the garbage and we’ll all feel sad.

There will be an episode where everything is told backwards. So we’ll start at the end of the episode and end at the beginning. There will be an episode that takes place when Carmy was 5 years old. His grandmother will be played by Liza Minelli. And in real-time we’ll see him make his first meal (maybe Mac and cheese?) and fall in love with cooking.

There will be an “alternate history” episode where we get to see what the restaurant would be like if Carmy’s brother was still alive. We’d probably still be at the beef shop and his bro would be running the place and the episode will focus on Carmy visiting Chicago for the weekend from his big fancy California restaurant job and we see the two brothers fight the whole time.  To motivate it, the episode will end with Carmy waking up from a dream.

And the final episode will probably be Richie on top of a building, thinking of killing himself, Carmy comes to stop him, and Richie gives a 78 minute no-cut monologue about how he came to this decision.

I am all for writers and directors taking risks. But if the only reason you’re taking risks is to take risks? And it’s not because you actually think it will result in a better product?  That’s a waste of time. I’m being facetious with most of these episode predictions but that’s only because I’m frustrated. In the end, we want a good story. Bells and whistles only get you so far. It’s the substance that matters. The Bear? Please bring back some substance for the final 7 episodes.

If you’re not on the newsletter, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and I’ll put you on!

Genre: 30 min. Comedy/Period
Winning Logline: A troupe of struggling actors fight for relevancy for their small, dingy theatre located directly across the cobblestone street from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre at the height of its fame.
About: Dan Martin beat out seven other contenders on Pilot Showdown Day with his clever logline. It is the first comedy pilot reviewed on the site in over four months! Can he do the impossible and win over a Scriptshadow comedy crowd that is said to be even more discerning than the crowds at the Globe Theater???
Writer: Dan Martin
Details: 34 pages

If you had told me I’d be traveling back 5+ centuries TWICE in the same week to review scripts, I would’ve told you… well, I would’ve told you that’s possible because that’s the wonderful world of screenplay-reading. You never know what you’re going to get.

It is the year 1594.

Playwright Thaddeus Longfellow is with his friend (who he secretly loves), and actress, Katherine Greyman, at the world-famous Globe Theater, watching Romeo and Juliet. In the audience is the writer, William Shakespeare, who loves himself more than anything else on the planet. This man’s life is the life Thaddeus dreams of living.

But that life probably isn’t going to happen anytime soon because Thaddeus has had writer’s block for over a year. As he frustratingly picks up Katherine (she’s in tears after the ending of Romeo & Juliet), they head back to their theater, The Silver Theater, across the street.

The Silver Theater, and pretty much everybody who works there, suck. You’ve got Michael the Mute. Kurtus the German (who’s actually from Austria). As well as a number of other not-attractive-enough actors casually awaiting their next play – casually because Thaddeus doesn’t have any new material.

But then Thaddeus has an idea. Through the grapevine, word is that Shakespeare doesn’t write his own stuff. It’s actually ghost-written by a guy named Joseph Noone. So Thaddeus recruits Noone to write the Silver’s next play. The cocky Noone comes in and writes one of the worst plays ever, making the Silver’s acting troupe look even worse than they already are. And the out-of-ideas Thaddeus goes wandering the streets drunk, fantasizing about killing himself.

But right before he takes action, he runs into none-other than an also-drunk William Shakespeare. Shakespeare and Thaddeus get to talking and Shakespeare says it’s lonely at the top. I don’t know if people love my writing or just love it because my name’s attached to it. It would be nice to know if I’m actually as great as I think I am. And that’s when Thaddeus gets an idea: Give me one of your unknown scripts, I’ll play it at my theater, and we can find out together. Shakespeare agrees and that’s the end of episode 1.

I feel a little out of my comfort zone here. Analyzing half-hour comedy is not one of my strong suits. I find that because comedy is so subjective it’s very hard to gauge when the comedy is working and when it isn’t.

I was recently on a Zoom consultation for a comedy spec and the writer and I were talking about some of the jokes in his script. I told him I wasn’t laughing at them and I proceeded to offer some alternatives which he, then, proceeded to tell me were even less funny. And that’s how a lot of generating comedy goes. It’s not easy.

Despite that, my big takeaway here was this: We need more jokes.

When I first read that great logline for the pilot, I thought, “That’s good. That could be really funny.” And the main thing I imagined was leaning into the contrast between the two theaters. We would see perfectly choreographed comedy perfection at the Globe and then quickly cut to the lazy sloppy mistake-prone acts at the Silver Theater.

And we do get a little of that here. But not as much as I wanted. Which I think is Dan’s big mistake is he focused more on the plot than anything else. And, with comedy, you have to focus on the jokes. Where do the funny jokes come from? They come from characters. So you want to spend a ton of time coming up with the funniest characters possible.

Instead, we get a ton of plot here. And, to Dan’s credit, it’s good plotting. We set up the contrast between the two theaters. How Silver Theater is barely paying its bills. We set up our hero’s primary flaw, that he’s got debilitating writer’s block and can’t create anymore. We set up the rivalry (or perceived rivalry in Thad’s head) of Thad and Shakespeare. We watch him hatch his plan of recruiting Shakespeare’s ghostwriter. And then we get the big ending reveal, which is that, to save the theater, Shakespeare has agreed to allow them to anonymously use his play.

But because we had to set all that up, we didn’t get enough of the comparisons between the two theaters. I always try and remind writers – especially writers who win these contests with beloved loglines – to lean into that beloved concept as much as possible. Because that’s what we voted for. That’s what excited us. So if you’re spending 80% of the pilot on plot and setup instead, the reader’s going to feel let down.

Now, I’m guessing Dan would argue that the plan is to do exactly that throughout the rest of the show. It’s TV so there will be many episodes to play with this fun concept of the Globe Theater vs. the Silver Theater. Meanwhile, for this episode, he’s got to set everything up! But this is why screenwriting is hard. Readers and viewers don’t care that you have to set things up. If it’s a comedy, they want to laugh NOW. And that’s what I wanted, too.

I’m not going to pretend like I know exactly how to redraft this pilot to achieve this. But my initial thought was we needed to spend more time at The Silver Theater. I want to see just how bad it is there. I want to meet every hilarious character. I want to watch the world’s worst play. And, afterward, I want to see all of them disperse and go to their corners and complain in funny ways about all the reasons why their genius isn’t being allowed to shine.

To me, the most recent example of a great TV comedy ensemble was The Office. And while they didn’t have time in that pilot episode to introduce everyone in the office, they gave us Michael. They gave us Dwight. They gave us the Intern. And we got a few quick scenes with people at the back of the Office. And you were laughing! Cause they were all funny.

When I look at Thad, I’m not sure I find anything funny about him. He’s more of a tragic figure. He’s sad about Shakespeare being better than him. He’s sad about his writer’s block. Where are the laughs? One thing I know is that your lead comedy character needs to be funny. So Thad needs to be reimagined at the very least. You’d be surprised at how that could then open up comedy everywhere else.

Cause think about Michael in The Office. His comedic construction was not only great for him, but it allowed the writers to build Dwight around him, with Dwight being obsessed with Michael and wanting to make him happy no matter what. If you don’t first figure out Michael’s comedic angle, you can’t build Dwight’s comedic angle. So I could see the same happening once you figure out Thad.

Comedy is hard. Pilots are hard. Comedy pilots are, therefore, very hard. That’s what she said. Sorry, I’ve got Michael Scott on the brain. So I’m not trying to kill Dan here. I understand the difficulty of the task he’s up against. But I think Dan was too plot-focused in the writing of this pilot when he needed to be more character and comedy-focused. Give us funny characters, make us laugh as much as possible. Even if this comes in the package of a thin plot, we’ll still watch the next episode.

P.S. It might be funny to add a mockumentary style to this since it doesn’t make sense whatsoever for the time. One of the reasons The Office (and shows like it) were able to establish their comedic characters so quickly is because they could be asked direct questions about themselves in interviews. Which helped the viewer IMMEDIATELY get the characters. For example, in Michaels’s very first interview in The Office, he’s pointing to his “World’s Best Boss” coffee mug. We immediately understand, in that moment, what’s important to him, and where his comedy is going to come from.

Pilot Script Link: Playwrong

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

What I learned: In my experience reading comedy, writers need to write at least twice as many jokes as they actually write. Because you have to remember that some jokes aren’t going to hit. This is something that Judd Apatow will tell his feature writers from time to time: “Go through the script and add 50 more jokes.” Cause the worst thing that can happen when reading a comedy script is the reader doesn’t laugh enough. So make sure they have enough to laugh about.

This contest is bigger than a Star Destroyer!

For those of you just joining in on the fun, every Thursday of 2024, I’ve been guiding Scriptshadow readers through the process of writing a screenplay. We wrote the first draft over the course of four months. This week, we just finished our second draft. And now we’re down to the final month, where we polish the script.

I’m going to put up an official announcement for the Mega-Showdown soon, as well as announce it in the July Newsletter (e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you want to receive my newsletter). But starting today, you CAN submit your Mega-Showdown script.

Here are the details…

What: Mega-Showdown (Online Feature Screenplay Contest)
What I need: Title, genre, logline, your first five pages
Optional: tagline, movie-crossover pitch
Contest Date: Friday, July 26th
Deadline: Thursday, July 25th, 10pm Pacific Time
Send to: entries should be sent to carsonreeves3@gmail.com
How: Include “MEGA” in subject line
Price: Free

It’s going to be an amazing event. On July 26th, I’ll post loglines for the ten best entries, including the first page. Everybody on the site will vote. The four scripts that get the most votes will move on to the next stage. The very next week, each of the four final scripts will get their first five pages posted on their own individual day.

I’ve heard how guys want to actually see what the writing looks like in these scripts. Now you’re going to be able to dig in and really determine which script is the best written. Then, that following weekend, starting Friday, July 2nd, we will have a second voting process where the four top scripts will be voted on to determine the winner. The inaugural Scriptshadow Mega-Showdown winner will then get a script review on Monday, August 5th.

Okay, now that you’re all pumped up, let’s talk about polishing your script.

Just like a lot of terms in screenwriting, “polish” means different things to different writers. For some, it means dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s. For others, it means a full on mini-rewrite.

How extensive your polish should be will be determined by how much time you have. In this case we have exactly four weeks. Here’s what I can tell you you can do and can’t do in four weeks.

You cannot make any major character changes in four weeks. You can’t, for example, change your main character’s flaw. Or turn them from a man into a woman. Or change their job from a CIA agent to a tech CEO. Those types of changes have tentacles in so many parts of the screenplay that you’re essentially doing a page-1 rewrite. And you don’t have time for that.

Nor do you have time to make major structural changes. If you realize that your midpoint should actually be the end of your first act, you’ll be cutting out 25+ pages. How many of those pages can be redistributed? How much new story will you have to write? Probably too much to do so effectively in four weeks.

If you’re doing a “mini-rewrite,” – in other words, a polish where you’re still making some creative changes – then stick to improving scenes as best you can as well as improving important subplots. Neither of these changes is going to affect the overall parts of the script. So you can fix them quickly.

I encourage you to identify your 5-7 most important scenes and ask yourself, “Are these as good as they can be?” If they’re a suspenseful scene, can you do something to make them even more suspenseful? If they’re an action set-piece, are you being as imaginative as you can be? If they’re a dialogue scene, can you be more creative with the dialogue, or funnier, or more clever?

Those scenes are really going to sell your script so they need to be as good as possible.

When it comes to rewriting subplots, I included a qualifier there: “IMPORTANT.” Minor subplots, such as Allan’s (Michael Cera’s) subplot in “Barbie,” don’t move the needle either way. Those subplots aren’t going to affect how your reader feels at the end of your screenplay. So unless they’re disastrous, don’t worry about them.

But if the Chief of Police’s (Keegan-Michael Key) subplot in Wonka is weak, that’s something worth tidying up because he has a fairly substantial arc in the film as he’s struggling to decide whether to heed the chocolatiers’ wishes and take down Willie Wonka or do what he knows is right.

You’ve got about two weeks to take care of these things before we move on to grammar and spelling. So don’t take on any task that you think may be too difficult to manage.

And I know some of you may be freaking out and thinking you don’t have enough time to do everything you have to do. First off, that’s natural to think as a writer, especially if you’re a perfectionist. But also, consider that when you become a professional writer, one of the biggest adjustments you will be asked to make is writing on a schedule. You will have to hit deadlines. This is the perfect time to practice for that.

Challenge yourself! You’ll be surprised what you’re capable of when you push past your comfort zone.

Mega-Showdown. 30 DAYS AND COUNTING!

If Monty Python announced they were writing again, this would probably be their first movie adaptation.

Genre: Period/Comedy
Premise: The long-lost twin sister of a Duchess infiltrates the kingdom’s walls, impersonating her dead sister, who, unbeknownst to the kingdom, fell victim to the fast-rising killer pandemic known as “The Red Death.”
About: Screenwriter (and director) Charlie Polinger has been making waves with his short films and just recently signed Joel Edgerton onto his first feature, “The Plague,” about a 12 year old boy who gets bullied at a water polo camp (the bad kids convince others to stay away from him by saying he has “the plague.”). Today’s much more extensive concept would conceivably be his third movie, after he proves he can handle escalating budgets in his first two.
Writer: Charlie Polinger (story by Edgar Allen Poe)
Details: 122 pages

We have another great example here of utilizing IP from the public domain. There are thousands of stories out there that, if found, could easily be turned into movies. You must be alert to that.

I asked ChatGPT for the five best Edgar Allan Poe stories that have not been turned into movies yet and this is what it gave me. Feel free to start writing one today.

“The Devil in the Belfry”: A humorous tale about a small town’s chaotic experience when a devilish stranger disrupts their routine.

“A Tale of the Ragged Mountains”: A mysterious story involving mesmerism, hallucinations, and a strange adventure in the mountains.

“The Spectacles”: A comedic narrative about a young man who mistakenly courts his great-great-grandmother due to poor eyesight.

“Hop-Frog”: A dark revenge tale about a court jester who enacts a gruesome revenge on the king and his ministers.

“The Man of the Crowd”: A psychological tale focusing on a man who obsessively follows a mysterious figure through the streets of London.

The Spectacles is definitely the funniest one. I don’t know if you could build an entire movie around it. Hop-Frog has some potential, especially if you update it to modern day. And it looks like Christopher Nolan already stole one of these for himself, adapting it into his first feature, “Following.”

Let’s see if today’s script is as good as any of these…

It is the 14th century and Prince Prospero’s people are being ravaged by the Red Death, a virus so nasty you could be pulp within hours of getting it. The cowardly Prospero orders the gates of the kingdom to be closed so that all of the upper-crust folks are safe from what is thought to be a ‘peasant disease.’

When Prospero’s sister, Duchess Margarita, conveys her disdain for such action, she’s kicked out of the council and she leaves the kingdom. She just so happens to run into her doppelganger, Isabel, who it turns out is her long-lost twin sister, who was supposed to be killed due to being the offspring of the chambermaid.

After Margarita quickly succumbs to the Black Death, Isabel and her 13 year old daughter, Rose, decide that they stand a much better chance against the Red Death inside the kingdom’s walls compared to out. So they head to the castle where Isabel pretends to be Margarita. Rose pretends to be the young peasant who found and saved her life.

Prince Prospero is thrilled that his sister is back but both Isabel and Rose quickly find out that Margarita is kind of hated around these parts and some people – the Princess’s handmaiden in particular – are desperate to kill her. That would seem like the worst of it but Isabel also must fend off people like 60-something Franz (who presents as 80-something), eagerly anticipating (assuming that she’s Margarita) their next hookup. Isabel is horrified.

Isabel will have to navigate a world – royal family politics – she has no reference for, which has numerous family-members dying around her for the most shocking of reasons (Poor Franz is dressed up like a bear to be killed in a pre-dinner duel so that Prospero may slaughter him and therefore be seen as a “powerful” prince). It isn’t long before Isabel starts to wonder… is it really better inside these walls than out?

“Bring out yer dead!”

This was surprisingly good.

It’s got a healthy dose of Myton Python guiding it.

I think the biggest surprise is how timeless the humor is. A lot of the funny moments from this story would work in movies today! Which is probably what Polinger saw in the story.

The scene where Isabel is hanging out in her bedroom and this lecherous old man comes in ready to do the dirty and she has no idea what’s going on – that joke works in 1850 and 2050.

As does the head guard, Sven, who spends every day waiting for anyone to show even the barest signs of the Red Death and then beheads them on the spot, lol. Again, that joke works in 1400. It works 2200.

Even Hop-Frog (from the earlier loglines) makes an appearance at dinner, swinging awkwardly from the windows, stumbling around, accidentally tearing curtains off, failing to land flips. His jestering antics are funny anywhere.

The script also has some edge to it. Prospero is such a wimp that he craves humiliation in all its forms, succumbing to regular golden showers from his ditzy wife’s power-hungry handmaiden.
There isn’t a lot of humor celebrated on this site. Most of the comedy scripts are barely able to scrape together a few chuckle-worthy jokes. This one’s got lol jokes from start to finish.

It’s also built on a powerful storytelling device – LYING. Lying is a very powerful engine in and of itself because it requires characters to hide things. And that’s always fun to watch. We just saw this in yesterday’s script. The main character, whatever her name was, was built around her dependence on lying.

In this case, lying takes even more of a front seat because there’s more at stake. Isabel is lying about her identity and if she gets caught, she’s killed. So every situation she’s in feels big.

And for those who bought my dialogue book, you will recognize this as REVERSE DRAMATIC IRONY, or some call it “Superhero Dramatic Irony,” because we know who the main character really is but nobody else does (just like we know Clark Kent is Superman but nobody else does).

This means that every interaction she gets in is going to have subtext attached to it.

But the script does have a major flaw, which is that it doesn’t have a plot. Once Isabel gets into the kingdom, she doesn’t have much to do other than avoid getting exposed. A negative goal doesn’t power a narrative. You can get 5, 6, maybe even 7 scenes out of the initial comedy of Isabel trying to fit in and pretend she’s a Duchess. But, sooner or later, the audience wants to know where we’re headed.

For example, something you might do is reveal that there’s a secret plan, from some power-hungry character, to kill Prospero in five days. And maybe Isabel doesn’t like Prospero so she’s initially fine with this. But, as time goes on, she kinda likes the guy. And now she has to decide whether to tell him and save him.

That’s just one example of what you could do. Notice that it gives the reader a destination. It provides some suspense. We’re going somewhere with the story as opposed to wandering around the halls waiting for things to happen.

They finally figure out who Isabel is and now she has to fend for herself. After that, we get a really wild weird ending which is what ALWAYS happens when you write a narrative that doesn’t have a purpose. Your ending comes around. You’re not sure what to do. So you THROW THE CRAZIEST SH*T YOU CAN THINK OF at the reader to try to shock them into forgetting that there hasn’t been a plot for the last 60 pages.

I don’t know if that’s what happened in the original story or how much of his own ideas Polinger is adding to the script. Not to say the script was bad. It was just that, so much of this script is really fun. So the messy ending stands out as a sore spot.

But the script’s definitely worth a read. This is one of the better scripts on the 2023 Black List for sure.

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

What I learned: Be careful about any creative choice that forces your hand for the rest of the script. Early on here, when Isabel first impersonates Margarita, she also pretends to be blind due to falling off her horse and hitting her head. It leads to some funny moments early on. Everyone will have to walk across the room and Isabel will walk in the other direction. The problem is, you now have to commit to that blindness FOR THE ENTIRE REST OF THE MOVIE. Which is a hassle. Cause I guarantee there will be dozens of times when the scene would be a lot easier to write if the character could see. So you lock yourself into this annoying trait for, what amounts to, two minutes of funny jokes. Always weigh every major creative choice against how it affects the rest of the screenplay. Sometimes these things just aren’t worth it.

Genre: Romantic Comedy/Historical
Premise: Set in 1968 during the space race, a compulsive liar ad exec is added to the NASA team to drum up money (and support) from the American public to fund a moon trip that’s 400 million dollars over budget. She runs into a flight director who wants nothing to do with the woman, yet can’t take his eyes off her.
About: The most interesting thing about this project for me is that it’s written by Rose Gilroy, who wrote one of my favorite scripts from last year, The Pack. Here’s that logline: “A documentary crew in contention at the Emmys for their film about wild Alaskan wolves is hiding several big secrets about their troubled 3 month shoot.” This is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of that script. That script was very artsy and unique. This is a rom-com. So I’m curious to see what she does with it.
Writer: Rose Gilroy (story by Kennan Flynn and Bill Kirstein)
Details: 135 pages!

Many years ago, it was hard to get a movie through the system.

It really had to be battle-tested and go through the wringer of development. At that time, people always said, “What would happen if the studios actually took chances and didn’t do all this movie-by-committee stuff?” The prevailing theory is that we’d get a neverending stream of perfect movies.

But part of the sly gig of saying such a thing was that the sayers knew they would never have to answer to their predictions. There would be no situation in which studios would make 200 million dollar movies that didn’t have to perform well.

And then the streaming revolution happened.

Amazon, Apple, and Netflix had hundreds of billions of dollars to spend and, therefore, didn’t care how their 200 million dollar movies performed. They gave carte blanche to whoever wanted it.

So the big experiment got to play out.

Did we ever get that revolution of amazing movies we thought we would?

No.

A good argument could be made that movies have gotten worse – 6 Underground (150 million). Red Notice (200 million). The Tomorrow War (200 million). And then you had artsy duds like Killers of the Flower Moon, Roma, The Irishman, and Mank. If you don’t force a project to go through any sort of development process to EARN its spot at the theater, it’s only natural that you’re going to get weak products.

This is why everything comes down to the screenplay. If the screenplay is good, the movie is almost always good. So it’s worth it to battle-test your screenplay. I used to think that development was bad just like everyone else outside the system. But now I know, as long as people are giving you notes in good faith, that every time someone notes an issue in your script, it’s an opportunity to make the script better.

I look at a project like Fly Me to the Moon and I think – this is the exact type of movie that clueless streamers greenlight. It’s got little-to-no market value. It doesn’t have a very exciting premise. You could argue it feels dated.

BUT! I could be wrong. This could be an amazing screenplay and THAT’S the reason why they decided to make it. Let’s find out.

It’s 1968 and NASA is 400 million dollars over-budget for their plan to put men on the moon. Cole, the 40-something flight director (played by Channing Tatum) doesn’t care. His job is to get men to the moon before Russia or else communism takes over the world.

But you know who does care? Moe Berkus. The Berkster is our resident villain and bureaucratic suit who storms in and says they need to change things around here before they go bankrupt.

The plan is to bring in 35 year old Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johanson), the female version of Don Draper. But don’t quote me on that. I only saw 5 episodes of Mad Men. Kelly is an advertising genius who is not above lying ABOUT ANYTHING to get the gig. Actually, when we meet her, she’s pitching a company while pregnant. Except immediately afterwards, we find out the baby bump was a pillow. She just used it to get the job.

The nuts and bolts straight-as-an-arrow Cole may find Kelly attractive but he hates what she represents. She brings in every advertiser in the book, starting with Tang, and even hires actors to pretend they’re NASA engineers because the real engineers are all young and clueless.

The two bicker back and forth and as the launch gets closer, Moe comes in and tells Kelly she’s got to tell her biggest lie yet. They’re afraid that they might not get to the moon and, in that case, they need a backup. Hence she needs to lead the production of a faked moon landing.

As the real launch approaches, Moe tells Kelly that they’re going to go with the fake landing no matter what. And hence, Kelly must decide if this history-changing lie is worth her integrity.

Fly Me to the Moon is attempting to pull off the movie concept equivalent of a menage-a-trois. That’s when you write a romantic movie that has a MALE component to it. You see, usually, romance movies are just for the girls. But sometimes, they try to pull in guys too by adding a guy-like angle.

Titanic is the ultimate example of this formula’s success. You have the love story between Jack and Rose and then you have the historic sinking of a boat to pull in all the dudes. But just like when you go for the menage, if it fails, it fails spectacularly. Let me introduce you to Cameron Crowe’s, Aloha. You’ve got the romance storyline in that movie and then you have the cool launch of a satellite to pull in the guys. The fact that you don’t even know what movie I’m talking about tells you how bad this formula can go.

Original book the movie was based on

Luckily for Fly Me to the Moon, it’s not as bad as Aloha.

Actually, as a screenplay, it does a lot of things [technically] right. We’ve got the goal – get to the moon. The stakes are high – Communism takes over. You have your urgency – It’s a race against the Russians.

You’ve got your obstacle – they don’t have enough money, which is why they hire Kelly. You’ve got your conflict between the two romantic leads – Cole needs to get this mission ready while Kelly keeps interrupting that so she can advertise the mission to the American people. This is complicated by the sexual tension between them.

And you’ve got very clear flaws for each of your main characters. Cole will always tell the truth to a fault. Kelly will always lie to get what she wants.

So why doesn’t the script work?

You guys hear me talk all the time about how important the fundamentals are. Get all that stuff right and your script has a much better chance of succeeding. Yet they do so much right here, and it still turns out to be average at best. Why?

For starters, the concept isn’t wonderful. This is a strange combo. A romance built around the moon race? Those two things don’t roll off the tongue, you know what I’m saying.

This is true for almost every idea. If the concept is flawed, no manner of execution is going to save it. At best, good execution of a weak concept gets you an average screenplay, which is exactly what this is.

Also, they took a big risk by introducing the fake moon landing subplot. It’s a risk because you’re already pushing two things together (the romance and the moon landing) that don’t go together. So to then add a third awkward plot point to the movie made it feel even sloppier. Simple as that. Like the writers weren’t sure what kind of movie they were making.

Now, I understand what they were trying to do. They were trying to pay off Kelly’s flaw. What is the biggest obstacle we can place in the way of someone who lies about everything? Come up with a lie so big that she’d be betraying not just this guy that she likes, but the entire country.

So it makes sense when you talk about it out loud. I could see this conversation going over REALLY WELL at the writer’s table. But sometimes writing is like coaching basketball. You can’t just put the five guys with the best stats on the floor all the time. You have to find the five guys who complement each other best. There’s a “feel” aspect to it just like there’s a “feel” aspect to writing.

And while it sounds well and good to place this giant lie obstacle in front of your big lying co-protagonist, it ultimately hurts the script because it sends the story down this other direction that isn’t that interesting to the audience. Also, if you’re adding subplots that make your movie 140 minutes instead of 110 minutes? Think long and hard about whether that subplot is worth it.

So, unfortunately, this will continue Apple’s streak of making movies for its service that nobody watches. It wouldn’t matter if Hawk Tua Girl and Edmonton Flasher Chick made out for the entire first act – this movie doesn’t even make it out of the troposphere.

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

What I learned: Introduce and introduce big. Have you ever been at a store or at an event or just out and about and some random person says something to you? Chances are, you turn to them and ask, “Huh? What’d you just say?” You missed what they said because you weren’t prepared for their question. That’s a lot like how readers experience character introductions. In that first act, you’re introducing a bunch of characters to them. And it’s happening so fast that they’re not catching them all. If you introduce 10 characters in the first 15 pages, there’s a good chance that the reader will only remember half of them. Therefore, when you introduce somebody important, introduce them IN A BIG WAY. Kelly is a big character here. How do we introduce her? We introduce her pregnant, pitching an advertising campaign, then afterwards saying, “I need a drink,” before pulling her fake baby bump out from under her shirt. That’s how you introduce a character who we’re going to remember.