Genre: Teen Comedy
Premise: A young Asian-American teen basketball fanatic who just wants to dunk and get the girl ends up learning much more about himself, his best friends, and his mother.
About: This script finished all the way up at NUMBER 2 on the 2020 Black List, which was just released this week. While there hasn’t been an official announcement yet, it looks to be set up over at Disney +. The writer, Jingyi Shoa, was a staff writer on the show, Boomerang.
Writer: Jingyi Shao
Details: 109 pages
One of the reasons I started this site was because I wanted to learn more about these successful screenwriters who sold screenplays for a million dollars. Their success seemed magical to me, almost intimidatingly so. Were they always to remain enigmatic mysteries? Unobtainable gods whose keys to success would forever be locked up in some secret screenwriting vault behind the Hollywood sign?
There were times where I thought the answer was yes. Monday, the readers of this site learned that it doesn’t take magic. What it takes is writing a lot of screenplays and trying to get better with each one. That’s what Angela and Mayhem showed you. Success is obtainable. But you do have to work for it. It’s not going to be handed to you.
Now that I’m thinking about it, both Mayhem and Angela were very active on the internet – posting and getting their scripts read repeatedly. Taking feedback. Using that feedback to improve. Neither of them buried their heads in the sand and dogmatically declared, “My way or the highway.” They embody the 2020 screenwriting path to success. You got to get your work out there. If the only people who see your script are you and your cat, you’re never going to get anywhere. Unless your cat becomes the president of Paramount.
And with that PSA out of the way, join me and Chang. Cause we’re going to show you how to dunk!
Chang is 16 years old and plays bass in the marching band. And he loves basketball. He doesn’t love it enough to play on any teams. Or, I should say, the teams don’t love him enough to let him play on the team. But that doesn’t stop Chang’s enthusiasm for the fastest growing sport in the world.
Chang’s world of basketball love is interrupted one day by real love! A fellow sophomore named Kristy, she of the emo variety, moves into town and joins the band. She takes an immediate liking to Chang but then the worst thing imaginable happens. MATT. Yup, that darn Matt. Greek God. Beautiful blue eyes. Star basketball player. Worst of all, he can dunk like nobody’s bidness.
Once Kristy starts hanging around Matt, Chang realizes that to get her back in his orbit he’ll need a hail kristy. So after a basketball game, in front of the whole school, Chang bets Matt that he can dunk a basketball by the end of the season. That would be 12 weeks from now. Matt laughs. This 5’8” kid who’s not even on the team? Yeah right. But you’re on.
In a stroke of luck, Chang meets an AT&T rep, Devin, who used to be the star of the Romanian league. Chang asks Devin to teach him how to dunk and Devin’s in. But only if he can put it on his Youtube channel. The next 12 weeks entail a lot of Rocky style montage training until Chang is literally within one inch of dunking. But time has run out. His first dunk will have to happen on the big day! By the way, this is the midpoint of the screenplay. And, wouldn’t you know it, Chang does it! He dunks! In front of the whole school!
When the dunk heard round the school uploads to Devin’s channel, it goes viral. Which leads to local news wanting to interview Chang. Then ESPN. Then, while he’s at ESPN, he meets NBA basketball player Gilbert Arenas, who takes him out to a strip joint! Where Chang makes it rain. As the Chang legend grows, so too does a rumor. A rumor that, if it gains traction, could end all of this. That rumor is… Chang cheated. That Chang… cannot dunk!
First off, I love when writers play with the expected format. On the first page, instead of “Based on a true story,” we get, “Based on countless true stories.” As if to imply that thousands of Asian teenagers everywhere are trying to get the girl by learning how to dunk. That single line tells you exactly what you’re in for with Chang Can Dunk. This is turn-your-mind off 1200 degrees of surface-level entertainment.
But if we’re being real, this script is not a #2 worthy Black List script. It doesn’t have enough meat on it. And I’ll tell you exactly where it’s lacking – character development. A script at this level with this kind of story needs heavier character development to earn its place. Scripts like Edge of Seventeen come to mind. You get the impression that the writer of Edge of Seventeen was interested in creating real people. Where this script is more about creating archetypes.
Which is fine. I’m only judging it by that high bar because it’s so high on the list.
One of the characters who had a ton of potential in this script was the mom, Chen. She’s a single mother who’s a little overprotective of her son. But the problem with her is that she was never clearly defined. We don’t know what her “issue” was. If you don’t establish a clear character “issue,” then we don’t know what needs to change in that character for them to arc.
A few weeks back I reviewed a short story about an Asian family called The Paper Menagerie. In that story, the mother’s issue was clear. She wouldn’t learn English, which created a chasm of communication issues between her and her son. The whole story was about how that lack of communication destroyed their relationship, all the way up until her death. The reason that story is one of the most emotional you’ll ever read is specifically because the writer so clearly identified the mother’s issue in the story.
The character issues didn’t stop there. All of the characters outside of Chang felt off. Kristy is the romantic interest for the first 20 pages after her entrance. And then she just straight up disappears, occasionally making cameos when she gets bored. Or there’s Devin, the coach. He had potential as a character but he didn’t have a single flaw. There was nothing in his life that he was having trouble with or trying to overcome. When you don’t explore the weaknesses in your characters, your characters remain one-dimensional.
But the biggest problem with Chang Can Dunk is that it makes a pivotal error right at the midpoint. Chang isn’t sure he can dunk yet when going into the day of the dunk. So what he does is he sneaks into the gym the night before and lowers the rim a couple of inches. So what’s the story issue? It isn’t clear that this happens. The writer doesn’t show it. We see Chang sneak through the gym window. But we don’t see him with tools or anything. So we don’t know what’s going on. I only found out 50 pages later that he cheated when Chang admits he lowered the rim.
This is the kind of thing that would’ve worked better if you clearly showed Chang lowering the rim. This would create a powerful state of dramatic irony that runs through the second half of the story. We know Chang is a fraud but nobody else does. That type of setup ENSURES the reader will keep reading because they want to see what happens when the secret gets out. They want to be there for the fall.
I was trying to think of a similar movie to compare this to and then it came to me. Chang Can Dunk is Spiderman: Homecoming but without Spiderman or any superheroes or super powers. It has that same tone and sense of humor. So if you liked the last two Spiderman movies, you’d probably like this. Me? I needed a lot more from the characters to connect to this story and care about its conclusion.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I like when writers take a chance and complete the story goal at the midpoint (as opposed to waiting until the end of the movie). It makes for a more unpredictable script because now we’re wondering where the story goes from here. Chang Can Dunk actually has Chang dunk at the midpoint! It’s unexpected and genuinely had me wondering what would happen next.
Sorry! I was out all yesterday so I wasn’t able to catch up on the Black List madness until the evening. Count me both shocked and thrilled, then, when I saw not one, but two active Scriptshadow readers in the Top 5!!!
I still remember meeting Angela and her newborn baby a few years ago when she was moving to San Deigo, worried about her chances of getting a staff writing job if she was outside of LA. Looks like, in the end, her decision was the right one! She’s also been killing it with her blog, LA Screenwriter, for a full decade now. So happy for you, Angela!
And then what can you say about Mayhem Jones (Sophie)? Is there anyone on this planet who possesses more positivity than her? I remember how bad I felt that I didn’t give Headhunter that ‘worth the read’ mark because I like Mayhem as a person so much. But you know what she said to me afterwards? She said, oh god, I don’t care about that at all, I was just happy to get a review on Scriptshadow.
I bring up that positivity because I’m always happy to see the people who remain positive succeed. It confirms the power that staying positive has. It’s so easy to become bitter. And I think the more bitter you become, the harder it is to succeed. Not so much because your writing gets worse. It’s more that people don’t like to be around people who bring them down. Or who are always complaining. Or who think the world is conspiring against them.
Now despite me missing the boat on my Headhunter rating (I’ll gladly take the L on that one!), I think we all agreed on one thing with Mayhem during that review – she has voice for days. A really strong voice. And those are the scripts that tend to do well on the Black List. Clever concepts do well. But dating back to the Diablo Cody days, Black List has always been about finding unique voices. And we all said during the day of her review that she had that part nailed.
Okay, with that, let’s take a look at this year’s Black List!
Title: HEADHUNTER – 29 votes
Writer: Sophie Dawson
Logline: A high-functioning cannibal selects his victims based on their Instagram popularity, but finds his habits shaken by a man who wants to be eaten.
Thoughts: WAY TO GO, MAYHEM! By the way, I don’t know if this is a new draft that went out. I’ll be curious to hear from Mayhem about this. Would love to know if she took any of your notes. And for those of you wondering where the review is on the site, Mayhem informed me a couple of months ago that her script was picking up steam and I didn’t want my review to affect any buzz so I took it down.
Title: CHANG CAN DUNK – 28 votes
Writer: Jingyi Shao
Logline: A young Asian-American teen and basketball fanatic who just wants to dunk and get the girl ends up learning much more about himself, his best friends, and his mother.
Thoughts: This is one of those loglines that only works when it has a big “28” behind it, indicating the number of votes it got on the Black List. Cause as a logline alone, this is screaming to me, “Too thin!” But with 28 people vouching for it, the cuteness of the idea all of a sudden sounds a lot more appealing. Plus, it’s one of the best titles in the bunch.
Title: NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY – 26 votes
Writer:Dave Collard
Logline: An adaptation of David Sharp’s book The CIA’s Greatest Covert Operation that chronicles the clandestine CIA operation that risked igniting WWIII by recovering a nuclear-armed Soviet Sub, the K-129, that sunk to the bottom of the ocean in 1968.
Thoughts: Scriptshadow Rule 2156b-L. Never ever write a screenplay about the Cold War. Nobody goes to see movies about the Cold War. People go to see movies about real wars all the time. Because, you know, it’s war! And war is exciting. But a war where there was no actual warring? People aren’t interested in that. BUT! Scriptshadow Law 78-9864E. Hollywood is due for a great submarine movie. And this sounds different from your usual submarine subject matter. This puts me on the fence for this one. I’m not sure if I want to confirm or deny.
Title: IF YOU WERE THE LAST – 25 votes
Writer: Angela Bourassa
Logline: Two astronauts who think they’ve been lost in space forever fall in love, becoming content with their isolated lives, only to suddenly have to return to Earth.
Thoughts: I’ve read 4 of Angela’s scripts and the thing that always strikes me about them is that they’re a) always easy to read, and b) cerebral. There’s always an element in the storytelling that makes you think a little deeper. If You Were The Last sounds like it fits in that camp. Simple story. Complex situation. Can’t wait to check this one out.
Title: TWO FACED – 25 votes
Writer: Cat Wilkins
Logline: A high school senior attempts to get her principal fired after observing racist behavior, but she quickly learns he won’t go down without a fight.
Thoughts: I don’t think I’m going to like this one if it’s super serious. I’m in more of a ‘heal the nation’ mindset these days so when it comes to social subject matter, I’m looking for lighter fare. If this is more of a satirical take on the topic, like Election, count me in. (P.S. Election is one of my favorite movies. If you haven’t seen it, check it out!).
Title: BRING ME BACK – 22 votes
Writer: Crosby Selander
Logline: When a woman on an interstellar voyage falls in love with someone during a cryosleep simulation, she attempts to discern whether the man is a real passenger on the ship or just a figment of her imagination.
Thoughts: I reviewed this one in the newsletter. Definitely one of the more interesting concepts of the year. Its weakness is that it’s so ambitious you’re expecting more from it than it’s able to deliver. That’s the thing when you get really really ambitious with a concept. The execution has to be amazing in order to live up to what you promised. But it’s a pretty good script.
Title: BUBBLE & SQUEAK – 21 votes
Writer: Evan Twohy
Logline: Two newlyweds traverse a fictional country on their honeymoon but slowly realize they’re yearning to take separate journeys.
Thoughts: Some great titles this year. Love this title. The thing that sticks out to me about this logline is the “fictional country” part. I don’t even know what that means. Which leads to me being half frustrated and half intrigued. What is this fictional country? What is it like? With that said, somebody should’ve taken Scriptshadow’s logline service. I could’ve helped Evan nail the back half of this thing.
Title: EMERGENCY – 21 votes
Writer: KD Davila
Logline: Ready for a night of partying, a group of Black and Latino college students must weigh the pros and cons of calling the police when faced with an emergency.
Thoughts: Whoa. Speaking of needing a logline service. Yikes. WHAT’S THE EMERGENCY??????? This is my yearly reminder to everyone that, often times, the writer of a Black List script does not write their own logline. Their agent or manager does. And those people do not know how to write. So you get this. The emergency needs to be in the logline.
Title: FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE – 19 votes
Writer: Emma Dudley
Logline: Twenty-four-year-old, quiet, self-conscious Hazel has struggled with her sexuality ever since her conservative dad walked in on her kissing a girl at a middle school sleepover and flipped his absolute shit. On the way back to her hometown for her dad’s wedding, Hazel gets drunk and makes out with an older, attractive female flight attendant. She’s thrilled to have moved past her hang-ups and had some fun until she arrives home and realizes that the flight attendant is her dad’s fiance.
Thoughts: I will fix this logline. “On the flight home to her conservative father’s wedding, Hazel hooks up with a female flight attendant, only to later find out the flight attendant is her father’s fiance.”
Title: VIDEO NASTY – 18 votes
Writer: Chris Thomas Devlin
Logline: Three teenagers who rent a cursed VHS tape are pulled into an 80s slasher movie that threatens to trap them forever.
Thoughts: This is one of those projects that’s more a movie than a script. As a script, it’s average. But you can envision how fun this would look from a marketing standpoint. It’s one of those ideas where, if it’s done well, it’ll look like a good time. And it’s a pretty decent concept. Not the most original. But still, fun. You can read my review here.
Title: SATURDAY NIGHT GHOST CLUB – 17 votes
Writers: Steve Desmond, Michael Sherman
Logline: After being haunted by a terrifying entity, a twelve-year-old boy teams up with his eccentric uncle and three other misfits to form their own ghost club, investigating all the paranormal sites in town so that he can find and confront the ghost that’s tormenting him.
Thoughts: Everyone is still trying to come up with the next Goonies or the next Ghostbusters without it feeling like Goonies or Ghostbusters. Which, when you think about it, is almost impossible to do. But this seems to strike the right balance. My only complaint would be mixing up a 12 year old with adults. It should be either all kids or all adults.
Title: THE SAUCE – 17 votes
Writers: Chaz Hawkins
Logline: A depressed, selfish black man fights for his life after taking a job at a white-owned beauty parlor, whose monstrous owners concocted a wildly popular shampoo that requires a sickening ingredient.
Thoughts: This sounds like it’s cut from the same clothe as Hulu’s “Bad Hair.” I’m not sure anybody saw that movie. But, for those who did and liked it, this script may be for you.
Title: SHARPER – 17 votes
Writers: Brian Gatewood, Alessandro Tanaka
Thoughts: A chain of scam artists goes after one wealthy family with the perfect plan to drain them of their funds. But when love, heartbreak, and jealousy slither their way into the grand scheme, it becomes unclear whether the criminals are conning or the ones being conned.
Thoughts: I love a good con movie. But just remember, whoever wrote this logline, that it isn’t the generalities that make a script sound appealing. It’s the specifics. You need to tell us what’s specific about these characters or this setup that makes it different from every other film in the same space.
Title: BIRDIES – 16 votes
Writers; Colin Bannon
Logline: When Tabitha, a struggling foster kid, wins a contest to become part of the BIRDIES, a popular daily YouTube channel featuring the radiant and enigmatic Mama Bird and her diverse brood of adopted children, she soon learns that things get dark when the cameras turn off.
Thoughts: This sounds good. Balancing these kids shows or kids personalities against a dark backdrop has been a proven recipe for Black List success. Dating back to number 1 scripts, The Muppet Man and The Beaver.
Title: POSSUM SONG – 16 votes
Writer: Isaac Adamson
Logline: After discovering his secret songwriting partner dead, a country music star struggling to record new material makes a Faustian bargain with a family of possums who have taken up residency within his walls.
Thoughts: Without question, this sounds like the most whacked screenplay on the list and, for that reason, I’m all about it. Shades of “The Voices,” here, which used to be in my Top 10 list.
Title: THE BLACK BELT – 15 votes
Writer: Randall Green
Logline: Eighth grader Simon Paluska dreams of being a Taekwondo Black Belt, but he’s not allowed to take lessons. So he buys a Black Belt on Amazon for twenty-five bucks. Then, he has to use it.
Thoughts: This is a fun idea that has the potential to be a thoughtful commentary on the state of humanity in 2020. Why spend 20 years attempting to master a discipline when you can get it sent to your door in 48 hours?
Title: RIPPER
Writer: Dennis MaGee Fallon
Logline: London, 1888: When their friends begin dying at the hands of a brutal killer, an all-female crime syndicate, The Forty Elephants, must work together to take down the predator stalking them – Jack The Ripper.
Thoughts: Is it even allowed to have a screenplay list without a Jack the Ripper concept on it? I don’t think so. With that said, this doesn’t sound like any Jack the Ripper script I’ve ever come across before. That means it’s either going to be amazing or awful.
Title: A BIG, BOLD, BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY – 14 votes
Writer: Seth Reiss
Logline: After both attending the same wedding solo, David and Sarah embark on a big, bold, beautiful journey with a little help from their 1996 Passat GPS and a little bit of magic for the road trip of their lives.
Thoughts: Quite possibly the worst logline on the list. That’s not at all saying that the script is bad. But your logline is basically, “Two people go on a road trip!!!” Wow. A road trip? I HAVE TO READ THAT. The most specific thing in your logline can’t be the car. You have to highlight something about the characters or the plot that separates it from other movies. If you’re not separating it from other movies, what makes you think we’d want to read it?
Title: ENEMIES WITHIN – 14 votes
Writer: Cat Vasko
Logline: In the 1950’s, Joseph McCarthy and his right hand man Roy Cohn sit at the height of their influence, casting aside democratic norms unchecked – until the Army’s lowest-level lawyer, John G. Adams, stumbles upon the shocking truth behind their power grab, and makes it his mission to reveal this to the public.
Thoughts: I mean, I guess if you’re going to do a political movie, McCarthy is a good subject. But, I mean, aren’t we all politcaled out at this point?
Title: THE MAN IN THE YARD – 14 votes
Writer: Sam Stefanak
Logline: When a dangerous stranger shows up at her front door, a depressed widow must confront her own past in order to protect her two children.
Thoughts: Pro – Strong setup. Con – Unoriginal. There are certain setups that work well. A dangerous person, or people, showing up at a house is the beginning of a lot good scripts. So this one will come down to the execution.
Title: SUNCOAST – 14 votes
Writer: Laura Chinn
Thoughts: An awkward teenage outcast comes of age against the backdrop of the hospice where her brother (and coincidentally, Terri Schiavo) are dying.
Thoughts: There are certain subject matters that don’t get my reading juices flowing. Hospices are definitely in my top 5.
Title: FISH IN A TREE – 13 votes
Writer: Jeff Stockwell
Logline: Based on the eponymous novel by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. A young girl in an intimidating new school finally faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her learning and in her social life when she crosses paths with an energetic-but-inexperienced substitute teacher.
Thoughts: It’s based on a book so I guess the logline doesn’t matter. But these movies are supposed to highlight the ironic differences between the two main characters. This doesn’t do that. It’s just some “young” girl who meets an “energetic” substitute teacher.
Title: THE NEUTRAL CORNER – 13 votes
Writer: Justin Piasecki
Logline: A Nevada court judge who moonlights reffing high-profile boxing matches must face his demons when he’s assigned to the Olympic fight of an ex-con he’d previously sentenced for murder.
Thoughts: When I saw this title, I thought it was going to be the true story about how Kathleen Kennedy greenlit Rogue Squadron. But seriously. Contrary to “Fish in a Tree,” this is how you connect your two characters in a logline. A judge has to face a man he sentenced to murder. There’s conflict in that setup. There’s history. We see that and we can start to envision the movie. That’s how it’s done.
Title: GUSHER – 12 votes
Writer: Abigail Briley Bean
Logline: Based on the story of Anna Nicole Smith, a shrewd young mother rises out of a small Texas town to become a famous Playboy centerfold, but when she falls in love with an eighty-nine-year-old billionaire, his son and the entire world believe she’s nothing but a gold digger.
Thoughts: My friends. I never thought we’d see that day. But it’s finally here. An Anna Nicole Smith biopic. May screenwriting rest in peace.
Title: BIKRAM – 11 votes
Writer: Silpa Kovvali
Logline: In the truly unbelievable story of Bikram Choudhury, his young wife Rajashree catapults the yoga guru to the heights of fame and fortune, and is left fighting for her survival when he brings their brand toppling down.
Thoughts: I’ve heard things about Bikram here and there that would indicate there’s an interesting story to tell here. But it’s the kind of thing I’d rather see in documentary form than fictional film form.
Title: BORDERLINE – 11 votes
Writer: Jimmy Warden
Logline: A bodyguard protects a pop superstar and her athlete boyfriend from a determined stalker in 1990s Los Angeles.
Thoughts: This is another script I would never read unless I’d heard that other people read it and liked it first. It’s too generic of a premise to get me interested on the logline alone. But it has the kind of dramatic elements that could result in a good script if the writing is strong.
Title: LURKER – 11 votes
Writer: Alex Russell
Logline: An obsessed fan maneuvers his way into the inner circle of his hip hop idol and will stop at nothing to stay in.
Thoughts: Am I having deja vu? Music star. Stalker. Same management. Same vote tally. If you spell Alex Russell backwards do you get Jimmy Warden?
Title: MY DEAR YOU – 11 votes
Writer: Meghan Kennedy
Logline: Based on a short story by Rachel Khong. A love story set in the afterlife about our struggle to let go of the past, even when our present is heaven… literally. Tess keeps searching for the love of her life without realizing he’s right there next to her the whole time, helping her look.
Thoughts: A love story set in heaven. In theory, these ideas have potential. But they’re always hard to pull off because heaven isn’t easy to conceptualize. It’s easy to come off as cliche. Yet, if you get too specific, you could put some people off. But anyway, I just noticed there are lots of love stories in this year’s list! Yay for love.
Title: OCCUPIED – 11 votes
Writer: Tara Cavanagh
Logline: When a tactless Nordstrom’s store manager denies two trans women access to the bathroom, Fran and Althea seek restitution and occupy the ladies room in protest.
Thoughts: If this is a “contained thriller” situation where they set up shop in the bathroom for the whole movie, that’s kind of a genius idea. Hot button topic. Contained thriller. Who’s not going to pass that script around?
Title: REPTILE DYSFUNCTION
Writer: Creston Whittington
Logline: A chemical leak in a local water supply in Central Florida wreaks havoc on the invasive population of pythons, leading a family to the fight of their life to survive.
Thoughts: Can we get a quick amen for this title? I am totally down for snakes in a Florida house. Although I’d be lying if I told you I knew how this script was going to be longer than 20 pages. “The front door is blocked! What do we do!??” “Try the back door!” The family runs to the back door. There are no pythons. They charge out the door and to their car. They drive away. The end.
Title: ST. SIMMONS
Writer: Greg Wayne
Logline: When a very fat and possibly gay boy from New Orleans is visited by an angel called Barbra Streisand, he sets out on a holy crusade in daytime television to touch and save the soul of every obese person in America before his demons consume him – if only to make his daddy proud. It’s the true gospel of Richard Simmons.
Thoughts: I will never be a fan of biopics. But if you’re going to write a biopic logline, this is how you write one. With a little style. Side story. I once saw Richard Simmons in the airport. He literally said “Hello” to every single person in the terminal. And there were more than 300 people. All with booming energy.
Title: THE U.S.P.S. – 11 votes
Writer: Perry Janes
Logline:: Following in his murdered mother’s footsteps, Michael Griffiths enlists in the United States Postal Service… only to discover a mail route full of surprises and a job that means maybe, just maybe, saving the world.
Thoughts: Another logline only 75% finished. You need to tell us more about the mail route in the logline. WHY it may be about saving the world. As it stands, I don’t know if this is an inspirational small story about a guy who finds meaning through his mail route or a wacky balls-to-the-wall supernatural comedy.
Title: ANNALISE & SONG – 10 votes
Writer: SJ Inwards
Logline: Annalise is a girl who quite literally “sees the world differently” than everyone else and finds herself a lonely, misunderstood outcast who keeps her “cursed sight” a secret as a consequence. But everything changes when Annalise meets her new neighbor, Peter Song — a fellow teenager whom everyone else sees as a disfigured boy, but whom Annalise sees entirely differently.
Thoughts: A lot of vagueness going on in this logline, making it hard to evaluate. While I’m all about the message of inspirational stories like “Wonder,” they’re just not my cup of tea. So I probably won’t be reading this one.
Title: BLOOD TIES – 10 votes
Writer: Aaron Katz
Logline: Based on the New Yorker article by Nathan Heller. A true-crime thriller based on the story of two brilliant college lovers convicted of a brutal slaying. An obsessed detective investigates the true motives that led to a double homicide, and the decades of repercussions that follow.
Thoughts: After just having finished “Murder on Middle Beach,” I’m reminded of how awesome true crime stories can be. But the thing is, they play out so much better in that documentary format. So while this does sound interesting, I wonder why not focus on it in doc form where it can truly shine.
Title: THE BOY WHO DIED
Writer: Monisha Dadlani
Logline: A young girl creates a robot version of Harry Potter while her father simultaneously is treating Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe for a terminal disease.
Thoughts: Okay, that comment about the possum wall script I made above about it being the wackiest of all the ideas? I take that back. This is it. I have a feeling that Monisha has deep conflicted feelings about Harry Potter and they’re all coming to light in this script. This sounds so weird, I have to check it out.
Title: CRUSH ON YOU – 10 votes
Writer: Shea Mayo
Logline: Summer on a secluded campus takes a dark turn for three college girls when a supernaturally sexy mystery man begins haunting their dreams.
Thoughts: All I can say about this logline is that I laughed as soon as I read it. Are we about to get 50 Shades of Gray meets Nightmare on Elm Street? I think so. And, for some reason, I want to read it.
Title: THE CULLING – 10 votes
Writer: Stephen Herman
Logline: A troubled priest confines himself to a remote cabin in the middle of the woods where he attempts to make a last stand against the demon that terrorized his family when he was a child.
Thoughts: I reviewed The Culling in the newsletter. Decent script. This is the one where I said it’s a good lesson in how to create metaphors in your writing. The monster he’s trying to kill in the movie is a stand-in for his alcoholism. Herman doesn’t nail the execution but does a good enough job that the script works.
Title: MAY DECEMBER – 10 votes
Writer: Samy Burch
Logline: Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
Thoughts: This sounds old fashioned. Like a play to me. For that reason, I’m thinking it only works if the dialogue is awesome.
Title: 1MDB – 10 votes
Writer: Scott Conroy
Logline: The incredible true story of the multi-billion dollar Malaysian government corruption scandal which led to the conviction of Prime Minister Najib Razak and almost $5 billion in settlements paid out by Goldman Sachs.
Thoughts: This is a documentary. It’s not a feature film. Let me take that back. It can obviously be a feature film. But its true identity is in doc form so that’s the version I’ll wait for.
Title: REWIRED – 10 votes
Writers: Adam Gaines, Ryan Parrott
Logline: Harvard. 1959. A young Ted Kaczynski is experimented on by Dr. Henry Murray during a secret CIA psychological study that may have led to the creation of the Unabomber.
Thoughts: Some subjects are so sad, they don’t translate well to storytelling. I’m not sure I want to know anything more about the guy who blew up a bunch of pre-schoolers. (edit, sorry! wrong killer)
Title: STORY – 10 votes
Writer: Emily Siegel
Logline: When a journalist turned stay-at-home mom relocates to Los Angeles to rebuild after a personal trauma, she blurs the lines between fact and fiction… only to find herself at the center of her own story.
Thoughts: If Franklin Leonard was smart, he’d start advertising logline consulting on his lists. What does this logline even mean? Is she writing a novel or something and the novel starts becoming reality? That’s what the end of the logline indicates but there’s nothing that comes before it to confirm whether that’s the case or not. I’m confused.
Title: COSMIC SUNDAY – 9 votes
Writer: MacMillan Hedges
Logline: A small percentage of the population is stuck in a time loop and have had to create a society that functions within the same day, repeated day in and day out. One man struggles to find himself for the first time in ages amidst a society clinging to a sense of normalcy.
Thoughts: This actually sounds like a fun angle into the time loop sub-genre. I do sense a complication in that, if everyone is aware of the loop, then they can keep living each day as if it’s different from the last, and essentially cancel out the loop’s influence. But I guess if the rest of the world isn’t changing, that’s where the conflict comes from. Oh, and the day needs to be the worst day of the week – Monday. And the title needs to be changed to, “Somebody’s Got a Case of the Mondays.”
Title: EARWORM – 9 votes
Writer: Austin Everett
Logline: A former music therapist is recruited to use a mysterious machine to dive into the memories of a serial killer on death row.
Thoughts: I’m struggling to connect the protagonist’s job to the events of the story. Is her singing going to inspire him to tell the police where the bodies are buried? Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, if this were a musical, it would be awesome.
Title: EXCELSIOR! – 9 votes
Writer: Alex Convery
Logline: The true story of the meteoric rise (and subsequent fall) of Marvel Comics and the star-crossed creators behind the panel: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.
Thoughts: Hmmm. This or Falcon and Winter Soldier? If you held a gun to my head, I’m not sure I’d be able to give you an answer. Which means I’m dead. Which means I don’t have to read this.
Title: FLIGHT RISK – 9 votes
Writer: Jared Rosenberg
Logline: An Air Marshal transporting a fugitive across the Alaskan wilderness via a small plane finds herself trapped when she suspects their pilot is not who he says he is.
Thoughts: Ooh yeah, baby. I’m digging this. I love planes. I love contained tension-filled situations. This has a good setup. Shades of The Grey.
Title: HIGH SOCIETY – 9 votes
Writer: Noga Pnueli
Logline: A depressed, progressive woman stuck in a conservative small Texas town starts micro-dosing the entire town with marijuana to make them all get along.
Thoughts: Not sure I love this premise but Noga has one of my favorite unproduced scripts out there, Meet Cute. So I’ll be reading this for sure.
Title: HORSEGIRL – 9 votes
Writer: Lauren Meyering
Logline: Living under the full time care of her cancer-stricken mother, a twenty-six-year-old, socially awkward, horse-obsessed woman attempts to prove her independence by winning a hobbyhorse competition.
Thoughts: Hmmm… this sounds just weird enough that I think I’d like it. But they just had that other weird horse girl movie and that convincingly portrayed the weirdness of horse girls so I don’t know how this script tops it.
Title: MAGAZINE DREAMS – 9 votes
Writer: Elijah Bynum
Logline: A Black amateur bodybuilder struggles to find human connection in this exploration of celebrity and violence.
Thoughts: I mean, I wish I could comment on this entry but this isn’t even a logline. It does have shades of last year’s Black List script, Apex.
Title: MOUSE – 9 votes
Writer: Kelly O’Sullivan
Logline: When seventeen-year old Minnie’s best friend Callie is killed in an accident, she struggles to find an identity of her own and forms a complicated friendship with Callie’s grieving mother.
Thoughts: Where’s the unique element? The unique element is what allowed for The Big Sick to stand out. Right now, this feels like a subplot.
Title: MURDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Writer: Jonathan Stokes
Logline: The President is murdered during a private dinner, and Secret Service agent Mia Pine has until morning to discover which guest is the killer before a peace agreement fails and leads to war.
Thoughts: I’m getting an Agatha Christy meets As The World Turns vibe from this. Also, isn’t this the plot of every James Patterson book?
Title: NANNY
Writer: Nikyata Jusu
Logline: Aisha is an undocumented nanny caring for a privileged child. As she prepares for the arrival of her only son, who she left behind in her native country, a violent supernatural presence invades her reality, jeopardizing the American Dream she’s carefully pieced together.
Thoughts: This is a new sub-genre that’s becoming more and more popular. We saw it recently with the release of His House. Very serious social-minded subject matter mixed with horror. I do like that Jusu is not going with the obvious here. Most writers would’ve made the heroine South American. It sounds like Aisha is Japanese. By the way, does anybody find it strange that His House has a 100% RT score and only a 6.4 IMDB score?
Title: A SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE – 9 votes
Writer: Terry Huang
Logline: Journalists race to expose how Boeing knowingly misled regulators, pilots, and airlines to cover up a problematic flight software system on the 737 MAX, leading to two major airplane crashes and the deaths of 346 people. Based on real events.
Thoughts: This is definitely a documentary, not a narrative feature. But I’ll watch it because: plane crashes! The story with this is pretty fascinating. When these planes started having problems, then crashing and killing people, Boeing took the approach of, “It’s only because you don’t understand the plane, pilots.” Yes, I’m sure that multiple planes almost crashing and two crashing has nothing to do with the makers of the plane.
Title: STATE LINES – 9 votes
Writer: Rachel Wolf
Logline: When headstrong but well-intentioned college student Sara Jane bails on Senior Spring Break to drive a fourteen-year-old girl to get an abortion, she’s shocked to discover that her passenger is an undercover pro-lifer who has kidnapped her.
Thoughts: I like the twist on this one. These controversial political topics are not my cup of tea these days, though. I might read this.
Title: VICELAND – 9 votes
Writer: Chris Parizo
Logline: The true story of how Vice magazine grew from a free magazine in Montreal into a multi billion dollar media empire, making two of its founders multi-millionaires while the third founder was kicked out and went on to modernize the white supremacist movement by creating the Proud Boys.
Thoughts: Right on cue we get… a big political script! There’s a better chance of me going to my local grocery store and reading the ingredients of every single item in there than reading this script.
Title: EMANCIPATION – 8 votes
Writer: Bill Collage
Logline: Based on a true story, a runaway slave has to outwit bounty hunters and the perils of a Louisiana swamp to reach the Union army and his only chance at freedom.
Thoughts: Ooh, if they wrote this like 1917? This would be awesome.
Title: FIGHT OR FLIGHT – 8 votes
Writers: Brooks McLaren, DJ Cotrona
Logline: A mercenary takes on the job of tracking down a target on a plane but must protect her when they’re surrounded by people trying to kill both of them.
Thoughts: If you’ve been paying attention you saw “plane” in the logline and thusly recognized that this would be something I want to read. I’m always down for a good “unexpected team-up” too. This looks like it’ll be a fun read.
Title: THE GORGE – 8 votes
Writer: Zach Dean
Logline: A brazen, high-action, genre-bending, love story about two very dangerous young people, who despite the corrupt and lethal world they operate in, find a soulmate in each other.
Thoughts: It isn’t a Black List unless there’s a Zach Dean script on it. Dean continues to be one of the only big writers who routinely writes original ideas. And I’m guessing this script is better than 90% of the scripts listed above him.
Title: HERE COME THE BANDITS – 8 votes
Writer: Ethan Dawes
Logline: Mickey Bradley, a wildly talented minor league baseball player in his early twenties who returns home to Los Angeles after an injury and coaches a little league team full of misfits who remind him why he fell in love with baseball in the first place. And theres a sweet romance in there too.
Thoughts: I mean, I’m trying to think of a way to phrase this that’s respectful. But is this for real? Hasn’t this movie been made 624,872 times already? I suppose if the voice is unique. Or maybe it’s a reminder to me and everyone else that Hollywood has certain movies it will always make every 3 years and this is one of them. So maybe we’re the dummies for not profiting off that.
Title: PLUSH – 8 votes
Writer: Alexandra Skarsgard
Logline: Sex, money, and one schoolyard fad that took a nation by storm. Based on the true story of Ty Warner, the enigmatic entrepreneur behind a ‘90s toy craze that sparked madness, murder, and a billion-dollar empire.
Thoughts: Sometimes I think a computer writes these Black List scripts. With that said, if there was indeed murder involved in the plush craze, maybe this is good. You know what they say. If you have a dead body, you have a movie. However, something tells me the only thing that’ll get murdered with this script is the time I spent reading it.
Title: TOWERS – 8 votes
Writer: Aaron Rabin
Logline: A businessman’s obsession with his competitor leads him down a rabbit hole of self-discovery, fantasy, and delusion.
Thoughts: Not enough information to judge the concept but I do like stories about people who become unhealthily obsessed with other people. Definitely a fast way to driving one’s self insane.
Title: TRESPASSER – 8 votes
Writer: Gabe Hobson
Logline: A father and daughter living in remote isolation must fight for survival after aliens arrive seeking revenge for killing one of their own.
Thoughts: Okay, first off. Aliens. So I’m in. I’m not sure I like the thing about them already having killed an alien though. But I do like the attempt to make a sci-fi idea cheap to produce (one location – out away from everything where that location would be cheap to secure).
Title: UNCLE WICK – 8 votes
Writer: Gabe Delahaye
Logline: An action comedy wherein Benji Stone, a lovable but deeply unpopular sixteen year old, is pulled into an international assassination plot by his uncle, a retired undercover assassin charged with babysitting Benji for the weekend.
Thoughts: This sounds fun. When I read the title, I thought, “How cool would it be if this was a John Wick spinoff and they were so obsessed with building a franchise that they were actually going to make comedic offshoots?” Cause that’s basically what this is.
Title: WHAT IF? – 8 votes
Writer: Alvaro Garcia Lecuona
Logline: An unassertive seventeen year old turns his high school on its head when he asks out his crush, a transgender classmate.
Thoughts: I believe this is one of five trans-centered scripts on the list? Hey, if you know a certain topic is going to be popular on the Black List, why not take advantage?
Title: BELLA – 7 votes
Writer: Jason Markarian
Logline: Set against the backdrop of an unprecedented crime wave that gripped New York City in the 80s, a hyper-stylized action thriller about a cop’s daughter who, after her father clings to life following an assassination attempt, goes on a rampage to unearth her father’s assassin and weed out deep-rooted corruption in the NYPD.
Thoughts: In one of my articles, I said that if a writer was smart, they’d write a female version of Joker. I guess someone listened!
Title: DUST – 7 votes
Writer: Karrie Crouse
Logline: A young mother in 1930s Oklahoma is convinced that her family is threatened and takes drastic steps to keep them safe.
Thoughts: I think this is the dust storm project? It’d be nice if that was somewhere in the logline. It is nice to know what a movie is about sometimes.
Title: FRENEMY – 7 votes
Writer: Ariel Sayegh
Logline: A chronicle of the infamous Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton feud of 2004-2006 over who would be Britney Spears’ best friend.
Thoughts: I like how it says “the infamous.” I had zero knowledge that there was ever a Lindsay Lohan Paris Hilton feud over anything. You know what would be hilarious? If this had never happened. But the movie operates as if it did. Cause you can believe that it happened. If you told me that Mr. T and Vanilla Ice warred with each other, I’d probably believe it. It sort of makes sense. I guess I’m setting myself up for disappointment if this turns out to be a true story.
Title: GABI SEEMS DIFFERENT – 7 votes
Writer: Victoria Bata
Logline: After spending several years recovering from a devastating car crash that pulled her out of the spotlight, Gabi, a famous pop star, gets ready to perform again for the first time. But with the pressure mounting and her memory failing her, the young woman begins to doubt who she really is — and if Gabi really survived the crash at all.
Thoughts: Maybe it’s because I’m getting to the end of the list and I didn’t intend for this to go on for 10,000 words, but I have no idea what this is about. I think they should wrap this script up into “Frenemy.” There are some crossover components that work well. The more I think about it, the more obvious this decision is. I want royalties when that makes these writers billionaires.
Title: GENERATION LEAP – 7 votes
Writers: John Sonntag, Thomas Sonntag
Logline: After a global pandemic causes NASA to send a crew of astronauts into deep space to find another habitable planet, the crew is unexpectedly awoken from hypersleep and must survive a mysterious new threat that comes from the future generations they sought to save, and the one place they never expected – Earth.
Thoughts: As a narrative structure, the setup of leaving someplace at the beginning and having to come back later – it doesn’t work well. Audiences like moving forward, not backward. You can start the movie with the astronats coming back. That might work. But if you build up to them leaving and then put them in space and then have wake up, talk to each other, realize they have to go back. All that stuff is logistical and sucks the momentum out of a story and, on top of that, it just feels messy. So we’ll see where the writers took it.
Title: GET LITE – 7 votes
Writer: Eric Gross
Logline: Saunders, a headstrong Bronx teenager, is caught between his love of Litefeet subway dancing and his strict father’s insistence on becoming an engineer. After he finagles his way onto a ragtag Litefeet crew, he’s exposed to an electrifying new world as well as a new crush. Now he has to decide who and what he’s willing to sacrifice in order to compete in the biggest dance competition of the year: Kingdome.
Thoughts: Uh oh. Did somebody say an updated Footloose? Uh Footlooose. Uh Footlooose. Kick off the Sunday shoes! Yes, I’m now singing my thoughts on Black List scripts. I don’t know how much I have left. Of course, I learned earlier that music can help you enter a serial killer’s mind. And there’s a serial killer in the number one script on the list. This is like… all coming together, man. It’s like a giant equation. Parallel universes. Kevin Bacon!
Title: GOOD CHANCE – 7 votes
Writer: Tricia Lee
Logline: A feisty transgender teen helps a church-going, undocumented Asian woman escape deportation, and they form an unlikely friendship that helps them heal the rifts in their own families.
Thoughts: This one’s not doing it for me. You want the disenfranchised character to have to team up with a member of the patriarchy. That’s where things get interesting. That’s where you get conflict. The unexpected team-up is so much juicier than the expected team up.
Title: HANDSOME STRANGER – 7 votes
Writer: Greg Navarro
Logline: Based on the incredible true story of serial killer Paul John Knowles and the week he spent with British journalist Sandy Fawkes in the midst of a murderous killing spree.
Thoughts: These serial killers just won’t go away, will they. I haven’t heard about this story and it does sound kind of interesting. But I’m giving the ribbon to Mayhem right now. Her serial killer concept is definitely the best so far.
Title: I.S.S. – 7 votes
Writer: Nick Shafir
Logline: At any given moment in time there are roughly six astronauts living on the International Space Station (ISS). The station itself is divided into two segments one half Russian, one half American. When a world war event occurs on Earth, America and Russia find themselves on opposing sides. As such, both nations secretly contact their astronauts aboard the ISS and give them instructions to take control of the station by any means necessary. The six astronauts must each secretly choose between their friendships with each other and their allegiance to their country.
Thoughts: I’m having deja vu here. Did I review this script? If not, I know I’ve encountered at least a couple of other similar ideas. And, look, it’s a good setup for a movie. But I don’t think anybody’s figured it out yet. The space station is the most cinematically-unfriendly location in existence. There’s nowhere to go that isn’t ugly to shoot. It’s all cramped. That’s why I suggest, if you’re making something like this, to set it in the future, where you can create your own space station.
Title: MARGOT – 7 votes
Writer: Emily Adams
Logline: Annie Mills has always known Margot Ellison to be two things: her best friend and a devout Mormon. But as high school graduation nears and Margot starts to crave change, the girls must grapple with the fear that growing up might require growing alone.
Thoughts: Where is the strange attractor? This was a subplot on like 150 episodes of 90210.
Title: THE PEAK – 7 votes
Writer: Arthur Hills
Logline: A troubled young surgeon travels to a desolate peak to climb the mountain where her father suffered a mental breakdown years earlier, only to realize halfway up the rock wall that she might be subject to the same fate.
Thoughts: Deja vu again! Did I review this already? Definitely a familiar sounding concept.
Title: REALITY – 7 votes
Writer: Heather Quinn
Logline: A woman abruptly discovers nothing she’s known until now is real, and she must recover the truth in order to save the rest of the country, still trapped inside of the lie.
Thoughts: I think my head just exploded.
Title: RUBY – 7 votes
Writer: Kat Wood
Logline: After her husband is attacked, assassin Ruby is lured into the open to hunt down those responsible, leading her back to the boss who wants to keep her in the fold at any cost.
Thoughts: This is that big project that sold to Amazon, I believe. I would’ve thought this would’ve done better as it was one of the more high profile specs of the year.
Title; TIN ROOF RUSTED – 7 votes
Writer: Michelle Harper
Logline: When two life-long best friends discover that they’re both pregnant, they promise to embark on their journey together. But with the constant pressure of outsiders, the two struggle midst personal differences and must re-learn that what connected them as children can still be their glue as adults.
Thoughts: I am definitely not the audience for this.
Title: WAR FACE – 7 votes
Writer: Mitchell Lafortune
Logline: A female U.S. Army Special Agent is sent to a remote, all-male outpost in Afghanistan to investigate accusations of war crimes. But when a series of mysterious events jeopardize her mission and the unit’s sanity, she must find the courage to survive something far more sinister.
Thoughts: Ugh. TELL US WHAT THE SINSITER THING IS. Just so everyone knows, seasoned readers usually throw these scripts out when they read the logline. You have to tell us what thing is that’s going to sell the movie so that we know it’s a sellable movie. Anybody can write a logline that reads, “A mysterious woman meets a strange man and the two become roommates in an odd home that has a history no one in town wants to talk about.” Give us the hook.
Title: THE WOMEN OF ROUTE 40 – 7 votes
Writer: Erin Kathleen
Logline: A struggling single mother must confront dangerous forces – and sins of her past – when her world collides with that of a serial killer. Inspired by the true story of Delaware’s only serial murderer, the Route 40 killer.
Thoughts: Mayhem, you’re still winning the serial killer concept contest.
Title: YOM KIPPUR – 7 votes
Writer: Brett Melnick
Logline: After getting high on the night of Yom Kippur, three distant cousins wake up with muddled minds and empty stomachs as they find themselves in the middle of a kidnapping and a major drug ring.
Thoughts: I like mixing something that’s supposed to be pure with something impure. That’s the recipe for a lot of good concepts. This does feel a little disjointed, though. I was hoping for the two elements to mesh a little more organically. But this isn’t a bad idea.
While the trades couldn’t stop talking about all those Marvel and Star Wars projects announced Thursday, a much bigger story wasn’t being talked about at all. That is the story of Disney dropping the hammer down on Netflix. There was nothing that announcement said more than, “We’re coming for you.” Specifically, Disney plans to show Netflix how powerful big IP is. Seriously, guys, this feels like when everyone had a Blackberry and Apple announced they were moving into the phone market. That’s how much Netflix needs to be freaking out. There are lots of people out there who don’t know Disney + exists. That’s about to change with this lineup, which I’m going to go over with you.
But I’m only going to go over the Star Wars stuff. I’m not enough of a Marvel fan to care about their shows. I can’t tell if Wandavision looks interesting or just plain weird. I’ve seen two trailers now and I still don’t know what the show is about. Falcon and Winter Soldier feels like a spinoff of the guys nobody cared about in the movies. If I were forced to watch one of the Marvel shows, I’d probably choose Loki. That one looks like they’re having a lot of fun.
ROGUE SQUADRON (MOVIE)
Rogue Squadron may be the single safest choice Disney could’ve made coming back to the Star Wars feature world with. Everything about this movie screams “neutral.” The director, Patty Jenkins, is neutral. The subject matter, pilots, is neutral. The title is neutral. This is obviously an overcorrection after all the divisive Star Wars content that came out over the last six years. And for that reason, the movie just doesn’t sound that exciting. When I think of a movie about pilots, I think of being stuck with someone in a cockpit for two hours. Why would I want to watch that? There’s some cool backstory here about how Jenkins’ father was a fighter pilot and died in the line of duty. So it’s not just like they’re bringing in anyone to tell the story. Jenkins has an emotional connection to the material. But something tells me this movie’s purpose isn’t to be good, but rather as inoffensive as possible.
ANDOR (SHOW)
For a movie that reportedly put endless amounts of blood, sweat, and tears into its character creation, there wasn’t a single memorable character to come out of Rogue One. For that reason, when they originally announced Andor, I thought it was only a matter of time before they cancelled it. But by gosh, according to this teaser, they’re still making the thing! While there is some appeal in a character who exists in the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars universe, we kind of already have that with Mandalorian. I don’t know. Maybe Mando will let Andor borrow Baby Yoda for a few episodes. That’s the only way I see people watching this thing. Or give Moroff more time. Team him up with Babu Frik. Now you’re talking.
NO BOBA FETT SHOW
One of the most shocking announcements of the Disney Investor Day was a non-announcement. They’re making ten new Star Wars shows and one of them isn’t Boba Fett?? Something smells womp ratty here. My guess is that they’re on the fence with whether to give Fett his own movie or his own TV show and they still haven’t come to a decision. They probably wanted to see how audiences responded to him on the Mandalorian first. Another possibility is he stays on Mandalorian. With the rumors of Pascal wanting out of the role, we may be gearing up for a season finale shocker of Mando dying and Boba taking his place? That would be wild.
LANDO (LIMITED SERIES HOPING TO BECOME A FULL SHOW)
Okay okay okay okay okay. Let me get this straight. Solo was the biggest Star Wars bomb ever. Donald Glover was utterly forgettable as young Lando in the film. And now you want to make a series about the character? I suppose they haven’t announced Glover in the role which means they might recast it. But this is where someone needs to step in and say, “Just because we can make 50 different Star Wars shows doesn’t mean we have to.” Can’t we just put Lando in that Andor show? Get rid of two characters we don’t care about in the same show? That’s my vote.
ASHOKA
Ashoka won me over in Episode 5 of The Mandalorian so I’m down for her getting her own show. Also, what Disney plans to do is have crossovers between Ashoka, Mandalorian, and a third show called Rangers of the New Republic. That one is going to star Cara Dunne, the MMA fighter girl from Mandalorian. They’re going to need to find some more characters though cause if they’re resting that show on the acting chops of Gina Carano, that’s going to be a quick one-season-and-out, I can promise you that. But I do like the idea of crossing over. Star Wars is finally getting a chance to do what Marvel’s been doing for years.
HAYDEN IS BACK AND HE FINALLY HAS THE HIGH GROUND!
It was announced that Hayden Christensen will be back as Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan Kenobi limited series. I guess that’s cool news. Hayden was one of those actors who got infected by the Star Wars curse. He hasn’t done much work since Episode 3. And yet I’m kinda surprised he’s coming back. It’s a role he ran away from after the prequels. He’ll be acting under a mask when he does return. And then there’s that whole problem about Darth Vader saying he hasn’t felt that presence “in a long time” in regards to Obi-Wan in A New Hope. Well, apparently, if Disney has their way, “a long time” is going to end up being last week.
THE ACOLYTE
This is that Leslye Headland project, which we’ve now learned will take place during the “High Republic,” or 200 years before the prequels. While I was confused why they gave Headland (noted for her dark indie sensibilities) a Star Wars show in the first place, things are starting to make sense, as her show is supposed to focus on the dark side of the Force. Also of note, this is going to be the first of what Disney hopes to be lots of projects coming out of this era. Headland will be spearheading a whole new mythology with fresh unique characters we haven’t seen before. Although you bet your ass Yoda will somehow show up in one of the episodes. By the way, an acolyte is a person assisting the celebrant in a religious service or procession. For whatever that’s worth.
REST OF PROJECTS
Taika’s movie was mentioned (which is being written by the co-writer of 1917, btw) and it looks like it’s going to be the second Star Wars film released after Rogue Squadron. I’m reading the tea leaves here but doesn’t this smack of the same issues the feature side of Star Wars was dealing with before? A lack of vision? We’re going to do a fighter pilot Star Wars and then we’re going to do a weird Taika Star Wars and then we’re going to do that Kevin Feige Star Wars. Whereas, on the TV side, they have a clear plan, they still seem lost when it comes to movies. Oh, I almost forgot. The new Indiana Jones movie! You gotta love how much Harrison Ford loves Indiana Jones. The guy’s landing planes on taxiways but nothing’s going to stop him from playing Indiana Jones again yer darn tootin. I would love to hear your pitches for another Indiana Jones flick. What else is there for him to do??
Man, we had some Disney BOMBS dropped yesterday. I guess that’s what happens when you wait nine months to give us any movie news. I honestly believed the rest of my movie news life was going to be daily updates up of the latest actor to join Bullet Train. Last I checked, Steve McQueen was joining the film. I have a feeling they’re going to have to recast that part.
I’m thinking of a Mish-Mash Monday dedicated solely to talking about those announcements. If that sounds like something you’d like, let me know in the comments.
In the meantime, we’ve got another Last Great Screenplay Contest Showdown. We have three winners already. We need a fourth. Those four winners will duke it out next week in our “Super Showdown,” where the winner will become an official finalist in my contest. So there’s a lot on the line.
The rules are the same as any Amateur Showdown. Read as much of each entry as you can then vote for your favorite in the Comments Section. It’s VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU VOTE. You could be changing someone’s life. Votes are due in the Comments Section by Sunday evening at 11:59pm Pacific Time.
Good luck everyone!
Title: IN A FIX
Genre: Thriller
Logline: Amid growing tensions with a rival gang, a fixer must quit her job before her controlling crime boss discovers she is pregnant.
Title: Violet Sun
Genre: Horror
Logline: Born with a severe allergy to sunlight, a maladjusted teenager struggles to cure his disease by consuming the healthy blood of unsuspecting victims so he can win back the girl of his dreams before she leaves his life forever.
Title: POSSESSIONS
Genre: Horror
Logline: An estranged daughter returns to her childhood home to help with her mother’s extreme hoarding only to discover her mother’s cursed by one of her many, many possessions.
Title: Orbit
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Logline: When estranged father and daughter astronauts are trapped alone on a sabotaged space station, they must overcome their differences and injuries to stop the wreckage from causing an extinction level event on Earth.
Title: Step Seven
Genre: Psychological Horror
Logline: A woman in an addiction recovery center must decide if the ghost that haunts her each night is a delusion or a spiritual warning of the fate that she is about to suffer.
I had a giant screenwriting revelation this week.
Anybody who’s gone through a good revelatory moment knows that it’s exciting but also terrifying. Terrifying because any new revelation strips down at least part of your belief system. It forces you to rethink everything. And this one, this one I was sure I knew how to do right. Now, I’m not so sure.
How this came about is that I was reading a few screenplays for the contest and they were all really boring. Not bad, mind you. But boring. Bland. Lifeless.
What makes a script boring? A number of things. But the primary one is that the story is predictable. We’re always ahead of the writer. The reason so many writers, both amateur and professional, write these boring predictable scripts is because they map out the story from start to finish. They then go in, follow the map, and because the route has been so carefully planned ahead of time, there is no spontaneity to the story. There are no unexpected twists (except for blatantly manufactured ones – “the agent’s handler is actually the villain!”). There are no surprising developments. How could there be when you’ve constructed a series of events that are a carbon copy of events from movies we’ve already seen?
I began to think, what’s the problem here?
Why do I read so many scripts that have this issue? And why are writers so blind to it?
And here’s where my revelatory moment came.
It’s because too many writers know their ending before they start writing.
You’ve heard me espouse before not to start your screenplay until you know your ending. The advice sounds good in theory. If you don’t know where your script ends, how do you know where to place your characters in the meantime? Knowing your ending allows you to come up with a clean goal-driven narrative. Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star. Okay. Now I just have to come up with the story that gets him to a point where he has the opportunity to blow up the Death Star.
However, here’s the catastrophic problem with knowing your ending before you begin.
If you know where you have to deliver your character, you will never put them into any situation that will seriously impede your ability to deliver them there.
For example, a couple of weeks ago, I reviewed a script called Video Nasty about a brother and sister who get stuck inside a horror movie. The script was okay. I think I gave it a low ‘worth the read.’ But it wasn’t memorable by any means. And a big reason for that is this problem. The writer knew, before he started writing the script, that the brother and sister were going to escape the movie and be okay at the end.
So let’s say, midway through writing the script, around the midpoint of the story, the writer thought to himself, “Man, it would be really great right here to kill off the sister. It works thematically and it will shock the audience.” But he can’t do that. He won’t do that. Why? Because he has it locked into his head that the brother and sister get out at the end. So, instead, he writes a scene where the killer corners the sister in a house and almost kills her but she gets away. The scene is average because it’s handicapped by that locked-in ending. We can’t put her in too much danger because then my ending is compromised!
Now let’s say the writer went into the script NOT KNOWING the brother and sister get out at the end. In that situation, he is more likely to follow his gut when writing. He’ll kill off the sister and figure it out later. Also, because his brain is open to any possibility, he may figure out a way to bring her back from the dead! If the brother and sister are stuck in a movie, and movies aren’t real life, then a death may not be a death. Now maybe he figures out a way to bring the sister back or maybe he doesn’t. The point is, he’s created a less predictable story this time around because he’s not beholden to that set path.
As I delved deeper into this, I realized it extended beyond the ending. If you figure out your midpoint ahead of time. If you come up with some major twist you want to happen at a certain page. You will now be writing towards those moments, and, without realizing it, creating predictable mini-narratives. Once you determine any outcome, you’re never going to write anything that steers you too far away from that outcome.
All of this led to the realization that, oh my god, knowing your ending is creating an endless stream of predictable screenplays! Even worse, any exercise that sets checkpoints in stone – such as outlining – is a creativity killer! They keep the script on the road when everybody knows the best moments always happen when you go off-road.
However, here’s why it’s not so simple. Not knowing anything that’s going to happen in your script is just as bad. It creates a different type of problem. Without outlines, writers lose steam around the 45-page mark. It’s hard to make something out of nothing for 110 pages straight. You need SOME direction or your script becomes a rambling mess.
I can’t stress that last point enough. The unstructured equivalent of the “bland predictable screenplay” is the “rambling unfocused mess of a screenplay.” If all you’re doing is writing whatever comes to mind in the moment, your script comes across as disjointed. Mank is a good example of this. It starts out about a guy trying to write a screenplay and ends up being a political film, likely because Jack Fincher thought, “This screenwriting storyline is fun but I want to go explore this other thing now.”
Which leads us to the obvious question – What do we do about this???
I have two options for you. It comes down to what type of writer you are. Do you need structure to operate or not?
If you’re comfortable writing without knowing how your story ends, or even where it’s going to be in thirty pages, go ahead and write that way. You’re way more likely to find interesting story directions than the restricted writer. Your script is going to be less predictable and, therefore, more compelling. However, you’re going to have to do twice as many rewrites as the structured screenwriter. That’s because your narrative is going to zig-zag so much that it’ll take more time to eliminate the ideas you came up with that don’t work. And for the ideas that do work, you’ll have to go back in your story and set them all up. For example, if, like in Parasite, you came up with this on-the-spot idea that another family was living in a secret basement in the house – you can’t just throw that one in there with no explanation. You’ll have to write in hints here and there that the basement exists so that its eventual reveal is a payoff (as opposed to one of those random doesn’t-make-sense-at-all reveals you see in so many amateur scripts).
If you’re a structure person and your beat-by-beat outline is your childhood blankie and you won’t dare start your script until you know your ending, that’s fine, too. You can continue to write this way. However, you have to embrace a different psychology when you write. When inspiration strikes, follow that inspiration, even if it goes against your outline. Also, and this is even more important – you must learn the art of painting your characters into corners that you have no idea how to get them out of. The reason this is so important is because your default style of writing is predictable. In the past, that’s what’s caused you to make sure there’s always an air conditioning vent right above the corner you’ve painted your character into. You’ve created the escape plan before you’ve written the scene. And when you do that, the reader gets this feeling that the outcome has already been decided. Which saps the life from a scene. You want them thinking the opposite. “Oh my God, how are they going to get out of this?” The only way to achieve this is if you genuinely have no idea how you’re going to save your character. If you take nothing else from this article, take that. If you become an expert at that skill, you’ll write tons of captivating scenes going forward in your career.
I’m curious to hear what your responses are to this realization because I definitely think a script has more energy when even the writer isn’t sure where the story is going next. Which makes sense. If they’re not sure, how can you possibly be?
