Scriptshadow 250 Contest Deadline – 81 days left!

It’s a strange Monday in the movie business as we’re looking at one of the PRIME weekend slots of the calendar year, the second weekend in May, having no big flashy releases. This is usually where you’ll see a 250 million dollar titan shake its fists and wiggle its belly as it prepares to gobble up your hard-earned dollars, yet there was nary a big-budget flick to be found as every studio was terrified of Captain Iron Man Hulk’s second weekend.

Those same suits are kicking themselves now as the king of all franchises isn’t doing nearly as well as Mickey would’ve hoped. This could’ve been a prime opportunity to not just take over a vacant weekend, but steal some paper from the biggest studio in town. While Avengers touts a lot of big numbers in its press releases, the reality is, the film’s box office is down 30 million from the last entry’s second weekend. In a world where franchise sequels regularly make more than their opening counterparts, the most underrated box office nose dive of the decade is leaving some to wonder the impossible: Are super hero movies in trouble?

That sounds absurd, and let’s keep in mind that Avengers 2 is making more globally than the last film did (due to ever-expanding markets, but still), but I’ve gotten some strange e-mails this past week stating that Avengers 2’s lackluster domestic performance is the beginning of the end for the oversaturated super hero market. The film had EVERYTHING – literally EVERYTHING – that a moviegoer could want. And yet 45 million dollars worth of people (counting the smaller box office take in the film’s first weekend) have disappeared from the theaters.

From what I’m hearing, the reason for this is superhero-itis. Avengers is the culmination of every super hero movie that came before it. It is the biggest most expensive piece of digital celluloid money can buy. Yet its trailer doesn’t show anybody anything they haven’t seen before. In fact, it looks an awfully lot like the first film. No thanks, says today’s youth, I’d rather spend that money on a video game.

While I’m not ready to announce the death of the superhero film just yet, I do think studios will have to reevaluate the genre. It doesn’t matter how much people love superheroes. If every superhero movie is just a slight variation of the last one, Avengers is the beginning of the end. But if they find new exciting ways into the genre, it’ll have legs. That’s why I’m curious to see how the exceptionally unique Ant-Man does. And an even bigger crisis will occur when Marvel has to reboot all its superheroes after the end of Avengers 3 and 4. Will audiences get on board for all new films that aren’t new at all? Ask Sony and Spider-Man about that.

That’s not the only story this weekend as Warner Brothers put forth the first film in another hot trend, the female-led big-budget comedy. Hot Pursuit sees Hollywood capitalizing on the female comic craze, but if the film is any indicator of what’s to come, this pursuit could end up behind bars. Pursuit barely made 13 million this weekend. I thought the film looked fun and I like both Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara, but the average ticket buyer doesn’t agree with me. Granted, neither of the two are major comedy stars, which had something to do with the less-than-stellar b.o., but the film scored terrible reviews as well (7% on Rotten Tomatoes!) and bad word of mouth can kill any comedy that doesn’t star Will Ferrell.

We’ll have to see if this is a blip on the radar or a real issue when the next female-dominated comedy comes out later this summer, the Paul Feig – Melissa McCarthy collaboration, “Spy.” I’m not going to lie. The movie looks horrible. Massively over-produced and maybe one level up from Paul Blart. Watching the trailers has given me flashbacks to Big Momma’s House. But McCarthy is lovable and on the comedy circuit, lovable actors/actresses are often more important than the quality of the film (see McCarthy’s last offering, the absolutely awful Tammy, which still managed to make 85 million dollars).

Again, the studios are all in on this thing. We have an all-female Ghostbusters film coming. A female version of 21 Jump Street. The Judd Apatow-Amy Schumer collaboration, Trainwreck, and whatever else McCarthy attaches herself too. So people are going to be looking closely at how “Spy” does. If it does badly, expect everyone to freak out and reevaluate the comedy genre, a genre that’s already in trouble due to comedies not fitting into the studios’ new global game plan.

Speaking of female-led movies, I checked out the black comedy, Welcome to Me, this weekend, starring Kristin Wiig. For those who don’t know this, Kristin Wiig is in my top 5 female celebrity crushes. I know that won’t make sense for some but there’s something just… I don’t know, sexy about her. There’s an honesty and rawness there, so I really wanted to like this film. Unfortunately it just… it didn’t work.

Black comedies are a strange beast. They’re the genre most likely to get a new writer noticed, and that’s because they’re the easiest genre to demonstrate a unique voice in. But when you try and turn them into films, the results are less-than-stellar. From The Beaver to Better Living Through Chemistry to Take This Waltz (yeah it was reviewed well but nobody watched that movie), the track record is rarely positive and that’s because the tone required to get these movies right is razor thin. Make it a little too goofy or a little too serious and the whole thing crumbles apart like a stale cupcake, which is why producers hate these scripts unless a proven director (like Spike Jonez) is attached.

Welcome to Me follows Kristin Wiig, who plays a mentally unstable loner who wins the lottery and uses the money to fund her own talk show, which is all about… herself. Comedies about mental illness are particularly tricky to navigate with how sensitive to mental illness the public is these days. With fewer people laughing about the subject matter, it eliminates any opportunity for Welcome To Me to have fun with its premise. And if you can’t have fun with a premise about a woman who buys her way into a talk show about herself, then is there any reason to even write the movie anymore? Comedy is hard enough as it is. If you’re dancing around your premise to placate the P.C. police the whole time, you probably want to move onto a premise less restrictive. After watching this, I’m not sure I’d ever get excited over a mental illness comedy. The genre simply has too many landmines that come with it.

Speaking of illness, the last big release of the weekend was the zombie flick, Maggie. For those who’ve been reading the site for awhile, you’ll remember that Maggie was a huge spec script sale from four years back. The project took all four of those years to finally get to the big (and small) screen, coming together when Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed to play the father in the film.

I still think Maggie is a great example of finding a way to sneak a drama through the system. Too many writers try writing straight-forward dramas where some 28 year old good-lucking white guy is trying to make ends meet after his middle class parents cut him off. Boo-hoo. Writer John Scott wrapped his drama inside a marketable genre (zombies), and redefined the genre in the process – creating new rules for the zombie’s incubation period (it takes months, not minutes). If you’re a dramatic writer, this is how you get your script noticed. Hide your heartfelt storyline inside a genre that sells.

Unfortunately, when you redefine a genre, you risk alienating fans of that genre, and unlike the zombies themselves, that was always the fear with Maggie. Would people come see a zombie film where zombies weren’t chasing the protagonists? Even the ultra-somber Walking Dead has the occasional blood-curdling zombie attack.

It’s a classic screenplay conundrum. The very thing that makes your idea unique is the thing that handicaps it. But that’s the movie game. You have to gamble a little in order to have a shot at breaking through. Unless you want to compete with the other 5 million people who are all writing the same thing, that is.

“Maggie” endured the purist movie test there is in my household. I only had time for one movie and I needed to make a choice. It came down to it or Welcome to Me. In the end, Maggie looked too depressing. And after a long week, I wanted to enjoy myself. So I went with “Welcome.” That movie ended up depressing me in a different way, but there was no going back. I’d made my choice.

That’s something you want to be thinking about as a writer. You’re creating a product. And someone, somewhere, is going to be sitting in their house watching a trailer for that product, trying to decide if they should pay for it. Are you giving them a product that they’ll be excited about? As complicated as people like to make screenwriting and filmmaking, that’s what it comes down to. If you can be honest with yourself and come up with something that you genuinely believe people will say “Yes” to when asked that question, then you probably have yourself a screenplay. So go write it!

Does Home For The Holidays feel too “been there done that?” Or does Carson simply not have a sense of humor? Read on to find out!

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A conservative family man looking to move up in his law firm struggles to balance his daughter’s pregnancy, his son’s bullying, and comes to terms with college son’s surprise boyfriend over the Christmas holiday.
About: This script won the Amateur Friday Submissions Post last weekend. It beat out a clunky grab bag of comedies, but as we all know, comedy is hard. So don’t get too down on yourselves folks. Just keep writing and keep getting better. I know Tom and Christopher well. I reviewed a previous script of theirs (Charming) a couple of years ago and it ended up getting the two a lot of recognition, despite me having some issues with it.
Writers: Christopher Jones & Tom Albanese
Details: 111 pages

Racking my brain on who would play Bob Packer.  Tim Allen maybe??

Another script from a former Amateur Friday writer(s) is reviewed! I don’t know what to tell you guys. You gotta write better scripts if you’re going to beat out the top players on Amateur Offerings Weekend. Lots of the people submitting these scripts to Scriptshadow (and everywhere else) have been at this for a long time. They’ve written 6,7, 8 scripts, or more. More scripts means more practice. They learn what they’re doing wrong and they improve the next time around. So don’t bring your Bush League stuff here. Bring your A-Game. And make sure you’ve written the best possible screenplay you can write.

As I picked up Home For The Holidays, I realized something immediately – I’D ALREADY READ IT. Over a year ago. I’d given notes to Tom and Chris on it. It had a different title (Fudge Packers). So I went back to check my notes and after admiring how amazing they were, I plucked open “Holidays,” excited to see if any of my suggestions were incorporated.

So what WAS my big problem with the script? I had two. First, the idea felt too “been there, done that.” There was a familiarity to it, but not that good familiarity. Rather the one where you’re like, “I’ve seen too many movies like this before.” I wanted the concept to feel fresher. I wanted there to be something that separated it and gave it that “difference” that’s required in the “same but different” equation Hollywood craves.

A big reason for this was Calvin, the boyfriend our main character’s son brings home. He was way way waaaay over-the-top. Again, I feel like that kind of flamboyant gay character became played out in the “Will and Grace” era. These days, homosexual characters are being portrayed in all sorts of different ways. This was a huge HUGE concern of mine, and I knew it if it wasn’t addressed, I’d have a hard time changing my mind about “Holidays.” So I was curious to see if that would be fixed.

54 year-old Bob Packer is the all-American father with the all-American family. He’s got two sons and a daughter, as well as a wacky Grandfather who’s obsessed with The Notebook and lives in the basement. Okay, maybe that’s not completely All-American, but it’s close enough.

Bob’s pride and joy, his college son Drew, is coming home for the holidays, and he’s bringing his new girlfriend with him. Bob is pumped because he was beginning to get concerned. He hasn’t seen his son with a girl in years. Of course, Bob hasn’t been able to keep up with family lately as a lot of his time is being taken up by the law firm he works at. Luckily, all that work is paying off. He’s a shoe-in for president of the law firm, succeeding his doucebag close-minded boss, Harlen Taylor.

So Bob heads to the airport to pick up Drew but surprise surprise, Drew hasn’t brought home his girlfriend, but rather a BOYFRIEND. Drew is gay! This is a shock to the system for Bob, who goes into a fit of denial. That shock will only get worse as Calvin, Drew’s beau, is reallllly touchy-feely. He can’t keep his hands off Drew. Or his lips. He’s loud. He’s obnoxious. He’s the most flamboyant gay man on the planet (so much for hope of a change!).

Besides the fact that Bob is so not prepared for this, he must hide his son’s sexuality from his boss, who’s one of the most intolerant people ever. This won’t be easy as Harlen sets up a bunch of get-togethers with the fams on the eve of Bob taking over. Bob must work every angle possible to avoid Harlen discovering the truth, that Drew’s friend is not a friend at all, but his lover. Eventually, though, Harlen figures it out, and he gives Bob a made-for-the-movies ultimatum: Get rid of the boyfriend or you don’t get the job. Bob will now have to decide what’s important to him, his family or his career.

So, I asked the question. And it seems to have been answered. While I noticed a lot of my smaller notes addressed (Bob’s job promotion storyline is a lot clearer), my big issues were left untouched. Home For The Holidays still feels like a movie I’ve seen too many times before. And Calvin is still way over the top. For those reasons, I just can’t get onboard with this script.

I think I understand Chris and Tom’s choice with Calvin though. They wanted to make Calvin the absolute WORST person that could possibly show up for Bob. He isn’t just gay. He’s the GAYEST PERSON EVER. This would allow the most amount of conflict between Drew and Bob, and the most outrageous comedy situations (i.e. Calvin constantly trying to mount Drew wherever they go).

That’s the thing about screenwriting. It’s never an easy choice. Technically, you want to create the most difficulty for your protagonist. But when that choice includes creating a cliché character, you have to weigh the pros and cons of each, go with what you think is best, and hope the audience likes it. I didn’t agree with this choice, but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t.

I just hope that this decision wasn’t made out of laziness. This happens a lot when I give notes. I’ll highlight a couple of big problems and a lot of little ones. The writers look at the big notes, realize how much work they’re going to take, and decide to fix all the little issues instead. I receive the script a second time, and while the writers may have spent upwards of 40 hours making all those little changes and feel like they’ve done a ton, I read it and it’s basically the exact same script with a little extra make-up on it. I mean, about 80 pages in here, I had this horrifying thought. I was reading the old draft by accident! That turned out not to be the case, but the fact that I was even thinking it was was a bad thing.

That is, of course, assuming that my observations that the concept is too familiar (and old) and Calvin was too cliché were correct observations. I mean, I may be way off base here. What did you guys think?

If Chris and Tom are going to stand by their guns with these choices, I would address one more issue. Bob’s character arc isn’t there yet. It has to be set up better that Bob is spending too much time at work, that he’s neglecting his family, that the family is suffering because of it, something Bob is too busy to be aware of. We need to have that “big issue” problem here. His son being gay should appear to be the main problem, when in reality there’s a much bigger issue at play – him neglecting his family. That way, when the final ultimatum comes down from his boss, it has a lot more weight to it. Bob breaks up his son’s relationship (work over family) or tells his boss to fuck off (family over work). I didn’t get that feeling here, and in a comedy like this, that moment is essential for the story to feel complete.

It sucks I didn’t love Home but I continue to believe in Tom and Chris as writers! I wish them luck on their next project! ☺

Script link: Home For The Holidays

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

What I learned: It took me awhile to realize this (first while sending my own stuff out there, and now being on the other end where I’m receiving scripts), but if you’re just making cosmetic changes to your script (changing some locations, adding a character, making one character a little nicer or another a little meaner), someone who didn’t like your script the first time isn’t going to like it the second time. If someone doesn’t like your script, you’re going to have to do a page 1 rewrite to turn them around. I remember re-sending a script out to a good contact, making this mistake, and hearing the disappointment after they finished the draft. I’d put lots of hours into the changes, but I realized much later that the basic underpinnings of the story were the same ones he had issues with the first time.

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: Finding it more difficult to kill himself than he thought it would be, a depressed man offers a cash-strapped woman his life insurance money if she’ll marry him and make sure the suicide succeeds.
About: This spec sold to Lionsgate last year. The writer, Corinne Kingsbury, was actually an actress and had a small part in Old School back in 2003. She’s since moved on to writing. Derick Martini, who directed 2008’s Lymelife, was attached to direct at one point. But at last count, the project was trying to reel in Tom Vaughan (What Happens In Vegas) which, no offense because I know how difficult it is to get movies greenlit and part of the challenge is finding a director the studios are willing to fund a movie with, but I really hope this doesn’t happen. This needs a director with a little darkness in him. Martini was a more appropriate choice.
Writer: Corinne Kingsbury
Details: 110 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Wait a minute. WHAT?? This script wasn’t on last year’s Black List?? I guess that’s what happens when you sell your script in January. People kind of forget about it 11 months later. I wonder if the screenplay market will ever become like the movie market where everyone will try to get their script sold in the last two weeks of November, so they can make the December Black List. Oh well, it’s a good thing that the Black List isn’t the only place to learn about great undiscovered screenplays!

Now I can already hear the commenters chirping away about the manufactured setup of this movie (marry me to help me kill myself and I’ll give you my life insurance money) and I can’t argue with you because I admit it’s the weakest part of the screenplay. But if you can get past that, you’ll find a really well-written story with some great characters.

Larry is 29 years old, depressed as all get-up that his girlfriend left him, and has resorted to suicide to make the pain go away. The problem is, he’s not very good at it. While trying to hose carbon monoxide into his car, the trash guys come by and tell him to move so they can get his trash. Later, when he tries to drop a toaster into his bathtub, the plug comes out just a few inches shy of the water. To make matters worse, Larry writes these really lame suicide poems to his ex-girlfriend right before the deed, usually analogies to really geeky movies, like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. In the end, he comes to the realization that he needs help. No, not like psychiatric help. Help offing himself.

Penelope Fletcher is 24 years old and smoking hot. But she’s also smoking poor due to her obsession with expensive footwear. Her credit debt has eventually caught up with her and if she doesn’t come up with $13,000 soon, she’s going to jail.

Every day at work, Penelope and her best friend Amy watch as Larry stumbles around outside, drooling while staring in at Penelope. It’s creepy but they know he’s harmless so it’s more of an annoyance than anything. But after one staring session too many, Penelope goes out and tries to scare Larry off. It turns out that Larry has overheard about her money problems and thinks he has a solution.

He tells her he needs somebody around to make sure his suicide attempt is successful and is willing to put her on his life insurance policy for 250 grand if she’ll do it. Penelope is game but the two find out that in order for her to be on the policy, they need to be married, and more specifically married for at least 31 days. So the two head over to the courthouse, do the deed, and then basically wait for 31 days to expire.

When Penelope finds out that Larry has to pass some health exam to validate the insurance, she forces him to get off his ass and start exercising – not easy for Larry since a typical day for him involves the marijuana merry-go-round. But pretty soon, Penelope finds herself helping Larry in other ways as well – getting his apartment cleaned up, getting him a better wardrobe. In a couple of weeks, Larry actually starts looking like a presentable person.

Of course because they’re spending so much time together, they become close. But like a lot of this script, it doesn’t go exactly how you think it’s going to go. There’s an unpredictability to this story because of Kingsbury’s unique sense of humor and knack for finding the less traveled path. So will Larry end up killing himself at the end? Or will he and Penelope create the single most unlikely pairing in relationship history?

I really liked this. Yes, there’s the issue with the formulaic setup that’s going to send people running. Maybe even back to “The Call Up,” gasp. But I’d implore you to stick with it. Why? Because the characters are pretty damn awesome, that’s why.

I thought Larry’s failed attempts at killing himself were hilarious, reminiscent of a certain cult classic, Better Off Dead, and so I immediately liked him. And Kingsbury somehow made the impossible possible – she made a smoking hot chick who could have anything she wants, sympathetic. So before we get to the clunky conceit of the concept, we get to know and like both these characters enough so that we sort of don’t care.

The thing that really puts this above so many romantic comedies I read though is that it doesn’t go for the predictable lame fairytale approach. It’s not so much that I hate that type of romantic comedy, so much as I know exactly what’s going to happen every step of the way so they bore me to hell.

31 Days Of Larry is a dark script. It’s about a guy trying to commit suicide. And as forced as the marriage thing is, you don’t see many romantic comedies where one half of the couple is trying to end their life. Darkness elevates comedy in such a way that it feels real. We’re not pretending to live in a world that doesn’t exist. Bad things happen on this spinning rock and to see a romantic comedy recognize that is refreshing.

Not only that, but it just offers up choices we’ve never seen before. I mean the female lead here is waiting for the male lead to kill himself so she can get her money. That brings up the kind of conversations that you DO NOT SEE in rom-coms. NEW conversations. DIFFERENT conversations. In a world where we know the exact dialogue exchange that’s coming up 15 minutes before our couple does, how refreshing is that? It’s something I’ve preached on the site and will continue to preach. You have to find a different angle into a familiar story. Because pretty much all the stories have been told. They just haven’t been told from your unique point of view.

And I just love when stories place their romantic leads on completely opposite ends of the spectrum to the point where you think there’s no chance in hell they’ll get together. I love when writers explore that challenge because when I was introduced to these two people, I thought, “How in the hell is this writer going to convince us that these two would ever end up together?” And most writers fail (they eventually start forcing things so that the relationship feels unnatural) but in this specific universe that Kingsbury created, she somehow did it. I believed that these two fell for each other.

There’s really very little that I didn’t like here. It was only that forced set up. If Kingsbury can find a way to smooth that out, this script will be bulletproof. I hope somebody figures that out and yanks this thing out of development hell.

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

What I learned: I know this is going to sound nuts, but when I see a slugline with “I/E.” at the beginning (as I saw in “31 Days Of Larry,”) I know I’m usually dealing with a good writer. “I./E.” is short for “INT./EXT.” which is short for “INTERIOR/EXTERIOR.” Why? Because I know it takes most writers five or six scripts before they encounter a situation where they need to be both inside and outside on a location and know how to actually represent that. And then it takes even longer to learn about the abbreviated version (I./E.). So it’s just a very advanced location indicator.

Synopsis: An anti-love story.
About: This played at Sundance ’08 and stars Zooey Deschenal and Joseph Gordon Levitt.
Writer: Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

500 Days Of Summer (Summer is the female character by the way) is a film that, dare I say, a young Woody Allen might have written. It took me awhile to understand that, but once I did, I really started to enjoy it. The movie starts off with a Narrator (presumably the author) declaring, “This is NOT a love story.” Oh wait, I should back up. Before any of the script is written, the writer states, “The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.” One page later. “Especially you Jenny Beckmen.” One page later. “Bitch.”

Every scene in 500 Days of Summer is preceded by the day number in the relationship. Usually we’ll go from Day 33 to Day 401 to Day 55 to Day 350 – with the ends of the relationship getting closer and closer. So it’s kinda cool. Cause we’ll go from a scene where Tom and Summer are laughing their asses off having the best time of their lives. To a scene where they’re at a restaurant wanting to rip each others’ heads off. It’s a neat way of showing how much relationships change over time.

If indeed this is based on the writer’s life, as he implies, I feel really sorry for him, because Summer, by all accounts, is a complete and utter bitch. Playing with gender-reversal here, Summer is pretty much the guy in the relationship and Tom the girl. She refuses to be labeled as boyfriend-girlfriend. And Tom – well – that’s the only thing he wants. And he believes that Summer, who we’re told right off the bat is way out of his league, is his soul-mate. This forces us to endure this completely one-sided relationship with poor Tom. We’re hoping and praying that Summer will finally come around and love him the way he loves her. But sadly, as we were warned in the beginning…this is not a love story.

The unique structure keeps you on your toes. You never quite know what’s going to happen next. In fact, the only clichés in the film are that Tom works at a Greeting Card company (ugh, please no one use this anymore) and he secretly wants to be an architect (doesn’t every guy in every movie?).

I guess in the end the whole 500 days thing and jumping back and forth can be looked at as a gimmick. Because on the whole, it really doesn’t add *that* much to the story. But it’s different. And in a world where a lot of these romantic comedies are the same, it’s a welcome change. If you can’t wait for those cash-hungry indie houses to scrape up enough money to get this thing distributed, I’d highly recommend checking out the script. It’s a good read. Just make sure you’re a bit of a masochist. If you’ve ever been in a relationship where you liked your partner a lot more than they liked you (come on, haven’t we all?) this one’s going to hit close to home.

Oh and the very last line is a classic. I don’t want to hype it up. It’s not like the first time you saw The Sixth Sense or anything. But it’s a great great line.

[ ] trash
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned from 500 Days Of Summer: I think the thing that struck me right off the bat was how unlikable Summer was. And how that was the first time in romantic comedy history I had ever seen an unlikable female lead. Again, do something different with one of your main characters. Do something different with how you tell a story that’s been told a million times before (going back and forth randomly in time). 500 Days is a unique take on a tried-and-true genre. How will you make your story different?

If you’d like to submit your script for an Amateur Friday review, send your title, genre, logline, and why you think it deserves a review to carsonreeves3@gmail.com, along with a PDF of the script!

Genre: Action/Thriller
Premise (from writer): When a young CIA trainee, working low-level assignments in Europe, is framed as a traitor, he discovers he holds the key to preventing global warfare and must outwit both ‘The Agency’, and the terrorist cell that hunts him, before they can incite World War 3.
Why You Should Read (from writer): I don’t have much to say in this section. I would rather the logline and the script speak for itself rather than trying to sell it to you. I will say my tastes are very commercial in nature as are all my stories. I love action, suspense and excitement, and always try to imbue that in the read. I hope it’s something you like. Thanks to everyone for checking it out.
Writer: Dax Messer
Details: 102 pages

Jack O’Connel for Alex Sagen?

I’m gearing up for some Guardians of the Galaxy madness this weekend, and it got me thinking. Everybody knows this movie is going to make a trillion dollars. In fact, everybody knows exactly how much money every movie is going to make these days.

That’s because opening weekends are paid for. The studios use an algorithm that if they put ‘x’ amount of dollars into advertising they will get ‘y’ return at the box office. And that makes the box office thing, well, not as fun anymore. There used to be a time when you didn’t know what was going to happen. And it was exciting. Now it’s just, “I’ve seen 10,000 commercials for Pirates of the Caribbean so it will make 130 million dollars this weekend.”

However, streaming services are changing that. They’re actually bringing back the days before box office was reported and you found out about a movie (like The Godfather, for instance) because people saw and liked it. There was no number that told you whether something was worth of watching or not. 13 Reasons Why and Stranger Things are great examples. Nobody has any idea how many people have seen these shows. But they loved them, so they told people about them, and the shows’ successes evolved organically from that word-of-mouth.

As Netflix and Amazon delve further into the feature world, it’s only a matter of time before that starts happening there as well. Which bring us to The Operative. The Operative seems tailor-made for the new streaming model. It’s not too big. It’s not too small. It’s right in that mid-budget sweet spot that Netflix seems to be loving right now. Let’s see if it delivers.

33 year-old Alex Sagen (cool character name!) just failed The Farm field exam, which means he doesn’t get to become a CIA field agent. But the intelligence agency still likes Alex’s spark, particularly agent Jennifer Monroe, who encourages Alex to take a desk job in Paris, where, if he’s lucky, he might get to interrogate a few terrorists.

Alex reluctantly takes the gig, and, while out of the office one day, gets the heart-stopping news that the office was raided and 17 agents were killed. The terrorist behind the raid, Reza Konesh, is quickly captured, and since there are no longer a ton of agents to choose from, Alex gets the gig to transport Konesh to an interrogation house outside the city.

Once they reach the outskirts, however, their caravan is attacked. Konesh is accidentally killed by his own men, while Alex and another agent escape. But not without suspicion from headquarters. Asshole senior agent Jonathan Brubaker is convinced that Alex is a mole and that he has something to do with this.

With his own agency now wanting to take him down, Alex must figure out what Konesh was up to. So he goes to the morgue where Konesh’s body is being held and locates a microdot on him. He later finds out that dot contains information about a secret U.S. satellite capable of killing millions. Alex will try and use this information to get back into the CIA’s good graces. But as he soon learns, the CIA might be involved.

Before I begin my analysis, I just want to say that this script NAILED its structure. Probably one of the best structures for an amateur script I’ve seen in a year. Messer deserves big props for that.

However, the heart and soul of the script need work. And that’s the main issue I want to talk about.

Look. I get that the bar for originality in the spy genre is low. Like “I need a metal detector to find it” low. Spy-heads want their spies. They want their car chases. They want their espionage. And that’s it. They’re good after that.

And if you’re judging The Operative by that criteria, it delivers.

But if we’re judging this on The Scriptshadow scale, I found the concept and the execution of The Operative to be way too generic. Everything from the plot to the characters to the twists to the dialogue were way too familiar.

Take the fact that we have a micro-disc in The Operative. And that disc has plans for a weapon on it that could kill millions. I read scripts with micro-discs and weapons that kill millions every Sunday. I mean, come on. We’re not even going to try and improve on that trope?

And then there’s the dialogue. Here’s an exchange between Alex and the woman he’s secretly seeing at the agency, Maria, after she survived the terrorist break-in…

Alex: “What happened to you?”

Maria: “I thought… I thought I was going to die in there.”

Alex (checks her body): “You’re not hit. You’re fine.”

Maria: “I’ve never… experienced anything like… My god…”

Alex: “Are you going to be okay?”

Maria: “Yes… I’ll be okay. (beat) I can’t stop shaking.”

Alex: “You’re just in shock, that’s all. It’ll pass. You’re going to be just fine.”

Now, when you look at this dialogue, there’s nothing technically wrong with it. The problem is that it’s just so achingly generic. From how the interaction plays out to which words are used is too expected. The dialogue has no personality, no life of its own.

For example, another option would’ve been for Alex to see that Maria was in shock and used a couple of jokes to bring her out of it. But we never get anything like that here. Everyone speaks as if they’re a spy-novel automaton reading lines off a spy-lines teleprompter.

We also get lines like, “Just another day at the office,” “Who the hell are these guys?” “I want to hear answers, not excuses.” “Please, you’re scaring me.” “That’s what I intend to find out.” “It’s been a long night.” “They’re dead. They’re all dead.” “He’s been off the grid for almost a decade.” “God help us.” I mean there wasn’t one line in this script that I hadn’t either heard before or felt like I’d heard before. This is unacceptable if you want to compete on the big league level. You have to come up with your own stuff, not rely on lines from past spy movies.

What this script needs is an “Originality Rewrite” from the top down. Concept, plot, character, dialogue. Everything needs to be upgraded in the originality department. And there’s really only two requirements for originality. The first is the desire to be original, which you have total control over. The second is your imagination – how capable you are of coming up with original ideas. This you don’t have control over. Some people are imaginative and some aren’t (and most of us are somewhere in between).

But if you can execute the first, just the fact that you’re not settling for average (plot points, characters, dialogue, etc.) means you’ll be more original than most, boosting a generic idea like this into something exciting. Remember, 13 Reasons Why could’ve been set up as a 90210 clone. Instead, it rearranged the formula to come at high school drama from a different lens. That’s originality. And that’s the standard you’re being held to in Hollywood.

Script link: The Operative

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

What I learned: The whole point of constructing a building with superb structure is to then populate it with heart and soul. Nobody builds a house to then decorate it with generic rooms and generic furniture. They do it so they can populate it with their own unique personality. The Operative had the structure but it didn’t have the personality, giving the script a lifeless feel. Let’s take care of that moving forward.

No personality.

Personality.