Genre: Slasher/Dark Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) Swept up in the excitement of her wedding day, Dr. Julie Wheeler is oblivious to the killer on her guest list, who is methodically stalking her nearest and dearest, until its too late.
About: This is going to be a little weird because I’m writing this “About” section AFTER I’ve written the review. I do this occasionally because when I look somebody up ahead of a review, I find that their success (or lack of) influences what I write. It’s better when I read the script knowing nothing. That’s when I’m the most honest. So count me both surprised and not surprised when I found out that Jessica Knoll was a successful novelist (her novel, “Luckiest Girl Alive” has almost 4000 ratings on Amazon, which is super hard to achieve). You’ll notice in the things I talk about in the review why her being a novelist makes sense. Anyway, this looks to be Knoll’s first screenplay. Or, at least, the first one she’s sent out to people.
Writer: Jessica Knoll
Details: 108 pages
It’s really hard to find fun premises like today’s on the 2019 Black List. Check out a couple of the loglines I had to wade through to get to this one… “An absent mother attempts to reconnect with her daughter by relaying to her how she helped her own parent through battles with cancer and addiction.” Sounds like a page-turner. “A brother and sister navigate the perils of both man and nature through Central America in their quest to find safety in the United States.” Sometimes I think these loglines are used as cheap alternatives to euthanizing people.
But just like Hamilton, I’m not giving up! I’m not going to miss my shot (to read a great script). And today’s concept sounds fun. So hold my hand (in an appropriate socially-distanced way) and let’s check it out together as script friends…
SCRIPT FRIENDS UNITE!
An upper-class New York wedding is going on for 34-year-old biotech doctor Julie Wheeler and 37-year-old Tom Cunningham. They’ve brought everyone up to the Cunningham Ranch, which, in addition to being Instagram friendly, has been in the Cunningham family for generations.
But we got problems from the start. Such as bridesmaid Becca, who just slept with Tom’s twin brother, womanizer Dylan, is killed by a mysterious axe-murderer in the wine room!
Later, Jason (Becca’s husband), heads out into the woods looking for Becca, since nobody else seems to care that she’s missing. He’s met by the caretaker, Edith. Edith has been on these grounds since the beginning and has known Tom and Dylan since they were kids. Could she be the killer? We’re not sure. But she does warn Jason that Tom and Dylan are known to pull “switcheroos.”
Meanwhile, Julie and Tom get married. Everything seems great, although they find it strange that Jason, a groomsman, decided not to show up. Every couple of scenes, we’re reminded that there’s a dispute at the heart of the Cunningham Ranch deed. It’s supposed to be split between Tom and Dylan. But their mother, who divorced their father, is also getting half of the property.
Amongst all this, Julie is having to deal with her impossible-to-please mother, who thinks Tom isn’t anywhere close to the status of man she deserves. All this leads to the obvious question: Can Julie get out of this weekend alive? As in, literally?
Here’s something I always forget then I see it in a script and I’m reminded of it again. One of the Ten Commandments of screenwriting is don’t have your characters babble on in a scene. Make sure the scene is focused. Establish the point of the scene (what each character wants) then come into the scene as late as possible and get out as soon as possible. This is proper screenwriting etiquette so that your characters don’t talk forever and bore us to death.
However, if you’re good with dialogue, this rule doesn’t apply to you. You want to keep it in the back of your mind, of course. But if you can write lively, clever, fun, NATURAL interactions between characters, the reader doesn’t notice that the scene is long. We don’t care about that rule because we’re wrapped up in the interaction.
You can see this on page 6 in a scene where Julie is getting ready for the wedding. There’s a lot of chit-chat, backstory mentioning, even significant exposition – things that typically kill dialogue. But Knoll writes dialogue so effortlessly, we’re too busy enjoying ourselves to notice it.
So how do you know if you write good dialogue and can ignore this rule? You have to be told by at least three people who have read your work, unprompted, that your dialogue is really good. If no one brings that up on their own, stick to the basics. Clear scene goal. Get in late. Leave early. And yes, you’re cheating if you corner them with a, “So did you like my dialogue?? It was good, right!?”
If Til Death only had a bunch of these dialogue scenes, it would be in good shape. But after that scene, the plotting takes center stage. It’s all about herding characters to certain areas (it’s time for pictures!), getting a character alone so he’s exposed the potential killer. And lots of setup about the twins, the ranch deed, and complicated high society money problems.
Once the script got bogged down in that, it wasn’t nearly as entertaining. I liked it better when it was funny. The opening was funny. Julie talking to her friends in that scene was funny. But most of that goes out the window when it’s time to set plot points up.
And this is something a lot of new writers struggle to figure out. If you have a plot-heavy story, you don’t want to let the plot become a burden on the script. It can’t be this never-ending wall of information because then you lose the fun. And, literally, that’s what we get here. We get walls of text everywhere. 14-line paragraphs aren’t uncommon. This in a medium where you should be nervous writing a 4-line paragraph.
It seems to me like Knoll is a talented writer who’s new to screenwriting. Some of these mistakes are Screenwriting 101 stuff. And now that I’m thinking about it, that 10-page dialogue scene I praised may not have been a deliberate choice, but rather the writer not knowing that 10-page dialogue scenes aren’t common in screenwriting.
I’m going to talk about another ‘what I learned’ in a second but my preemptive ‘what I learned’ is to not overburden your script with direction. If there’s a lot of describing what’s going on and where we are and you’re mixing that in with lots of exposition-focused dialogue, that’s like forcing a soccer player to go out on the field holding a 30-pound dumbbell. It’s slowing everything down to a crawl and it’s hard to make a story work under those circumstances.
This got close to a ‘worth the read’ because I liked the premise and I liked the way the script started. But it lost its way under a heavy dose of too much plotting.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A lot of good jokes come from establishing a sad or intense situation, the kind of situation that could only warrant serious reactions, and then you throw in a line that’s the opposite of serious. Early in the script, there’s a murder next to a wine rack and a couple of wine bottles fall and break, causing the wine to mix with the blood of the murdered body. It’s a gruesome scene. The caterer and his assistant are horrified by the victim’s death and worried about how to replace the wine (a couple of bottles of ’97 Piedmont) since the wedding is today. He decides on a cheap red wine replacement then says to the assistant, “And find a mop for this. (sniffs the air) And Febreeze or something. (sniffs again) Maybe we dodged a bullet. Smells like the ’97 turned.” You can use this type of humor successfully in any comedy. The more serious the situation, the better the surprise joke will play.
And now for something completely different…
Genre: Movie/Stage Musical
Premise: The story of Alexander Hamilton… rapped.
About: Hamilton was a Broadway sensation beyond anything this decade has seen. Unfortunately, the only way to see it was to a) pony up 2 grand for a seat and b) locate a time machine, since Hamilton’s original cast no longer does the show. But since movies have been indefinitely canceled, Disney saw a unique opportunity to bring a hidden gem to the masses. They paid $75 million dollars(!) for the rights to broadcast a previously taped version of the Hamilton play on their Disney+ service.
Writer: Lin-Manuel Miranda (inspired by Ron Chernow’s book)
Details: 160 minutes!!!
How does a blogger
former screenwriter
GSU whore
and an irishman,
dropped in
the middle of a pandemic,
egocentric
slightly menace-
-ing guy, watch a play,
that they say
was supposed to be better than okay,
but it turns out it wasn’t even the best thing he saw that day…
Okay, that’s the first verse of my upcoming play titled, “Shadow.”
Let’s be straight up real with each other here. Is there any way something that has been THIS HYPED can live up to that hype? Everybody who’s seen this thing talks about it like it’s the stage equivalent of surfing on a rainbow while making love to a mermaid. Shakespeare himself would’ve quit had he seen Hamilton.
So I had high expectations.
To say those expectations weren’t met would be a Shakespearean understatement.
The plot here is basically Alexander Hamilton is an orphan who comes to this country with nothing and he wants to be a military general (I think) so he becomes George Washington’s assistant. From there, he marries a woman from a rich family to up his own status, even though he’s secretly in love with the woman’s sister.
The initial goal is to secede from England which Hamilton is determined to do. They achieve this, to which England’s king says, “You’ll miss me.” From there, it’s about trying to form the country’s first government. Hamilton works closely with Washington, who becomes the first president.
Eventually, Hamilton’s best friend, Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) switches to a competing political party and the grudge is on. The two finally decide to have a good old fashioned duel. During the duel, Hamilton intentionally misses his shot (harkening back to the earlier song where he sings, “I’m not going to miss my shot,” in his pursuit of greatness) and, as a result, Hamilton is shot and dies. The end.
If you are a Hamilton fan, I strongly recommend you stop reading here. Almost everything written below will trigger you. Okay, are you gone? No? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
There are some things to praise here. The production value is amazing. From the costumes to the set to the lighting to the choreography to the line memorization to the dancing – all of that was a marvel to watch. We give so much praise to a movie director when he does an undisturbed eight-minute shot. Imagine doing that times 20. That’s what Hamilton did. It’s one continuous shot for 160 minutes. I can’t imagine how difficult that is to pull off.
Also, props to Lin-Manuel Miranda for coming up with this idea. This is one of those ideas when you’re a nobody pitching it to people, they look at you sideways. “Yeah, so I’m working on this play, right? And it’s about Alexander Hamilton. Do you know him?” “Isn’t he one of the guys who founded the Constitution or something?” “Yeah, so anyway, he raps. And it’s going to be a rap musical about his story. Cool right?” “Uhhhhh… yeah. Sure, buddy. Good luck with that one.”
To come up with something that original and to make it work – hats off to Miranda.
But while we’re in Miranda’s corner, let’s start with him. When Miranda first hit the Hollywood scene off his Hamilton success, I was confused. He just seemed like a normal guy. He didn’t have any star power that I could see. He didn’t seem to be that good of an actor. As far as I could tell, the only thing he was exceptional at was rap freestyle. So I guess it’s no surprise why he hasn’t succeeded in Hollywood. He doesn’t have any exceptional abilities.
But I was eager to see what all these Hollywood bigwigs saw in him when they watched Hamilton. I mean, this is the role that made him famous. There was no way this performance wouldn’t blow me away. And then I watched it and no blowing away occurred. At all. I was so underwhelmed by his performance. Again, he has average stage presence. He’s not a good singer. Most of the time, he looks out of place.
I was much more impressed by Leslie Odom Jr., who was stellar, and the guy who played the king. Every time they took the stage, I noticed I paid attention more. But the second Miranda came back, I found myself bored and my mind drifting. That may be sacrilegious to say but I’m calling it like I see it. To be honest, it felt to me like Miranda snuck into this show because he created it. If any one else had written this musical, there’s no way in a million years they would’ve cast Miranda.
Also, what you guys know about me at this point is that I need a good story. I need to understand what the hero wants and where we’re going. I want obstacles to overcome. I want drama. I want the major story beats to be a little unexpected to keep me on edge. Instead I got a rapped Wikipedia entry.
He did this. Then he did that. Then he married this. Then he went to war for that.
I mean I thought Christopher Nolan had an exposition problem. Hamilton is, like, 97% exposition. Sheesh.
And since everything was sung, a lot of the nuance of the story (if there was any) was lost. It was hard to keep up since rapping moves the speaking clip along faster. So if you miss even a verse, you could find yourself confused about what the scene was about. That happened often.
I kept checking where I was in the play and was routinely shocked. “I’m only 20 minutes in????” “It’s only been 25 minutes???” “It’s only been 27 minutes???” But it was how much time was left that was so daunting. If you’re 30 minutes in, you still have 130 minutes to go!!!! I was bored out of my mind by minute 20. Dancing, singing, more dancing, more singing, more dancing and singing, what comes next, oh, more singing and dancing! Good lord, somebody stab me in the face with a bayonet.
In fairness, I want to recognize that music is a very divisive thing. It’s right up there with comedy in that two people can listen to the exact same thing, and while one person can hear Bach, the other person can hear Gwar.
Cause when people talk about these songs being so great, I didn’t have that experience AT ALL. The songs all sounded pretty much the same to me. And I actually like rap. And while I’m far from a musical nerd, it’s not like I don’t appreciate musical music. When Rent came out, I would hum those tunes all the time. That, to me, was catchy song-writing. This just felt like a string of slightly varied upbeat tunes that allowed the characters to keep the rap coming.
Gosh, Carson, tell us how you really feel.
Okay.
I kinda hated this.
There’s literally NOTHING here I can relate to. The secret sauce with any story is to create characters who people identify with. They see something in the characters that they see in themselves. And because of that, they feel connected to the character. They want the character to succeed. That’s what drives their interest in the story. I don’t identify with going off to war. With dumping tea out of a boat. With trying to marry a high status woman to up my own status so I can rise in the political ranks. None of that resonates with me on any level.
I suppose you could make the argument that someone coming from nothing to make something of themselves is a powerful character journey. Yeah, but the problem is, like I said, Miranda is so underwhelming I didn’t care. Theoretically, that should’ve worked. But his barely average performance kept me from buying in.
You’re probably thinking I’m going to rate this a “What the hell did I just watch?” But Hamilton is too much of a spectacle for that rating. And I think that, somewhere deep inside, there’s some jealousy coming out in my review. I think all artists are jealous when someone comes up with something that so many people love and they, themselves, don’t understand. Cause it makes you doubt what you think you know about what people want. There’s a little of that “I DON’T GET IT” going on here. But all I can do is give my honest opinion about what I saw. And that’s that I was bored.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I was talking to a writer the other day about Rian Johnson’s “Brick,” his first movie. I specifically remember that film because it debuted at Sundance and, at the time, the prevailing thought was that you hyped the sh*t out of your film before you got to Sundance. That way buzz would build and, theoretically, it’d give you the best chance at selling your movie. Johnson, however, took the opposite route. His strategy was, “Let’s not hype our movie up at all and, that way, when people see it, it’ll feel more like they’ve found something special that nobody else knows about.” The strategy worked. Brick came out of that festival as one of the big purchased movies. I bring this up because over-hype probably influenced my review today. I was expecting so much that Hamilton couldn’t possibly give me what I wanted. So when you’re out there trying to promote your script, be strategic about how you talk about it. You always want to be confident. But if you hype your script up too much, it’s likely to have a negative effect. In fact, every time a writer has told me they’ve written the greatest script ever, the scripts have been bad.
Just TWO DAYS LEFT to get your scripts in for The Last Great Screenplay Contest. July 4th. 11:59pm Pacific Time. carsonreeves3@gmail.com. I cannot wait to see what you’ve got in store! But first…
Story time!
When I was a wee little tyke screenwriter, long before the days of Scriptshadow, I made a lot of mistakes. In fact, if there was a mistake to be made, I probably made it. But one of the biggest mistakes still haunts me to this day. Not because, if I hadn’t made that mistake, I would’ve sold the screenplay. But because it was embarrassing. I still cringe whenever I think about it.
When I used to teach tennis, I had a tennis student who was high up on the food chain at a certain prestige cable channel. I had been carefully mentioning my writing aspirations to her every few lessons and, over time, she started asking me what I was working on. It just so happened that the genre of the script I was working on was exactly what the channel was looking for at the moment.
So this lesson of mine put her reputation on the line with the head of the company, saying that she had a script from someone that was just what he was looking for. Long story short, there was this very specific time frame where he could read it. She came to me one day and said, “He can read it this Saturday on his flight. This might be your only chance to get it to him.”
Now, for the most part, my script was finished. But, of course, the excitement of this opportunity got to me and I was determined to make the script as good as it could possibly be in the next five days. I came up with an exciting new opening scene, which I wrote. I realized a chunk in the middle of the script would’ve been better served if I moved it up 20 pages. A secondary character I never quite liked was ditched in favor of a brand new character I came up with on the spot. And then, of course, I went through every single scene, rewriting lines of dialogue and lines of description to make them as good as they could possibly be.
I literally finished 20 minutes before I had to deliver the script. I printed it out (yes, this is when we had to print scripts) and raced to my lesson’s place, proudly handing her the script. For the next three days, I dreamed of my ascension into Hollywood and being the hot new screenwriter in town. It wasn’t even a dream. It was manifest destiny.
But then the next week something funny happened. My lesson canceled. And then, the week after that, she showed up, but she avoided any talk of screenwriting with me, hastily scurrying away the second the lesson ended. “Hey,” I yelled, “We still have to clean up the balls!” Next lesson, same thing. Operation Scurry Off. Finally, I just came out and asked her, “What happened with the script?” And I saw her body crumple as if her entire insides had deflated.
She explained to me that her boss “tried” to read the script. “Tried” being the operative word here. But it was so incomprehensible that he gave up after the first 20 pages. Although she didn’t say it out loud, the vibe I got from her is that this lowered her a peg in the company. This man’s time was extremely valuable and she wasted it on a script that wasn’t even ‘not good.’ But a script that was so bad you didn’t even understand what was going on.
Now being a young defensive screenwriter who believed that everything he wrote was genius, I blamed this on “Hollywood bullshit.” He probably wasn’t paying attention. He never gave the script a chance. Because I didn’t have a big agent, he didn’t give me the same amount of respect as he would an “established” screenwriter.
But let me tell you, a year down the road, I opened that script back up. And it wasn’t just bad. It was unreadable. In the moment, all those last-second changes that I’d come up with made perfect sense. But because I never allowed them to sit and never came back to the script with an adequate amount of time passed and fresh eyes, I couldn’t see just how messy the script was.
All of this is to remind you not to make the same mistake I did. When you have a script deadline – whether it be The Last Great Screenplay Contest, the Nicholl, an important contact who wants to read it this Saturday – you have to understand what you can and cannot do when there’s only a few days left. And I’m going to help you with that right now.
First – your script should be finished. If you’re still writing the last act right now, don’t bother sending your script to me. I’m serious. I will hate it. I can guarantee that. The ending is everything. It ties the story together. It’s the payoff to everything you’ve set up. If you don’t even have that written yet, that means there’s so many things you haven’t figured out about your story.
Second – and this should be obvious – don’t you DARE mess with the structure. This is the fastest way to destroy a screenplay with so little time left. Structure always takes the most time. So, if you’re two days away and you see a structural mistake (“The bank robbery scene should probably be moved to the midpoint”), I’m sorry but you can’t change that. It’s going to have massive ripple effects which you won’t realize for a couple of months.
Third, it’s too late to get rid of, change, or add any characters. Even characters with a limited number of scenes. You’re not going to create any character of substance in two days. Don’t mess with that. Trust me.
Next, don’t f$%# with the first five pages. The first five pages will be the most tempting to play with. But more often than not, a change you make in those first few pages is going to hurt you. A new first scene can change the way the whole script reads. We just talked about this with The King of Staten Island. Originally, the first scene of the movie, Pete driving his car with his eyes closed, was in the middle of the film. They decided to put it at the beginning and it gave you a much better feel for who the character was. But they tested that change. They had people watch both the old and new version before they committed to it. You’d be throwing in a new scene at the last second and hoping it works. That’s not a good strategy when sending a script to anyone.
Next, stop rewriting any lines in the first ten pages – any description, any dialogue – don’t rewrite lines. The chances of you misspelling a word go up 500%. I know this because every time I change a sentence right before I post an article on Scriptshadow, those are ALWAYS the sentences with the misspellings in them.
So what can you do? Proofread. That’s all you should be doing with two days left. Make sure the sentences read cleanly and don’t have any mistakes in them. All your creative work should’ve been done by now. It actually should’ve been done two weeks ago. If you see a truly glaring error that requires you to rewrite a page or a scene… I mean… I guess you can change it. But those changes have a much better shot at hurting you than helping you.
Art is a weird thing. Any change needs time before you can see it objectively. So if you’re rewriting anything of substance this late in the game, do so at your own risk.
A screenplay is not a school assignment where there’s this romanticization of barely finishing the paper on time and getting it to your professor with just minutes to go. A screenplay is your lifeblood. It’s your story. It’s your emotion. It’s what’s inside of you. It’s supposed to be the most beautiful representation of your self-expression that you can achieve through this medium. Therefore, it should be the best you can possibly make it. If you’re having to change scenes with two days to go, your script probably isn’t ready for consumption yet. I want to see your best. Not your rushed best.
Good luck to everyone. I can’t wait to see what you’ve written!
Chronicles of Narnia meets The Most Dangerous Game and the power of a great concept
Genre: Fantasy/Thriller
Premise: Two hunters pay a strange mischievous man to travel into a world where you can hunt the creatures of fairy tales.
About: This short story by Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill, spawned a huge bidding war last year that Netflix threw the most money at. The short story can be found in Hill’s book of short stories, Full Throttle. It is being adapted by Jeremy Slater, who created The Umbrella Academy (for, yes, Netflix)
Writer: Joe
Details: Roughly 75 pages
I love big ideas!
We don’t get enough of them anymore.
This is a big idea. And it rides that elusive “same but different” line perfectly. It feels both familiar and fresh. If I could figure out what the secret sauce is to achieving that balance, I would be a billionaire. Instead, I see a bunch of ideas that are too much the same or too far out there.
“Faun” feels like a script that would’ve hit the market during the spec boom. And, no, it didn’t have to be a short story to get purchased. This is something that would’ve worked as a spec. That’s how good the idea is. So take heed – any one of you can sell a script if you come up with an idea as good as this.
The story follows a pharmaceutical billionaire named Stockton who loves to hunt big game. He’s friends with a “regular guy” named Fallows who also likes to hunt. Fallows used to be in the military so he’s seen his share of bloody spectacle.
The two are joined in Africa by their 18 year old sons, Peter (Stockton’s son) and Christian (Fallows’ son) to hunt some big game. Fallows ends up bagging a lion and then they all go back to Maine where Stockton has arranged a meeting with Mr. Charn, a strange middle-aged man.
Mr. Charn explains to Fallows that he runs a secret game-hunting business himself. But that it’s only available twice a year and it costs 250,000 dollars. Fallows is, of course, skeptical, even though Stockton’s already gone on this journey himself. So Mr. Charn shows a video tape of two men hunting and killing a “fawn,” which is a man with horns and blue furry legs.
It takes some convincing but Fallows eventually realizes it’s the real deal so he’s in. The next day the five of them go through a small door in Mr. Charn’s house. This door is the portal to this world. It is only open 2 days a year. The rest of the time, it’s a crawlspace. And, once you’re in the world, you need to be back by the end of the day or you’ll be stuck here for 9 months. And it won’t be you doing the hunting then. It’ll be them.
“Them” consists of every weird creature of lore you can think of. Fawns, fairies, centaurs, cyclops, and other monsters that have no names. It all seems impossibly perfect. The chance to kill something that only a handful of people on earth have ever killed. But Fallows soon learns that this land is unlike any he’s seen before and that even the tiniest mistake could result in death.
Joe Hill’s writing isn’t nearly as accessible as his father’s. Here’s the third paragraph of his story: “The baobab was old, nearly the size of a cottage, and had dry rot. The whole western face of the trunk was cored out. Hemingway Hunts had built the blind right into the ruin of the tree itself: a khaki tent, disguised by fans of tamarind. Inside were cots and a refrigerator with cold beer in it and a good Wi-Fi signal.”
The only thing I understood in that paragraph was beer and wi-fi. And this sort of scattershot writing style constantly creeps into Hill’s work. It’s not unclear. But it never feels as clear as it could be.
There was one point, early on, when our characters kill a lion. It’s a long scene. And, at the end of it, the lion leaps back up and nearly kills them. But Fallows is able to shoot it dead. It turns out the lion wasn’t as dead as they thought.
Then, after this, we get the line, “The Saan bushmen roared with laughter.” Ummm, what? This was the first time I was hearing of any bushmen. And the scene was 25 pages long. And, also, this isn’t exactly a moment that you would laugh at. They were all milliseconds away from dying. You’d get moments like that that were frustrating. If there’s bushmen around this whole time, let me know!
However, “Faun” survives this pitfall because the idea is so good. It’s a lot harder to screw up good ideas. Because what’s going on in producers and agents heads when they’re reading good concepts is, “That annoying part doesn’t matter because I can totally see this as a movie.” Contrast that with a dumb part that happens on some introspective character-driven indie script with no concept. That will usually end your chances with the agent right there.
What I admire most about this story is that it navigates the contradictory nature of its concept with ease. When you write a script like this, you’re basically asking the audience to root against your characters. It’s the same thing as a Friday the 13th movie. We’re rooting for Jason to kill them all. And that’s a lot harder to pull off than a traditional hero-driven story because you’re trying to make us stay interested in people we want to die.
Ideally, you want the middle ground. You want good people to be forced to do bad things. Like Breaking Bad. Or like the new project Edgar Wright signed onto, The Chain. That’s about people who just had a child kidnapped being forced to kidnap a child themselves in order to free their kid. It’s good people being forced to do a bad thing.
That’s not the case here. These are all bad people. They want to kill animals. They want to kill actual intelligent creatures. There’s nothing to root for with them. I’m actually surprised that Hill didn’t make one of the children reluctant. That would’ve given us someone to latch onto. But both Peter and Christian want blood as much as their fathers.
While reading this story, I had it at a double-worth-read. And then something happened that turned it into an impressive. Before you read on, I want you to imagine what might happen in a story like this for me to raise my ranking up to the rarely-given ‘impressive.’ What would you do with this story to get it there?
What Hill did was he didn’t rest on his laurels. He had plenty to work with already. He had an entire world full of unique creatures. However, what he did was set the characters up at a camp to prepare for the hunt, and then, just as they were about to go off, Fallows jams a knife into Stockton’s face and shoots Peter in his forehead.
At that moment I thought, “Now we have a movie.” We already had a movie. But this is a great writing move. You put all the focus on the outside danger, which makes the twist of “danger from within” that much more shocking. That really upped the ante of the story because now, in addition to having such a cool idea, I had no idea where the story was going to go. Which is exactly where I want to be as a reader.
This is a nice reminder that high concept ideas are not dead. They are alive and well. So, by all means, look into that idea notebook of yours and see if you have a couple of these stashed away. Even if they’re expensive. If they’re as good of an idea as this? And the writing is solid? It will sell. I can pretty much guarantee it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “Don’t cross the river!” I love this screenwriting tip. It always works. When you stick your hero unwittingly in the haunted house, have someone say, “Whatever you do, don’t open the red door by the bathroom.” And, the rest of the movie, we’re going to look forward to what’s behind the red door. Here we get the same thing. Mr. Charn warns Fallows and Stockton that, whatever you do, don’t cross the river! It’s dangerous over there. So guess what we’re looking forward to? That’s right. We’re on the edge of our seats to see what happens when they cross the river. “Don’t do [blah]” is a great way to create some anticipation in your reader.
Genre: Comedy
Premise: A subversive superhero story about the world’s only superhero living a bachelor lifestyle, learning he has two very different teenage twins he never knew existed, and now has to figure out how to be a father.
About: This script made last year’s Black List with 8 votes! This is the writer’s big breakthrough script. He is a copywriter in Los Angeles.
Writer: Sean Tidwell
Details: 106 pages
You guys know I’m all about subversive superhero scripts. Whether you love it, hate it, can’t stand it, or want to marry it, superheroes are the biggest thing going on in theaters these days. Or, three months ago at least. These days, no movie is doing well in theaters. Now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder if there’s a perfect script to write for the coronavirus era. A movie that takes advantage of the new, very specific, reality of what moviegoing will become. Feels like there’s an opportunity there. But I’ve gotten off track.
Right, so superheroes. Whenever there’s a behemoth of an industry, there is an opportunity to make money on smaller ideas that orbit that industry. iPhones make Apple a bagillion dollars. But they also make a lot of smaller companies who offer add-ons for iPhones a lot of dollars. Same idea with these superheroes, aye. The right idea that indirectly explores superheroes would make producers’ heads explode. Because you get a superhero movie without having to pay that hefty IP price tag.
The problem with these ideas that I’ve seen so far is that they haven’t been that clever. The Boys has done the best job so far. Then again, it’s not an original idea. It’s based on a real comic. That spec that sold last year about a heist where the characters realize they’re inside the home of a superhero sounded fun. But I haven’t heard anything about it since.
Super Dad sounds like something a bored Vin Diesel might attach himself to. But, as we’ve all learned on this site, it comes down to execution. A good concept helps. But it’s what the writer does with the characters and the plot that matter most. Can Super Dad pull off the unlikely and overcome its familiar premise?
We meet Layton Wade as he saves a young girl falling from a crane on top of a building. When he lands, he reaches out and a Gatorade appears. Layton isn’t a real superhero. He’s just acting! But wait, then the real crane falls! Layton runs over and catches it before it mauls the crew. Layton really is a superhero!
Layton is also a player. And a big drinker. And hasn’t grown up. 13 years after that commercial, at 40 years old, he’s still partying with local sports stars from the Los Angeles Rams and drinking til the early morning hours. And even though he’s having some issues accepting middle age, he wouldn’t trade his lifestyle for the world.
So he’s not thrilled when a social worker comes to his Iron Man like Los Angeles mansion and tells him that twins, 13 year old Will and Anna, are his kids. Some girl he had sex with 13 years ago died. So Layton has become the lone guardian. And he ain’t happy about it. He tries everything in his power to get the social worker to take them back but fails.
Layton is thrust into a life of parenting, a life he does not enjoy. He’s got to take these two to middle school. As in: HIM. Layton. Superhero. Has to drive kids to school. It’s so beneath him. This isn’t fostering a lot of love from his kids, who are beginning to hate him.
Meanwhile, there’s a woman named Scarlett – she actually asked Layton to invest in her company 13 years ago on that commercial set – who is on the verge of becoming the next Google. That’s IF her metal exo-skeleton suits created to help disabled children work. She’s oh-so-close to the finishing touches but the funding has run out and she’s getting desperate for the money she needs to achieve her dream.
Not so coincidentally, local criminals Layton is assigned to stop are wearing metal exo-skeleton suits, creating the first humans he’s encountered who are as strong as him! Why is Scarlett targeting Layton? Will Layton learn to parent? Oh, and when Anna and Will’s aunt offers to raise the kids, what will Layton do? Will he go back to his awesome bachelor lifestyle? Or will he finally accept the responsibilities of becoming an adult?
These are actually really hard scripts to pull off. You’re writing to the lowest-common denominator in terms of discernment (kids and their parents). But you still need to write a good enough script to impress the Hollywood gatekeepers. Not to mention, it’s hard to write something funny when the humor needs to be this safe.
So color me tickled that Super Dad pulled it off!
This script was actually really good. And if I sound surprised, it’s because family comedy scripts are often the worst, the cinematic equivalent of Fuller House.
But the writer managed to write a bunch of funny scenarios and moments. Couple that with an easily likable hero and a well thought out plot, and you have yourself a winner.
I knew the script was in good shape when the Aunt plot point emerged. These kids are thrust upon Layton and he’s forced to take them. But, after a couple of days, the social worker calls back and says their aunt is willing to take them. But she’s out of the country for a month.
This is a small thing but this is what good screenwriters do. Not only does, “You can give the kids back after a month,” introduce a BIG CHOICE that the hero will have to make at the end of the film (It’s always better if your hero has a choice), but it subconsciously structures the story for the reader. The reader now knows that’s the time-frame. In a month, he’s either going to keep the kids or get rid of them.
Another thing I liked was that he inherited twins. In every other iteration of this idea, it’s one kid who shows up. Of course, that makes total sense, since the one-night stand scenario only allows for one kid to have been born. By making it twins, it puts a subtle twist on the formula that makes this just a TEEEEENSY bit different. And that’s all you’re trying to do with a script. You’re trying to add these little twists to common scenarios so your script reads differently from everyone else’s.
But the big thing is that the script is funny. I laughed a lot. There’s a scene where Layton is with his kids and he gets a call that a bank is being robbed. This forces him to go stop the robbers while leaving his kids outside. During the battle, his car gets destroyed, and, afterwards, he doesn’t know what to do. So Anna calls an Uber. And she accidentally calls Uber Pool (they came from a poor family so that’s what their mom always used to call). We get this funny moment where the most famous man in the world is riding home in a car filled with his kids and several Uber passengers.
There’s also a moment where Anna has her first period and Layton has to go buy tampons. This is his worst nightmare. He’s terrified of being seen shopping for tampons. He doesn’t like the idea of his daughter becoming a woman. So the whole thing is giving him major anxiety and, while it’s happening, a shopper walks into the aisle and is so shocked by seeing Layton that she drops her cranberry juice, which shatters on the white tiled floor, forming a big red horrifying blotch right in front of Layton.
But the biggest achievement is that Layton is fun to be around. Even though I’ve seen it all before, it’s fun watching him try to parent. His kids go to school. His daughter tries to make a football team of all boys. His son is an anime dork who’s crushing on a girl and doesn’t know how to ask her out. Layton becomes determined to help them. And, in the process, starts to love them. It’s all a bit cliche but the smart and funny execution is a cut above all the other scripts I read in this genre. It’s good stuff.
I want to finish off by alerting you to one negative, however. This is something that’s rarely discussed in screenwriting because it’s so specific. However, it’s worth noting because I do see it happen quite a bit.
This is using your opening scene as a big reveal when the big reveal only works in theory and not in practice. So the opening is scene here is pretty clever. We get a scenario we’ve seen a thousand times before. A damsel (in this case, a girl) is in distress, hanging onto a crane at the top of a skyscraper, losing her grip and falling, then Layton flies up and saves her, then when he gets down on the ground, we pull back and see it’s a commercial. Layton is not a real superhero. He just plays one.
While the crew members rush in to do their jobs, Layton talks to his agent. As this is happening, the crane on top of the building, which is real, breaks and falls down. Just as it’s about to hit everyone, Layton runs over and catches it to save them. It’s a double-twist. Layton really IS a superhero. Clever, right?
Here’s the problem. We already knew that. The title of the script is Super Dad. And, chances are, we didn’t read this script without hearing the pitch or reading the logline. And, if this script is so lucky as to become a movie, we’ll have seen all the advertising and know he’s a superhero going into the film. Which means this scene will play out as… “Well, yeah, duh. We already knew that.”
What does this mean? Because this scenario comes more than you’d expect in screenwriting. People are going to know important information about your script before they’ve read it. You’re probably thinking, “Well then we won’t tell them what the movie is about so everything is a surprise!” But if you don’t tell anybody what your script is about, no one’s going to want to read it.
How big of a problem is this? Not gigantic. Readers might read this scene and still think it’s cute, even though they already knew the reveal. But in a business where every line of the first five pages matters so much, it’s something you want to keep in mind. I’m not saying never do it. But if you really want to surprise the reader in that opening scene, you should probably write a scene whose reveal isn’t something we already know.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You can subliminally (or not so subliminally) imply who you want the reader to imagine in a role by using a real life actor’s name. This tends to work fine in comedy but it’s a little tougher to pull off in serious genres. Here the villain is named Scarlett. No doubt you’re expected to think of a certain red-headed Marvel Avenger.
