We’ve got a spec script with another wild twist ending!

Genre: Legal Thriller
Premise: When a rich New Yorker is the lead suspect in his wife’s murder, he hires his daughter from a previous marriage, whose wounds from him deserting her have never gone away, as his attorney.
About: This spec sold earlier this year to NETFLIX. Weren’t writers around here just complaining that specs don’t sell? Don’t tell that to Melissa London Hilfers. This is her fifth feature spec sale! Hilfers loves legal thrillers. Not surprising since she is a lawyer. Another “I have no time to write” excuse taken off the table. Yesterday, a doctor with two kids found time to write a novel. And now a lawyer, the profession with the least amount of time in the world, had time to write five scripts. So come on, guys! Let’s see some more output!
Writer: Melissa London Hilfers
Details: 110 pages

Today we’re going to talk about how weaving character dynamics into a nuts & bolts legal plot can yield solid returns.

Let’s get to it!

40 year old Cecilia Caufield has just won the biggest case of her life, a 150 million dollar settlement. She goes home and celebrates by having sex with her husband, Ryan. But then we see her leave her husband and go to… another home? To… Peter. Oh wait, Peter is her husband. Ryan is just some lawyer she’s banging. Bad, Cecilia. Bad!

Cecilia’s mother calls and tells her that her father (the two are no longer married) is a murder suspect! His second wife was stabbed and killed on the city streets last night. Cecilia’s father rarely engages with her ever since he moved onto his second family but Cecilia races over to see him anyway and makes sure he’s okay. Not only is he okay, he wants Cecilia to represent him!

An old work buddy of Cecilia’s, Aaron, is the lead prosecutor on the case, and he is POSITIVE William killed his wife. The murder weapon was a jewel-encrusted serrated knife that he gave to his wife for protection a decade ago. Aaron theorizes that William knew she had it on her so he got her onto a dark street, ripped it out, and stabbed her.

Cecilia is diligent in getting all the details of that day from her father, even down to the specifics of he and his wife’s sex that morning. If she’s going to prove her father’s innocence, she needs all the details, no matter how nasty. Cecilia suspects that William’s long-time driver knows more than he’s letting on. As such, she starts to doubt whether her father is really innocent. Regardless, she’s going to fight tooth and nail for him to go free. The question is, what will it cost her?

I had a long think about this one.

Did I like it? Did I not like it?

I’ll start by saying this: The writing was MUCH BETTER than yesterday’s offering. At no point did Melissa London Hilfers describe any character as “handsome” 917,212 times.

But I still had to ask, “Why is this idea movie-worthy?” “How is this storyline any loftier than, say, a The Lincoln Lawyer or Suits episode?”

The answer to this is the reason the script sold. And it’s an important distinction that I want you to pay attention to.

The weakness of a show like The Lincoln Lawyer or Law & Order is that the court cases are more about the nuts and bolts of the case rather than real human emotion. Therefore, you can only ever watch those shows with casual interest.

We know this because whenever a big episode comes around, like a premiere or a finale, it isn’t just some random person who’s on trial for murder. It’s one of the main characters from the show. That’s because they know that, in order to really pull you in, they have to engage you on a deeper emotional level.

That’s what Hilfers does here. This movie is just as much about what’s going on outside the trial as it is inside. It really is the only way you can elevate one of these trial case storylines from what you see on TV. Well, that or some crazy high concept, like the “first ever defense of a ghost” or something.

This script works because Cecilia isn’t just defending her father. She’s getting to spend time with her father again for the first time since she was a child. And there’s this sad irony that the only way she got to do that was for his wife to be killed and for him to be the number 1 suspect.

Which the script needed.

Because the plot itself *is* the exact same stuff you see in a Law & Order episode. There’s the spoiled half-sister who got pissed at her mom when she said she was going to cut her out of the estate. There’s the dead wife’s trainer who claims that she was planning on leaving her husband to be with him. There are not one, but TWO, one-of-a-kind jewel-encrusted knives, either of which could be the murder weapon. And, as is always the case in these stories, nobody seems to be telling the whole truth.

I rarely cared about any of that. I was only mildly curious about who killed the mom. I was more invested in Cecilia’s complex relationship with her father. Particularly, I was wondering if her father was playing her – being charming to get her to do what he needed her to do. But, as soon as this was over, he was going to leave her again.

And then came the twist.

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

This is a good example of the influence a twist can have on a script. Cause I had this as a “wasn’t for me” all the way through. But the twist brought it up to a “worth the read.” The thing you have to remember about a twist ending is not just that it provides the story with a twist. But that it provides the story with a twist RIGHT AS IT ENDS.

That creates a swell of energy within the reader that they then feel the need to expunge. It’s hard to come off a big intense final twist AND NOT WANT TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT IT. So this generates one of the most important things a script requires for success – the reader telling other people about it.

I will often read scripts that I think are good. But they don’t compel me to talk to others about them. They don’t infuse me with a burst of energy that I then must pass on.

The twist, for those of you who are curious, is that Cecilia did it. The reason it works is because there isn’t a single moment in the script that points in that direction so you never consider it. And yet, it’s still paid off.

That’s REALLY HARD TO DO. To not show a single clear setup and yet the payoff is obvious. So let me tell you how the writer did it. She used this infidelity storyline as a fake-out. The whole time, we were thinking that was a subplot meant to explore Cecilia’s marriage. It was so separate from everything else, that we wouldn’t, in a million years, have thought to connect it to the case.

But later, when we see what really happened that night, we see Cecilia and Ryan kissing outside, then him get into an Uber, and who should walk up, but Kimberly. Kimberly is ecstatic that she’s caught her husband’s daughter in this weak moment and delights in telling her that as soon as she gets home, she’s going to call up Cecilia’s husband and tell her that his wife is cheating on him. That’s why Cecilia kills her.

Another thing about the twist is that it makes Cecilia quite the complex character because she does *not* ultimately offer her husband the truth. So, is that good? Are we really happy this girl won? I think we are because Kimberly was an awful person who delighted in taking William away from his wife and daughter. But Cecilia, by no means, gets away scot-free here.

It’s enough to get an endorsement from me. I don’t know what that means going forward in the spec market. Are we about to hit a streak of twist endings? I guess we’ll find out!

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

What I learned: When it comes to legal scripts, I like the structure used here, where the trial starts at the halfway point. Starting a trial right after the first act means that an entire 75% of your script is going to be a trial. I’m not saying that can’t work but it’s a looooonnnng time to be in trial. Commencing the trial halfway through the script feels like a perfect bifurcation of the structure.

The viral book is now being turned into a movie starring Sydney Sweeney

Genre: Thriller
Logline: Hard up for a job after spending 10 years in prison, a young woman is hired by a seemingly perfect family to be their housemaid, only to learn that her boss, the mother, is a raging gaslighting lunatic.
About: This project just came together last week. It will star current Sydney Sweeney, Sydney Sweeney, former Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, and be directed by Paul Feig. It’s an adaptation of the enormous literary sensation that has garnered over 300,000 reviews on Amazon. It’s being adapted by The Boys staff writer, Rebecca Sonnenshine. Novelist Frieda McFadden generated her success all on her own, self-publishing her first book, The Devil Wears Scrubs, on Amazon a decade ago.
Writer: Rebecca Sonnenshine (based on the book by Freida McFadden).
Details: Roughly 330 pages

As the self-appointed leader of the Sydney Sweeney Global Fan Club, I consider it my God-given duty to track every project she signs up for. Well, except for that boxing movie where she looks like a man. As soon as I saw this project announced on Deadline, I clicked straight over to Amazon and downloaded that sizzling piece of digital magic onto my Kindle.

I was going to find me out what The Housemaid was about!

Word on the street was that it had the twist of all twists. And I loooooovvvvve a good twist. Little did I know, I was about to go on a journey that I would never be able to come back from, a journey so fraught with gaslighting that I just filled up my car on the book rather than from the 76 station down to the street.

But this gaslighting came with a special side of OMG. OMG good? OMG bad? You’ll have to read the book to find out. And if you’re worried about spoilers, I’ll alert you when they’re coming. Okay, time to synopsize the plot.

Millie, who’s in her late 20s, just got out of prison (for reasons we’ll never learn) and is therefore having a tough time finding even a minimum wage job. So she’s shocked when Nina, a well-off wife, hires her to be a live-in maid at her gorgeous upper middle class home with her perfect husband and psycho 9 year old daughter.

Everything seems fine when she shows up on her first day until Nina introduces Millie to her attic bedroom. Millie notices that the door locks FROM THE OUTSIDE as opposed to the inside. And don’t worry if you didn’t catch that detail. Because the author, Freida McFadden, is going to tell you 691 more times over the course of the story.

Almost immediately, Nina starts acting weird. She’ll tell Millie to go pick up her daughter, Cecelia, at school, then once Millie gets there and learns Cecilia is going to practice with her friends instead, she’ll call Nina and ask what happened and Nina says she never told Millie to go pick up her daughter. Huh?

This gaslighting happens frequently to the point where Millie starts to wonder if she’s going nuts. But Millie’s got other problems, dude. Like the fact that she’s falling HARD for Nina’s husband, Andrew. Millie finds Andrew very handsome by the way. How do I know that? Because McFadden tells you 14,722 times.

One night, when Nina has to unexpectedly leave town, Millie makes the unthinkable decision to go to the broadway play with Andrew that he and his wife were supposed to attend. After 792 more reminders that Andrew is handsome, stupid Millie sleeps with him!

Just a couple of days later, Nina finds the playbill of the Broadway show, which erupts into a home-destroying drag-out-all-night fight. Andrew does the unthinkable. He declares he wants to live with Millie instead of Nina and kicks Nina out! Nina is beside herself! Millie is over the moon! Until the next evening, when she goes to her attic bedroom to move everything downstairs, and she finds that she’s been LOCKED INSIDE.

(Big Spoilers Follow)

We then switch into Nina’s POV for the first time and we learn THE TRUTH. Which is that Nina is actually a really nice person. She married Andrew and found out he was a psychopath who would lock her in the attic to punish her. Andrew threatened hellfire if she ever left him so Nina concocted the whole “housemaid” plan as a way to get Andrew to fall in love with a younger hotter girl so that she could leave! But once she’s done so, she’s burdened with the guilt of leaving Millie out to dry. Will she come back and help her? Or let her suffer like she did?

I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book as poorly written as this one.

This writing is so garbage, I could actually smell the stink coming off the page.

The level of writing here is SO BAD that you’ll often stop and stare at the page with your mouth open. There are a million examples of this but the biggest is how embarrassingly on-the-nose McFadden is throughout the book.

For example, there’s this handsome (yes, handsome!) Italian gardener (no, I’m not kidding, he’s Italian) who seems to warn Millie in Italian on her first day. Millie goes to look up the Italian words he said online and they translate to, “Danger!” McFadden then has 50 other scenes with Enzo where he KEEPS SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING. Danger. Danger. You’re in danger. Stranger danger. Leave, you’re in danger. Danger danger danger danger danger danger danger. I honestly thought it was a joke book at a certain point with how much she repeats everything.

There is zero subtlety to anything and I was previously under the assumption that being on the nose was a writing no-no. But with this book selling millions of copies, I’m starting to wonder if subtlety is dead. Because whatever she did definitely worked.

Okay, let’s get to the root of the question here, which is, why is this book so big? Why is it being turned into a movie with a major package of actors and director? If it’s as bad as I say it is, how can it be so successful?

I think I know.

Two reasons.

One, McFadden does something kinda genius here. You know romance novels, right? They used to sell like hotcakes and various versions of them still do today. McFadden did what I tell all of you to do. Take an established genre or established story and put a spin on it. McFadden took the romance novel and spun it into a thriller.

Cause this is, essentially, mommy porn. Wish-fulfillment central. Moms imagine themselves as younger Millie, working for a strong handsome (you guys can’t imagine how handsome this man is – I have no idea what his actual physical appearance is. But I know he’s handsome!) older man. The temptation of romance is in the air at every corner. I don’t know women that well but I know most of them love this sh*t.

So that’s number 1 for why the book was a success.

And number 2 is because the book’s twist *is* pretty good. It’s not going to rewrite the twist book or anything. But I could see most casual readers not seeing it coming. *I* knew something was up with Nina, of course. She was acting too weird for there to not be some secondary motivation. But that’s only because I’m trained to figure out character motivations after reading billions of scripts. The average reader will be duped for sure.

So that’s the reason for the book’s success. It’s not complicated. What it is is a writer who gets two very important areas of the story right. The wish-fulfillment aspect and the surprise ending. Those two things can definitely result in a breakout hit.

This isn’t my jam. It’s too silly. And the writing – oh my god you guys, the writing is SO BAD. But I understand why it’s become successful. Not to mention, it’s a very simple story, like I always tell you guys to write. :)

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

What I learned: Check how many times your favored words are used. A quick search for the word “Handsome” would’ve alerted McFadden that she had used the word way too many times. It’s often not until you see a number next to your favorite words that you realize just how excessively you’ve used it. I use the word “just” a lot in my writing, for example. Do a quick search for the word, find out you used it 300 times in your script, be shocked, and get to work erasing most of them.

What I learned 2: I mean, you really don’t have an excuse not to find time to write after you learn about Freida McFadden’s story. She was a doctor RAISING 2 KIDS when she wrote her first novel. Imagine how easy it would’ve been to say, “Eh, I’m too tired to write today.” Yet she always found time. Now, according to the New York Times, she’s the “fastest-selling thriller writer in the United States.” Stop making excuses! Pick up that pen! It ain’t going to write itself!

I love it when a movie like Smile, or one of its sequels, does well at the box office. In this case, Smile 2 took in 23 million dollars, which is 2 million more than the first film made.

Why do I like this? Because it’s something any aspiring writer on this site can achieve. I’m not saying it’s easy. But it IS achievable.

That’s because horror remains the NUMBER 1 avenue for an unknown writer to write a movie that not only gets sold, and not only gets made, but has the chance to become a hundreds of millions of dollars franchise. As Smile has already proven.

BUT.

You do need to understand how most horror projects get made in order to take advantage of this opportunity.

It’s tricky. So pay attention.

The majority of brand new horror films you see are created by writer-directors. From Lights Out to Get Out to It Follows to Smile. Usually, a short is created to show proof of concept or a new writer-director is in a position to make his first feature and goes with horror.

And you’ll notice a common thread with all these movies. They’re incredibly simple. Not just sort of simple. But INCREDIBLY simple. Lights Out is about a light switch. Get Out is a dude meeting his girlfriend’s parents. It Follows = a person follows you. Smile? Smile is a freaking smile! That’s it! The entire franchise is built on a single image.

So here’s the thing. I don’t think any of these movies would’ve worked as spec scripts. They’re too simplistic. And the key images (like an evil smile) wouldn’t shine bright enough on the page that someone would say, “I have to buy this.”

If you’re going to sell a horror spec, your concept and execution have to be a little more clever than the average screenplay. A Quiet Place is a good example. A world where you can’t make a sound or monsters kill you *is* still a simple premise. But note what the writers did with that. They created a nine months pregnant character who had no choice but to have a baby completely silently. That’s clever. And that’s why the script DID, unlike these other horror movies, sell as a spec.

So what do we call this practice then?

I think I’d like to call it SIMPLE + 1. Horror works great with a simple premise. That’s been proven over and over again. But “simple” means you have to direct it yourself. If you want to sell your horror script, you need that “+1” element. And, to me, the best +1 element is something more clever than the average bear. Either with the premise or the execution or both.

Sure, they’re older movies but I know for a fact The Sixth Sense would’ve sold today. As would The Others. As would Scream. Because they have that +1 element. The Sixth Sense has a prime hook: “I see dead people.” Not only that but an execution so great, it probably throws a +2 or a +3 into the mix. The Others was one of the better horror mysteries ever written (and also had a great final twist). And Scream was one of the best horror films ever at subverting the genre.

More recently on the spec side of things, you have horror films like 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Purge, Happy Death Day, The Menu, and, to a certain extent, Malignant (although I know there are extenuating circumstances with that spec sale). But I still think Malignant would’ve sold without the writer being in a relationship with James Wan.

So, if you want to sell sell sell a horror screenplay, make sure you are bringing a +1 element to the table. Otherwise, you could write the next “Smile” (“Sneeze” maybe?) and no one would take a chance on it.

As for the rest of the box office, I’m loving this little engine that could movie, The Wild Robot, crossing 100 million. It’s a bittersweet victory because I felt this movie had the best trailer of the year and since all animated movies make a billion dollars, it would as well. But then I learned this was a much smaller movie with smaller goals. Regardless, it’s got killer critic and audience scores, so much so that I almost bought it for 25 bucks on streaming the other day. Then I realized I’m not a crazy person. I could wait.

I’m still trying to work out We Live In Time’s path to production. Cancer films are about as fun to watch as cancer itself. But the truth is, actors do like these roles. And ever since Love Story’s surprise success in 1970, studios every once in a while take a gamble on one of these scripts, hoping they strike gold. I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re a writer who likes writing really depressing movies, there IS a path to success with cancer scripts. Actors will play these roles and studios will release these films.  But come on.  Which of these two movies would you rather see?  This one?

Or this one…?

Saturday Night’s quick demise at the box office was as expected as leaves falling from trees in October. Jason Reitman continues to be one of the most toothless directors in the business. His films are so light and inoffensive, they might as well be a helium balloon at a 10 year old’s birthday party.

It’s not that I’m against feel-good movies. Give me a Wonka screening any day of the week. But even his feel-good movies are devoid of any effective drama or conflict. There are no teeth in a Reitman movie. Now, that being said, I do like the spec-y way he approached this movie, setting it in real-time on the first night of Saturday Night Live. But someone’s got to help Reitman read the room. He’s worse at picking concepts than Trajent Future.

Finally, props go out to Anora, the Sean Baker film that is so indie, it will stop collecting money as soon as it reaches 5 million at the box office. The film made 90 thousand bucks per theater this weekend. I like Sean Baker’s films because they live by the Scriptshadow creed of: KEEP IT SIMPLE. But also because he creates an energy in front of the camera that’s legitimately special. I planned to see this this weekend but a last minute schedule change prevented me from doing so. But I’ll watch it soon and review it! I expect it to be excellent and a major Oscar contender.

What’d you see this weekend? What’s your review?

What if I told you I could shave dozens of hours of work off your next screenplay? It’s simple.  Stop putting so much time into description!

Not long ago, I was consulting on a screenplay. After I sent back the notes, which detailed some plot issues (the script lost a lot of its momentum in the second act) and some character issues (I didn’t feel like the main character was clear enough), I was surprised that the writer seemed unconcerned with either of these problems.

Instead, he was consumed with questions about his description. He asked me about a specific line describing a location on page 13, the introductory description of a secondary character not long after, and a couple of lines during a fight scene which he was concerned did not describe the fight in an exciting enough manner.

I’m not going to lie. I was frustrated. The script had way bigger issues than a random line on page 13 and whether a relatively unimportant character was described well. But then I remembered that when I first started writing, I was obsessive about this stuff as well. I would much rather spend a week on an already finished scene, trying to make sure every single word in the description was perfect, than tackle the glaring unlikability of my female love interest (haha, remember that terminology!)

There’s a reason for this. It’s because, when we start writing screenplays, we think that the most important thing is the WRITING. Which isn’t a surprise. “Screenwriting” has the word “writing” in it. Of course we’re going to think it’s about the writing.

It takes a while before we realize what screenwriting is really about. The storytelling. What is “storytelling” exactly? How does it differ from “writing?” Storytelling is the creative way in which we tell our story. From our plot choices to our character choices to our narrative choices. How we concoct that recipe has a massive effect on how the final dish tastes.

For example, when it comes to Strange Darling (major spoilers follow), another writer may have written that movie straight up. They may have told you, from the start, that the woman was the bad guy and the man was the good guy. To keep that information a secret for half the movie is a STORYTELLING CHOICE. And a strong one at that. It’s what makes the movie so enjoyable.

Think about that for a second. If that writer had spent 300 extra hours making sure every single descriptive line in the script was perfect BUT he told that story in a linear fashion (letting us know from the start that the woman was the bad guy), do you think the script would’ve been better or worse? Sure, it might have read cleaner and more descriptive on the page. But that pales in comparison to the feeling we got when that midpoint revelation arrived.

This is not to say that description isn’t important. Or that you shouldn’t pay attention to it. Description is kind of like sound in movies. We never think about sound unless it’s bad. Likewise, we don’t notice description unless it’s bad (clunky, lazy, or overtly generic).

Can sound actually improve a movie? Of course. In movies like The Zone of Interest, for example, the sounds of torture in the distance enhance the impact of the storytelling. But, in the end, we just want the sound to work, just like we want the description to work.

To that end, here are the three most important tips to remember when it comes to writing description in screenwriting.

Two lines per paragraph (or less) is best. Three lines if you’re writing a script that requires more description than usual.

These days, you really want your reader’s eyes moving down the page. So don’t write big paragraphs. Try to keep them short and to the point. “The woods were dotted with debris from the previous day’s vicious storm. Joe noticed many of the woodland animals up high in the trees, where they were safe, as if awaiting some official call from Mother Nature that going back to their daily routine was okay.” Do we really need the part about the animals? Couldn’t you get away with, “The woods were dotted with debris from the previous day’s vicious storm.” Ultimately, it’s up to you. But I find the second sentence to be unneeded.

Now, this changes if you’re writing the type of script that requires a lot of description. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania involves an entire universe that the reader is unfamiliar with. So you’re going to need to include a lot of description for that world. I might even say you can use some 4-line paragraphs in a script like that. But beware of writing too many of them as your description will start to look like a wall of text, which readers rebel against.

Prioritize description for the things that matter.

This is where a lot of newbie writers go astray. They treat description the same across the board. But that’s not the way to do it. Every element in your script has a “description priority level.” Wherever that element falls along that hierarchy determines how much description you want to use.

In the movie, “Wonka,” Willy Wonka is imprisoned at a “hotel” for most of the movie. This means that the hotel has a high description priority level. We’re going to see it again and again and again. So if your only description for a place like that is, “The hotel has an old-world charm, but the closer you look, the more decrepit it appears,” that’s simply not enough.

You’re going to need to tell us what the lobby looks like, how big the hotel is, if the rooms are big and cavernous or tight and claustrophobic. Is it clean or are there insects and rats scurrying about? Since we’re going to be in a lot of rooms here, it would be beneficial to lay out the geography of the hotel as well.

In comparison, if I remember correctly, there’s a scene in Wonka at a zoo. Because the zoo is one singular scene and because everybody has a good idea of what a zoo looks like, this description would have a very low priority level.

You describing it in some overly-detailed manner isn’t going to have a huge effect on how much the reader enjoys the scene. So it’s probably best to keep the description simple. “The sprawling urban zoo is complete with towering enclosures and winding paths, the air buzzing with distant roars and the chatter of children.” Boom, you’re done.

Now, let’s say you’re writing a movie like The Shining, where the entire movie takes place in that giant looming hotel. That’s a scenario where you want to – need to – go description crazy. Because the movie is built atop the atmosphere of this hotel. Every detail helps add to that atmosphere so it is okay to go hog-wild on your description.

Describe up to your writing ability level, but never above it.

One of the ways description stands out in the negative is when a writer tries to describe things in a manner above their writing level. Have you ever spoken to someone who throws SAT words into their sentences that aren’t used properly in an effort to sound smart?  Same concept here.

“The golden-sand beach stood tall against the prospect of time, fighting a losing battle as every wave swooped at it like a thief in the night, taking one more coin from its pocket.”

Do you see the attempt to sound thoughtful and clever, when all the description does is give the reader a clunky not-so-clear picture of the beach? Luckily, description works best when it’s simple and clear. Which means you don’t have to be a wordsmith to write effective description.

“A quiet beach stretches along the coastline, golden sand meeting the gentle rush of waves.”

That’s 3rd grade English BUT IT WORKS. That’s the most important thing to remember when it comes to writing description. If it works, that’s all that matters.

Wrapping things up, I promise you that your story represents 95% of what the reader cares about. While strong description can help a script, particularly if it’s a highly visual concept, clarity and simplicity will pay higher dividends on the whole. Be visual but be CLEAR. Do that and you’ll be a-okay.

I’m still offering October screenplay and pilot consultation deals.  $100 off my full rate.  Plus an extra $50 off if it’s a horror or thriller related story.  E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and mention this post if you’re interested!

A rare spec script that makes it to the big screen!

Genre: Courtroom Thriller
Premise: When a man is brought onto the jury of a slam-dunk murder case where he realizes he is the murderer, he must decide whether to save himself by convicting an innocent man or to sway the jury to let the falsely accused defendant go free.
About: This is the big Clint Eastwood project coming out soon. It stars Nicholas Hoult as the titular character. The script was written all the way back in 2008. Talk about inspiration to keep hopes alive on old scripts you’ve written! Although I won’t know for sure until I see the movie, it’s likely that Eastwood used that 2008 draft, as he’s known for sticking with the first drafts of scripts. He likes the rawness of them and feels that they’re more truthful (the same reason why he goes with a lot of first takes as well).
Writer: Jonathan Abrams
Details: 104 pages

I will always ride or die with a spec script that makes it to the big screen. It’s rare. So it’s worthy of celebrating when it happens.

Why is it rare? Because you have to understand how Hollywood works. Hollywood has always been a risk-averse business but they’ve never been more risk-averse than right now. Therefore, the only time they feel comfortable with a project is when it’s been proven. Proof equates to PEOPLE SPENDING MONEY ON IT. That’s why yesterday’s Horrorstor got optioned. Because people had purchased the book.

A script? A naked script is the biggest gamble in the business. It hasn’t been proven on any level. Which is why the only time Hollywood takes interest in one of these stacks of paper is when someone successful says *I* like this script.

That’s not to say a script won’t sell. Case in point, this script caught Clint Eastwood’s interest and, hence, the studio said, “We’re in.” So you have to get your scripts in front of enough of these greenlightable people until one of them says yes. What’s the best way to get scripts in front of these people? Agents. They have relationships with all the talent and can therefore get scripts to them. How do you get a script in front of agents? The best way is through managers. Managers are more writer friendly and therefore easier to get scripts to. They have relationships with all the agents and will send your script to their favorites when they think it’s time.  How do you get managers to read your scripts? Cold e-mail them. If you’re resourceful, it’s not hard to get most of their e-mails online. But you better come to them with a logline that has a hook. Or else it’s very likely that won’t bother requesting your script. These guys need to pay the bills. They’re not millionaires so it’s in their best interest to find the kind of concepts that sell. Keep that in mind the next time you’re thinking about sending your meditative road trip journey through Wyoming written in iambic pentameter.

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s talk about today’s script.

Justin Kemp, a normal 30-something dude with a wife and kid, has just been called in for Jury Duty. He’s not exactly thrilled about it but believes that it’s a civic duty and, therefore, when he shows up, he doesn’t try any of the sly tricks to get out of the gig. As a result, he’s chosen as one of the twelve jurors.

The case, it turns out, is about a guy, James Michael Sythe, who it is assumed murdered his girlfriend. The prosecution argues that Sythe, a former gang member with a temper, was so angry after his rich girlfriend broke up with him, that he bashed her over the head with a paper weight, took her body to a nearby road on a high cliff, and tossed it over.

But it’s when the lawyer mentions the date and the place that the incident happened that stops Justin cold. It was on November 6th of last year on a specific road. We get a quick flashback of Justin on that very road on that date last year. It was dark, storming. He was in his Land Rover. And he hit something. He screeches to a stop. Looks back. Doesn’t see anything. Or doesn’t want to. He then speeds off. This whole time, he told himself he hit a deer. But it turns out, he hit and killed a person.

Justin is, justifiably, rattled. But once he recovers, he has a life-altering decision to make. Does he send a man to prison who he knows didn’t commit the murder? And if not, how does he convince the other jury members, all of whom are 1000% sure this man did it, not to convict him, without drawing suspicion towards himself?

Justin decides he’s going to do the right thing and convince everyone that the defendant is innocent. But that strategy gets him in trouble almost immediately. The one jury member who wasn’t convinced the guy killed the girlfriend, a cop, privately starts looking into the case. He checks with his old friend, the coroner on the case, and finds out that the injury that killed her was more consistent with a car hitting her than a paperweight. Uh-oh.

Due to a mistake by that jury member, the prosecutor gets wind of this theory and starts looking into all of the cars that came in for auto work that time last year. After narrowing the field, she finds that there are a handful of cars that could’ve done it. And isn’t she surprised when one of them turns out to be Justin’s wife! Justin has no choice but to now let his wife in on the truth. But it may not matter. The walls keep closing in on Justin as they get closer and closer to a decision.

Today’s script comes from the school of “Find a new spin on your favorite movie.”

Or, it could even come from the school of, “Find a new spin on a famous movie that hasn’t had a new spin in a while.”

What’s that movie we’re talking about today? 12 Angry Men.

I’m actually surprised more scripts aren’t inspired by this premise due to it being tailor-made for tension, suspense, and fun revelations.

But, like I always say, every idea comes with its own set of challenges. Even the best ones. And this one comes with a couple.

For starters, don’t write one of these movies unless you are a) a lawyer or b) have an insane, obsessive, appetite for these legal stories. You cannot write one of these if you only have the idea but no knowledge of how legality in a courtroom works. I can promise you – PROMISE YOU – that your script will not be received well.  You won’t be able to capture the authenticity and detail of a real court case.

Another thing about these court scripts is that THEY MUST BE CLEVER.

Court scenarios are built for surprises and revelations. One of the reasons the court movie fell out of favor was because TV could accomplish the same thing. Thousands of court shows were then produced and all of them were trying to out-clever each other with their plot developments. Therefore, if you’re writing a courtroom movie? You have to come up with a top top TOP level of cleverosity to justify it.

So, let’s talk about how Abrams did.

Did he pull this off?

I would say that he did a decent job. I definitely wanted to know what happened next and, one could argue, that’s all a script needs to be successful – the desire for the reader to turn the pages.

But I think he kind of wimped out when setting up the main character.

Justin didn’t know that he murdered someone until he got into the courtroom. While this allows the main character to be likable, which is, I’m sure, what motivated that choice, it steers the script away from the far more interesting version of Justin, whereby he killed someone, knew it, and is steering the jury towards a guilty verdict.

Believe me, I know that the darker version of Justin is a harder path to go down. Because in every step of the script’s development, you’re going to get pushback. People are going to tell you, “The main character isn’t likable. Nobody wants to root for a murderer. Making your main character a bad person is script suicide.” I get it!

But there’s no question whatsoever that Justin being the inadvertent murderer and trying to get this guy convicted is the more interesting storyline. And it’s doable! You can do things like make the defendant a really bad person outside of not murdering the woman, so we still root against him. And there are always things you can do to make your main character more likable. There are plenty of famous murderers we have rooted for throughout our moviegoing history. Heck, we all once rooted for a cannibal!!!

Despite this more friendly interpretation of the setup, the script is still pretty good. Abrams does a good job with the prosecutor, Faith, closing in on Justin, so it isn’t just the jury decision we’re looking forward to. We’re looking forward to whether Faith is going to expose him.

Definitely a fun spec script that’s worth checking out.

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

What I learned: This is a great example of the power of choosing timeless concepts. When you choose a concept like Horrorstor, your script is dependent on how long Ikea stays within popular culture. But if you choose a concept about a courtroom murder case, you could have 10-20 years of that script being a viable potential purchase. This script was written 16 years ago but because of the timeless concept, it was still buyable after all that time.