Genre: Horror
Premise: A mother and her twin teenage sons live in a remote cabin where they’ve developed a system to protect themselves from the evil that has destroyed the rest of the world.
About: Shawn Levy can’t get enough! Even after becoming Netflix’s number 2 man behind Reed Hastings, the Stranger Things producer wants an even bigger piece of the entertainment pie. This time he’s teaming up with Lionsgate to produce today’s spec script, written by newbies Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby. Yes, Coughlin and Grassby have a couple of produced credits, but come on, one look at those credits and you know they had nothing to do with this sale. I’m pointing this out as a reminder that it’s possible for all of you to break in with a spec script. Never give up. Never surrender!
Writer: Kevin Coughlin & Ryan Grassby.
Details: 103 pages
Are crazy moms the new trend??
I dunno.
First Raised by Wolves and now this! I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we get a coalition of mothers marching down Sunset Boulevard infuriated about their stereotyped representation in film. Until then, let’s all enjoy the craziness. Because it’s oh so boring when everything is running smoothly, don’t you think?
Momma lives in a remote cabin in the woods with her 14 year old twin boys, Nolan and Samuel. We can tell right away that something’s up. They have to pluck crickets, pick plums, and and set squirrel traps just to eat. Nothing like a plum squirrel sandwich.
Oh, and they all wear ropes around their waists that are tied to the house. Nobody can ever go anywhere without a rope. They’re like Motherland’s version of corona masks. Except instead of being shamed on Twitter, you’re killed.
By who?
That would be the “evil.” The “evil” is what destroyed the rest of the world, leaving this family as the only three human beings left. Luckily, Momma figured out how to defeat Evil. You have to always wear a rope. Lose the rope and Evil will snatch you up and pull you away.
Whereas Samuel is Team Rope, Nolan has lots of questions about the ordeal. Just how far has Mother looked? Is she SURE they’re the last people on the planet? Mother says she is absolutely sure.
However, things get real when Momma dies and they start starving. It would sure be nice, Nolan thinks, if they could go beyond the radius of these stupid ropes to look for more food. One day, he’s had it. So he goes to the edge of his rope and screams, “Help!”
Twenty minutes later, a hiker shows up. He sees the emaciated Nolan and tells him he can help. Let’s get you back to my truck. Just then, Samuel shows up with his crossbow. He tells the man, who he believes is the Evil, to leave. Confused, the man pleads his case, only to be shot.
Nolan and Samuel will have to figure out soon which worldview is the real one. Cause either more people are going to show up looking for this man, or Evil in Disguise is going to keep coming until it’s tricked and murdered them. The day of reckoning is near.
One word I’d use to describe this script?
Ambitious.
I wouldn’t have said that when I started reading it. But by the time I finished it, I realized there were a couple of complex themes being explored. Were those themes explored successfully? I’ll get there in a second. First, let’s break Motherhood down.
Here’s what I liked about the script. It built its entire structure around your expectations. Remember that awful M. Night movie, The Village? The one where a bunch of people are living in the year 1850, deep within a forest village? Then, at the end of the movie, we realize they’ve all been tricked and it’s actually present day?
Motherland could’ve done the same thing. Instead, it leans into the possibility that the children are being lied to. That makes us think, “Oh, we’ve been down this road before. It’s another Village situation!” This makes us feel smart, like we’re ahead of the story.
But then, just as we believe that the big reveal will be made and we can throw our hands up in victory: “See! We knew all along! We’re movie cinephiles!!!” Instead, Coughlin and Grassby start throwing in doubts that we’re living in the village. Maybe, just maybe, Mother was being truthful the whole time.
This is what saves the script. Because now, in these final 30 pages, you’re not sure which is true. Were the kids lied to or is there really an “evil?”
On top of that, Motherland explores the theme of perception in a very thoughtful way. All of us are the sum of our influences. Our parents, our friends, our faith, the things we read, the news we consume. All of that forms our belief system – how we see the world.
Motherland strips that down so that there’s only one influence – her. And what that does is it allows us to see how powerful influence can be. If you’re a kid who’s only ever known one parental figure and, therefore, they are the only one providing you with a worldview, it’s possible for you to have a completely incorrect worldview despite the fact that you’re positive it’s the right one.
That reality alone is a horror movie.
Because think about it. That’s exactly what’s going on right now. We’re all following our own “Mothers” who are giving us all the “correct” information, and we’re basing our entire approach to life around that. And many of us, despite not knowing it, are dead wrong in our world view. And no, I’m not going to get into the specifics about who because it literally happens on all sides.
But the point is, by distilling everything down to one influencing variable, it puts a spotlight on the theme of influence so that we understand how powerful it can be.
With that being said, there were times where the script couldn’t stand on its own two feet due to its shaky rule set. For example, the ropes. Let’s think about this for a second. We’re told that the ropes are magical lassos protecting us from the “evil.” If your rope is cut, you are susceptible to being eaten or murdered or taken away by the “evil.”
This rule alone had issues. The mother can see Evil in physical form but the kids cannot? So wait. If the evil has the choice of not showing itself, which it clearly does since the kids don’t see it, then wouldn’t it choose not to be seen by Momma as well?
That would allow it the advantage of being able to sneak up on Momma whenever it wanted. Sure, staring at momma in the form of a creepy delusional old woman makes for a creepy moment. But it’s working against its own goal, which is to kill her. Every time you show me how scary you can be, I’m going to be even more diligent about making sure I don’t fall for your tricks.
But that isn’t the real part that bothered me. The real part was the rope carried a convenient dramatic safeguard for the writer. Had there been no rope, the kids would’ve easily been able to confirm whether there was a Walmart six blocks away. Which made me think back to the original purpose of the rope. Which is to protect each of them from Evil killing them.
So Evil can’t kill people if they have a *rope* around them??? What????
The more you thought about it, the less it made sense. And because that rule was a story pillar (a centerpiece for how the story operated), it weakened the over impact. Again, this is why A Quiet Place was such a perfect concept execution. No crazy conflicting rules. If you made a noise, you were dead.
I’m torn about Motherland.
It’s imaginatively sloppy, which is about as backward a compliment as I can give. But that rope stuff – I concede that that type of visual works well in horror. Combine that with the “evil” being able to take on many creepy forms and you’ve got yourself a really effective trailer. There may be something here. It’s enough for me to recommend the read. But just barely.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Have a character answer their own question – This is an old dialogue trick that I’ve always liked. At one point, Nolan asks Momma if what she’s saying about the world is true. Normally, these kinds of question and answer exchanges have NOTHING to do with the characters. They’re solely put there as a way for the writer to get exposition to the reader. The average writer would then have Momma explain what happened to the world to convince her son that, yes, it’s all real. Instead, Coughlin and Grassby have Momma give Nolan a stern look. Nolan then begins to recite the story *that mother has already told him dozens of times before about what happened to the world*. It’s all exposition but we don’t notice it as much when the character asking the question is also answering. For whatever reason, there’s something about when Character A asks and Character B answers that screams, “HERE’S EXPOSITION FOR YOU.” Cover that up with a character answering their own question.
Okay, everybody. Monday is Labor Day so I’m not going to be back until, gasp, TUESDAY! I mean, the madness, right? How are we going to survive without our Scriptshadow updates?
Well, building off yesterday’s article about READING SCRIPTS, I’m going to make this the official script trading thread. Here you can talk about recent script sales, older hard-to-find scripts, hot adaptations, your favorite screenwriters and those elusive deep cuts you’re desperate to read.
I know there are readers of the site with scripts to share. Well, let this be thy opportunity to do so. We all need to read more but, first, we have to have scripts to read!
Don’t just take. Give. That way we can all read screenplays to our heart’s content! :)
I was talking to a screenwriter the other day and we got on the topic of reading scripts. I asked her how many scripts she’d read this year. Her answer surprised me. She said, “How many have I finished or how many have I read in total?”
“Uh, how many have you read in total?” I responded, a little confused.
“About 60.”
This is the moment when I remind you guys how important reading scripts is for a screenwriter. It is where things you could never quite define which annoyed you in movies all of a sudden become clear. It is where you decode the screenwriting matrix.
I am not being hyperbolic here. Reading scripts is almost as important to your screenwriting education as writing them. That’s because you can keep making the same mistakes again and again if all you’re doing is writing scripts. It’s only through objectively seeing mistakes in other screenplays that you learn to correct your own.
I still remember this writer years back who was decent but lacked the skills to truly bump his screenplays up to a professional level. His biggest issue was a lack of detail. His scripts and his dialogue were always way too sparse. I’d tell him that if he wanted to improve this weakness, he needed to read scripts. But he didn’t see the point. Why wouldn’t I spend that time writing, was his argument. Fair enough. I’m not going to chain you down and force you to read if you don’t want to.
As it so happens, he went on to sell a script. It was a script I was familiar with and, to be honest, I was surprised. It was a fun concept but it had the same problem. It lacked depth. It was like a human being without any muscle. If he’d read a lot of screenplays, I have no doubt he would’ve known how to fix this.
But wait, Carson. He sold the script! Isn’t that what we’re all trying to do here? Didn’t he win the lottery? It depends on your definition of winning. As it happens, he spent the next three years trying to get work in the industry but was unsuccessful. He then tried to go back into spec-writing but none of his scripts went anywhere. He would eventually quit.
And while there’s no way to attribute any individual’s success or failure to a single variable, I’m convinced it’s because he never read a script. You don’t truly know how to write a screenplay until you’ve read a bunch of them. And not scripts from produced movies. Unproduced stuff, both good and bad.
Back to my conversation with the other writer, I asked her the obvious question: “And how many did you finish?”
“Three,” she said.
“Three??”
“Yeah,” she said, as if the answer were obvious.
“Why only three?”
“Because the other ones were either bad or boring.”
Okay, so here’s the thing, people. In the real world, as media consumers, all we have to do is either like something and keep watching it, or dislike something and stop watching it.
But that approach does not extend to the practice of reading scripts. When it comes to screenplays, you will probably learn more from the bad ones than the good ones. This is because you are bad. Or, to be more politically correct, you’re not yet good. And when you’re not good, you need to be shown other not good things on a consistent basis before those things register in your brain.
This is especially true if you’re new to this. If you’ve written under four scripts. You are of the belief that your screenwriting is a lot better than it is. I’m not saying your *writing.* Your writing may be great. I’m talking about screenwriting, this weird hacky version of writing that seems designed to make reading as unenjoyable as possible. You need to learn to perfect *that.* And seeing it done wrong over and over again is what helps it stick in your brain so that you don’t make the same mistakes yourself.
I’m in a unique position because I have a job where I’m required to read to the end of every script. If I wasn’t, I would admittedly bail on a lot more scripts. But it’s because I can’t bail that I’m able to talk about 683,000 different screenwriting topics a year. It’s because I’ve read a bunch of screenplays all the way to the end regardless of whether I liked them or not.
Only reading to the end of good scripts can be detrimental. Because when you read something great, everything about screenwriting feels easy. But it’s fool’s gold. What you’re experiencing isn’t an influx of skill. It’s an influx of excitement. You read something great so you want to write something great. And that kind of thing is awesome if you’re looking for motivation. But it’s not teaching you as much as the scripts that are bad. Or the scripts that are boring.
When you consistently read boring/bad scripts, what’ll happen is you’ll start identifying what doesn’t work in a clearer way specifically because it makes you so angry. Then, what happens is, you’ll be writing your own script a week or two later, and you’ll come across a similarity in your story to the script you disliked.
For example, maybe you hated the main character in the bad script because they were whiny. Now here you are in your script realizing that your hero could be categorized as whiny as well. This will immediately send you into defensive mode. “Well my character is different because a, b, c. And also, that script was a thriller and mine is a drama so it’s a different situation.” You’ll then keep writing but a few days later, you can’t get rid of this feeling that your character is just as annoying as that character you hated.
Now maybe you change your character and maybe you don’t. But the important thing is THAT YOU HAD THE CONVERSATION. Someone who doesn’t read scripts doesn’t have that conversation. They ignorantly assume their hero is fine because they wrote them and they’re a good writer so of course the character works. Without the experience of being bored by others’ writing, you challenge your own writing a lot less. That means you’re likely pushing an inferior product.
Some of you may say, “I watch plenty of bad movies, Carson. That’s where I learn what doesn’t work.” Sorry. Nope. With a movie, nothing is required of you. It’s a passive experience. Reading a script you dislike? That’s an active experience. You have to work to get through those pages. So it forces you to be more astute. And your anger at having to work for it actually benefits you. You see those things you dislike and because you’re being forced to endure them, they become tattooed to your brain. You say stuff to yourself like, “I will never ever do that in a script.”
But it’s more than that. With writing, you have to learn how to entertain people with words alone. You don’t have beautiful actors. You don’t have Academy Award winning cinematographers who make everything look beautiful. You don’t have an awesome score playing in the background. You have words. And using only words on a page is the hardest way to entertain people with a story. So you have to read the really bad scripts to learn what doesn’t work. To learn what not to do yourself.
So how many scripts should you be reading? At minimum, five a month. That’s only 60 a year. And that means reading the whole way through. No matter if they’re boring. No matter if they’re bad. And I got news for you. A majority of them will be. But that’s going to ensure that your scripts are neither of those things. :)
Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) After she catches her boyfriend cheating, Liv goes on a social media tirade that lands her in court for slander, and the judge forces her to make amends by composing one positive comment for every negative comment she posted, while under the supervision of a reclusive mediator also on the rebound from a failed relationship. Inspired by true events.
About: This script finished on last year’s Black List with 9 votes. The script got writer Erin Rodman a job writing “The Bear,” an upcoming movie about a high school teen who uses her school’s bear mascot costume to become a viral sensation, but is afraid to tell everyone who she really is.
Writer: Erin Rodman
Details: 102 pages
I find social media to be the technological embodiment of evil (which is why I’m no longer on it). Since no one has to look anyone in the face in a virtual conversation, people say the worst things to each other. But that’s not even the bad part. The bad part is that a whole generation of kids are growing up THINKING THIS IS NORMAL! That yelling at people over Twitter is a normal thing you should engage in and take with you into your adult life. I’m hoping the planet comes to its senses at some point and figures out a way to make social media kinder. But I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, we have people like Erin Rodman exploring the idea through a screenplay. Let’s see if it’s any good.
Social media-obsessed Liv is a party organizer in Vegas, mainly for bachelorette parties. She’s currently growing her business at a rapid rate, when she comes home one day and finds her boyfriend, Austin, in bed with some chick name Shinee.
Liv is enraged. So much so that she starts drinking and begins an epic night of social media bashing her now ex. She writes on his Facebook page. His instagram. She e-mails all his friends and family members, telling them all sorts of things about Austin’s underwhelming sexual prowess. We’re talking HOURS of messages here.
The next day Liv wakes up and… isn’t resentful at all. She’s proud of what she’s done. But she’s about to get a reality check because she’s served with papers. Yes, Austin has sued her for slandering him all over the internet! Cut to a court room where the judge informs Liv that either she pay Austin 100 grand or she apologize and post 100 nice things about Austin online to make up for every non-nice thing. To that Liv says…. F OFF!
But cooler heads prevail when Liv’s lawyer informs her that as much as she hates the idea of writing nice things about her ex, it’s better than writing a check for 100 thousand dollars. Liv isn’t so sure but she decides to give it a try. She talks to friends, family, polls random people in the club – trying to find any generic nice thing she could say. But she turns down every suggestion because they aren’t true.
With time running out, Liv realizes that the judge didn’t say she had to compliment Austin specifically. Just their relationship. So she’s able to find 100 things in their relationship that helped make her a better person (stuff like, since you weren’t around, I could focus on my business and get better at that). So, in the end, our Liv wins. And, in the process, becomes a slightly better person. Very slightly.
I can see why Say Something Nice got Black List votes even if I didn’t personally like it. The voice here is strong. By the way, scripts that get the same rating on here aren’t always exactly the same. For example, if you contrast this script with last week’s comedy, Assisted Living, this writer is one million times better than that writer. It’s not even close. Assisted Living felt like it was written by someone who learned screenwriting in January. Rodman has much more control over the craft.
But Say Something Nice still didn’t work for me and it’s because it suffers from something we only talk about generally. Today we’re going to give it a name. UPP. Otherwise known as the Unlikable Protagonist Paradox.
UPP works like this. You need to give your protagonist a negative trait – known as their ‘fatal flaw’ – in order for the character to arc over the course of the story. If your character doesn’t have anything wrong with them, there’s nothing for them to learn, and therefore there’s no change. Not every character needs to change. But most of them, in this form of storytelling known as screenwriting, do.
The paradox comes in that if a person’s defining characteristic is negative, the reader is prone to disliking them. Unlikable heroes are one of the fastest ways to lose a reader. Because why would we root for someone we hate? And there is no middle ground here. Liv is hateable. I mean this is a girl who’s more angry about the fact that she has to take down instagram photos of her boyfriend because she looks good in those photos, than, you know, that she just lost her boyfriend.
The solution to UPP is actually quite simple. Focus on ONE flaw. Not a ton of them. Just one. The more unlikable traits you dump onto your hero, the less we’ll like them. Liv is a drunk, she’s vindictive, she’s a liar, she’s mean-spirited, she’s selfish, she’s image-obsessed, and worst of all, she likes puns. It’s negativity overload. Here’s a line from Liv in the script, which is par for the course: “This isn’t about fast, Daisy. This is about winning. Everyone’s against me. But they underestimate me. I’m coming for them now. I’m fucking Wonder Woman.”
I get that that’s the point of the concept – a nice person would never have written all these mean things about her boyfriend. But character consistency doesn’t matter if we hate your character.
Focus on one negative thing for your hero’s flaw. Like selfishness, for example. This is what Groundhog Day did. Phil was selfish. That was his flaw. Period. And, look, you can still go negative with that flaw. You can go all in on it. You just can’t pile on a bunch of other negative things.
Unfortunately, there’s an additional component to character like-ability that can’t be measured. And that’s FEEL. How the reader FEELS about the character. It’s no different from real life. There are people you just don’t like and you don’t know why. That happens to readers too. Liv is one walking complaint in this movie. She’s always complaining about something. And always playing the victim. I got annoyed listening to her.
Some of you may wonder, well then Carson, how come the script got 9 votes and landed on the Black List? Well here’s the thing. You can still pull in a crowd of people who relate to someone. If I just came off a breakup and found out my ex cheated, I would be in that angry headspace that Liv is in. So I would relate to and understand her better. You’re going to get those people. But I believe character likability trumps that. You don’t want to have to scrape readers off the angry scrap pile to be the main cheerleaders for your script. You should be aiming for a wider audience.
Another problem with this script is that it embraces this punk rock rebel approach in making its heroine so unlikable, yet uses cheesy 80s movie tropes to form its backbone. The goofy court mandate. You’ve got to say 100 nice things (so specific). You’ve got 30 days to do so. Our hero falls in love with the jerk she hated in Act 1. This is the kind of Blake Snyder stuff that’s passed the screenwriting world by. It’s too transparent. But more importantly, it clashes with the edgy sensibility the writer is trying to push through her main character.
Again, this script isn’t bad. But it’s more of a showcase for the writer than it is a script that’s good by itself.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you have a strong voice, especially in the dialogue department, you don’t have to write a great concept or even a perfect execution of that concept. You just need an idea that’s clear and that gives you room to play with for what you do best. The script, then, becomes more of a container to display your voice than a great story. That’s how I see Say Something Nice. The setup is contrived. The execution feels like it was discovered in a 1988 Paramount garbage can. But Liv is a lively character who, like her or hate her, makes an impression. She definitely has pop. And if your main character has pop, producers who read endless piles of boring scripts with boring characters are going to remember you. That’s why this script made the Black List.
Genre: Thriller
Premise: A boy on the run in the endless Montana forest teams up with a smokejumper to escape two evil brothers intent on killing him.
About: This is based on the successful novel of the same name. The author of the novel, Michael Koryta, wrote the original screenplay adaptation. Then Charles Levitt was brought in (In the Heart of the Sea). And finally, in an indication that the producers felt they had something special, the ultra-expensive Taylor Sheridan (Sicario). This is his draft.
Writers: Taylor Sheridan (previous drafts by Michael Koryta and Charles Levitt), based on the novel by Michael Koryta
Details: 92 pages
The following is a phone call I received 14 years ago.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Carson? My name is Script Maven. I’m calling to make you an offer.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not interested—“
“Wait! Before you hang up. What if I told you that I could offer you two of the best villains that have ever been written for your next screenplay.”
“Uh-huh. What else are you offering? A screenwriting Academy Award?”
“Oh no, Carson. This is real. I have two villains who are so nasty people will be talking about them for years, decades even. They have names ready to go – Jack and Patrick.”
“Listen pal. I’m currently working on my masterpiece right now. A little script called Tom and Andy Build an Opera House. I clearly don’t need any help on the screenwriting front.”
“Carson, this is the last time I can offer you this. These characters will change your life. Studios will pay you 7 figures on a routine basis to fix their villain characters after this movie comes out.”
“Uh-huh. Nice try. Go sell your snake oil somewhere else, Script Maven. You’re the real villain here. A time-stealing villain. Seeya!”
Up until today, I never felt bad about giving up on that phone call. But the chickens have finally come home to roost. Through dedication and sheer force of will, Script Maven has sold his two villain characters. To these three writers. Because Jack and Patrick very well might be two of the best villains in history.
40 year old Owen is a forensic analyst. And he just found something out that could implicate huge swaths of the government. For this reason, Owen grabs his 12 year old son, Connor, and heads out of the city. What’s going on, his son asks. Owen says that men will be coming to kill him. They need to get far away then find access to a TV station so he can reveal the information he has to the world. That’s the only way they live.
Meanwhile, we meet Hannah. In addition to being the most common name for female protagonists, Hannah is a smokejumper. She goes into forest fires and helps get stranded people out. Except, recently, she made a terrible error which ended up killing three kids. Haunted by this mistake, she now does time in remote fire towers. It keeps her away from reality.
Finally, we meet Jack and Patrick. Sociopath brothers from hell. These nasty assassins were hired by the government to find Owen and kill him. And since Owen is with his son, kill him too. They successfully track them to Montana and shoot out their car in the middle of a hilly forest. Owen dies but Connor survives, darting into the trees.
Jack and Patrick realize that this is going to be harder than they thought. Lots of locals will need to become collateral damage. And since we can’t have a small town in the middle of nowhere all of a sudden have a 50,000% increased murder rate without drawing suspicion, the two do what any kind thoughtful brothers would do. They start a forest fire to wipe out all the people they’re going to kill.
Of course, that means Connor isn’t just running from these men. He’s running from a forest fire. Which is why he’s lucky he’s run into Hannah. I mean, if there’s one person you want to run into when you have a forest fire on your heels, it’s this woman. And she’s got something to prove considering the last time she was responsible for three children, they died a horrible fiery death.
But what Hannah is about to learn is that, for the first time in her profession, it isn’t the fire that’s the biggest danger. It’s these freaking psycho brothers – two maniacs who will stop at nothing to kill both Connor and her. Which means that, for once, she will have to use the fire as an ally.
Jack and Patrick are the stars of this movie. That’s my takeaway. The moment that sold me was after kidnapping the local sheriff to help them navigate the woods to find Hannah and Connor, Patrick tells the sheriff, after this is done, I’m going to kill you and your wife. The only thing in question is whether I do it fast or slow. If you do everything I say, I’ll make it fast.
These villains don’t even have the pretense to lie. Usually, you tell people what they want to hear (“If you do everything I say, I’ll let you live”) so they help you. These two don’t operate under that rule set. Their rule set is murder and destruction. Everything else is secondary.
My feeling is that if you write a hero we love or a villain we hate, it’s impossible to get below a “worth the read.” Because in both instances, the reader desperately wants something – for either the hero to win or the villain to fail. And they’ll read your whole script to see if that happens.
Now if you happen to write a hero we love AND a villain we hate, you’re probably in “impressive” territory. Even with a so-so plot, you’ve got your reader on a string via the two most important components of the story.
And I liked what these writers did with the hero – Hannah. I’ve realized there are two approaches you can take with your hero. You can make them the WORST possible people for the situation they’re in. Or you can make them the BEST. Both bring valuable assets to the screenwriting table.
If your hero is the worst person for the problem, every stage of the journey is difficult. And difficulty = drama. That’s where all the fun is. Drama. But there’s something fun about a character who’s perfectly suited for the problem as well, as Hannah is here. I think it’s because we enjoy seeing an expert operate in their field of expertise, especially when it’s something as theatrical as forest fires. We *want* to see all her little tricks she’s perfected in how to use the fire to her advantage.
Yet here is where Those Who Wish Me Dead fell short of impressive territory. While we get to see some of Hannah’s knowledge on display. We don’t get to see nearly enough. In fact, the final act can be SOOOOO much better than it is here. We need to lean ALL IN on the fire. Not halfway in.
It’s not rocket science. Figure out what’s unique about your premise then go ALL IN on that. What’s unique here is the firefighting aspect. So you don’t go 60% on the fire stuff in the end. You need to go 160%. Not only is that going to make the movie better. But it’s going to make your protagonist better. Seeing her work her fire wizardry is going to make us like her more.
Because Hannah’s got a high bar to live up to with these villains. Something always feels off if your villains are way more equipped than your heroes or vice versa.
I’ve been thinking a lot since finishing this script – what makes these villains so memorable compared to others? Cause most of the time, our brothers are just nasty. We’ve seen nasty villains before. What I realized was that, normally, we get a single sociopath villain. Which makes sense. He’s a sociopath. He’s isolated. He does his own thing. Two sociopathic brothers *who care about each other* offers something new. Because it directly contradicts the definition of being a sociopath.
Well, that and they’re both terrifying as hell.
This script came close to getting an impressive. But it ain’t going to get there until they ramp up this climax to a thousand.
Still a good script though! Sheridan continues his hot streak (no pun intended).
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The perfect balance for heroes and villains is that the villains should always be a little bit more capable than the hero. The reason for that is you want it to seem hard to defeat the villain. If your hero is clearly more capable than them, there’s no suspense. We already know they’re going to prevail.
