You’re going to kill me but I need to push today’s Amateur Showdown review to next Friday. I’ve got too much stuff on my plate. But, in the meantime, I wanted to share this short film with you and I wanted to do so for a few reasons.
I’ve had tons of discussions over the years about what makes a good short film because if you can make a great short film, you can start your career in this industry. What’s so unique about the success of this film is that it does two things that I tell short film writers never to do.
First, keep your short under five minutes. I’m adamant about the fact that people have no time these days. Not only that, but there are so many Youtube videos available that if someone gets bored, they’re moving onto the next video FAST. I’m talking within 30 seconds. Yet here we have a short film that’s twenty minutes long.
The second thing I tell writers never to do is write “two people in a room” short films. “Two people in a room” shorts are the most common shorts out there because they’re the easiest to make. All you need is an apartment and two people. For that reason, they immediately scream out, “Amateur” and “Film School.” It’s hard to do much with two people in a room that we haven’t seen before. Yet here we have a short that has two people in a room.
The film does a THIRD thing I tell short film writers never to do which is to write a drama. It’s so hard to catch people’s interest with only characters saying things to each other. The dialogue has to be great. The actors have to be great. The margin for error is as thin as paper.
Yet here this film does all three of these things and it’s great. Why?
For starters, they’re using professional actors. I’ve seen the wife in this short in multiple recurring TV roles. This wouldn’t have worked if you were using Sara your local librarian who was in a play once in high school. If you’re going to do drama, you BETTER have professional actors or else you have no chance. I can guarantee you that.
But I think the main reason the short works is that it takes the “two people in a room” conceit and adds a little twist to by creating this whole second apartment across the street. By doing this it opens the story up beyond your typical “short that was shot for no money.” It feels bigger. It feels more like a production. And that’s the thing you have to get right in short films. It can’t look like you just shot in your 1932 Franklin Boulevard 3rd story cracks in the wall studio apartment. There needs to be some production value and you see production value all over this short.
Then, as a story, it takes some twists and turns you don’t expect. And THIS I think is essential for short films. You have to throw some curveballs at the viewer to keep them invested. It isn’t just two people crying about a car crash for twenty minutes (I literally watched a short film once where that was the plot). When you’re writing drama, it shouldn’t just be about emotions and monologues and tears and deep thoughts. You have to have some story in there and that’s why The Neighbors’ Window separates itself from all the other drama shorts. It has a story. There are several big plot developments. There is a beginning, middle, and it doesn’t all go as expected.
Curious what you guys think about this little film. I thought it was great.
So I’m sitting down last night and this question keeps circulating through my head. How does a writer like the writer of Resurrection do it? Why is his treatment of this idea so much better than everybody else’s treatment of it?
Cause I’ve read tons of scripts about men threatening women. I would venture to say over 500. What is it that this writer brought to the table that made this script so much better than the others?
Because I want to be a better writer. I want to learn from what Andrew Semans is doing. Even if you didn’t like Resurrection, you have to admit that the writing was a thousand times better than similarly themed Black List scripts like An Aftermath and The Tip.
Whereas Resurrection feels like it’s been written by someone with complete control of his craft, those scripts felt like they were written by 9th graders.
I mean, literally, it feels like they could’ve been written by a freshman in high school. That’s how simplistic the choices were, how basic the writing was. What is it that Andrew Semans is doing that these other writers are not?
The answer is on page 3. That’s the page in the script where I knew this was going to be good. I had a sense after reading this page that this writer was a cut above. So let’s take a closer look at the page and see what we can learn.
Let’s start with this line: “Margaret removes her lab coat, revealing a well-chosen business casual outfit.”
One of the ways I determine good writing is by contrasting what’s written with what could’ve been written. In this case, we’d usually see the line, “Margaret removes her lab coat.” The average writer would not have said anything beyond that. And that’s okay. You don’t have to tell us what the character is wearing under their lab coat. But it’s an opportunity to give us more information about the character. And since it’s early, it’s a good idea to do this.
So we’re told that Margaret is wearing a business casual outfit. On its own, nothing to note. But Semans adds a qualifying detail, that it’s “well-chosen.” Now THIS tells us something about the character. It conveys that she cares about what she wears. A small detail, yes. But already I know more about this character than I do most characters 50 pages into a script.
“She gathers items from her desk, puts them in her purse. She surveys the office: aggressively tidy.”
It’s another small thing. But the office isn’t just “tidy.” It’s “aggressively tidy.” This conveys a certain level of obsessiveness. It is painting a character before our eyes.
“She sees a small COFFEE STAIN on her desk. She licks her thumb and rubs it right out.”
A couple of things to note here. One of the best ways to tell us who a person is is through what they WEAR and what they DO. Semans has told us about the character through what she’s chosen to wear. And here Margaret does something – a small obsessive action – that further gives us insight into what kind of person she is.
“Margaret walks past a row of desks. She carries herself with an air of strength and focus, which seems slightly exaggerated, slightly self-conscious. But only slightly.”
Again, we’re taking a very simple action – walking – that most writers take for granted. To the average writer, walking is walking. To the experienced writer, walking can tell us a whole lot about a person. So I thought it was cool that Semans broke down Margaret’s walk into such specific detail. Even going so far as to point out that the slightly exaggerated self-conscious strength in her walk was only barely perceptible.
Semans is leaving nothing to chance here. He’s channeling as much specificity as the screenwriting medium will allow him. The more specific you can get about what we’re seeing, the more you’re going to channel your voice as a writer.
“They wish Margaret a good evening. She reciprocates warmly.”
Even this line, which seems like a throwaway, gives us some insight into Margaret’s character. A writer could’ve easily stopped at “They wish Margaret a good evening.” Hell, some writers may not have even chosen to tell us that. But that follow-up sentence, again, gives us a little more of a look into her head. The fact that she’s reciprocating warmly says she cares about this job and the people she works with.
“Margaret stands, watching the numbers drop: 12, 11, 10…
At 5, the elevator stops. The doors open. No one waits. Margaret peers into the hallway: empty.
The doors start to close, but stop and open again. Like a ghost is moving in and out. She again checks the hall: no one. An overhead fluorescent flickers out.”
This was a key moment in the script for me. If you think of a script as a cowboy with a lasso, this was the moment the lasso slid around me and tightened. There’s no reason that this moment needs to be in the script. It doesn’t play into the plot at all.
But what it does is it sets an atmospheric tone for the script. That this is going to be something where you don’t feel safe. Where you think you someone might be coming towards you but it’s only your imagination. This is where a writer’s voice can really come out. When they choose to include moments that don’t technically need to be in the script, but they put them in anyway for whatever reason. I can only guess what Semans was thinking here but I believe he wanted to set the tone of feeling vulnerable.
And he does it in such a visual way. It’s hard not to feel like you’re there on the elevator with Margaret with these visuals he keys in on (“peers into the hallway: empty” “The doors start to close, but stop and open again.” “An overhead florescent flickers out.”).
“It’s late rush hour and crowded on the street, but the DIN of the traffic and crowds is soft and muted in that heavy, late summer way.”
This is where Semans really separates himself from other writers in my opinion. He takes a common visual – late rush hour in the city, and paints it in a way that differentiates it from every other rush hour scene we know. He uses contrast to point out that the traffic and crowds are “soft and muted,” and he continues on to clarify that feeling – “in that heavy late summer way.” I don’t know about you. But I don’t know many people who would describe rush hour this way. It takes an acutely aware writer to key in on the subtleties of common practices to write a line like that.
“Margaret’s eyes are active. Taking in the landscape, the details. She’s constantly on alert.”
Again, look at how much Semans is telling us about Margaret in this page. The fact that she’s “constantly on alert” is a huge window into her persona.
“She stops at a light. Something pulls her attention. She looks down the block: TEENAGERS make out shamelessly on a stoop.
The light changes. She walks.”
A lot of writers have gotten lost in this screenwriting rule that you should only write what’s necessary and nothing else. And to an extent, I endorse that rule. But as you can see here, you can use mundane moments to not only tell us about your characters but set an atmospheric tone to the movie. As long as you’re exploring these moments with purpose – in this case to both tell us about our hero and set a tone for the movie – it’s fine to work with these “unimportant” moments.
That’s a big reason why Semans voice stood out from everyone else. Everybody else is following the rules so closely that they all sound exactly like each other. You have to look for places in your writing where you can show off your voice more. Because if you follow every rule to the letter, you’re writing a technically perfect but artistically inert screenplay.
And yes, I realize that how you write will be determined by what you write. You wouldn’t write this way if you were writing an Avengers movie. But if you want to stand out – and standing out is one of best ways to get recognized as an amateur writer – you should take a look at what Semans does with Resurrection.
One of my biggest takeaways from this script is that it’s not what you do with the broad strokes. It’s what you do with the details. It’s what you do in the cracks that separates you from everyone else.
What if I told you that someone just wrote the female version of Joker, and that it’s actually better than that movie?
Genre: F#@%d Up
Premise: A single mother in New York City begins seeing a mysterious older man from her past around town and becomes convinced that he’s come back into her life to kill her daughter.
About: This one finished with 8 votes on last year’s Black List. Writer Andrew Semans has been writing and directing short films as far back as 2000. His only feature is a 2012 movie called “Nancy, Please” about a man who must retrieve a precious book from his former girlfriend.
Writer: Andrew Semans
Details: 110 pages
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I just read.
But I can tell you this. I read from the first to the last page without getting up, without checking e-mail, without going to Youtube, and without checking my phone. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
This script was so freaking weird but simultaneously so amazing!
I don’t know where to start. It’s unlike anything I’ve read before. We’re all trying to answer that everlasting question: What are readers looking for? This is what they’re looking for. Someone with a unique voice. Someone who looks at the world differently, who focuses on things that the average person can’t possibly imagine.
Us readers are so starved for originality that we’re like kids in a candy store when we finally get it.
I have no idea what’s going to come of this script but I can promise you this. A big actress will kill to star in it. This is an actress’s dream role. It has Oscar written all over it. And the writing is so atmospheric and weird (in a good way) that I’m guessing a major director gets involved as well.
I’m reluctant to summarize the script because I want it to be a surprise so why don’t those of you with access to the 2019 Black List scripts (hint hint, check the comments section) go grab this script, read it, then come back.
40-something Margaret works at New York biotech company, Biomatrix. When we first meet Margaret, she seems like a strong, if slightly offbeat, woman. She’s telling her young co-worker, who’s dealing with a controlling boyfriend, how to stand up for herself. How to set boundaries in the relationship.
When Margaret gets home, we learn she has a 17 year old cool daughter, Abbie (When Margaret texts her questions like, “Status,” Abbie texts back, “Shooting heroin”). While there’s nothing overtly dysfunctional about their relationship, we get the sense that Margaret is a bit overprotective.
One day, while on the train to work, Margaret spots a man in his 60s. Overcome with fear, she races out of the train at the next exit. A couple days later, she sees the man again in the park. This is David. Or, as we’ll come to find out, this is who *she thinks* is David, a man she was involved with from the past.
Margaret starts following David around the city and eventually confronts him, tells him to stay away from her daughter. But David, or the man who she thinks is David, says he has no idea who she is.
Margaret’s world begins to crumble. She starts spending more time at home, obsessively keeping an eye on her daughter. She goes to the police to tell them about the man, but they point out that this guy hasn’t called or approached her. There’s nothing they can do.
As time goes on, we learn more about Margaret’s past with this man. When she was 19, she stayed at a remote science lab with her parents. That’s where she met David. He swept her off her feet. But soon, he began making her do things – he called them kindnesses. Small things like not wearing shoes all day. Standing still for an hour. But the kindnesses became more difficult. He kept asking more and more of her.
Margaret eventually got pregnant, and nine months later, had their baby. Her son became her world. Until one day, she came back home to find her baby missing. **And this is where s@#% gets weird** David ate their baby. Not to worry, he says. The baby is still alive, inside of him. If she wants to be with her baby forever, she must stay with him.
But Margaret ran. Ran as far away as she could. Went and had Abbie. And for 20 years, created another life. That is until now. David is back. And he wants to be with Margaret again. He’ll start with a series of small kindnesses. And he’ll go from there…
I KNOW.
It’s weird.
But it’s not the kind of script you can judge from a summary. This script is about its nuances, the cracks and the holes in the wall are where this story lives. It’s so specific and odd and offbeat that you can’t appreciate it unless you read the thing.
I’ll start with the obvious. There’s a sophistication to the way Margaret’s mental state is approached. I see writers trying to write crazy people all the time and they treat crazy like a 10 year old sees crazy. Overly simplistic “crazy” actions like randomly screaming and saying weird stuff.
Movies like Resurrection only work if we believe the craziness. And I knew right away that this writer understood crazy. Margaret obviously has some deep-rooted PTSD that she’s repressed for years and it’s all coming out at once. Her mind is like a popcorn popper. No matter how hard she tries, the kernels keep popping out of her skull.
The thing is, I usually hate scripts about “are they or aren’t they crazy” characters. But when I read a script like Resurrection (which needs to be retitled “Margaret” right away), I’m reminded that a good writer who understands the sophistication behind how people lose their minds, can make it work. It’s that old adage of don’t write something you’re not capable of writing.
I don’t understand the stock market. I’ll never understand it. So if I tried to write a movie about the stock market, it would be terrible. Same thing about mental states. If you don’t truly understand how the mind works, don’t write a crazy character. It never comes off believably. I know this because I read tons of these scripts.
Getting back to Resurrection – this is a script that has a plot. But the real reason we keep reading is the main character. And I think that’s where you find the best scripts. When you’re turning the pages because the character is so interesting and not because you want to find out what the next plot point is.
The specific reason why Margaret is so compelling is because of the contrast in her character. We meet her as this strong, intelligent, determined hard-worker who’s very successful. But, the more we get to know her, the more we realize how fragile she is. That’s where characters come to life – when their external is opposed to their internal. Because that means they’re always going to be in conflict and we’ll want to read to find out how that conflict is resolved.
That’s why I read through this so obsessively. I wanted to know if Margaret was going to fall into insanity or if her external strength was going to pull through.
But don’t get me wrong. The plot was strong as well. We had a clear GSU. The goal was to kill David. The stakes are the safety of Margaret’s daughter. And the urgency is David threatening to kill Abbie soon. So it still works on a basic storytelling level. But the character of Margaret just took this script up 15 levels. She was such a great character. I couldn’t turn away.
If they get the right package of people working on this, this is going to be the first ever Taxi Driver slash Nightcrawler slash Joker with a female lead. And not a lip-service version either. This will stand toe to toe with those movies if it’s done well.
Wow! This was a wonderful surprise.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!!!!)
[ ] genius
What I learned: There’s something about great screenwriters I haven’t yet been able to quantify. They seem to be able to write weird WITH A PURPOSE. I read a lot of weird scripts. But it’s usually sloppy weird. “All over the place” weird. There’s no rhyme or reason or plan to the weirdness. Whereas with this script, which has a man who claims to be carrying a woman’s child that he ate for the past 20 years in his stomach, the weirdness has purpose. It feels organic to the story. I still don’t know how to explain the difference. All I can tell you is that writers like Semans are able to take offbeat chances and yet back them up with a plan. They’re connected thematically. They’re set up well. They’re paid off well. It isn’t just someone throwing whatever they can think of in the moment at that wall. That’s when weird gets sloppy. So even though you have an “original voice,” that voice is too wild to be taken seriously. You need the ying (structure) with the yang (weirdness).
Ridley Scott’s first ever TV show!
Genre: TV Drama/Sci-Fi
Premise: Two atheist-programmed androids are tasked with raising human children on a mysterious virgin planet but their plan is compromised when a second God-fearing ship of humans arrives.
About: This is a big one. It hails from Aaron Guzikowski, who sold his spec, Prisoners, for 1 million dollars back in 2009. The show is being directed by Ridley Scott and will be one of the big-ticket items HBO is using to get you onto their upcoming streaming service, HBO Max.
Writer: Aaron Guzikowski
Details: 66 pages
Today’s writer has an interesting history. He won one of the rare 7 figure spec script lottery tickets back in 2009 for his script, Prisoners. It was one of the hottest projects in town at the time, but the script wasn’t as good as people were making it out to be. The core conflict of a man torturing the guy he thought kidnapped his daughters was interesting. But the puzzle behind who the killer really was was a mess. It didn’t make sense.
So it wasn’t surprising to me that Guzikowski hasn’t done much since Prisoners. He had a TV show nobody saw and got the scripting gig for the Papillon remake that nobody saw either but that’s it. In an entire decade.
I don’t think he was ready. And that’s one of the things aspiring writers overlook. Everyone’s trying so hard to break down the doors but if you break down the doors too early, people are going to realize quickly that you can’t write. So don’t feel bad if it takes longer than you want it to. You’ll be more prepared when those giant doors open.
To Guzikowski’s credit, he stuck it out, and now he’s being rewarded in the biggest way. Ridley Freaking Scott has chosen Guzikowski’s script to make his TV debut with. And with deep pockets HBO footing the bill, you know this is going to look great. Let’s see if the pilot is any good…
Androids Mother and Father land on a planet called Kepler-22b, which is 600 light years from earth. It’s the closest planet earthlings can escape to after their planet became uninhabitable due to war.
This future squabbling earth can be divided into two categories – atheists and believers. The atheists don’t care about God and therefore could afford to send a ship out with two robots and a bunch of human embryos. Meanwhile, the believers had to put together a ship that could actually carry humans. For this reason, the much smaller android ship gets to Kepler-22b ten years before the other big lumbering ship.
Once they arrive on this sorta-earth like planet (it’s a little grayer and more depressing than earth), they set about trying to grow babies. They’re able to bring six embryos to life, but over the next decade, all of the children die except for the youngest, Campion.
Since they can no longer keep the atheist race going (without females) Father gets the idea to send out an SOS to the arriving God ship to come pick Campion up. He does this behind Mother’s back because Mother seriously, and I mean SERIOUSLY, hates the God people. When Mother finds out what Father has done, she kills him.
But it’s too late. The God people show up. Now remember, these two sides were in a war with each other. So things get testy right away. The God people try and kill Mother but, in a shocking twist, she reveals that she’s one of the super-weapons that the atheists used to scorch earth. She steals their lander ship, goes up to their big ship, and crashes the thing. But five children were able to escape and fly back down to earth, where they join forces with Campion. He will now have to teach them how to live on this land. All while avoiding…. Mother.
Hmmm….
Well, Raised by Wolves is nothing if not interesting.
It’s unlike anything I’ve read in a while. And if you’re an adult sci-fi geek, this is probably going to satisfy your science-fiction needs.
But I’m not sure what to make of it.
It’s sort of all over the place.
Take the droids for example. In any other scenario, the droids would be foolproof. They’re the ones who can stick around for centuries because they don’t degrade. They’re 1s and 0s. But these robots are some of the crappiest robots ever constructed as they start falling apart almost immediately. Ten years into their journey and they can barely function.
On top of that, the droids have full-on human emotions. I would argue that they’re more emotional than the human kids they raise. Both Mother and Father are constantly dealing with depression after the death of their children.
The hook here is humans raised by robots. But if the robots a) aren’t built like robots and b) aren’t emotionless like robots……… are they really robots??
I might have overlooked this if the plot was strong but the whole thing feels like it’s stuck in second gear. You’re waiting and waiting for it to finally step on the gas but it’s this long drawn-out growing-up story where we keep hitting the same beats over and over again (brothers and sisters die – it’s sad).
Then, at the last second, Mother becomes this super-weapon from back on earth who was somehow reprogrammed to be a robot parent or something and all I could think was, “Wait, what!?” Why did her creator recycle the very weapons that destroyed earth to create a robot when he could have just… oh, I don’t know… used a normal robot that wasn’t a planet killing super-weapon??
It didn’t make sense at all.
Then now you have these other kids from the ship who are best friends with Campion and what is the show going to be about? They’re going to run around and hide from Mother for ten episodes? Is that a compelling story?
Things looked a lot more interesting when the whole ship of 100 people was going to land and start a second colony. That had more potential for interesting story ideas in my opinion.
I’m not an expert on television like I am on features, but if there’s one thing I know about pilots, it’s that when you leave that first episode, you need to know exactly what the show is and the upcoming story needs to look exciting. After the end of Raised by Wolves, I don’t know what this show is about nor does it look exciting.
I suppose you could focus on a group of kids growing up on this planet together. The pilot spends a TON of time mentioning that the planet was once occupied by giant lizards. So I’m guessing those lizard creatures are going to come back to alleviate some of our sci-fi needs. But I’m not sure six kids, a few big lizards, and a crazy mom-slash-superweapon are enough to build ten compelling episodes around.
I hope Ridley Scott comes in here and directs the hell out of this thing and proves me wrong cause I’d like nothing more than a cool new sci-fi show to watch.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You have to stay true to your hook. If you promise a show about humans raised by robots, you need to give us humans raised by emotionless fact-based androids. If you make the androids act exactly like humans, you’ve compromised the whole point of the show.
It seems strange to say there’s nothing to watch in the era of 15,000 TV shows but THERE WAS NOTHING TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND! While scrolling through Netflix, I somehow ended up on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), a movie I hadn’t seen since I was a kid but remembered loving.
I always find it fascinating to rewatch these beloved classics to see if they still hold up and I was shocked to find that Wonka held my interest from the first to the last frame. A big surprise considering how screenwriting-unfriendly it was.
For starters, almost every single character in the movie is unlikable. Veruca Salt is unlikable. Augustus is unlikable. Violet. Mike. Even Willy Wonka is a smarmy jerk. The only two characters who are likable are Charlie and Grandpa Joe, although they don’t get all that much screen time once we’re in the factory.
How is it the movie still works, then? Well, Charlie may be one of the most likable protagonists in history for one. That helps offset a lot of the negativity. Which is a good lesson for aspiring screenwriters. If there are a ton of unlikable people in your script, make sure your protagonist is extremely likable.
Another cool thing about Wonka is that the whole movie is a series of impending mystery boxes. Which room are we going to next? What will be inside? This ensures we’ll keep watching. We want to see what the next room has in store. This same setup would not have worked if, say, Willy Wonka had taken the five children camping.
Finally, as a kid, I never paid attention to themes. But watching the film now, the theme is very apparent. If you’re mean or selfish or a glutton, bad things are going to happen to you. I used to think of theme as this complex equation that needed to be half-statement half-question and include its own three-page thesis paper when, in reality, the most effective themes are very simple, like this one.
But the big lesson here is when you have a problem in your script, you need to have a gameplan to overcome it. With so many bratty kids and this dark heartless candy factory host, you need to be able to say, “Here’s what I’m going to do to offset that.” The most likable protagonist ever and a series of mystery boxes did the job.
Willy Wonka reminds us that no matter how old a movie is, when it works, it works. Even with its slow-by-modern-standards first act, once you start watching Willy Wonka, it’s impossible to stop. Try it out. It’s on Netflix.
Bringing us into the modern era, there have been a surprising amount of script sales as of late. As for why this is happening now, I’m not sure. Especially because I can’t remember the last high profile script sale before this year. But I’m not complaining. Let’s take a look at what’s selling.
The first is probably the most shocking. Simon Kinberg, whose last spec sale was Mr. and Mrs. Smith (he’s since gone on to produce and write many of the X-Men movies) sold his spec, “Here Comes The Flood” to Netflix for – get this – MID SEVEN FIGURES. That would make it one of the biggest spec sales ever. Frustratingly, there isn’t a full logline. We’re only told it’s an “elevated, character-driven love-story heist movie, with the heist playing out in increments.” It literally sounds exactly like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but with criminals instead of agents.
Another key detail to this sale is that there is no director or actors attached. This is mighty good news for aspiring writers if Netflix is buying material without elements. The naked spec script is back, baby!
Next up we have Johnathan Stokes, who sold his spec script, Murder in the White House, to Paramount for mid-six to low-seven figures. Although Stokes has made the Black List numerous times, I was surprised to look back into my archive and see that I’d never reviewed one of his scripts. I remember seeing his 2013 entry, TCHAIKOVSKY’S REQUIEM, about a conductor who investigates the great composer’s unnatural death and unlocks the mysteries of the man himself while preparing to debut Tchaikovsky’s final symphony. But I guess I never read it.
The logline for this one is as follows: “The president is murdered during a private dinner, and a female Secret Service agent has till morning to discover which guest is the killer before a peace agreement fails and leads to war.” I’ve always been a fan of people murdered in high profile situations. I once had an idea for a murder in Area 51. Not sure why I never wrote it. It’s an easy way into a high-concept world. Curious if this will be any good.
Next we have “Fast and Loose” from the writing team (Jon and Erich Hoeber) who brought you Meg. This one actually sounds interesting. It follows a man who wakes up in Tijuana after being left for dead with absolutely no memory. As he follows a string of clues to uncover his identity, he discovers that he’s been living two different lives: one, as a super-successful Crime Kingpin, surrounded by beautiful women, expensive toys and a lavish lifestyle, and the other as an undercover CIA agent, but with a puny salary, no family or home life whatsoever and zero trappings of success. The problem is, he can’t remember which of these two personas is his true identity.
Talk about a big concept! Reminds me of that 2011 film with Liam Neeson, “Unknown,” which covered similar territory. That film had a great hook. Our hero shows up to a big conference with his wife, gets in an accident, goes back to his wife, and she says she has no idea who he is. But it kind of fell apart after that. This one comes from John Wick co-director David Leitch’s production company, 87North.
So what can we learn from these sales? Well, they’re all big ideas. Heists are ALWAYS marketable. You don’t even need to come up with that amazing of a heist idea. If it’s exploring a heist in a slightly different way, it’s got a chance at selling (assuming it’s good of course). For the White House spec, if you have a dead body, you have a movie. Especially if that dead body is the president. And the last sale is also based on a time-tested trope: amnesia. I know how much some people hate amnesia concepts but as long as you can find something interesting to do with the amnesia, you’re good.
What’s interesting is that versions of ALL THREE OF THESE IDEAS could’ve been written 30 years ago. 60 years ago. Even 100 years ago. Certain setups just work. Why mess with them?
But this last idea is where I draw the line. It’s the most Hollywood of Hollywood projects and I’m predicting bomb central right here, right now. The project is titled “Ball and Chain” based on a 90s comic no one heard of and here’s the description: “Edgar and Mallory Bulson have decided to throw in the towel. That was the plan anyway, until a mysterious meteor bathed the battling couple in extraterrestrial energies that gave them super-powers. Will their newfound abilities be enough to make their marriage work?”
Meteors giving characters powers is the trope to end all tropes. It’s not allowed to be used anymore. This sounds like a bad version of Hancock which was already bad on its own. It’s got Emily Gordon scripting, who did a great job with The Big Sick. But this is a husband-wife superhero movie. It’s a million degrees removed from The Big Sick. It, of course, is going to star The Rock and Emily Blunt. This feels like one of those ideas that nobody in any creative position was actually a part of. It was all decided upon by suits and agents then delivered to the talent later via e-mail. God does this sound bad.
But other than that, I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day!
