Genre: Spy/True Story/Thriller
Premise: In 1985, when CIA Officer Aldrich Ames sells what he believes to be useless intelligence to the Soviets to pay for his divorce, he inadvertently sets off an international Cold War crisis that finds him heading up a special CIA unit — a unit created to find out who sold secrets to the Soviets.
Why You Should Read: Being true, it’s a spy story that’s more grounded than most, but also barely believable in how it plays out. There are absurdities that could only come from real life. It’s based on research drawn from the Senate Committee report published after Ames’s arrest, as well as testimony from the Soviet Intelligence Officer who ran Ames as an agent. Personally, I could use some writerly interaction with my work as I’ve been more-or-less blocked for the better part of a year, and need to get back into the flow. I’d be very grateful for any and all response to the script. Thanks.
Writer: Will Alexander
Details: 133 pages
Man, I had one heck of a long day today. I had to do 10,000 things around town. I then had to do a ton of reading. Some analysis. And then, when I was dying for some sleep, I still had to get this post up. I bring this up as a reminder that sometimes – in fact, probably most times – these are the conditions your script is being read under. If you’re not turning in a draft of the latest Marvel movie to Disney, your priority level is, unfortunately, pretty low. All the more reason to grab the reader right away and make them forget about all of that. That’s what writing is. It’s creating a story so compelling that whatever the reader has going on in their life, in their head, all of that disappears because they’re sucked into your world. So let’s see if Will can pull that off. I’m opening the script now…
It’s 1985. Washington D.C. Aldrich “Rick” Ames, is 42 years old and one of the better CIA agents. He’s in the midst of a divorce and fighting with his wife over the settlement. It’s looking more and more like he’s going to have to pay her a lot of money. Meanwhile, he’s fallen in love with a Columbian woman named Rosario. Rosario likes to tally up $1500 monthly phone bills to Columbia.
Ames’ main contact in the Soviet Union – who, by the way, we’re in a nuclear arms race with – is a man named Sergey. It’s not entirely clear to me why he meets with Sergey, but as best I can tell, he makes his superiors believe that Sergey is a good contact who he can convert into a spy. This allows him a lot of face time with Sergey, and, at a certain point, Sergey starts asking for info. A light bulb goes off for Ames. He can demand 50 grand, give Sergey a couple of names, and not have to worry about money anymore. Which he does.
What he doesn’t know is that Sergey has already figured him out. Rosario is a money succubus. This 50 grand won’t do anything. Which means Ames will have to come back for more. And when he comes back for more, Sergey will ask for more names. And that’s exactly what happens. The CIA is baffled when all of their spies start getting caught. They figure there’s a mole but nobody suspects Ames at all for some reason. Ames continues to trade contacts for cash to the tune of 4 million dollars. A decade later, after he’s settled into the high life, they catch him. Ames is said to be responsible for 10 CIA agents’ deaths.
Okay, I’m about to go on a rant here. You’ve been warned.
133 pages?
If there’s a top 5 rules in screenwriting, “Don’t write a script that’s over 120 pages if you’re an amateur screenwriter,” is in it. It might even be number 1 on the list. Because what happens is what happened today. I’m overworked. I’m tired. But I have to read this script. I open it up. And then I see that number. And once I see that number, I’m enraged. My night has just gotten a lot longer.
It’s not just that. It’s that when you have a long script and a reader with not a lot of time, they’re not going to be able to give your script the focus it requires. When they encounter something they don’t understand in your story, they’re not going to go back and reread it. They’re going to keep going. And in a script like this? With unfamiliar Russian names and the need to keep track of agents and double-agents and who’s lying and who’s not. You’re digging your own grave.
So, look. You can be the person who ignores this stuff and does it your own way. It’s not like no one’s ever succeeded by breaking the rules. But I’m just trying to help you guys avoid basic pitfalls that infuriate people in the business. I want you to succeed. So I’m going to keep reminding you about this stuff.
And by the way, this occurs in contests as well. I know some people will say, well this is more of contest script anyway. Okay, tell that to the guy who has to read 4-5 contest scripts a day.
Moving onto the script, here’s what I liked. There’s a sophistication to this script. There’s a love of the genre. There’s a crazy amount of attention to detail. The writer swung for the fences. He wasn’t trying to write Zombie Vampire Date Night From Hell. This is an Oscar aspiring script. On top of that, this is actor and director bait of the highest order. Steven Spielberg signed onto a similar project, Bridge of Spies. So the counter-argument to everything I just said is THAT. This project has tremendous upside.
If it’s well-executed.
Was it well-executed?
Well, I’ll put it like this. This is a great character-study. And Ames is a perfect metaphor for America. We’re often assumed to be a nation of greed. And that’s what we see play out here. So when I look at the movie as a whole, I like that component of it.
However, when I look at its individual parts, it wasn’t an easy read. You’d get a lot of long scenes with men sitting down talking. And in those scenes, the chunks of dialogue would not be 2-3 lines long. They would be 10-15 lines long (not all of the time, but enough to say it happened frequently). This verbosity took its toll on the pacing and overall enjoyment of the script. In fact, I think you could eliminate 10 pages here just by cutting down how much everyone says every time they open their mouth.
Also, the story didn’t evolve enough. I got the same feeling in a scene on page 80 as I had on page 40. The boiling pot of Ames getting closer and closer to being discovered kept the story moving. But there was a lack of differentiation to the scenes. It felt like I read 20 scenes between Ames and Rosario that were exactly the same. And Ames always seemed to be sitting at a table talking to someone. I don’t know. I wanted more variety in what I was seeing.
One of the skills that’s important for a screenwriter to remember is the skill of condensing. Anybody can write some rambling 160 page story. But one of the reasons they need screenwriters is because non-screenwriters don’t know how to condense story. They don’t know what parts can be thrown out, what parts can be combined, what characters can be jettisoned. This is what great screenwriters are masters at. If a director comes to them and says, “Look, I don’t have the money to shoot all three of these scenes. Can you write a scene that combines all of them?” they can do it in a heartbeat!
And I get that there’s no rules. But, at the same time, you can’t be too precious. You have to think of the reader and the pacing and make tough choices so that the script is not just an accurate telling of your story, but an entertaining telling of it.
This is a strong topic. I can totally see a studio wanting to tell this guy’s story. In fact, I can imagine the trades write up of it and I wouldn’t blink an eye if I saw it. But for me it was too big, too repetitive at times, and probably needed a couple of “HOLY SH*T” scenes in the middle that were unforgettable. I wish Will all the luck in the world because he’s an awesome contributor to the site. However, next time, I want that easy read from him! :)
Script link: Year of the Spy
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I wouldn’t intricately weave well-known music into a montage. By that I mean, you give us a few montage images, then a lyric from the song, then more montage images, then another lyric. Here’s why. While this stuff works GREAT on screen, it’s actually really hard to follow on the page. Often times, we don’t know the song as well as you do. So when you give us a lyric, we have to stop, sing the song in our head, get to that lyric to know what we’re listening to, and then get back to the montage, which is already a disjointed experience, considering we’re jumping to different moments in time. And, on top of that, they never get the song you want anyway. They always have to pay for something cheaper. So I would leave that part up to the filmmakers and just make your script as easy to read as possible.
So far in our Dialogue Series, we’ve talked about how to set up a scene for good dialogue. We’ve talked about the importance of adding personality to your characters, as that’s a driving force behind good dialogue. Today I want to talk about the kind of dialogue that makes me want to kill myself. Because I read it all the time. And if I can just steer screenwriters away from these two things, I can ensure that all the screenplays I read from now on will have 50% better dialogue. So what are these script-killers?
ON-THE-NOSE DIALOGUE
and
GENERAL DIALOGUE
On-the-nose dialogue is dialogue where the characters are speaking only to service the plot and the scene. It’s as if they have a direct line into the writer’s head and are making sure that they’re saying exactly what the writer needs them to say for the reader to understand what they’re thinking and what’s going on. On-the-nose dialogue is obvious and straightforward. “I am so tired this morning.” “You should sleep in.” “But I have the big meeting today.” “Oh yeah. I’ll cook you breakfast.”
On-the-nose characters speak like cave men. Whatever they’re thinking, they share it. This gives the entire conversation a false reality. The audience isn’t even sure why they’re so bored. Characters are speaking on the screen. Usually they like this. But nothing the characters are saying is interesting. And that’s because there’s no human element to the conversation.
What’s the human element? Well, for starters, humans rarely say what they’re thinking. If Jane shows up at work with a disastrous new haircut and asks her friend, Sally, what she thinks, is Sally going to say what she thinks? Probably not. Conversation is a dance where you’re balancing what you’re thinking against what you’re saying. And I think that’s what a lot of newbies get wrong. They have the character say what they think as opposed to considering how that character might present that thought once it goes through their filter.
Here, in The Breakfast Club, Andrew (the Jock) is mad at Bender (the Burnout) and lets him know it….
You can see that John Hughes even wrote it into the script. Bender wants to say something nasty. He’s angry. But instead of being a robot who conveys exactly what he thinks, he pretends that he’s unaffected and comes back with a jab. This is the human element. We think about what we’re going to say so that when we do say something, it frames us in the light that we want to be perceived in.
I can tell a writer is thinking “off-the-nose” (which is what you want!) when obvious questions are asked and non-obvious responses are given. Here’s a quick exchange in Erin Brokovich, where Erin is going to a woman’s house to get some information on the water scandal that’s hit the county.
I’ve read a hundred scripts where a character asks a question just like this. “Are you a lawyer?” And the on-the-nose response from the lawyer is, “Yes, do you have a moment?”
It should be noted that on-the-nose dialogue becomes harder to avoid the more heavily plotted your script is. If you have a ton of plot, then your characters will become mouthpieces for the plot instead of real people having real discussions. This was a problem with yesterday’s script, Escher, which had a lot of plot going on, so all the characters needed to say exactly what needed to be said.
I bring this up because on-the-nose dialogue is often a result of circumstance. You’ve created stories or situations whereby the characters have to say exactly what they’re thinking. This is why you want to leave enough freedom in your story to let your characters talk without the constraints of needing to convey a plot point every three lines.
To avoid on-the-nose dialogue, avoid logic. Logic is your enemy in dialogue. Try to be playful. You want to have fun with your characters as opposed to just asking and answering questions. And try to incorporate scenes where one character isn’t being completely honest with the other. Or is holding back on some truth or their feelings. Once you have characters who aren’t being 100% honest, it’s hard to write on-the-nose dialogue.
Let’s move on to GENERAL DIALOGUE. General dialogue is dialogue that is the bare bones generic version of what a character can say. For example, if a character is at Thanksgiving dinner and wants more mashed potatoes, he might say, “Can someone please pass me the mashed potatoes?” This is a perfectly acceptable thing to say in real life. But in a movie, the line is so generic, it’s invisible.
The way you battle general dialogue is through specificity and playfullness. You add words and phrases and angles that add flavor to the line. Your hungry character might nudge his sister and whisper, “Hey, snag me the mashed potatoes before Uncle Rick engulfs them.” It’s not a crazy better line. But it’s more specific. The word “snag” is a little different. “Uncle Rick” makes the line unique to the story. “Engulfs” is a slightly dressed up way of saying “eats.” How specific you get will depend on the character, the story, the situation, and the genre. This line wouldn’t work in, say, Schindler’s List. Let’s take a look at an exchange from Deadpool.
Notice how specific this dialogue gets, particularly towards the end with those last few lines. The two get into some pretty graphic experiences. Of course they’re not real, which makes the dialogue “off-the-nose,” and a solid example of everything I’m trying to teach in this post.
For the next exchange, we’re going to Fast and Furious 4. In the scene, Han is paying Dom for the job they just did…
Look at the specificity in the words and phases. “Skippin’ out?” “Simple economics. Profit’s drying up here.” “Getting a little tired of rice and beans.” “I hear they’re doing some crazy shit in Tokyo.” “This nickel and dime stuff.”
All that’s really happening here is that the writer is willing to play with words. That’s the attitude you want to have whenever you’re writing dialogue. Obviously, the extent with which you’ll play will depend on the scenario and characters. But even if it’s two stiff accountants sharing plot information, you should still find ways to play with the words so it doesn’t come out like two robots talking.
That’s the worst thing that can happen to dialogue. On-the-nose generic “just the facts ma’am” conversation. Throw in some off the nose specific dialogue – be willing to play with words and phrasing – and your dialogue’s going to get a lot better.
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Genre: True Story – World War 2
Premise: (from Black List) Famed artist M.C. Escher reluctantly uses his unique view of the world to help the Dutch Resistance fight Nazi occupation during WWII. Inspired by true events.
About: This script made last year’s Black List! Jason Kessler worked as a writer’s assistant on the show, Madam Secretary.
Writer: Jason Kessler
Details: 98 pages
In honor of the unveiling of the trailer for World War 2 movie, JoJo Rabbit (script review here), I present you with…. ESCHER! Actually, I chose “Escher” because it had the potential to be a unique look at the war. We’re talking about one of the most famous illusionists ever. So surely we were going to get something different, right?
It’s the Netherlands in 1944 and many Dutch Jews are being forced into hiding. The German war machine is at its apex, leaving Amsterdam heavily occupied. 46 year old artist, M.C. Escher, has somehow managed to make a living off his trippy drawings, which are popular with the Germans. As a side job, he drives out to local farms and stocks up on vegetables, which he gives out to those in need.
One day, Escher’s brother, Berend, takes him to his son, Rudolf’s, place. Rudolf fights for the resistance. He asks Escher if he can start coming along to the farms. They need to hide more Jews and they’ve run out of places to hide. Escher reluctantly agrees, only because his good friend’s daughter, Elizabeth, will be in need of the service.
Escher wants as little contact with the resistance as possible. However, once he starts helping them, they want more. Escher has access to one of the biggest German doctors in town, and they desperately need penicillin. Escher helps them get some, but they aren’t satisfied. So they go to the office one night and kill the doctor, taking the rest of the penicillin.
This leads the Germans to kill 10 innocent men, making Escher furious. Rudolf tries to explain that the penicillin they stole will end up saving more lives than they lost, but Escher isn’t buying it. Eventually, the Germans catch wind of the farm network and, in 72 hours, plan to raid all the hiding spots. This forces Escher and the resistance to create an intricate network of relocation, which will be tracked by an elaborate drawing he creates which only the resistance will understand. Will they succeed in time to save Elizabeth? Or will all this end up crashing down on Escher?
Naturally, when you read a script about Escher and World War 2, you’re expecting weird illusions to play a big part in the story. But there wasn’t as much of that as I had hoped. You had the coded Escher farm map that was keeping the Jews hidden. You had a dream sequence where German soldiers chased Jews inside Escher’s most famous work, “Relativity.” And there are a few sequences where characters become 2-dimensional drawings, not unlike what Escher would draw.
But it wasn’t like Escher’s talents were inexorably linked to the story. What surprised me about the script is that I actually got invested in the story itself. Early on, we meet this child, Elizabeth, who’s thin and malnourished, like a lot of Jews at the time. And yet when Escher brings her an apple, she insists on sharing it with her grandfather. So we immediately love this little girl.
Then, when the farm-hiding plotline revs up, it’s not a faceless endeavor. We know one of the characters who’s being hidden – Elizabeth. So every time it’s mentioned that those people are in danger, we think of her. And therefore, we care about what happens.
The script also gets surprisingly dark, with the people who Escher is helping going behind his back and taking advantage of him (by killing the doctor he knows for penicillin). This creates a morally complicated story where simply doing the right thing isn’t always an easy proposition. He has to think, if I help these guys, they might do something bad, and then more Jews might get killed. In so many of these scripts, it’s black and white. Save Jewish Character – good. Kill Nazi Officer – bad. There’s a lot more going on here.
This should stand as a great lesson for screenwriters. Saving people is more interesting when it’s complicated. When there are consequences involved. At one point Rudolf is literally doing the math for Escher to explain that, yeah, they just got a bunch of their people killed, but in the end, they’ll come out on top.
If the script has a flaw, it’s its main character. Escher rarely does anything of his own volition. Someone tells him, “You should do this,” and then Escher either decides yes or no. On top of that, you’re wondering if any of this is true. They tell us at the beginning “This film is an illusion. Some of it is real. Some of it is surreal. Escher would’ve liked it that way.” Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. But when you’re talking something as dark and intense as World War 2, and you throw a known historical figure in there, you’d like to think that what you’re watching is more truthful than it is less truthful. I don’t want to go on some morality rant here. But it feels so much better when you see a movie like this and then you find out all those great scenes that you watched really happened.
The good news is, this is one of the few World War 2 scripts that I think deserves to be made. And I say that because a visual director could do wonders with this material. If you could somehow integrate Escher’s work into the visual aesthetic of the film? It would not only look amazing, but it would add an element that we’ve never seen before in a World War 2 movie. And how often do you get to say that? It’s a great reminder that, in the end, you’re not trying to write a script. You’re trying to make a movie. So you want to ask yourself, is this a movie the Hollywood machine would want to make? And I think this is. We’ll see what happens.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Reluctant heroes are harder to make work because they rarely take action on their own. They’re yanked around and asked to do things, like Escher is here. It’s not as if they’re uninteresting. The dilemma that comes with their choices – especially if those choices have life and death consequences – can be compelling to watch. But it’s always harder to get on board with a character who isn’t driving the story through their own actions. I just think at some point, even if your character IS reactionary, he needs to take the reins away from the other characters and make the horses go himself.
Genre: Contained Thriller
Premise: (from Hit List) A happily married couple’s anniversary celebration goes awry when they find themselves victims of a sinister home invasion.
About: Platinum Dunes has been one of the only companies paying the bills over at Paramount. Last year they bought this project from Holly Brix. Brix has been fighting her way up the ladder all decade. Coming off of writing on The Vampire Diaries, she’s worked on a number of assignments of projects in development.
Writer: Holly Brix
Details: 98 pages
Talk about your blast from the past. I first reviewed a script from Brix (titled “The Ark”) eight years ago! It’s good to see she’s still spec’ing it up. Most writers who get through the golden Hollywood arches chase them assignment dollars. So to see some writers still betting on themselves is inspiring. But this latest script from Brix wasn’t entirely uncalculated. She knew that if she was going to sell something, it needed to be a genre that studios actually buy. And thus she went with one of the most dependable sub-genres out there: the home invasion thriller.
Once a staple of Hollywood cinema, these thrillers are making a comeback thanks to Netflix’s algorithm anointing them profit-worthy. I mean, if they approved that abomination of a movie, Secret Obsession, they’re probably chomping at the bit to produce a script that actually makes sense. Does Happy Anniversary make sense? Let’s find out!
[IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO DISCUSS THIS SCRIPT WITHOUT DISCUSSING ALL ITS SPOILERS. I RECOMMEND YOU READ IT YOURSELF FIRST TO GET THE INTENDED EXPERIENCE]
42 year old Brett Hardwick, the producer of a Bachelor-like show called “The Groom,” is celebrating his 11th anniversary with his mildly successful actress wife, Michelle. The two seem smitten with each other. And after they eat at one of the nicest restaurants in Los Angeles, they head back to their mansion in Malibu.
However, after they fall asleep, a man in a mask appears above their bed. He wakes Michelle up and tells her to zip-tie her husband’s hands together. Uh-oh. He tells both of them that he’s going to rob them. However, when he goes into the house to do the job, Brett is able to escape and confront the man.
Michelle barely overhears their conversation, where she learns that Brett and the man, Esperanza, are actually working together. Brett wants to kill his wife for the insurance money as he’s having money problems. Originally, Esperanza wasn’t supposed to know this. He was only here so Brett could prove that a man broke in. Now that murder’s involved, Esperanza is having second thoughts.
He ties up Brett then goes back to Michelle and sees if he can make a side deal with her. Esperanza is an actor and would love to be the new “Groom.” Michelle tells him she can make it happen. But then Brett comes back in the picture and Esperanza shoves them in a locked closet as he tries to figure out his next move. Michelle, who now knows her husband plans to kill her, must pretend that they’re on the same team in order to get out of here asap.
Eventually, the two get out and Michelle gets her hands on a gun. A big confrontation occurs between the three as everyone demands that they all come clean, which ends (MAJOR SPOILER) in Michelle shooting and killing Esperanza, after which, she high-fives Brett, and we learn this was all just a big anniversery gift. That Michelle got to kill someone. Or was it? We then flash back to Esperanza’s side of the story, where we learn there’s still one last problem the couple will need to take care of.
Whenever I finish a script I’m going to review, the first question I ask is, “Is there anything unique to talk about here?”
Usually, the answer is no because everybody keeps writing the same stuff. And, honestly, when I saw this premise, I was sure it was going to be more of the same.
But Happy Anniversary is different. I’m not going to say it’s entirely original. But it’s got enough uniqueness that we actually have something to talk about today.
The script is quite layered in that every 20 pages, we get some new information that makes us see the story through new eyes. At first it’s Brett plans to kill his wife. Then it’s Michelle plans to work with Esperanza. Then it’s Brett and his wife working together under possible false pretenses (neither can 100% trust the other). The conversations the characters have become complex, to the point where after you hear what everyone says in a scene, you stop and try to figure out what they really meant. Were they lying? Were they telling the truth? Who’s allies with who now? It was fun.
The script also nailed its “But what it’s really about” component. A “But what it’s really about” can turn a standard premise into something riveting. This movie doesn’t work if it’s just a married couple unlucky enough to have a home invasion on the night of their anniversary. It works because what it’s really about is their marriage and is it as strong as they’ve presented it to be? There’s a ton of irony in that question.
Just a reminder, “But what it’s really about” is the character story you’re telling within your movie. “Titanic” is about being on the most infamous doomed ship in history. But what it’s really about is the influential people we meet throughout our lives that help us see the world in ways that change our lives for the better. It’s that universal human experience component that everyone can understand and relate to. But it’s even better when it’s tied to your concept, which it is in Happy Anniversary.
Another thing I noticed was that Esperanza felt more complex than your average bad guy. He wasn’t just bad to be bad. He had issues with killing. He had fame aspirations. He had morals about what he would and wouldn’t do. Then money enters the equation and that line of morality starts shifting. I wasn’t sure what was coming next from this guy. And that impressed me.
Then, late in the script, there’s this surprise chapter where we flash back and meet Esperanza before all this goes down. We get to know him better and what his perspective was going into the night. Whenever you’re forced to see the world through a character’s eyes, that character takes on a whole new life. They’re going to have more going on because you don’t see them as a secondary object that’s written to react to your hero. You see them as their own hero. In their own story.
And so all of a sudden, his complexity made sense. Once Brix had to get into this character’s head to write this late “get to know Esperanza” chapter, he became more complex, a primary character as opposed to a secondary one. So the lesson here is, you won’t always write a script like this where we’ll see the story through the “villain’s” eyes. But you can still write out a big backstory separate from the script that will help you find that same complexity that Brix found here.
As much fun as this script is to discuss, it’s not perfect. When you create this many layers, this many characters deceiving each other, it’s almost impossible to write from a place of truth. For example, early on, we’re with Michelle as she’s secretly listening to Brett and Esperanza talk about murdering her. Now, eventually, we’ll learn that Brett and Michelle were working together the whole time. Which means that when we were watching Michelle in that moment, we weren’t watching her fear that conversation like we thought, we were watching her listen to a script they had already drawn up with one another. So there’s a lot of cheating that goes on with these scripts and it makes for a lot of, “Well wait a minute, then what about…” questions when the credits roll.
Alfred Hitchcock used to say that you only needed to trick the audience for as long as it took to leave the theater. It didn’t matter if things didn’t make sense after that. But you can’t do that these days. Movies are dissected incessantly and become retroactive failures if enough people point out their inconsistencies. Not everything adds up here. But it’s entertaining enough to recommend. And I can see why Platinum Dunes grabbed it. It’s a fun script.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Chapters. Brix uses chapters here, of which there are four (or maybe five). The nice thing about chapters is you can create your own structure with them. You can move away from the classic three-act structure and create your own checkpoints. There’s something about knowing we’re inside of a chapter that makes us feel like the writer has a plan. So we’re not freaking out when the script doesn’t follow the traditional movie formula.
What I learned 2: Get your thrillers and horror scripts to Platinum Dunes. They love original specs in these genres!
Genre: Live Action Animation (is that a thing?)
Premise: (from IMDB) After the murder of his father, a young lion prince flees his kingdom only to learn the true meaning of responsibility and bravery.
About: The Lion King is the new king of the Disney Live Animation Remakes as it raked in 185 million dollars over its first weekend (Beauty and the Beast is second with 174 million). Jon Favreau directed this photo-realistic remake which stars Donald Glover, Beyonce, James Earl Jones, Seth Rogen, and Billy Eichner.
Writer: Jeff Nathanson (story by Brenda Chapman – characters by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton).
Details: 1 hour and 58 minutes long
So the new Lion King movie isn’t getting the best reviews. And I’m saying to myself, whykunna matata? The CGI real-life animation looks flawless. The trailers make the movie look beautiful. They sent out a clip of the famous opening of the film ahead of time, which turned out to be a shot-for-shot remake. That tells me Favreau isn’t going to mess with the story. The Seth Rogen Billy Eichner casting of Pumbaa and Timon is beyond inspired. Every behind-the-scenes clip of them working is great. So what’s going on here?
I think I know.
The Lion King is like the Star Wars of animated films. It’s not only a perfect movie. But it’s a movie that people hold so dearly to their heart, they can’t see it any other way than how it was. Remaking the film “live action,” is like stepping on an entire generation’s dreams.
However, I was never a huge Lion King guy. Don’t get me wrong. I liked it. But I only saw it one time 20 years ago. So I hold no biases or preconceived notions about how things are supposed to be. Honestly, the only moment I truly remember was that opening. So I’m not going to be angrily pointing out that Pumbaa and Timon were in a waterfall during the original performance of Hakuna Matata, and now they’re in a field.
What I’m most excited about with this film is to finally watch it through screenwriting eyes. Because when I originally saw it, I didn’t know anything about screenwriting. So all of that manipulation the screenwriter did to me to make me enjoy his story – I was finally going to figure out how he did it. Cause let’s face it – this is one of the greatest cinematic meals ever served and it will be great to finally find out what was in the recipe.
I’m assuming you know the story of The Lion King. But in order to properly discuss the screenplay, here are the highlights. 2019’s Lion King starts with baby Simba lion being announced as the next king. This makes Scar, the brother of current lion king, Mufasa, angry, as it means he’ll never inherit the throne. Unless, of course, he kills both Mufasa and Simba.
He manages to kill Mufasa, but Simba is more elusive, running far away and eventually meeting up with warthog, Pumbaa and meekrat, Timon. These two only care about the here and now. They just want to have fun. And they teach Simba to do just that. Cut to several years later and Simba is all grown up, none the wiser that back home, Scar has employed a group of rabid hyenas to rule the land, which has been decimated under his reign.
Eventually, Simba’s childhood friend, Nala, escapes the clutches of that reign, heads out into the countryside, and finds Simba, who she’s shocked is still alive. She explains to Simba how terrible things are back at the kingdom, and asks him to come back and take his rightful throne. After living a totally chill-out lifestyle for the last few years, though, Simba doesn’t think he has it in him to defeat Scar. But Nala eventually convinces him it’s his duty and off they go.
This was an oddly structured screenplay.
It had an enormous first act. At least it felt it like it did. There’s a downside to long first acts and there’s an upside. The downside is that it can feel like the story isn’t getting started. Which leads readers and audiences to become impatient. They want to reach that second act starting point where the hero goes off on their adventure.
The upside is that you spend more time getting to know the characters. The more the audience knows the characters, the more they’ll care, and the more invested they’ll be throughout the second and third acts.
My guess is a couple of things happened here. Jon Favreau loves long first acts. He’s said as much in interviews. Also, you don’t need to worry about keeping a reader invested early on with a script like this. The first time people see the story will be in theaters (not on paper). By then, you already have them. I mean, who’s going to walk out 20 minutes into a movie after they’ve paid 70 bucks for their family to be there? So long first acts are something you don’t really need to worry about in this situation.
The biggest surprise about The Lion King was the light second act. The second act is supposed to be the act of struggle, of conflict. But Simba doesn’t experience any of that in The Lion King. He’s just sort of hanging out with his buddies, singing and having fun. It’s a very relaxed life for Simba, which is the opposite of what usually happens in a movie. For example, when Anna goes after Elsa in Frozen, she encounters all sorts of obstacles trying to get her and bring her back home.
So I wondered how they were doing that and keeping the movie entertaining. I realized they did it in two ways. The first was they would occasionally cut back to Scar’s rule and show how bad it was getting. At one point he tells Sarabi, Mufasa’s widow, that if she doesn’t marry him, the hyenas will eat before the lions. So now all the lions are starving. This keeps some level of conflict in the movie, even if it’s away from the main character.
The other way is through music. And this is where things can get confusing for screenwriters because they can rightfully argue that the main character isn’t doing much throughout the second act. He’s very inactive. And, hey Mr. Professor Screenwriter Man, didn’t you tell us that our main characters needed to be active for a script to be good?
Well, here’s the thing. Everything goes out the window when a movie has a “BEST EVER” of something. You can argue that there’s zero story in When Harry Met Sally. It’s just a bunch of static scenes of people talking. Well, yeah, but it contains THE BEST EVER ROMANTIC COMEDY DIALOGUE in movie history. When you have a “best ever” in a film, all that film’s weaknesses can be overlooked because we don’t see them. And Lion King has the best ever music in an animated film. So even though Simba and his pals aren’t doing much, we’re getting these iconic musical numbers to sing along to. So we don’t notice it as much as we would in a non-musical movie.
I will say this. By making the first act so long, it ensured that the second act would be shorter. Therefore, the lack of conflict in the second act wasn’t as pronounced as it would have been had the act been twenty minutes longer.
Another thing I wanted to bring up was plot point paradoxes because there are times in a script when you get to these plot points where you have two opposing forces working against each other and you basically have to fudge the plot to move forward.
This occurs in The Lion King after Mufasa’s death when Scar approaches Simba. This is a much trickier moment than the casual viewer realizes. Simba has to live for the story to go on. But Scar would 100% kill him. We’ve already established he’ll kill his bloodline to get the throne. So if we’re talking about reality and character consistency here, Scar would slaughter Simba right now.
But then there’s no movie. That’s the paradox. So what do you do? You have to fudge it. So what Scar says to Simba is “run away and never come back.” Then, the second Simba starts running, Scar tells the hyenas to “kill him.” This is your fence-straddling moment. It allows Simba to get away so the story can continue, and it keeps your character consistent since Scar “technically” tried to kill him.
I liked 2019’s The Lion King. It didn’t capture the magic of the first film. However, of the Disney live animation remakes, this is definitely my favorite.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The first act can be thought of as the “getting to know everybody who will be in this story” act. It’s where you set everyone up. As long as you keep all of these character set-ups entertaining, you can theoretically stretch the first act out as long as you want. The Lion King 2019 incorporates a “Mini-journey” in its first act to ensure it stays entertaining. In it, Simba and Nala go explore a graveyard, where they encounter a pack of hungry hyenas. We’re setting up the characters AND we’re being entertained. If you make the mistake of only doing the first one (the setting up part) expect the reader to get bored quickly!
