Genre: Sports Drama/Sort of true story?
Premise: A struggling American sports agent mired in debt flies to Cuba to recruit their most famous baseball player.
About: This script finished on both The Black List and Hit List last year. It comes from the writers of BLACKKKLANSMAN, two New Jersey natives who were childhood best friends.
Writers: Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz
Details: 120 pages

Didn’t they already make this movie? Wasn’t Jon Hamm in it?

Look, let’s be real. Sports dramas are tough sells. And they’re even tougher sells when they center around baseball. So props to these writers not only for taking a risk with this genre, but getting their script on both the Black List and Hit List.

But the one thing I tell writers who write sports dramas is, “Unless it’s boxing, make it a true story.” So I was happy that today’s writing team did that. Or… did they? As I read through Bolsa Negra, I spent much of the script confused. There were several real life baseball figures in the script, but I think this entire story is made up. That feels kinda cheap considering this is a really intense story. People die. And if you’re mining fake death emotion under the guise of real life, that’s as dirty as the shady world you’re covering.

But anyway…

It’s 1996 and 38 year old Steve Santos is the Cuban-American Jerry Maguire. Without the slick suit. Or the nice car. Or anything of value, to be honest. Steve is barely able to make ends meet. Which is why he has to get creative.

Steve has his eye on someone named El Coco (“The Boogeyman”), the best player in Cuba, a hotbed for amazing baseball talent. However, most of those players end up staying in Cuba because it’s impossible to get them out (this is when the U.S. and Cuba were mortal enemies). But Steve naively heads there anyway, thinking he can throw a few Benjamins around and he and El Coco will be back on the red-eye.

As you might expect, it doesn’t go that way.

First, Steve has to pay his Cuban guide to help him get around. Then he has to convince El Coco to actually come with him, which is far from easy since he needs to bring his entire family along or they get thrown in jail. Then he needs to meet someone named “The Professor,” who can facilitate the complicated process of getting them off the island. Then he has to find a boat and a driver. Every step is complicated by the fact that THEY ALL WANT MONEY. And Steve ran out of money the day he showed up.

Somehow, Steve gets El Coco and his family on the boat and they head to Cancun, Mexico (they can’t go straight to the U.S. since baseball regulations will put El Coco in the draft, where he’d make MUCH LESS money – if he comes to America through Mexico, El Coco will be a free agent – and that’s where he can negotiate a 20-million dollar contract).

Once in Mexico, they meet up with the professor’s Mexican contacts, a harmless older couple. WHO THEN PROCEED TO KILL STEVE’S BOAT DRIVER! So, yeah, I guess not so harmless. When they find out how much El Coco is worth, they up their fee 2000% (yes, three zeroes). They then quarantine Steve, El Coco, and the family, while Steve gets on the phone with six major league teams and negotiates the deal of his life. Literally.

Outside of the bait-and-switch “true story,” this was fun. From the way it was structured to the way it was executed, the writers have a strong feel for the intricacies of the craft. For example, once we get to Cuba, they give their hero a series of mini-goals. First Steve has to convince El Coco to come. Then he has to secure a facilitator. Then he has to find a boat.

Now remember, when it comes to mini-goals, you don’t want everything to go smoothly. You need PROBLEMS to arise. These story disruptions add a spontaneity to your screenplay that’s exciting to read. For example, while Steve was getting his ducks lined up, a corrupt Cuban officer showed up at his place and demanded a cut or else he would kill Steve. This forced Steve to accelerate the process, upping the script’s intensity considerably.

As you know, good plotting is great. But good plotting with strong characters is better. And I liked that Steve was fallible. This was not the most likable guy. He was cheap. He was sketchy. He’s making deals left and right he knows he can’t pay up on. You get a little extra screenplay street cred when your protagonist is an anti-hero. Most screenwriters are out there desperately combing websites (like this one, admittedly) for ways to make their hero the most likable person on the planet. And that’s because when you’re writing for mainstream Hollywood, it’s virtually required that your hero be likable. There’s a certain “Eff U” quality to a writer who bucks that trend. And Steve is definitely an anti-hero.

But the thing that really sets this script apart is its climactic scene. You have a sports agent in a seedy Mexican hotel room with a gun to his head negotiating on the phone with six major league baseball teams. The “harmless older couple” are putting a bullet in his noggin if the signing bonus isn’t the number they agreed on. It’s one heck of a ride and a great finale.

My big beef with the script is that it didn’t incorporate Steve’s background into the story location at all. Steve’s parents were Cuban but he’d never been to Cuba. Steve goes to Cuba for the story. Yet there’s no conflict whatsoever with his heritage. And I know this because the story doesn’t change one bit if the character is American and Caucasian.

There’s no screenwriting law that says when a character is from a country he’s never been to and the story takes place in that country, that he has to have some conflicted relationship with the place. But doesn’t it seem odd to totally ignore that reality? It screams that you could’ve gone deeper but you didn’t want to do the work.

And I get it. Writing a screenplay is hard. You might spend one draft putting everything into the plot. Another draft getting the dialogue to sing. Another draft giving all the supporting characters more oomph. Another draft fixing all of the slow spots in the script. And on and on. And then, after all that, someone says, “You know what would make this even better? Is if he had conflict with the country he never embraced.” And you’re like, yeah, that would be better. But you know what? I’m effing done. I don’t want to write any more drafts.

Well I’m here to tell you to write that extra draft. Because the competition out there is insane. Writing something that sticks out is one of the hardest things you’re ever going to do. So if you only give 90%, that’s probably not going to be good enough. Anybody can give almost all of themselves and create something good. But only the writers who give 100% of themselves are going to create something great.

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

What I learned: “Houston, we have a problem.” One of my favorite screenwriting tips is “We have a problem.” If things are getting boring in your story, have one of your characters say, “We have a problem.” You don’t need to know what the problem is when you write that line. Whatever comes to mind afterwards, use it. Problems are exciting. They take your story in a new direction. They force your hero to act. And they usually up the stakes. So it’s instant script heroin.

Genre: True Story/Satire
Premise: A satirical take on the unbelievable but true story of how the NRA changed overnight from an apolitical gun safety and marksmanship club into the most powerful and unhinged lobbying group in Washington, DC.
About: This script finished low on last year’s Black List. It comes from Jake Disch, who is about to have his first produced movie, Saturday at the Starlight, come out, which is about a night at a skating rink in the 1990s. Disch graduated from Northwestern with an MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage. He is originally from Wisconsin.
Writers: Jake Disch
Details: 116 pages

Typically, I stay away from politically charged scripts because the “bash the political side that isn’t yours” avenue never deals with the subject matter in a balanced way. But since part of my job is to inform you what Hollywood is looking for, I’d be remiss not to remind you that the Black List loves liberal-leaning subject matter.

There were over 20 scripts on last year’s list that fit that description and I expect that number to double in 2019. For those of you who want to make the Black List, mid-September to mid-December is the best time to release your script. Voters are much more likely to remember your script now than they are those March and April scripts. So bust open Final Draft!

Even if I dislike a logline, I’ll give a script a couple of pages because you never know. And Gunfight opened in this fun breezy manner that told me this was going to be an enjoyable read regardless of which side of the issue you were on.

In particular, our narrator, 80 year old Tanya K. Metaksa, is telling us a story about guns, whereby in 1963 we see a guy named Alek J. Hidell order a gun through the mail. The story twists and turns until we finally see the man shoot and kill President Kennedy. Alex J. Hidell’s real name, it turns out, was Lee Harvey Oswald. Right then I was hooked. There are a lot of ways you could’ve told this story, the most obvious of which would be to show Lee Harvey Oswald go through the whole process of ordering the gun and shooting the president. But waiting until the end to throw the twist at us was not only clever, but it ended the story with a bang.

It also led us into the setup. You see, that event resulted in the government eliminating the ability to purchase guns through the mail, along with eliminating several other gun rights. This was called the Gun Control Act of 1968 and it’s what made our characters so mad.

It’s now 1976 and Harlon Carter, gun-freak extraordinaire and head of the ILA, the NRA’s eensy-teensy lobbying arm, has just learned that NRA head Maxwell Rich is gutting the ILA. You see, back then, the NRA wasn’t interested in lobbying. They just wanted a good clean image in the public’s eye. This meant that Carter’s dream of making the Second Amendment the Constitutions’s most prominent amendment just died.

Until he gets an idea to team with another gun nut, Neal Knox, and steal the NRA presidency from Rich. They would then use 100% of the union’s bank account to lobby the government for more gun access. Specifically, they wanted to reverse that Gun Control Act of 1968. Despite not trusting each other, the two set up an emergency NRA election ballot in Cincinnati to get rid of Rich. Their message? “The government is coming for your guns and Rich is going to give them to them!”

Through the help of Tanya Metaksa’s constant narration, we learn that the two frightened the entire NRA membership into showing up, voting them into the presidency, and then immediately using their money to get Ronald Reagan elected president, who then endorsed the NRA, instantly anointing them into the position of the most powerful lobbying arm in the United States. So now guns could be everywhere! Yay!

Okay. We’ve got lots to talk about here. Some classic screenwriting problems that all writers deal with, especially if they’re writing non-fiction material.

Your main goal when writing a script is to ENTERTAIN. You can entertain in a lot of ways. You can be funny. You can be suspenseful. You can create mystery. You can create conflict. You can create anticipation. All of these things allow you to DRAMATIZE events. And if you dramatize well, the reader will want to turn the page.

The problem with Gunfight is that there’s too much information to get across, and it suffocates any story bits that are trying to swim to the surface. It’s a tricky thing when you have a narrator. Because a narrator’s job is to convey information to keep the viewer abreast of what’s going on. Often, you’ll get heavy narration in the beginning and then, as the plot and characters become clear, the narration will phase out.

If you still have your narrator pumping out info the reader needs to understand on page 78, something’s wrong. Either you’ve chosen a story that needs too much explanation to enjoy. Or you haven’t found the best way to tell your story. Here’s Metaksa helping us out on this Cincinnati election on page 82: “Alright. Listen, I know parliamentary procedure isn’t thrilling stuff. It’s boring as hell and — y’know what, screw it. I’m just gonna let Aquilino handle it. Take it away, John.” The writer is trying to make a joke out of just how much we need to be told here, but joke or not, at a certain point, it’s too much. And that describes this script.

Even the setup is frustrating. We have the NRA and then we have a branch of the NRA, called the IRL. And the IRL is going to go to war against the NRA, but under a different name, and then they’re going to take the NRA back and run it the way they want to, and the two leaders at the IRL don’t like each other but they’re going to work together anyway, and they’re going to propose a vote at some election thing that will allow them to take over the NRA.

I mean… seriously?

One of the most important jobs of a screenwriter is that once he picks his subject matter, to find the best story to tell within that subject matter. This is the NRA we’re talking about, one of the most notorious lobbying groups in America. There’s gotta be a better story about them than trying to win an inner-union election. Look at an idea like “an alien predator comes down to earth to stalk human prey.” In one writer’s iteration, that movie centered around a predator stalking a bunch of super-tough soldiers in the jungle. In another, it centered around an alien predator stalking a group of escaped prisoners and a little boy in a suburb. That’s how crucial it is to get this part right.

And I think the most crucial mistake the writer made was thinking he could out-joke the exposition. That if we keep the characters funny enough, the audience won’t get bored by the endless exposition. And I’ll give it to Disch – he’s funny. Here’s an exchange when a concerned IRL member points out that eliminating The Gun Control Act would mean putting the infamous “Saturday Night Special” guns back on the street, which made it so every criminal in the city could own a gun.

AQUILINO: I dunno, we put those guns back on the street and they’re just gonna be used to kill decent folk again.

CARTER: That’s the price of freedom, John.

But the script was packed with exposition choke-points that killed any momentum a scene might have. We could barely make it two pages before Metaksa or another character had to explain something to us. Are you writing a history book or are you writing a movie? Cause they’re two different things. And I’m not sure the writer knew that.

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

What I learned: I love when a character name sounds like the person described. They’re the easiest characters to remember: “BOB KUKLA (42), all thin, greasy hair and oversized bifocals.” How could someone named Bob Kukla NOT have greasy hair and oversized bifocals?” Or how bout Harlon? “The office door BURSTS open and in strides HARLON BRONSON CARTER (64), a big, broad bulldog of a man.” Harlon Bronson. Of COURSE he’s a big, broad bulldog of a man.

The box office numbers are IN for the third weekend of September and while, at first glance, it may seem like an inactive weekend, there is actually a lot going on here. Remaining in the number one spot is It: Chapter 2, which dropped 55% to 40 million dollars. For reference, Spider-Man: Far From Home made the exact same amount of money as It 2 did on its opening weekend, then made 45 million dollars in its second weekend, a 51% drop. Considering It 2 isn’t a very good movie, I’d be happy if I were Warner Brothers. And hey, the more non-Disney movies that top the box office, the better.

What I learned: Because you can slap it on a poster and sell millions of tickets, a fun terrifying villain with a mask can do wonders for your script’s marketability – even scripts that aren’t very good.

The biggest box office surprise this weekend (or dare I say, the summer!) is Hustlers. Who saw this coming?? A month ago, the similarly marketed, “The Kitchen,” tanked with 5 million dollars. Add to that Hustler’s biggest star is Jennifer Lopez, whose last five live-action movie openings are – 15 million for The Boy Next Door, 7 million for Parker, 10 million for What to Expect When You’re Expecting, 12 million for The Back-Up Plan, and 6 million for Second Act. On top of this, the trailers exhibited a mean-spirited tone. One gender ruthlessly exploiting another then celebrating it. For these reasons, I had this movie opening at 11 million TOPS! However, women really wanted this film (they made up 70% of the audience) and came out to the tune of 33 million.

But this begs the question – why did women support this movie and not The Kitchen? Is it the stripper aspect? Is it because the victims of the crimes are men – something the Hustlers trailer leaned into? One thing I tend to forget is that a well-made stripper movie will do well. I predicted the same sorry fate for Magic Mike when it came out and that film did huge business. It’s perpetually fascinating subject matter for people. I still remember when The Full Monty took over the world. And that movie was made for peanuts. I will say I’m happy for Lorene Scafaria, who both wrote and directed the film. I was a big fan of her early scripts, many of which I gave impressives to. I remember her being really bummed when her directing debut, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, underperformed. I guess the universe came back to balance things out.

What I learned: I need to stop underestimating stripper scripts. Whether you’re writing a sexy drama or a goofy comedy, there’s a ton of material to play with in this subject matter. I won’t be fooled again.

The saddest, although not unexpected, box office story this weekend was The Goldfinch. The Oscar hopeful about… I’m not sure what, managed just 2.6 million dollars. That’s barely a $1000 a theater average, which amounts to the several people who thought they were walking into It 2, and by the time they realized it was a different movie, were too lazy to leave.

The Goldfinch has always perplexed me. As a novel, it would go on to win the Pulitzer and join the handful of novels on Amazon to receive over 25,000 ratings. I purchased it and, over the years, tried to read it several times, only to stop because of a) confusion, b) nothing was happening, and c) I had no idea what the story was about. So it’s not surprising to me that the trailer came out and afterwards everyone was shaking their heads mumbling, “Wait, so what’s the movie about again?”

People. One of the most important things when it comes to movies is CLARITY. People have to know what your movie is about. I may not have been into Hustlers, but I definitely understood what the movie was about after watching the trailer – strippers taking down white dudes. The thing is, somewhere in this novel/movie is a good concept. From what I can gather, this kid’s mom dies in a museum explosion/fire, and to hold onto her memory, he steals the million-dollar plus painting he was looking at when the explosion occurred – “The Goldfinch” – and many years later, the authorities suspect he might have stolen the painting and start closing in on him. That’s not a bad idea.

But where is the character goal? What is our hero trying achieve? In a novel, where you’re inside the character’s head, that’s not as important. But in a movie, where we can only see the outside of someone, we need an ACTION for them to PURSUE. And that’s why nobody came to see this movie. There was nothing in the trailer to indicate what our hero was pursuing. He just seemed really sad. And being really sad for three hours isn’t a movie. So chalk this one up to “should’ve remained a book.”

What I learned: Sadness on top of sadness never works. You need balance. You need humor or happiness to offset the sadness. Otherwise it’s too much. The most egregious example of this is 2003’s House of Sand and Fog, another novel adaptation. Sadness stacked on top of sadness stacked on top of sadness is a recipe for boredom (and a 2.5 million dollar opening weekend).

Next weekend holds one of the bigger wildcards of the fall – Ad Astra. The journey this movie’s gone on is almost as captivating as Brad Pitt’s journey through the solar system in the film. It started off as this secretive high-budget hard science fiction film from Fox. Then, Disney bought Fox. Immediately they started scrapping Fox movies. Somehow, Ad Astra, the most un-Disney movie of them all, survived the purge. This after Disney canceled the MOST Disney-like movie on Fox’s slate, Mouse Guard. Still, you could tell Disney was uncomfortable with the movie and rumors were that they were going to dump it into theaters with barely any marketing. Then Once Upon A Time in Hollywood came out and made 2019 the “The Summer of Brad Pitt,” so Disney changed its strategy and embraced the Pitt renaissance, focusing the marketing less on the deep dark subject matter and more on Pitt’s performance. All this has resulted in an impossible to predict box office take for the film. The current estimate is 20 million. But some people think it could do double that. What do you think?

What I learned: Make the journey personal for your hero. With Ad Astra, the writer could’ve easily made the person Brad Pitt is traveling the solar system in search of to be “some random dude.” Instead, he made it his father.

Finally, Taika Waititi’s Jo-Jo Rabbit just won the audience award at the Toronto Film Festival, beating out the likes of Joker, Just Mercy, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Knives Out, Ford vs. Ferrarri, Marriage Story, and Parasite. That may seem like a small deal, but, as Deadline points out, the Toronto Audience Award has become somewhat of a predictor for the Best Picture Oscar winner. The win is somewhat of a comeback for Rabbit, as many critics ran to the internet after the initial screening whining about the triggering content, seemingly ending Rabbit’s chances at an awards run. For regular movie lovers to call out their oversensitivity is a huge win, especially because Disney is so nervous about this film in the first place (it’s another Fox film they inherited and wanted to ditch, but they didn’t want to upset Waititi, who’s become a major player in the company’s future). I’m just glad that good screenwriting is being recognized. This was one of the best scripts I read last year. And I’m pumped that despite its “controversial” content, people are finally getting to see that.

What I learned: Audiences respond well when you put them through a full gamut of emotions. This film will make you angry, it will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will make you happy. When you put someone through that kind of emotional roller coaster, they’re going to have a strong reaction to your script/movie. I have no doubt that’s why audiences loved this.

I don’t want to sway anything here (I haven’t opened the script) but I’m excited that the Scriptshadow 10 Pages Contest winner is participating in this week’s Amateur Showdown. If you’re curious about what happened to that winning script, I’ll let him field questions in the comments.

Now before we get started, I want to share a quick piece of screenwriting advice. Don’t send me scripts that center around slackers. That’s not because I have a prejudice against slackers. But a “slacker” is all of the things that a good movie character is not. He’s lazy. He’s passive. He’s reactive. And because he’s rarely active, we have to wait for the movie to come to him. There are a few comedy situations where slackers work. But whenever I see “slacker” in a logline, my eyes inadvertently roll. I would never presume what other readers like. But it’s safe to say that a slacker hero isn’t going to get anyone excited to read your script. UNLESS it’s the most hilarious premise ever. I’m bringing this up because I read five slacker submissions today.

Okay, onto the contest. You know how we do it!

Screenwriter Showdown is a single weekend tournament where the scripts have been vetted from a pile of hundreds to be featured here, for your entertainment. It’s up to you to read as much of each script as you can, then vote for your favorite in the comments section. Whoever receives the most votes by Sunday 11:59pm Pacific Time gets a review next Friday.

Let’s get some fresh blood into the next showdown! Send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.

Good luck, everyone!

Title: Tilly Willy and his Neighbourhood Pals
Genre: Psychological Horror
Logline: A kidnapped children’s TV show host tries to earn his freedom.
Why You Should Read: Because who doesn’t love a children’s tv show in the horror genre? Also, I know you like a strong opening and I think I have exactly the type of opening you’re looking for. It’s also a contained story because I plan on filming it, which is nice with all the Blockbusters coming out.

Title: Blood Law
Genre: Revenge Thriller
Logline: A Native American ex-con looking into the disappearance of his niece finds himself on a rage-fueled journey into snuff filmmaking and 1970’s Hollywood.
Why You Should Read: Sometimes a character pops off your imagination and demands a story be written about them. John Rainbird is that character and ‘Blood Law’ is that story. It’s a gritty, unexpected, unique script with a life of its own. It’s quirky. It’s violent. It’s full of colorful and engaging characters. ‘Blood Law’ scored a coveted 8 on the Blacklist (their take: “This bloody and visceral thriller doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to its depictions of brutality and violence, but it also sports top-notch characterizations, finely crafted dialogue, and a setting absolutely dripping with tone and style: a modern love letter to the classic “revenge” films of the drive-in cinema age.”), garnered some interest from an independent producer and a major production company where the the Head of Story Development is a major advocate (Email I got from him shortly after he received the script, word for word: I wanted to let you know that I’m on page 43 of Blood Law and I had to stop and shoot you an email to tell you how much I’m loving this script.) I’m very proud of this script and eager to keep the momentum going. Would be thrilled to get the Scriptshadow community’s take. Thanks a million.

Title: The Gateway
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Logline: After losing his day job, a struggling artist and his progressive girlfriend move in with her Christian-conservative parents in an attempt to get back on their feet… only to realize that her parents release demons from hell through a doorway hidden in their house.
Why You Should Read: I’m a Nicholl quarter-finalist of 2018 and I read the site every day. One notion that always stuck out to me, is the importance of having “that scene.” I believe there are couple here; one of which was inspired by something on your ‘favorite movies’ list of 2018. Also, the social commentary came to me upon conception of the idea and I can’t ignore its ties to current trends. I had a ton of fun writing the characters (most important to me, anyway), but I’m hoping to get the your take on how it stacks up.

Title: THE GRID
Format: Pilot (hour long)
Logline: When an up-and-coming journalist is tasked with finding the story that caused his mentor to disappear, he will uncover a shocking conspiracy that will threaten his news outlet’s very existence and shake the entire country to its core.
Why You Should Read: With so many cop, lawyer and doctor shows everywhere, I’ve always found it odd that journalist shows never really break out. There’s suspense, intrigue, secrets, great characters and plenty of shows use those characters as sub-plots, but none as the primary. The exception was The Newsroom, but that was much more political than anything else, based on tv journalism and not remotely the direction this goes.

I find the profession fascinating (politics aside) and would love to have the opportunity to explore characters and plotlines in and around this field. This particular pilot isn’t written with any act breaks because I received feedback that it would be better to write with an online target audience in mind.

I’d love to get any feedback available to make this as great as it can be.

Thank you for the consideration!

Title: The Well
Genre: Psychological Horror / History
Logline: Ten years after the vicious atrocities of the Partition, a Pakistani woman attempts to make peace with the brutal murder of her family when a vengeful spirit returns to haunt her.
Why You Should Read: This is a setting and historical event that has never been depicted in Indian film, let alone Hollywood and is one of the most overlooked humanitarian crises of the 20th century as it came in the immediate aftermath of World War 2. Up to 2 million people died as a result of this mass migration, and the trauma and violence that occurred has formed the rigid backbone of the Pakistan-India conflicts we see today. By taking a supernatural angle, I’ve attempted to manifest the inner turmoil felt by the survivors as well as present a moral conflict for the reader to constantly have in mind throughout. As a Pakistani, this is an extremely important topic to my cultural history, and after hearing some of the absolute horror stories my direct ancestors faced just 70 years ago shook me to my core. This is an event that had a direct impact on every single Pakistani and Indian, and fearlessly showcasing the terror of it all will be something I’ll forever strive to accomplish.

This week started off on a bad note.

It: Chapter 2, a movie I once proclaimed had the potential to be the best movie of the year, turned out to be a big stinking bag of garbage. You know what kind of garbage I’m talking about. The kind where you clean out your fridge into the garbage bag but you still wait a few days before taking the bag out? Yeah, well It: 2 was SO BAD that if I were given the choice to either smell that bag for thirty minutes or sit through that 3 hour movie again, I would choose the bag.

However, then, like an angel coming down from the heavens, the Joker script arrived. How amazing was this script? It received a “double impressive!!!” I’ve given out four “double impressives” in the totality of Scriptshadow. What was interesting about reviewing these stories back to back is that I was directly able to contrast why one plunged and the other soared. Joker was great due to its utterly simple structure. It followed one man on a simple and clear journey. “It 2,” meanwhile, covered an endless number of characters, which sent the narrative in a million different directions, leaving us with a sprawling mess of a story. This, I proclaimed, is why you should always favor SIMPLE STORIES.

But there were a number of you who argued that there are lots of movies with multiple protagonists that are great. The first “It” had multiple characters and it did well. Then you have Avengers, Guardians, Fast and Furious, X-Men, Star Wars, Toy Story, Glass, Good Boys. It could be argued that Hollywood FAVORS the multiple-protagonist approach. Well hold on there, Sally. We still have John Wick, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Aladdin, and Shazam! to name a few of the big movies this year. But there is truth to the idea that more movies contain larger casts with sprawling stories. And that if you want to be a big-league writer – I’m talking one of these A-listers making 7 figures an assignment – you need to know how to write big sprawling complex scripts.

So let’s get the obvious out of the way. A script with a single hero is going to be easier to write. Period. If you have one hero, you only need to worry about one plot goal and one character transformation. Therefore you can focus all of your creative energy on making those perfect. That’s what Joker did. Arthur wanted to be a famous comedian. That’s his goal. His transformation revolved around an inability to connect with the world and the lengths he would go to make that connection. Boom. Perfect.

Once you move to a property like Avengers, you’re having to worry about that x 7. But let’s get something clear. Marvel is an enigma. It has two advantages nobody else has. It’s dealing with characters with 50+ years of history who the average person already knows. And they treat their films like TV shows, not movies. They’re connected. This means that by the time we get to an Avengers movie, we know everyone intimately. And that means the writers don’t have to spend precious time setting characters up or giving you important backstory, all of the things that can weigh a screenplay down. All they have to do is convey the plot clearly and occasionally check in to make sure you know what’s going on.

Bringing this back to today’s argument, you’ll never have that Marvel security blanket if you yourself write a multi-protagonist script. You’ll have to meticulously set everyone up, which will take seven times as long because you’ve got seven main characters instead of one. And then, once that’s over, you’ll have to set up what your characters are actually trying to do. And once that’s over, you have to bounce back and forth between each storyline in a way that keeps all the storylines going without us forgetting about or getting confused about what’s going on. You are also battling the juggernaut known as pacing. This is what destroyed It 2. Technically, we knew that each of the characters was trying to get their individual artifact. So there were clear character goals for everyone going into our second act. But each storyline was so similar and so monotonous that it began to feel like a relay race with the school’s slowest runners. Now it’s your turn to be see something scary. Now it’s your turn to see something scary. Now it’s your turn to see something scary. When I talk to people about that movie, that’s the section where they all say they checked out.

The problem that they run into and that you’ll run into when you try and write a big sprawling script, is that, inevitably, three or four of your characters won’t be that interesting. So now you’re stuck giving uninteresting characters full on scenes and it isn’t working because the characters are inherently flawed. Who cares about the fat kid turned hunk? Who cares about Eddie? Who cares about grown-up Beverly Marsh? She’s a dud. When you’re writing a single-hero story, you can put all of your time and effort into making that character the greatest most compelling most interesting character ever so that we’ll want to be around them every single second. This is how scripts like Nightcrawler get written.

HOWEVER, if you absolutely must write a big sprawling complex story with lots of characters, I have a few tips for you. First, use a MacGuffin. Create one thing that everybody is after. Greatest MacGuffin ever? The Ark of the Covenant. If you have a great MacGuffin, it ensures that the audience always knows what your characters are after. Whether it’s in minute 20 or minute 80, we know they’re still after that MacGuffin. And that makes up for one of the complex movie’s biggest weaknesses – its lack of focus. With a big clear MacGuffin, you can make your complex movie almost as focused as a John Wick.

Next – make sure the setup behind your characters’ motivations makes sense. The worst thing that can happen in a big sprawling movie is for the audience to start questioning why the characters are doing what they’re doing. This is what separates the great “It” from the terrible “It 2.” In the first movie, they’re kids who are STUCK IN THEIR TOWN when an evil clown starts hunting them. Think about that for a second. Kids can’t leave their homes. They are prisoners to their town until they’re old enough. This is why “It” worked so much better. Our characters had no choice but to fight the clown.

Contrast that with It:2 where the characters are all adults, and therefore can leave whenever they want. Now I know what a few of you are thinking. “No Carson. If they leave the town, they’ll die.” Says who? How do they know that? Where’s the proof? There isn’t any. The only reason you’re saying that is because a character said it. And the only reason a character said it is because the writer realized they had to come up with a reason why these people didn’t just hightail it out of here. So MAYBE if they try and leave, they die. Maybe. Cause somehow Pennywise has that power. Maybe. — When you start forcing desperate shaky reasoning into your character’s mouths to cover up plot holes, I got news for you buddy. Your script is in major trouble. You want your logic and motivation built into the story’s foundation, like “It” had.

Finally, if at all possible, avoid fractionating your characters. JJ Abrams hasn’t talked about Rise of Skywalker much. But one of the things he made very clear was that all the characters were going to be on an adventure together this time. This is because JJ understands that the more you divide your characters up, the more potentially confusing and rambling your story gets, and the more likely you’re going to come up with a dud sub-plot, like Canto Bite. So here’s the rule. Keep all your characters together if possible. If you’re going to split them up, limit it to two groups. It’s still possible to come up with two awesome parallel plotlines in a single movie. However, if you decide to divide your big group into three or more sub-groups, you might as well call your local funeral home and ask them if you can get an early discount on a casket. It’s not that it can’t be done. And I’m not talking about splitting individuals up, which is often done during the climax of, say, a horror film. But if you’re writing one of these big sprawling movies with multiple plotlines and multiple groups of characters, the level of screenwriting expertise required to pull that off is higher than you can imagine.

This is why I tell every aspiring screenwriter: Don’t write The Godfather before you’ve proven you can write Rocky. Don’t write The Departed before you’ve proven you can write Taken. Don’t write Inception before you’ve proven you can write The Terminator. And don’t write The Dark Knight before you’ve proven you can write “Joker.”

Yo, do you have a logline that isn’t working? Are those queries going out unanswered? Try out my logline service. It’s 25 bucks for a 1-10 rating, 150 word analysis, and a logline rewrite. I also have a deluxe service for 40 dollars that allows for unlimited e-mails back and forth where we tweak the logline until you’re satisfied. I consult on everything screenwriting related (first page, first ten pages, first act, outlines, and of course, full scripts). So if you’re interested in getting some quality feedback, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: “CONSULTATION” and I’ll get back to you right away!