Genre: Drama/Crime
Premise: (from IMDB) When two overzealous cops get suspended from the force, they must delve into the criminal underworld to get their just due.
About: S. Craig Zahler is somewhat of a screenwriting legend. At one point he’d sold over a dozen [unproduced] screenplays. Since then, Zahler’s graduated into directing, and his newest project is the delicately titled, “Dragged Across Concrete.” Sounds like a biopic about safe spaces. Zahler will be bringing back the star of his previous film, Vince Vaughn, as well as adding Mel Gibson to the mix (who it was announced yesterday is directing a remake of The Wild Bunch). Concrete is already poured and is slated to come out later this year.
Writer: S. Craig Zahler
Details: 157 pages!
If you’re new to the site, take a look at the right panel where I’ve listed my Top 25 favorite scripts. You see number 3? That was written by this guy. S. Craig Zahler has one of the most powerful literary voices in the screenwriting community. When you’re reading a script by Zahler, you know it instantly. While that’s a big advantage in the spec world, it can be a roadblock in the “get movies made” world. Studios don’t really know how to pair up unique voices and directors. This is why most voice-y screenwriters direct their own material (Tarantino, Sophia Coppola, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson). It took Zahler a long time to realize that. But once he did, his career trajectory shot up. He started with Bone Tomahawk, moved on to Brawl in Cell Block 99. And now he’s going to drag some poor soul across concrete. Let’s see how he did, at least on the writing end.
20-something Henry Johns has just got out of prison to find that his mother has taken up prostituting herself and using all the money to shoot heroin into her veins. Not a good look since she’s supposed to be taking care of Henry’s little brother. With no work prospects on the horizon, Henry knows that the only way he’s going to flip this situation around is by plunging back into the crime world.
Across town, cops and long-time partners Brett and Anthony are dealing with their own issues. Anthony’s thinking of proposing to his girlfriend despite suspicions that she’s not that into him. And Brett’s dealing with a wife who’s struggling with MS, and a daughter entering puberty, which has gotten the attention of all the boys in the yard, that yard being located in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city.
Things come to a head during a routine bust when Brett is videotaped roughing up a perp. The video goes viral and gets the both of them suspended for six weeks without pay. Sick and tired of his shitty life, Brett decides to do the unthinkable: Use a criminal contact to find out where the next big drug deal is going down. His plan is to come in when they least expect it, take the money, and head to greener pastures with his family. While Anthony isn’t as keen on the idea, he wants to help his friend.
So Brett and Anthony stake out the dealer’s home, and when the crew finally arrives, we notice that one of the dealers is Henry Johns. Our off-duty cops follow Henry and his crew to the exchange spot, except something is off. It turns out they’re not doing a drug deal. They’re robbing a bank. Brett thinks of calling an audible until he realizes that the payday is going to be 10x what he originally assumed.
Brett and Anthony wait for the thugs to finish the job before following them home. All parties end up at an abandoned gas station, where a wild showdown occurs. People start double-crossing each other while others are forced into temporary alliances. Despite Brett doing everything in his power to get that money, it becomes clear to us that the only person who’s going to make it out of here alive is Father Greed.
The first question you’re probably asking is, “How did you make it through 157 pages, Carson?”
It wasn’t easy.
For sometimes better and sometimes worse, Zahler likes to draw out his stories. You love it when he’s setting up rich characters with complex relationships. You hate it when he extends what should’ve been a 2-minute scene into 15 minutes of “well that could’ve been shorter.”
I mean the stakeout sequence is 10 pages long. You don’t need that. That’s not to say you can’t draw out certain scenes. But the degree to which you can stay with a scene is directly proportional to how interesting the situation is. A stakeout is boring. So of course we’re going to be bored if we sit around for 10 minutes.
On the flip side, the next scene, where they discreetly follow the criminals to their rendezvous point, felt perfect at 15 pages. Why? Because there’s an ongoing sense that they might be spotted. Because the characters we’re watching have a high-stakes goal. Because a mystery emerges about what the criminals are actually up to. Better situations can be extended out.
This was an issue I had with Brawl in Cell Block 99 as well. It was taking too long to get to the point of the movie. All the best stories (in any medium) become interesting once a problem arises. If I tell you a story about my drive through Death Valley and I never introduce a problem, you’re either going to tune me out or tell me to shut up. If I tell you a story about driving through Death Valley and then my car breaks down in the middle of nowhere on the hottest day of the year (a PROBLEM), you’re going to be captivated. Stories don’t start until there’s a problem.
The “problem” in this story, which I would argue is when Brett realizes he needs to get his family out of this neighborhood, doesn’t come up until 50 pages into the script. While I’ll never say that certain plot points need to happen by certain page numbers, every page after page 15 that you don’t introduce the central problem of your story is dramatically increasing the likelihood that the reader is going to tune out.
In my case, I knew this going in, because I know Zahler’s writing so well. That allowed me to stick with the script longer than I typically would. And once we get to the problem, the movie picks up considerably. Actually, you could make the argument that a lot of those scenes that seemed arbitrary at the time became essential anchoring points.
For example, we meet Sara, Brett’s 12 year old daughter, walking home from school in a shitty neighborhood. A few boys harass her, and we get the sense that just walking home for this girl is dangerous. It’s a good scene but all I could think was, “This is a long script. Can’t we cut this scene out?” However, later, when Brett’s wife makes the argument that things are only going to get worse for Sara if they stay in this neighborhood, us experiencing Sara’s harassment becomes critical in understanding why Brett makes the choice to steal money.
Not to mention, the climax makes all the setup feel worth it. It was a clever move by Zahler to introduce Henry Johns early, ignore him for the first half of the second act, then bring him back as a point man in the robbery. Creating complicated scenarios where we’re not sure who we’re rooting for – the good guys or the bad guys – isn’t easy to do. That legwork of setting up both Brett’s and Henry’s shitty lives – even if I was bored watching them at the time – paid off in that I wanted both of them to succeed, something I knew wasn’t going to happen, which is exactly why I was so drawn in.
Despite that being well-done, I still think Zahler’s too self-indulgent. Even five minutes in a movie is an eternity. You can get any point across in 5 minutes. But with Zahler, he’ll double that without a second thought. And while these endless scenes never derail the movie, they certainly wreak havoc on the pacing. I hear the director of The Outlaw King cut 20 minutes off his movie after the negative test screening at TIFF. I would suggest Zahler do the same. You don’t want to waste a movie with character work this strong.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The stronger the motivation, the more we’ll root for your hero. I love how we get Brett’s motivation in a single monologue. Anthony is pressing him and pressing him and pressing him on why he’s risking everything for this money. Brett finally cracks…
What I learned 2: Now some of you might say, “But Carson! Isn’t that on-the-nose dialogue!?” No! It isn’t. Don’t you guys remember last week’s dialogue article? Number 2? A character can reveal backstory (or other exposition-driven information) as long as he’s pushed into it.
Genre: Drama/Supernatural
Premise: (from IMDB) June and Oscar live a comfortable but very predictable wedded life when suddenly they find themselves in a completely unexpected situation, raising questions about love and marriage.
About: Alan Yang, creator of Master of None, got this gig when Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph, who have been wanting to work together forever but couldn’t find the right project, decided to have a “reverse casting” whereby they brought writers in to pitch them on a show they’d be in. Yang and Matt Hubburd were the winners with this simplistic yet trippy idea about marriage that has quickly become one of the most buzzed-about shows of the year. The only reason it isn’t a bigger deal is because it’s on Amazon Prime and nobody knows how the hell to get on Amazon Prime.
Writer: Matt Hubbard and Alan Yang
Details: 8 half-hour episodes
Before I get into my review of Forever, I want to discuss two movies that bombed this weekend: This Is Us 2 and Assassination Nation. I kid I kid. Life Itself and Assassination Nation. Both films made a COMBINED 3 million dollars despite being shown in a combined 3000 theaters.
So what’s the lesson here? Movies must fit inside a marketing campaign that the average moviegoer understands. For example, when you market a bunch of people getting together to rob a bank, the average moviegoer understands that that’s a heist, and therefore, if they like heist films, they will likely enjoy themselves. But when you look at the trailer for Life Itself, where is the marketing familiarity? It’s just characters talking to each other and crying. You can see that on television but you don’t see it on film anymore. That’s confusing to the average moviegoer. I want to be clear about this – If you write a script that cannot fit inside a pre-established marketing campaign, nobody’s going to want to see it.
That’s not to say you can’t write a movie like this for a streaming service. But it’s not going to work on the big screen.
Assassination Nation is a tougher nut to crack but, in the end, suffers for the same reason. I can see how producers could talk themselves into this movie working. It’s the #MeToo movement. It’s female empowerment. It’s a bunch of women kicking ass. They were probably thinking people would see the movie because the advertising would celebrate these messages. But here’s the problem. Nobody who saw this poster understood what the movie was about. I don’t understand this marketing campaign because I haven’t seen this type of marketing campaign before. So why would I risk $20 on a film that I don’t understand? Why would anybody?
Ironically, if the movie had a single woman holding a gun instead of four women, it would fit into one of the most successful marketing campaigns we have at the moment. That’s what I want you guys to remember. If your script doesn’t fit into a marketing campaign that you’ve seen before, it’s going to have a tough time finding an audience.
Which leads us to Forever, a show that 10 years ago, someone would’ve tried to write as a feature. These days, because it doesn’t fit into any known marketing paradigm, it makes a lot more sense to explore as a streaming show. Now we all know how I feel about experimental storytelling. One of the common criticisms of me is that I don’t understand anything unless it abides by the rules. That’s not true. What I don’t understand is anything that tries to pass sloppy off as visionary. Let’s hope Forever doesn’t fall into that trap.
By the way, this show is one giant spoiler. If you want to enjoy the show in all its glory, I recommend watching it first then coming back to this review.
June and Oscar are a couple of semi-loners who were weird enough that they had trouble finding mates early on in life. Therefore, when they meet each other, it’s not clear whether they’ve really found “the one” or they’re just happy to have found “someone.” Either way, they’re much happier together than they were alone, and that’s all that matters.
There are a couple of sticking points in June and Oscar’s marriage. The first is that Oscar likes routine. He likes eating the same dinner every night. He likes going to the same lake house every year. He’s a creature of habit. June enjoys doing these things because Oscar enjoys them. But after awhile, she gets sick of them. And therein lies their issue. Neither June or Oscar ever tells the other how they feel. This results in resentment, particularly on June’s end.
June tries to remedy this by suggesting something different this year: SKIING. Oscar doesn’t like the idea because it’s new, but eventually gives in. After the two hobble around the slopes for awhile, Oscar loses control and crashes into a tree, dying. That’s the end of the first episode. The second episode is about June grieving the loss of Oscar. And after a long year, she finally gets a big promotion at work, which includes a trip to Hawaii. As they prep for takeoff, June opens a package of nuts and ends up choking on them. She dies. That’s the end of episode 2.
In episode 3, June wakes up in the afterlife, which is basically a more pleasant version of suburbia. Oscar is thrilled that she’s arrived and informs her that now they get to stay here forever. June isn’t so sure she likes that idea. By the end of the week, Oscar is back to his old routine, and June can’t help but think, “Is this it?” For the first time, she starts to challenge Oscar on his boring existence, and their perfectly pleasant relationship is thrown into upheaval. When June finally leaves him, Oscar will have to decide if this new June is really worth fighting for.
Let me start by giving everyone some good news.
I remember reading Alan Yang’s first script. It was a Black List Script called Gay Dude about a guy who learned that his friend was gay. The script was SO AVERAGE. It was the definition of average. Like mind-blowingly average. Average enough where I’m surprised he made the Black List with it. However, fast forward to 2018, and Alan Yang has had two of the buzziest shows on television.
This should serve as a reminder that screenwriting is a process. You can get better. You don’t have to win it out of the gate. Do your best, and even if it’s average, that’s a start. If you can improve at the rate Yang has (or faster since you have Scriptshadow on your side), you could be writing great TV shows in five years.
One of the reasons Yang has broken out like he has is that he understands the new TV landscape better than most. He knows that this is a new medium, and with it comes a new set of rules. You have to try things that you haven’t tried before if you want to stand out.
I’ll give you an example. The hook of this show doesn’t arrive until Episode 3. Oscar dies at the end of episode 1. June dies at the end of episode 2. And the afterlife doesn’t start until episode 3. Now the 55 year old screenwriter who used to write on CSI doesn’t understand this. To him, you would’ve needed to get to the afterlife by page 15 in your pilot. By the end of the first episode at the latest. But it’s a new dawn and a new day. You gotta start thinking outside the box.
Once we get to the afterlife, Yang and Hubbard start using more traditional screenwriting approaches. Whenever you have a unique hook, you have to EXPLOIT THAT HOOK. If you’re not looking for plot threads that could ONLY HAPPEN in YOUR UNIQUE SHOW, you’re not doing your job.
In Forever there’s this teenager character, Mark. He died in high school in a car crash and therefore is forever stuck in a teenager’s body. He’s begrudgingly friends with Oscar and in one of the episodes, they see what looks like two teenagers and their mom up ahead. Mark freaks out. “Uhh, let’s go back home.” “Why?” Oscar asks, before realizing that Mark likes one of the girls. After an argument, Mark agrees to go talk to the girls. “So which one do you like?” Oscar asks. “That one,” he points. “Oh,” Oscar says, seeing the cute girl he’s pointing to. “Redheads, nice.” “No, not her. Her.” And he points to the overweight 60 year old mother.
It turns out that that mother went to high school with Mark, and she was “the coolest girl in school.” She just ended up dying 45 years later than Mark. So Mark goes and talks to her and a major subplot of that episode is the two going on a date. That’s good writing, people. You find plotlines that could only happen in your concept. You do that and you’re guaranteed originality.
The show is also a constant stream of unexpected choices. This is something I barely see as a reader. All writers are making the same choices as everyone else. I’m always 30 pages ahead of the script. And the funny thing is, all it takes to break this pattern is to be conscious of it. When you decide on an idea, ask yourself if you’ve seen it before. If you have, challenge yourself to come up with something else.
Take June’s death. As episode 2 draws to a conclusion, and June is heading to her plane to fly to Hawaii, we get the sense that her death is coming. It’s pretty obvious. Naturally, what are we expecting her death to be? Her plane’s going to crash, right? I was 99% sure that was the choice that was coming. Instead, the stewardess hands June a bag of macadamia nuts, and June excitedly downs one, only to choke on it. Never expected that in a million years.
Forever is a great show until it hits its final two episodes. What Yang and Hubbard are so good at – finding drama and entertainment in the most mundane conversations – is jettisoned in favor of a clunky plot where June treks to another town and Oscar chases her. It’s the only blemish on an otherwise perfect show, and should serve as a lesson to screenwriters everywhere. Don’t go away from the stuff that defines your show. The same thing happened with Seinfeld. They tried to force a plot onto the finale on a show that was anti-plot. But even with that mistake, the characters were so great in this, I still left the show impressed.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: With television, you need to identify a core problem at the heart of your main relationship which you will then explore, both directly or through subtext, every time the characters are together. Here, it’s that June and Oscar never talk about their problems with one another. This means that each has a long list of built-up frustrations that are simmering underneath the surface every time they chat.
Genre: Musical Horror Comedy
Premise: In 1985, an eager teen in search of an exciting summer signs up to work at a musical summer camp where counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant.
Why You Should Read: A Killer Musical is three things: a musical, a slasher movie, and a comedy, in that order. I wanted to have legitimate song and dance numbers to go along with the jump scares and brutal murders of a slasher film, all while keeping the humor from moving into Scary Movie territory where the characters behave as if they are aware that they are in a horror film. — This script is for everyone that has watched Friday the 13th and said to themselves, “Why aren’t there any song and dance numbers in this camp counselor murder romp?” — I’ve only been lurking Scriptshadow’s AOW for a short while and I haven’t seen a musical yet. Perhaps it’s time?
Writer: Chris Hicks
Details: 97 pages
As I lament the fact that I don’t have a Playstation 4 and therefore cannot play Red Dead Redemption 2 – sad face – I’m reminded that all is not lost. Maniac, by new Bond director Cary Fukunaga, debuts today on Netflix, and I’m going to be reviewing it Monday. The series is supposed to be unlike anything you’ve seen before, so it’ll be an interesting watch. Make sure to catch at least the pilot episode so you can participate in the discussion.
Speaking of unique ideas, we’ve got a true original one today with our Amateur Offerings winner. I can count the number of musicals I’ve reviewed on Scriptshadow on one hand (There’s La La Land, there’s Bob the Musical, there’s… any more?) and there’s a good reason for that. Musicals are the hardest genres to critique in the script stage. How can you adequately examine something without hearing the very portion that defines it – the music?? I don’t know. But I’m going to try!
It’s 1985. 17 year old virginesque Alyson has just accepted a counselor position at a brand new musical camp in the woods. She’ll be joining her chain-smoking slutty best friend, Nikki, who will be bringing along her boyfriend, Brett, and his hot best friend, Tommy, who Alyson immediately has eyes for.
The group will meet up with a second older group led by Mitch and Colleen, a couple who’s been in one endless fight since they got together, and the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum of the gang, Lonnie and Danny. The goal is to get to the location and prepare it for camp, which will begin next week.
What nobody here knows is that the area of woods they’re going to is CURSED! People have been disappearing there since 1865. At least that’s what the psycho gas station attendant tells them. Needless to say, the second they show up, people start getting killed. A theater-masked assailant (half his mask a smiling face, the other half crying, with a stitching down the middle) who carries a makeshift axe welded to an old guitar frame begins killing the poor counselors one by one!
Oblivious to the mayhem, our Final Girl, Alyson, falls in love with Tommy, only to learn that he’s gay. And to make matters worse, after recovering from the embarrassment, she finds that half the group has disappeared. As she starts looking into the mysterious development, it becomes clear that they’re in serious danger. Can she use the power of song to escape? Or will she end up like everyone else in the crew, a one-hit wonder?
I’ve never truly understood the slasher formula.
The point is to create a group of characters we dislike enough that we want to see them killed, however, keep them just likable enough so that, in the meantime we’re not bored by them. I don’t know how you do that. And I suspect that that’s one of the reasons the genre fell out of favor in the 2000s. Audiences aren’t interested in watching movies where they don’t care if the characters live or die.
To revive the formula, you’re going to have to do something different. And give it to Chris Hicks for infusing the genre with just that – MUSIC!
I love this idea. It’s inherently ironic (singing chirpy songs while characters are brutally murdered) and provides the script with that “same but different” element executives are always pining for.
But ideas don’t matter unless the execution is in place. And I’m not sure the execution is there yet with A Killer Musical, beginning with the awkward setup. I went into this thinking that Alyson was one of the camp members, not a camp counselor. She was still in high school so it seemed like a logical assumption. Therefore it was very confusing when she got to the camp and started preparing it for other camp members. I kept thinking, “I’ve never gone to a camp where I had to first prepare the camp.” I eventually realized she was a counselor but that could’ve been clearer.
Once I got past that, I did like what Chris did. Having to prepare the camp gave the characters something to do. Lots of writers have trouble with this. They don’t give their characters any goals and therefore struggle to come up with things for them to do. As a result we get a lot of the cliche scenes like, “Wanna join me for a smoke on the porch,” or “Let’s play Truth or Dare.” By needing to prepare the place, you place the characters in a number of situations where they are isolated and can therefore encounter our stalker.
But what the success of this script really comes down to is: Are the songs enough to invigorate a tired concept? And in this iteration, I would say no. The reason being that while the songs are informative, they’re not clever enough. I was looking for more jokes in the song-writing, more clever asides. Instead, many of the songs were exposition-driven, and fairly straight-forward exposition at that.
The gold-standard for comedy musicals now is the South Park guys, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. These guys are so funny and their song-writing masters the art of being expositional, pushing the story along, AND throwing jokes in there. I wanted more of that in A Killer Musical. Here’s one of their most famous songs, Blame Canada.
To Chris’s credit, he does let loose, but it happens too late – all the way in the third act. One of my favorite moments in the script was when a couple of dead characters reanimate and start sing-narrating Alyson’s escape sequence. It was fun and clever – exactly what I was looking for. But it was TOO DAMN LATE. I was like, “Where was this at the beginning??” And while I understand the need to build up to that moment, I felt Chris took too long to get there. I mean, this is a SLASHER MUSICAL. We expect crazy. You can start giving it to us earlier.
I will say I liked the killer. I liked that his main weapon was music-inspired. I thought the mask was great. These movies are so dependent on the mask because that’s what’s going to be used to market the film and a good mask can get you 10 million bucks on opening weekend. And I loved that the kills were musical-inspired. My favorite was him sneaking up on a character with cymbals and then slamming them together on her head, exploding it like a watermelon. Only thing that was missing was him saying, “Well that was cymbollic.”
But for a script with a hook this zany, it was surprisingly tame for the majority of its running time. If I were Chris, I would go back through this and let loose, particularly with the song lyrics. I think this script is worth pursuing because I can see it as a movie. But the author needs to un-muzzle himself and deliver on the promise of the premise much earlier than the third act.
Script link: A Killer Musical
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Readers loooooooove scripts with this much dialogue. When a reader sees a script like this, it’s heaven. They know that their read time has just been cut down by half an hour, possibly more. I’m not saying that every script should have tons of dialogue. I’m only saying that if all else is equal and you’re trying to decide between a dialogue-driven script and a description-driven script, pick the dialogue one.
1) When a character asks a question, don’t always have the other character answer it. – Many writers treat dialogue like a logical exchange of information. If someone asks something [beep beep boop – I am a robot] the other character must answer. The second character will, in turn, ask a question, and the original character then answers it. That’s not true to life. Conversation is messy. Sometimes people leave questions hanging, assume they’re rhetorical, or even ignore them completely, and that’s okay.
2) If a character must reveal backstory, have them do so reluctantly. – There’s nothing more artificial than a character who willingly opens up about their past.
3) If it feels like the characters are speaking to the audience, rewrite the dialogue until it feels like the characters are speaking to each other. – This happens a lot when exposition is involved. The writer includes information that characters would NEVER say to another person, but they rationalize it by saying it’s not for the other person. It’s for the audience. This is where dialogue starts sounding bad. It’s got to feel like a conversation that would happen in real life for it to work.
4) The power of an unwanted third character. – You’d be surprised at how much more fun dialogue becomes when you inject an unwanted third character. An argument between a couple in their car can feel cliche. Put that same couple in a diner booth with a chirpy waitress who won’t leave them alone and the scene comes alive.
5) Occasionally insert exchanges where characters say the opposite of what they should. – I was watching the Amazon show, Forever (spoiler ahead). Maya Rudolph’s friend is trying to get her to go to church to grieve. Maya doesn’t want to go. “Oh, you think you’re too good for church?” Maya thinks for a second. “Yes.” Or here’s an exchange I read in a recent script between two siblings – Brother: “Dad died.” A long silence. Sister: “About time.”
6) Make it so your characters have to come to a conclusion about something. – Bad dialogue is often conversation without a point. An easy way to hack this is to make it so your characters are trying to come to a conclusion about something. And, of course, they don’t agree on how to get there.
7) If it’s bad dialogue, it’s probably a dull situation. – The best dialogue is derived from interesting situations. If you place your characters on a porch with nothing to do but talk, chances are the dialogue will be random and aimless. But if you place the same characters on a floor in the middle of a bank robbery they’re trying to escape from, their conversation is captivating. These are extreme examples but the point is: the more captivating the situation, the more captivating the dialogue.
8) Give one of the characters a secret that affects the other character. – A scene where two people are talking about work is boring. A scene where two people are talking about work and Character A knows that Character B is going to be fired later today is cringe-inducing (in a good way).
9) The correct answer to a question isn’t always the best dialogue option. – In Hell or High Water, our bank-stealing brothers are squaring away their mortgage payment with the trust executor, a man who knows they stole the money. The troublesome brother is skeptical of the executor, and keeps asking him tough questions. His final question is: “How much are you making off this transaction?” Now think about that for a second. The executor knows the exact amount he’s making. But is that the best answer for this dialogue exchange? Is “1200 dollars” a good line of dialogue? No, it isn’t. You want to know what he says instead? “Not nearly as much as I’m risking.” Now that’s a good line of dialogue.
10) Play the opposite emotion of the setting. – Two characters joking around and laughing at a funeral is more interesting than the typical depressing conversation you get. Likewise, two characters having a really depressing conversation at a wedding or a baby shower can turn a cliche scene into an unexpected treat.
This week has been extremely busy for me, so much so that I didn’t have time to read a script last night. Instead, I offer you a giant helping of Scriptshadow Quick Hits, a dose of the projects that have been making noise around town the last couple of months. Would love to hear your thoughts on them in the comments section. Here we go!
Neil Blomkamp/Robocop – Last month, it was revealed that Neil Blomkamp would be directing a Robocop movie. I find this interesting because it continues a trend of rebooting life-support franchises, such as Shane Black’s Predator and Tim Miller’s Terminator, as opposed to greenlighting fresh original ideas. The reason this particular choice is so troubling is that Blomkamp was one of the last directors creating big-budget original content in Hollywood. And now we’ve lost him to the dark side. However, an argument can be made that Blomkamp dug his own grave. Neither of his last two films, Elysium and Chappie, wowed at the box office. If you’re a studio looking at those numbers, you say, “Here’s one of the biggest talents we’ve had in years, and even he can’t hook audiences with original material.” Hence, studios have one more round of ammunition in their gun they can shoot at anyone claiming the industry needs to take more chances. This is what’s so frustrating about the desire for originality. We say we want it. But when it’s presented to us, we don’t show up. Then again, we’re not going to show up for a piece of trash. It’s a two-way street. I think if you’re going to write something original, it needs to be amazing. It can’t be “as good” as The Force Awakens. It can’t be “as good” as Ocean’s 8. It’s gotta be better. A LOT better. Not only because box office for original material is anemic. But because the only way we’re going to get more trips to the buffet is if we cook better food.
Bad Education – I remember reading this script only because it was on the Black List. It sounded jaw-droppingly boring. Yet it turned out to be one of my favorite scripts of 2017. The script is about a principal who funnels public school money into his own personal bank account. There is virtually nothing buzzy about this idea. There’s no strong hook. It’s not a social issue people care about. It’s not an indie film promoting one of Hollywood’s many agendas. It’s just a story. A good story. A great story! Anyway, after I finished it, I thought, “Great script. Will never get made.” How wrong I was. They somehow got buzzy director Cory Finley (Thoroughbreds) attached, and A-list star Hugh Jackman to play the lead. This is such a coup for good writing. And it’s a reminder that if you write something great, regardless of subject matter, it’s going to garner interest. Mike Makowsky’s career is really picking up, by the way. He’s also the writer of the much buzzed about “I Think We’re Alone Now,” starring Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning.
KING – Holy Time Machine, Batman! How cool is this news. You have the director of Back to the Future. You have the writer of Braveheart. And then you have… THE ROCK! All coming together to tell the story about King Kamehameha, the founder and first ruler of the Kingdom Hawaii. This! Wow! What a package! I have to admit that I didn’t know Randall Wallace was still writing scripts. And that there’s a 50% chance this movie will never get made because actors aren’t allowed to play any ethnicity other than their own these days (The Rock isn’t Hawaiian) and there’s already backlash. But if this movie gets made – and I hope it does – it’s going to be a trip back into the 1998 filmmaking handbook and whether the movie ends up being good or bad, it will definitely be interesting. Can’t wait for this one!
The Lottery – If you’ve been reading the site regularly, you know I’ve been on this kick of FINDING OLD IP. Hollywood loves old IP. And this deal is one that likely has everyone in town stoning themselves for not snagging the rights themselves. The Lottery, the most famous short story of all time, is being adapted into a feature film for the first time. The well-known tale follows a small town that participates in an annual “lottery” which we assume, at first, results in a prize, only to learn by the end that the winner (spoiler!) gets gleefully stoned to death by the town members. There is a screenwriting lesson to be learned here. A pitch becomes turbo-charged if it has a successful doppelgänger in an adjacent medium. It’s said that this project was greenlit specifically due to the success of The Handmaid’s Tale. Had you pitched this as a television show, people would’ve said, “We already have The Handmaid’s Tale.” But you pitch it as a feature and all of a sudden it sounds fresh.
After – I love this story. And hate it. And absolutely love it. No, I don’t understand it, But I love it. So here’s the deal. I’m someone who follows writing in all formats. I don’t care how one succeeds. If you can capture a large audience with your words alone, you’re a superstar. “After” is the first project making me reconsider that belief. “After” is a book (or a series of books) written by a young author, Anna Todd, about a “good girl” who goes off to college and meets a “bad boy,” throwing everything she knows about life into disarray. Major plotlines involve the “bad boy” kissing our protagonist, so that she thinks he likes her, only for him to act “blase” the next time they meet. Yes, let me repeat that. That is one of the major plotlines in the book. Todd started writing the story on the digital self-publication app, Wattpad, aiming for a chapter a day. This is where shit gets crazy. Her chapters have been read over 1.5 billion times on the site. Naturally, Hollywood came calling, and now “After” is being turned into a feature film. There are a couple of things to take away from this. One, write what you know. Clearly, Todd was exploring her life (going to college at the time) through her writing. Two, there seems to be this obsessive desire for material from a large portion of the female demographic centering on virginal “good” women who get mixed up with reckless “bad” boys. From Twilight to 50 Shades of Gray. If you’re looking purely for eyeballs and dollar bills, and you can write this stuff, you definitely want to write it. It’s tres lucrative. Oh, and one more lesson. JUST WRITE! I love that Todd used Wattpad to keep herself accountable. She made sure she wrote every day. That’s awesome.
Superfecundation – There is a group of people – it’s a small group, but it’s a group – who believe that the romantic comedy is primed for a comeback. They’re basing this off of a few barely overperforming Netflix rom-coms and Crazy Rich Asians having the biggest rom-com opening in years. So maybe Screen Gems picking up the spec script, “Superfecundation,” isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Superfecundation is written by Nicholl semi-finalist Savion Einstein, and follows a woman who learns that she’s pregnant with twins from two different fathers, a rare but real-life occurrence. Let’s hope the film gets a better reception than this comment, which appeared underneath Deadline’s article on the sale: “It’s cloying premises like this that have killed the rom com.” Ouch. What’s cool about this sale is that this is the script Einstein semi-finaled in the Nicholl with. So all you Nicholl semifinalists, don’t give up hope on that script sale!
Superhero Heist Movie – Okay, so you know how I keep telling you guys to FIND A NEW WAY INTO THE SUPERHERO GENRE instead of complaining how unfair it is to compete against billion dollar half-century old IP? That’s what filmmakers Chris Baugh and Brendan Mullin did, pitching their own superhero idea to Legendary. Their movie revolves around a group of criminals who stage a heist on a superhero’s lair, then must escape with their lives when everything goes wrong. I don’t know if they’re aware that they’re stealing from a superhero or not. Either direction could be fun. But note how these guys have found a unique way to give us a superhero movie. Not only that, but they’ve figured out a way to make it contained (keeping the price down). That’s how you do it, guys. You find ways around the roadblocks that Hollywood puts up. I have no idea who Chris Baugh and Brendan Mullin are (they made a movie called “Bad Day for the Cut”), but I’ll be keeping an eye out for this one.
Foundation – Apple is making a TV series based on famous sci-fi author Isaac Asimov’s most successful series of books: Foundation. The series comes from Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds) and David Goyer (Batman Begins). The most shocking thing about this pickup is that the books were written in the 1950s. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that old sci-fi doesn’t travel well. And with this book (the first in the series), I can tell you that it ain’t good. Borderline unreadable. To me, this signifies just how hard it is for Hollywood to find product right now. There are too many outlets, too many writers competing for good ideas, and that forces giant corporations like Apple to take risks on properties that weren’t meant to be produced in 2018. But this is good news for screenwriters. It’s a seller’s market right now in TV, more so than at any point in history. If you’ve got something good and you get it in front of a lot of eyeballs, I guarantee you someone’s going to say yes.
