Genre: Drama/Period
Premise: In Prohibition-era Kentucky, a moonshiner’s plan to save the family farm goes awry when his brother steals a prized dog from a local mobster.
Why You Should Read: Heck is an inventive retelling of Homer’s Trojan War epic. Instead of Trojans vs. the Greeks, my story takes place in 1920s Kentucky, pitting a family of moonshiners against a local crime boss and his Prohibition Agent brother. Part O Brother Where Art Thou and part Lawless, it’s an epic tale of bootlegging, boxing, and of course, a giant Trojan horse.
Writer: Chris Hicks
Details: 109 pages
I am going to propose the impossible.
The irrational.
The sensational!
I don’t know if you guys are even ready for what I’m about to say.
A moment of silence…………
Okay. Here it is. Is “Heck,” A John Wick prequel?
I know it sounds ridiculous. But let’s look at the author’s name. “Chris Hicks.” Hmmmmm… Hicks? Wicks? Hick? Wick? Notice any similarities?
What am I babbling on about?
Well, you see, both of these movies rely heavily on a dog. You could say both rely heavily on an outrageous dog plotline. Somehow, John Wick made its dog storyline work. Did Heck? Let’s find out together!
It’s Prohibition. No alcohol and all that. Heck makes the best moonshine in Kentucky. Not easy when you consider what’s happened to his family. His mom just died. His dad’s got a permanent broken heart. And his little brother, Perry, is a bit of a weirdo. Oh, and they’re four mortgage payments behind with the bank. They need to start making money fast.
Heck goes to the biggest client he can find, Matthias, a boxing manager and secret bar owner. Matthias wants to buy thousands of bottles of Moonshine from Heck. However, right after they strike a deal, Perry secretly steals Matthias’s cute little puppy. Why? Because he thinks it’s cute!
As soon as they get home, Heck has a fit. What are you doing stealing people’s dogs for?? He demands that Perry give it back. But Perry says no. Fine, Heck says. Wow, that was easy. It doesn’t take long for Matthias to find out his dog has been stolen, so he comes to Heck’s farm and demands it back. They say no. Furious, Matthias teams up with the dirty G-Man, Augie, to take Heck down any way possible. Oh, and if it wasn’t obvious, the deal is off.
This forces Heck to strike a deal with Apollo, a guy who runs an underground bar in the next county. Like, literally. They deliver the moonshine to this guy in underground caves. Unfortunately, Augie and Matthias round up a mob to ambush Apollo’s place and a lot of people are beat to a pulp.
Heck realizes that the only way he’s going to square this situation is to fight Matthias’s best boxer. While Heck ain’t too shabby in a ring, he’s no match for Beast Mode Gideon, Matthias’s guy. Gideon beats Heck to a pulp. It looks like Heck is going to lose the farm and go to prison. It will be up to Perry, who started all this, to come up with a plan to save his brother.
A couple of things I want to say right off the bat. I haven’t read “Homer” since high school. So I have no memory of what it’s about. And I don’t think it’s the best idea to write a script like O Brother Where Art Thou on spec. O Brother is 75% direction and 25% script. It’s too hard to convey semi-humorous offbeat tones on the page. It’s difficult for the reader to know just how funny something was meant to be and just how serious other things were meant to be. This is why these scripts are almost always a package deal with the writer and director being the same.
With that out of the way, how was this?
Heck was really well written. We can start there. Regardless of what you think of this script, it’s the embodiment of professional and easy to read. This isn’t even my jam and, still, my eyes were flying down the page.
However, the second the dog thing happened, my brain left my body. I felt suspended in confusion. Your brother steals a dog of the man who’s going to help you save your farm. And when said brother says he wants to keep it, you let him? How does that make sense?
Somebody might throw this back in my face if it’s a direct plotline from Homer. But even if it is, one of my pillars of screenwriting no-no’s is to NEVER HAVE shaky inciting incidents. The inciting incident is the entire reason the movie exists. So if it’s weak or murky or nonsensical, you’re building your story on a shaky foundation. Not to mention, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a inciting incident that was initiated BY our heroes. Inciting incidents are supposed to happen TO our heroes.
How this directly relates to this script is that a lot of people, like me, are going to say, throughout the movie, “Why don’t you just give the dog back?” It solves every problem. Or, if they’re not going to give the dog back, provide us with a convincing reason WHY they wouldn’t give it back. That explanation definitely never came in “Heck.”
Maybe Chris’s counter-argument would be that it’s supposed to be funny. And that’s my point about quirky humor. We’re not sure how much leniency on plot issues we’re supposed to allow because of humor. Am I just supposed to laugh at the glaring plot hole and go with it? Sorry but I can’t.
With all that said, the dialogue here is good. The structure is top-notch. The characters all have big personalities and therefore pop off the page. So it’s not like Heck doesn’t have anything going for it. But when you plop me down 100 years ago, you’re already at a disadvantage. It’s so not my jam. Therefore, I never quite saw this as anything other than a curiosity. I was interested but I was never invested. So as strong as the writing was, I can’t give it that ‘worth the read.’ I will say that the writer is worth keeping an eye on though. If Chris has got any other scripts set in present day that are more marketable, submit them to Amateur Offerings.
Oh, and one last thing. If Chris is doing a rewrite, I think it would be funny to give Apollo a dog and have Perry steal him too. I’m joking of course. But that would be funny.
Script Link: Heck
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Something every writer should take into consideration when they’re deciding what to write next is: Is this the kind of movie that excites people? Both the kind of people you need to get the movie made and the people who buy the tickets. Because I read a lot of scripts like this one, where I nod my head afterwards and say, “good job.” But the script doesn’t get me excited enough to tell other people about it.
What I learned 2: A fun easy way to spice up dialogue is to use role play. No, not that role play. You create a fun moment where the characters can address each other as something other than themselves. Remember that characters talking directly to each other about what’s in their head is the definition of on-the-nose dialogue. So you should always look for ways to play with the dialogue instead. This is one of the easiest ways.
I have not been watching Game of Thrones like the rest of the universe. However, I’ve been paying close attention to reactions from the final season, since Game of Thrones creators Benioff and Weiss will be taking over my beloved Star Wars going forward. What everyone seems to be so upset about is that one of the main characters, Daenerys, made a major turn in the last episode that goes completely against her character. Staying with Star Wars, a certain other director who shall remain nameless (his name rhymes with Sighin’ Cronsohn) made a similar mistake in The Last Jedi, where he had the beloved Luke Skywalker act in a way he never would.
All of this got me thinking about one of the oldest questions in writing. Why are endings so hard?? Here’s how I see it. In a well-told story, everything is leading up to a clear resolution. For example, if your movie is about a cop in a building trying to stop a band of terrorists, the resolution is most likely going to be him stopping the terrorists. The problem is that if you give us the exact resolution we’re expecting, we’re going to be let down. For this reason, writers try to give us a different, unexpected resolution. Luke Skywalker refuses to fight Kylo Ren. Daenerys turns into the female Hitler. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to give us an ending we had no idea was coming and it still make sense. The whole point of your story is to set up what’s going to happen in the end. Now you’re telling us none of that was relevant?
Today I’m going to share six tips that should help you avoid making giant mistakes like this. Use them separately or combine them to create the ultimate ending super-weapon.
I’ll start with the most obvious and, unfortunately, most boring solution. IF WE LIKE YOUR CHARACTERS, WE’LL LIKE YOUR ENDING. It’s rare that I watch a movie where I love the characters and hate the ending. That’s because when you’re invested in the characters, you care more about them than some well-crafted plot twist. Look at Die Hard. Die Hard has a standoff between the hero, the villain, and the hero’s wife. It is a scene we have literally seen hundreds of times before. There’s nothing exceptional about the moment at all. The ending works purely because we love John McClane, we detest Hans Gruber, and we love John’s wife. Whatever occurs here, as long as our hero wins, we’ll be happy. So start by writing characters that we love.
You could extrapolate the flip side of this to The Last Jedi. Not many people liked the Luke Skywalker Rian Johnson created. He was crabby, defeatist, unhelpful, annoying, and drank green milk from a wildebeast’s teet. It could be argued that the dye was already cast for the ending. We disliked Rian’s Luke so much that it wouldn’t have mattered what he did.
Solution number 2 for a strong ending is the CLIMAX OF A PERFECTLY CONSTRUCTED CHARACTER ARC. This means that you’ve set up a well-defined flaw in one of your main characters, you have explored your character bumping up against that flaw the whole movie. And then, when the final battle occurs, they break through and overcome it. The best example of this I’ve ever seen is The Matrix. And I say that because the movie’s climax takes place in the most boring setting possible – a hallway – and it’s still amazing. The reason it’s amazing is because it’s all about Neo’s character arc. He spent the entire movie struggling with his belief in himself (his flaw), and now, when the pivotal moment arrives, he believes, and is thus able to defeat the villain.
Solution number 3 is MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE – The problem with a lot of writers is there’s this sort of uninspired inevitability to their story. We know where they’re going because they make it so insanely obvious that that’s where they’re going. From there it’s just a matter of connecting the dots. Take us through beat 1, to beat 2, to beat 3, and the movie is over. The way to conquer this inevitability is to make things IMPOSSIBLE for your hero. I’m talking you make it so difficult EVEN YOU DON’T KNOW HOW THEY’RE GOING TO DO IT. Then, and only then, is your hero’s success going to have the enormous impact you’re looking for. Take a look at the last 20 minutes of Gravity. Even though you’re watching a Sandra Bullock film, at every turn it seems like there’s no way she’s going to survive.
Solution number 4 is the SUPER PAYOFF – Audiences LOVE payoffs. They’re cinema crack. Therefore, one of the trickiest, yet most effective, ways of creating a great ending, is to pay off all those setups you’ve been planting throughout your script. And if you haven’t been planting setups to pay off in your climax, what are you doing? The two films I’ve seen do this better than anyone else are Back to the Future and The Shawshank Redemption. It’s payoff after payoff after payoff after payoff. Where was the payoff in Luke’s final trickery in The Last Jedi? I’ll give you a hint. There wasn’t any. Which is why it was so lame.
Solution number 5 is a DIFFICULT CHOICE(S). If characters have easy choices in your ending, you probably don’t have a good ending. A huge part of what makes an ending great is the uncertainty behind it. There are no easy answers. There are no quick solutions. Your hero is going to have hard choices to make. The most famous example of this, of course, is Casablanca. But you can see it in a lot of movies. There’s a great moment at the end of The Mule where the cartel tells Clint, “That’s it. If you deviate one more time, we put a bullet in your head.” And on that very mission, he learns that his ex-wife is sick in the hospital. She’s probably going to die. Does he finish the mission? Or go see the mother of his children and grandchildren before she’s gone forever?
Finally, solution number six is MINING EMOTION FROM THEME – This is really hard to do since theme can often work against you. By this I mean, you can have great story ideas but have to abandon them because they aren’t extensions of your theme. The worst thing that can happen is you sacrifice everything to service a weak theme. This is what happened at the end of The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson was trying to push some complicated theme that only made sense if you read a 3000 word Last Jedi think piece on the internet, and as a result, we lost what could have been one of the most epic lightsaber battles ever. However, when you do this right – when the elements gel together – it can be magical. Pixar does a better job of this than anyone. Their movies are theme-heavy, but the difference between them and Johnson is that their themes are incredibly simple. At the top of the heap is Toy Story 3, which pushes the theme of “moving on.” Closing out the movie with a scene of the toys being given to a new child who could love and enjoy them just as much as their previous owner was the most emotionally satisfying way we could’ve concluded that theme.
It should go without saying that, like everything in movies, your gut plays just as strong a part in nailing your ending as these tips. You could follow any one of these suggestions and come up with something lame. If it doesn’t FEEL right, you probably want to go in a different direction. Good luck. And feel free to share your own “ending” tips in the comments.
Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or $40 for unlimited tweaking. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. If you’re interested in any sort of consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!
Genre: Action/Adventure/Supernatural
Premise: The best black ops team in the business is sent to hell to assassinate Satan in order to stop the End of Days.
About: This script sold to Paramount in 2009. The writer, Andy Burg, used to work on family movies like K-9 and Alaska. He wrote this script to re-market himself as an action writer. However, the script is ironically stuck in – yes I’m going here – development hell. They did have another writer come in and rewrite the script in 2012, but there’s been no public update since then. This is the original draft that sold.
Writer: Andy Burg
Details: 104 pages
High concept?
Pfft.
High concept is for sissies.
Welcome to the ultra-high concept. A concept so ready to be a movie that it’s laminated in trailer blood.
Big budget spec IP isn’t as dead as some people think. Free Guy started shooting today. Methusaleh, about a man who never ages, is charging forward at Warner Brothers. If an idea is cool enough, a studio will want to make it. The projects are just harder to get through the system. They have to be developed well. They have to be stronger. Let’s see how this HUGE idea works as a screenplay.
An unknown narrator eloquently narrates a gun pointed at a head with a sack over it (“The guy presently receiving twenty times the surgeon general’s daily allowance of iron is the Captain”). In the corner of the room, we see eight other bodies. All with sacks over their heads. All dead. This is the Captain’s black ops team, the guys you send in to do the dirtiest of the dirty work.
The soon-to-also-be-dead “Captain” pleads for his life. The shooter removes the sack, allowing The Captain to see him. “You,” the Captain says, astonished. Then the guy shoots him. Turn around. The killer is a priest, who promptly shoots himself as well.
We wake up in hell. It’s ugly. Loud bloviating horns are summoning the recently deceased to hurry along. If you hesitate, giant beasts whip you into pieces. The Captain looks for the rest of his crew. Guys like Sgt. Toast (half his face was burnt to a crisp in a war), Shakespeare the Sniper, Tank the Albino, Amish, Newbie, Twitch, and a few others. The group is not happy to be here. Luckily, a cloaked figure pulls up in a boat and tells them to get in. It’s the priest.
The priest explains that he’s sorry for killing them but Satan has begun the End of Days. The only way to stop this is to kill Satan. And who better to kill Satan than the dirtiest strike team on the planet? Nobody wants to do this, but the priest makes a strong pitch. Since Satan and Hell are one and the same, if they kill Satan, Hell disappears, and they’ll all go to Heaven, where the accommodations are nicer. They begrudgingly accept the mission.
They first have to go through a hell jungle with creepy siren ladies who wrap you up in thorny vines. They then have to sacrifice one of their own guys to get to the next circle. They then take on a number of hulking beast creatures. They then have to sacrifice another one of their guys. They then find out that Captain is actually the Arch-Angel Michael (something he seems to be as surprised about as them), which is good news since they’re going to need more than clever comebacks to defeat Satan. And then, finally, when they face Satan, they learn that it was all a ruse set up by the Priest, who isn’t actually a priest, but rather the real Satan. I think. And now he’s going to take over earth. The end.
One of the most frustrating things in this business is hearing about a big cool idea and then when you read the script, it doesn’t deliver. This happens all the time. The writer was talented enough to come up with a killer concept, but not skilled enough to execute it. So what is the number one mistake writers make when they get that great idea? Anybody know? I don’t see any hands. Okay, I’ll tell you. THEY THINK THE IDEA IS GOING TO CARRY THE LOAD.
If they run into a problem while writing the script, they don’t fight hard enough to solve it. They put in a half-a$$ effort and figure the concept is good enough to offset any weaknesses. The attitude every writer should have, whether they’re writing Jurassic Park or Gosford Park, is to do their best with every character, every scene, every plot beat, every moment. Readers are more fickle than ever. If you bore them for even a couple of pages, they’re gone.
The number two mistake is that their script starts strong then nosedives. It’s easy to start strong with a great concept. The first act is basically an advertisement for your cool idea. However, what happens (and what happens in Hellified) is that the script gets sloppier the further along it goes. I’ll give you a couple of examples.
Early on, our team learns that in order to get to the next circle of hell, they have to sacrifice one of their men. I like sacrifice scenes. They’re the ultimate embodiment of conflict. The characters must butt heads with one another to choose who dies. And if no one wants to die, things get ugly quickly. So I liked the scene. But then they have to do the same thing when they go to the next circle, and then the next circle, and then the next circle. And, of course, the law of diminishing returns rears its demonic head. You’re in one of the most unique places in existence and you’re repeating the same scene over and over again?? Bad choice.
Then there was The Captain’s reveal as Michael. It was sort of cool. But the more we learn about it, the muddier it became. So he was Michael disguised as Captain his whole life and he just forgot? Ummm… okay. To be honest, once that happened, the script was dead to me. You sold your entire movie on a black ops team versus Hell. But now it’s Arch-Angel Michael versus Hell? You’ve eliminated the coolest element of your story – a human team of mercenaries versus Satan.
There was also a surprising lack of originality, despite a canvas that was made for it. Most set pieces amounted to big scary creatures running up to our team and fighting them. As a writer, you should be focusing on the promise of your premise. What’s unique about YOUR idea? What can we get from YOUR script that we can’t get from any other movie? Those are the scenarios you need to be writing. Hellified only had one of those. Anyone care to guess what the writer came up with? Come on. You’re in the pitch room with the producer. He’s got this project, “Hellified.” He tells you he can’t figure it out. There aren’t enough scenes that deliver on the premise. “Any ideas come to mind?” he asks. I would hope that you’d have an answer.
The ONE promise-of-the-premise scene takes place when a distant group of people start charging our team. As they get closer, the team realizes that it’s all the people they killed on their missions. Come back for revenge. Now THAT’S delivering on the promise of your premise. In a big concept like this, you need at least three major scenarios that accomplish this goal. Not one.
Hollywood has yet to figure out how to make a movie about the fantasy version of hell (where hell is imagined as a giant chaotic lava underworld). The CGI on these movies is always dreadful. And I’m not convinced that anyone wants to spend two hours in hell. Hell has the kind of imagery you can take for a minute or two. But two hours? Then again, if you’re an optimist, this is an opportunity to be the one who figures it out. I even think this story could make it work. But it will need a major rewrite to do so.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: In the script, when describing a battle scene, the writer references “Troy” to help the reader imagine what the fighting looks like. When you’re referencing other movies, either in your writing or your pitching, don’t reference bad or average films. They’re basically the same thing in the eyes of Hollywood. And there’s a very simple reason for this. Troy was an okay movie that did okay at the box office. So when you reference it, you are saying that your movie will also be “okay” and do “okay” at the box office. When you’re spending this much money, nobody’s okay with “okay.” They want a hit. So when referencing, stick with classic movies and giant box office successes.
Genre: Contained Thriller/Sci-Fi
Premise: When a hospital patient finds herself at the bottom of a building of rubble, she must work with a mysterious FBI agent to figure out what happened and how to escape.
About: We’ve got a nobody writer who sold a spec for mid-six figures in 2019. Say hello to happy time. Rubble is that modern-day rarity. A high concept zero IP spec from an unknown that finds its way to a sale (to Universal, no less). I wish every day could be like this. It feels like Christmas at Scriptshadow.
Writer: Patrick Pittis
Details: 93 pages
People don’t have the time.
Nobody has the time.
The dedicated folks who visit this site are probably the most likely people in the world to want to read screenplays and 95% of you don’t have the time to read a full script. Sure, you’ll open a script up. Read a few pages. But you rarely finish the thing. So if you can’t make it through a screenplay, why would you think anybody else could?
This is why writing tight fast-moving high concept scripts are the best route for screenwriters who want to make an impact. Grab’em immediately and never let’em go. That’s the only chance you have of winning over a reader when you’re an unknown.
Sure, if you’re a name writer, you can tease a little more. You can tempt. You can ease your way into your story and readers will give you rope. But you’re not that. You’re a nobody. At least in the screenwriting world. And for that reason, scripts like “Rubble” should be your template.
I was casing the Black List, reading over some of their loglines, and wishing I had a chandelier that could hold a 170 pound body. Some of the scripts very well might be good. But you could tell they needed an intense amount of investment. And nothing interesting was going to happen for at least the first 60 pages.
Then I remembered I had this script and it was like the skies had opened up. The sun was shining again. All was right with the world. I was on page five in under two minutes. This thing was flying. It was such an easy story to grasp and get into.
There’s no question this is a huge reason why this script sold. Anybody who read this script was able to get through it with no issues whatsoever. They could get distracted by a phone call, yelled at by an angry boss, and they could get right back into it without skipping a beat. Never underestimate the power of that.
Jessica wakes up after some sort of explosion. She’s in a building. Or at the bottom of one. All around her is building waste – rubble. Whatever happened knocked her unconscious, and also caused amnesia. She can’t remember who she is or how she got here.
Jessica sees a band around her wrist. It’s for a hospital. It has her name on it and, “Trinity Memorial.” Okay, at least she’s got that squared away. But not everyone was as lucky as Jessica. A nearby corpse dressed in military gear didn’t make it through. Jessica notices a walkie-talkie on the man. She scurries over, grabs it, and starts pressing buttons.
Soon, she’s able to get in touch with Agent Sparks, a female FBI agent. Sparks seems confused about who this is at first, but when Jessica informs her she’s at the bottom of Trinity Memorial, Sparks jumps into action. She organizes a team to locate and rescue Jessica. But it’s going to be awhile. Meanwhile, a terrorist pops up on the channel, threatening to detonate another bomb. Something gnaws at Jessica when she hears this. The dead man. His outfit was… bulky. She goes over to him, looks inside his shirt, and sure enough, he’s wearing a bomb. With a timer. 57 minutes. It looks like whatever rescue effort is going to happen, it will need to happen fast.
Meanwhile, Jessica starts remembering bits and pieces of her hospital stay. She was in an operating room. They were about to inject her with something. And then… blank. She can’t remember what happened after that. Things get tougher for Jessica when a second terrorist figures out where she is and comes after her. But just when we think Jessica is done for, this new terrorist tells her that it’s not him she should be worried about. It’s that agent she’s been talking to this whole time.
This script is a producer’s dream.
High concept. Feels big (a terrorist attack that might have affected the whole city), yet it’s contained (takes place in a single small room). Single location means it’s cheap to shoot. A main character someone would want to play. It’s also unlike other contained thrillers out there. All of these things contributed to this script selling, no doubt.
I was pulled in immediately. The story starts on the very first page. No prep. We’re just thrown into it. It follows with our hero trying to figure out what’s going on. Of course I’m going to keep reading to find out as well. Then comes a sequence where Jessica is trying to convince people on the walkie-talkie to help her but they keep ignoring her, telling her to get off the channel. I kept turning the pages because I was just as frustrated as she was. Why wasn’t anyone helping her!!?? And by that point, about ten pages in, I was hooked. I wanted to read the whole script.
But Rubble’s story doesn’t come without a few challenges. Amnesiac characters are hard characters to write for because they can’t arc. They have no depth. This is because if a character has no past (that they or we know of) then they don’t have any flaws, anything holding them back we can work with (yesterday’s script, The Mule, explored a man who’s always put work above family – that’s a flaw you can work with). This often results in the character feeling thin.
This is why in so many amnesiac stories, the best course of action is to KEEP. THE STORY. MOVING. The more we’re focused on the plot, the less we’re focused on the fact that our character is so thin. You’ll find the same thing in the original Bourne film. Amnesiac Jason Bourne is a thin character. But we don’t care because we’re always moving forward. Ditto Memento, although that script cleverly built some character depth via external images (the tattoos on his body).
The next challenge you run into in a script like this is creating a satisfying answer to your plot-driven mystery. Who am I? What happened? Who is Jason Bourne? Who killed Leonard’s wife? In Rubble, that question is: What was Jessica in this hospital for? Because these stories are so plot driven, the expectations are high for a stellar explanation. You could say that the entire movie hinges on it. And while I’m not going to spoil it here, I’ll say that Rubble does a solid job with its reveal. Not great, not bad. But solid. I’ll leave your with this. It’s got a bit of a “10 Cloverfield Lane” finale. So if you liked that movie, you’ll like this script.
If I have one complaint, it’s that I’ve found yet another writer who believes it’s easy to knock people out. People get knocked out in this movie A LOT. Like it happens a dozen-plus times. They get kicked, they’re knocked out. Something falls on them, they’re knocked out. They fall down, they’re knocked out. When I can guarantee that you the writer haven’t ever personally seen someone get knocked out, why would you think it’s common enough to include 12 times in a script that takes place over 100 minutes? I mean come on!!! This movie-logic stuff drives me crazy.
With that said, I was entertained by Rubble. And I can totally see why it sold. It’s not the greatest script. But it was an easy fun read.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Contained thrillers don’t make the Black List anymore due to a number of reasons (lack of woke points being the primary one). But a fresh contained thriller premise (ideally with a horror or sci-fi slant) still has a better chance of selling than any of those scripts you’ll see on the Black List. Rubble is proof of this.
I have to make a formal apology to Clint Eastwood. I have criticized almost every one of Clint’s directing efforts. I hate that he shoots early drafts that still have a ton of fat in them and never explains why. If you ever wondered, “Why do I want to fall asleep so badly?” during a Clint Eastwood movie, that’s your answer. Overall, I’ve seen him as an overrated filmmaker who, due to numerous unknown forces, keeps catching lightning in a bottle. But call me a convert because The Mule is the best movie he’s made in a long time – maybe ever. And the funny thing is, it’s the most under the radar film he’s made in 20 years.
It was so under the radar I kept putting it off until I saw it’d made 100 million dollars at the box office. I thought this movie had traversed in and out of theaters in 3 weeks. If you had asked me how much it had made, I would’ve guessed, 25 million? 30 maybe? But 100 million??? For a movie about an 85 year old man? Not in a million years.
So in a Mish-Mash Monday post that was to be all about Detective Pikachu losing out to Endgame (YESSSS!!!) and how networks are making 10 minute episode TV shows now (huh???), I’m tossing the site into the wayback machine so we can get a little classic Scriptshadow. That’s right. I’m providing 10 screenwriting tips you can learn from The Mule. Shout out to Nick Schenk for writing a great script.
For those who haven’t seen the movie, it’s about an 85 year old man, Earl Stone, whose life is thrown into disarray when his flower business is made extinct by the internet. Forced to make money somehow, he becomes a drug mule for a Mexican cartel, driving large bags of drugs into the city. Earl’s handler is a guy named Julio who trails him in a separate car to make sure Earl always gets to his destination. Earl is constantly trying Julio’s patience, as he’s stopping to help people with flat tires or enjoy some female company at a local motel. But Julio learns to live with it as Earl fast becomes the number 1 mule in the cartel’s history.
1) Women, children, and the Elderly are more feared for in movies than adult males – This is changing, somewhat, in regards to female characters. But it still holds true that if you’re going to place a character in a dangerous situation, we’ll be more engaged if it’s a woman, child, or elderly person, as we feel they are more susceptible to harm. One of the reasons we root so hard for Earl is because he’s old and frail and, therefore, overmatched. I can already hear a few of you stirring about this so I’ll make my point this way: “Taken” isn’t a movie if Liam Neeson’s 18 year old child is a man. Nor is The Mule a movie if the hero is a 30 year old guy.
2) Look for movie ideas that have contrasting characters – Any scenario pitting two types of people who wouldn’t normally be around one another results in baked-in conflict. One of the reasons this movie is so fun is that Clint Eastwood couldn’t be more different from the young brash Mexican drug runners he must deal with. Every scene they’re in together has conflict running underneath it because of this. And like I said, it’s “baked in.” That means it’s there before you even write anything.
3) Adult subject matter requires adult script choices – If you’re going to write about tough subjects, you can’t Disney-fy the execution. You have to pick some spots and make darker choices. These hypnotize the reader into believing the story is legit. One of the more surprising choices in The Mule was to make the 85 year old main character a womanizer. There are two separate scenes where Earl is hooking up with multiple prostitutes. It’s a bit shocking. But it helped distinguish this from every other safe watered down crime script I read.
4) Change the relationship dynamics between characters at some point in the story – Just like in real life, relationships get stale in movies. So you want to look for ways to change the dynamic up. One of my favorite things about this movie was the relationship between Earl and Julio. At first distant, the charismatic Earl wins Julio over. Then, at the midpoint, the big drug lord, Laton, is killed. A new guy comes in and tells Julio he can’t be buddy-buddy with Earl anymore, shifting their relationship from niceness to iciness. It’s a small change but developments like this are what keep reads fresh.
5) “Work vs. Family” is one of the most bankable character flaws in screenwriting – Earl has always put his work above family. That’s his flaw. Now this isn’t an original flaw by any means. However, when it comes to character flaws, it isn’t so much about originality as it is about authenticity. If you really explore how this flaw affects your character’s life, it will work. If you just plop it in there to get a box checked on screenplay coverage, it won’t.
6) Ignite your scene with a charged opening line of dialogue – Every scene should have some element of conflict to it. If you’re having trouble finding that conflict, try this – Have a character start the conversation off with a charged line. There’s a moment deep in The Mule where Earl’s been partying at the drug lord’s mansion all night. He wanders around and spots Julio sitting alone. This could’ve been an opportunity for the two to joke around, to have some fun. And I’m not saying your characters can never have fun. But I liked what the writer did here. Earl sits down and says, “Hey, I thought I’d give you a little advice.” “Me, advice?” Julio says, laughing. “I pass.” “Yeah, I think you ought to quit,” Earl says. The reason this line is so good is because it immediately sets the scene on edge. This conversation is not going to be friendly and fun. It’s going to be a little uncomfortable and dramatic because Earl’s telling a guy who loves this life to leave it. This sets the stage for conflict.
7) Don’t take scenes off – There are a lot of easy things to do in screenwriting. When a character says, “Is that clear?” it’s easy to have the other character respond, “Crystal.” When you’re writing a chase scene, it’s easy to have the chaser come up to the side of the hero’s car and try to ram it off the road. There are a million scenarios we’ve seen a million times already. So when you’re that rare writer who does the easy stuff a little different, you stand out. Let me show you how The Mule kills off its drug lord, Laton. So Laton loves target practice with clay birds. Every time we cut to him, he’s practicing in his back yard. Late in the film, we’re watching him shoot yet again. He yells “Pull!” to signal the clay birds up. They go up, he shoots……. and he stands there. Frozen. Then he falls to the ground. Behind him, one of his men has a gun raised to the back of Laton’s head. He killed him. It was so shocking because we were used to him doing this over and over. Then… bam, his gunshot is actually someone else’s, resulting in his death. Whenever I come across a scene like this, I know a screenwriter is bringing his A-game.
8) Physically weak doesn’t have to mean cowardly – Newbie writers think one-dimensionally. If their hero is old and frail, me must also be scared and compliant. However, readers love it when a character’s actions contrast with a character’s physicality. In an early scene when Earl and Julio meet, Julio puts a gun in his chest and tells him that if he ever messes around, he’s going to kill him. Earl looks Julio dead in the eye and says, “I was in the service. I’m not scared of guys like you” and casually shoves the gun away. In that moment, Earl not only earns our respect, but we’re rooting for him twice as hard. He may be old, but he’s not going to take any s&*%.
9) Dialogue Tip 1 (Not every exchange has to become a conversation) – In an early scene, Earl is sitting with his handler, Julio, having lunch at an outdoor eatery. Julio, whose job is to trail Earl in another car to make sure he gets to his destination, is angry at Earl because this is an unplanned stop. You can feel the tension in the air as Earl plops down their sandwiches. He tells Julio that the reason they stopped at this particular place was because these are the best pulled pork sandwiches on the planet. Julio sort of glares at Earl while he takes a bite. “See what you gotta do,” Earl says, “is take more time out like this. Enjoy life. Like I do.” Julio stares at him. “Maybe. Or maybe you enjoy the moment a little too much. Had too much fun. That’s why you’re working for us now.” First of all, this is a great line. Cause he’s nailed Earl in a single sentence. But the reason I bring this exchange up is that a lot of writers would try and spin this into another page or two of dialogue. Maybe Earl argues about what happened in his life, why his situation is complicated or why Julio is wrong. But the reality is that the main two points have been made. One guys needs to loosen up. The other guy is too loose. We get it. No giant debate is needed. So the next time you think you need some big long debate scene, consider whether you’ve already made your point. There’s nothing worse than reading two pages of filler dialogue.
10) Dialogue Tip 2 (A trick to approximate real-life randomness in conversation) – There’s one more line in this scene. Earl caps their exchange off with, “Best pulled pork sandwich in the whole world,” and takes a bite. Scene over. I love this line. Let me explain why. A huge problem writers have with dialogue is that they approach it too logically. If someone says A, then you must respond with B. You can never go directly to J. It’ll come off as random. But real life is random. So how do you approximate that? You start the scene off talking about a subject. Here, Earl explains that the reason they stopped at this place was because it has great pulled pork sandwiches. The scene then shifts to a more serious exchange, which is where we get the main interaction. “See what you gotta do is take more time out like this. Enjoy life. Like I do.” “Maybe. Or maybe you enjoy the moment a little too much. Had too much fun. That’s why you’re working for us now.” Instead of responding directly to this accusation, Earl says, “Best pulled pork sandwich in the whole world.” It’s a good line because it both DOESN’T respond to Julio’s statement, approximating the randomness of real conversation, yet it still makes sense, since its a continuation of the earlier topic.
