Sneaky me snuck off on vacation these past two weeks. I tried to rig my WordPress to automatically put up posts. The result was, um, not what I had hoped for, which meant I was constantly popping in to do maintenance, all on my phone. It’s not fun to try and fix a post when you’re in the middle of a castle! Or looking at the biggest Picasso painting ever painted. For those interested, I went to Dublin and Spain. The above picture I took in a park in Spain called the Retiro (in Madrid). Easily the most beautiful park I’ve ever been in.

Anyway, this post is meant to keep you accountable. You are now 5 months into the year. You should be closing in on one completed script. So, are you there? If not, write more! Or vent your frustrations. Or offer encouragement. Or whatever you want to say. As long as it’s about writing or vacations! :)

Genre: Action/Adventure
Logline (from writer): After jumping ship on a remote island, a sailor must escape from his new captors, a fabled tribe of cannibals named the Typee.
Why You Should Read: “Typee” was Herman Melville’s best-selling book in his life time, NOT Moby Dick. The story was a hit with audiences because it was written by a man who “lived with the cannibals.” Yet for some reason, Hollywood has continued to overlook this hidden gem, which has everything a big cinematic movie needs: unique setting, high stakes, lovable characters, mystery, twist and turns, and a dramatic ending. The truth is no one really knows about this book. Moby Dick will always reign supreme as the iconic Melville text, but Typee deserves some love, too. It would make a much better movie! — There was one big theme I noticed throughout the book: identity. During his adventures on the island, the main character always walks a fine line between engaging in the native cultural and rejecting it outright. He is afraid of losing his western identity, yet he is forced by his captors to participate in the rituals and ways of the Typee. I used this as a central point of conflict in the script. — One last thing. This script has a lot of what I call “Oh, shit!” moments. You know, when you’re reading a script and something crazy happens and you say “Oh, shit!” out loud. I really worked to put these moments in there because the original text didn’t have enough of them. There’s one particular “Oh, shit!” at the end of Act II that you really shouldn’t miss.
Writer: Kent Sariano (based on the novel, “Typee: A Peep Into Polynesian Life” by Herman Melville).
Details: 104 pages

I loved this pitch. Who would’ve thought that Moby Dick, one of the greatest novels of all time, wasn’t even Herman Melville’s best selling book when he was alive? Throw some cannibals into the mix and of course I’m hungry to find out more.

The year is 1841. 23 year old Tom is a deck hand on a whaling ship (write what you know, I guess!) that’s ruled over by a power hungry first mate named Hall. Hall has his sights set on making Tom’s experience as miserable as possible, always having him do extra work and calling him, “Thomasina” to embarrass him in front of the crew.

Tom’s lone ally is 18 year old Toby, an eager newbie who’s keen on making a good impression. Despite the danger in associating with Tom, Toby is always there for him, even when he gets whipped in front of the crew for publicly challenging Hall.

When their ship reaches a Polynesian island and the crew is given a few days to play, Tom and Toby hatch a plan to hide out in the island’s center in order to get away from Hall, figuring they’ll catch the next ship that comes along. One problem. There are rumors that this island houses a tribe of cannibals known as the Typee.

Cannibals? Hall? Both the same as far as Tom is concerned. So he and Toby venture into the island where they, indeed, meet this mysterious Polynesian tribe. Toby freaks out, tries to run, and pays the ultimate price for it – he’s killed.

Tom, injured from earlier, has no choice but to stay with the group. And you know what? They aren’t so bad. The tribe’s King, Mehevi, takes a liking to Tom, and helps him learn the ways of the Typee, namely how to hunt. Also, Mehevi warns Tom of their rival tribe, the Hapaar, who are constantly threatening war with the Typee.

Tom falls in love with a Typee woman and is on good terms with almost all of the residents. But as interesting as these people are, Tom longs to go home to America. Unfortunately, his buddy Mehevi won’t let him. Which means if Tom’s going to get away, he’ll have to escape. Tom knows that his plan will need to be perfect. Because it if fails, the Typee will kill him. Or worse.

I can see why this won. The writing is slick. It’s succinct yet also descriptive. You usually only get one or the other. Not only that, but we jump right into things. We’re on a ship. Conflict is thrown at us in the form of Tom battling Hall. I was drawn in immediately.

But as the script made its way into the second act (when we get to the island) I noticed that something was missing. The storytelling was becoming too casual. For example, instead of building up the mysterious horror of our looming cannibalistic tribe, we learn about them through some random deck hand who informs us of their existence as casually as one might give directions. “Are we making port?” “Aye. We are. But it’s an island of cannibals.”

We needed some mystery. We needed to get to that moniker – cannibalism – gradually. To throw the word out there so haphazardly sapped it of all of its power.

Also, it didn’t make sense why Tom and Toby would head directly towards the cannibals. Cannibals are dangerous, right? So why are we walking towards them? I get that they wanted to hide from Hall, but surely there’s a better plan than hiding amongst cannibals.

Toby’s death happens way too easily. This was a major character, a likable character, and his death doesn’t even occur on screen.

From there, it took me awhile to understand what kind of movie I was watching. I was promised cannibals, but instead I got Dances with Wolves – a film about fitting in with an unfamiliar culture. It wasn’t bad. And Melville provides plenty of conflict (there’s a frustrated Typee second-in-command who wants to kill Tom). But I couldn’t help but feel that I was a victim of false advertising. Where’s the cannibalizing???

Towards the end, we finally get what we’ve waited for (Cannibal Time!). But it wasn’t as exciting as we’d hoped. It’s simply Tom sitting down and eating human meat with the tribe. This might have been a fine plot point 100 years ago. But today? It needed to be bigger. I would’ve kept Toby alive and maybe they cook and eat Toby while he’s still conscious. Lol. That’s pretty sick but I mean, come on! It’s a movie about cannibals. You need to deliver “that scene,” that perfect cannibal moment that an audience never forgets.

The key to fixing this script is to add bigger plot developments throughout the story and deliver more on the promise of the premise. I mean, I was promised this big “Oh shit!” moment at the end of the second act, but I’m still not sure what moment Kent is referring to. Is it when Tom eats human flesh? That’s not big enough for today’s audiences.

And then there’s Hall. What a great villain! Yet we never get the satisfaction of taking him down. Once we leave the boat, the character is gone for good. Why not have Hall and his men come looking for Tom. It would provide you with an opportunity to close his story arc. Hell, he’d be a perfect candidate for Tom’s first cannibal feast.

Some of you might be wondering if it’s okay to radically change plot points like this. My experience has been that the further back in history and the more obscure the material, the more leniency you have. I’ve never met anyone who’s read Typee. It’s the first time I’d heard of it myself. So I think it falls under the category of “obscure enough” to make changes. Hell, Alex Garland changed tons of plot points in Annihilation, and that book was written less than a decade ago.

Writing was good here. But the script never leaves 3rd gear. You need to step on the gas more, Kent!

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

What I learned: A good pitch doesn’t alway mean selling your concept. A good pitch can be any fun fact or piece of information that creates curiosity in the reader. Sometimes that means finding the story surrounding the story, which is what Sariano did here. That one factoid – Melville had a book that outsold Moby Dick – convinced me to give this a shot.

It’s easy to tell if a movie’s not going to work. You watch the trailer and instantly sense that something is off (check here and here for exhibits A and B). You don’t always know what it is. But you know you’re not going to waste 2 hours and 15 bucks of your life on it. For the average moviegoer, this reasonless choice is fine. But the aspiring screenwriter must know why every marketed release fails so that they don’t make the same mistakes themselves. And yes, you can often identify giant screenwriting mistakes right there in the trailer. So today, I’m going to take you through 15 failed films and the screenwriting reasons why they bombed. Let’s get into it.

Downsizing – It’s unclear what the point of the movie is. After our hero shrinks, what’s his goal? What’s the story’s destination? For example, when I watch Infinity War, I know the goal is to stop Thanos. That point is clear as day. These trailers displayed no point to the story. So it wasn’t surprising, then, that the movie didn’t have a point either.

Tomorrowland – The premise promises a movie that never arrives. You tell us a movie is about Tomorrowland, yet we barely spend any time there. Not only that, but Tomorrowland is lame. If you’re going to promise us something, make sure your script delivers it.

Logan Lucky – It’s a genre-less movie. Young writers commonly assume that genre doesn’t matter. Despite all his experience, Soderbergh keeps making the same mistake as well. You have to write in a genre or sub-genre that has a proven track record of turning a profit. “Wacky indie dark comedy heist” is not a genre that’s ever proven to be successful. So of course the movie didn’t catch on.

127 Hours – Just because something happened in real life doesn’t make it a movie. A movie still needs movie-like elements to work. Having only one character stuck in a visually unappealing rock crevice… there’s nothing cinematic about that. Nor is it a situation that lends itself to 2 hours of dramatization. Maybe you could make a 20 minute short about the subject (at most). But the point is, just because something dramatic happened in real life doesn’t mean it’s right to turn into a movie (see also: Sully).

The Five Year Engagement – I don’t know if this movie is any good or not. I never saw it. The reason I didn’t see it? The title. This shows just how badly a terrible title can hurt a film. A title needs to be either creative or clear. This is neither. It slams you over the head with its bluntness yet leaves you confused. So it’s a movie about… a sort of long engagement period? Why is that funny? Why is that topic worthy of a movie?

Inside Llewyn Davis – An example of how a miserable main character can destroy any chance of drawing an audience. Every hero must have something about him we can root for. This character had nothing.

The Place Beyond The Pines – The Place Beyond the Pines is what happens when a writer writes to impress film school classes as opposed to real people who go and see movies. Sprawling, unfocused, hyper-serious, long. You can write films like this if you want. But don’t expect anyone besides hardcore cinephiles to like them.

Tully – The concept is simply too small. A mother gets help raising her children. Um, okay. The only thing marketable about this movie – its twist – can’t be marketed. So what’s left?

Foxcatcher – Your script can be slow. Your script can be depressing. But your script cannot be slow and depressing. People typically see movies to escape reality and be entertained. To give them something that embodies the opposite of that is a risk that always ends in failure.

Ghostbusters – Tried to force an agenda on audiences at the expense of telling a great story. If you start putting agendas first, whether they be social, political, personal – the movie comes off as a commercial for your way of thinking rather than a piece of entertainment. Audiences are too savvy for that.

Valerian – “Everything-and-the-Kitchen-Sink” Syndrome. There isn’t any focus. Only a desire to throw as much crazy as possible at the screen and see what sticks. Every movie, even sprawling fantasy or sci-fi, must feel focused in some way. Without a strong story engine and clear goal, scripts like this can quickly descend into messes, which is exactly what happened.

Draft Day – Outside of boxing, fictional sports movies are almost always bombs. People who go see sports movies want to feel like what they’re watching happened. Of course, it didn’t help that both the director and lead actor constructed what was originally a fast-paced fun script and turned it into something that plays to the 80-and-older crowd.

Sex Tape – Dated material. The worst thing you can be is late to the party on a subject matter. This is why it’s advisable to stay away from trends. Although, going off of interviews, it sounds like this was made solely because Sony Studios head Amy Pascal just learned about sex tapes in 2013. Stay current people!

The Mummy – Absolutely positively nothing new. Even Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible films have a stunt or two that’s never been done before. This had nothing new. When you don’t have a single new thing to offer with your screenplay, why would anyone show up to see your movie?

Blade Runner 2049 – A tsunami of self-indulgence killed this one. Nearly every scene took twice as long as it needed to. Don’t fall in love with your stuff so much that you forget to keep your story moving.

Genre: Biopic
Premise: The true story of how a CIA agent used his contacts he made in the agency to sell explosives to Libya after he was fired.
About: This script made the 2013 Black List and got Matthew McConaughey attached half a year later. Unfortunately, the project became a casualty of McConaughey’s busy schedule. This is one of the curses of getting a hot actor attached to your project. On the one hand, you become one of the most buzz-worthy projects in town. On the other, these hot actors are always over-booked and end up dropping out of a lot of projects. You risk becoming one of those projects. Once that happens, you’ll never regain that initial buzz again, so there’s a chance that no A-list actor signs on to your movie. Was it really that great to bring that actor on then? To avoid this mistake, you have to depend on your agents and producers. Ask them, “Is he really going to do it?” If that actor is signed on to 7 other movies, you might want to think twice about making the leap.
Details: 137 pages of boring

Sometimes you have to admit to yourself that you don’t have a movie.

You can rearrange the cards in your hand as many times as you want. But if it’s shitty hand, you’re not going to win it. I suppose you can try and bluff, which is what The Company Man attempts to do. But it’s hard to fool seasoned producers who are all too aware that one shitty movie can bankrupt their company.

And I’m not bashing the writer here, believe it or not. The writing is actually quite energetic. But where’s the story man? This isn’t a story.

Allow me to explain.

Edwin P. Wilson was a nobody farmer’s son who grew up wanting better things for himself. He fought in the end of the Korean War, then afterwards stumbled into a position at the CIA. Wilson’s job there was lame. He was, essentially, an errand boy.

Then one day the CIA director sent him to Libya, where he amassed a large network of political friends. To achieve this, he needed to operate a pretend company and do business with these politicians. However, one day, the government discovered that the CIA were torture-happy lunatics and cleaned house. Wilson got swept out with everyone else.

At this time, Libya was under extreme sanctions, and Wilson realized that even though he was no longer in the CIA, he could use his old contacts to make money. So he started selling weapons to Libya, specifically C-4. Lots of C-4.

After becoming very rich off these deals, two guys in a completely unrelated country are killed by a car bomb. The CIA believe that Wilson is responsible for this even though, it turns out, he isn’t. So the rest of the story is the US government relentlessly pursuing Wilson to link him to this murder.

I have read some all-timer boring scripts in my years. But this is up there.

The script spends the first half of its running time showing us how Wilson became an underground arms dealer to Libya. Why do I care about this? What makes selling arms to a backwater 3rd world nation that has little-to-no influence on the world stage a relevant story to follow? Why should I care that this is happening? The script never explains that. There are zero stakes to what’s going on.

Let me explain that further so aspiring screenwriters don’t make the same mistake themselves. If Wilson was selling nuclear weapons to Cuba in the 60s, during the height of the Cold War, that is a world-stage high-stakes event that is worthy of a story. He would’ve been putting the U.S. in direct danger of being blown to smithereens. But instead he’s selling C-4 to Libya so that they have a few extra explosives in their archives. Who cares?

The second half of the script focuses on how Wilson gets blamed for a car bomb killing that he had nothing to do with. So let me get this straight. The engine driving this story is whether our main character is going to be put in prison for an insignificant pair of deaths in another country that he has nothing to do with and that, even if he did, has zero global implications?

Where the fuck are the stakes?

You may answer that with: the stakes are high for Wilson, Carson. If he gets caught, he goes to prison. Yeah, but you’ve established that this story takes place on a global level. The stakes can’t just be our hero. They have to be bigger than that.

So how did this script gain traction?

Through the actor loophole.

The actor loophole is when you write a part that an actor will want to play and then who the hell cares what the plot is. The goal is to get the big actor. You get the big actor, you don’t need a plot. You’ve got a greenlit movie. And this is a showy character that I can see actors wanting to play. Wilson is cocky. He’s got a shaky moral compass. He’s got a lot of those cool Scorsese voice over lines that actors love.

But this is what drives me nuts about biopics. The writers are so focused on the main character that they don’t pay attention to the story. And there’s no story here. Waiting to see if a guy goes to prison because of some random bombing he had nothing to do with isn’t a story.

Also, I don’t think anyone wants to see these international weapons sales movies. You had that Nicholas Cage “Lord of War” movie that nobody liked. You had the more recent “War Dogs” with Jonah Hill. I get the idea behind these concepts. Ooh, it’s ironic, cuz, like, we’re selling weapons to our enemies! But that’s just a thought. It’s something you literally think about for 3 seconds, then go, “Yeah, that’s kind of interesting,” and then you’re done with it. There’s zero reason to spend 2 hours expanding that thought.

Like I said earlier, you have to be honest with yourself about if your idea is worthy of a feature treatment. The Company Man is half-worthy. It’s got the character. But it never figured out the story.

Will this ever get made? I don’t know. The actor catnip is strong with this one. That’s always a wild card. But it needs to restructure its story so there are some actual stakes. Everything here feels intensely insignificant, to the point where after finishing each page, you ask, “What’s the point of all this?”

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

What I Learned: I love italicizing voice overs, particularly if you have a character who’s going to be talking in voice over a lot, such as Wilson. It’s a big flashy visual aid, so you know you’re reading voice over every time it starts. And it’s great for scripts like this because there will be times where Wilson speaks out loud then speaks in voice over right away. It’s great to have that visual aid that allows us to make that mental switch so we understand why the character is speaking twice in a row.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a dying man programs a robot to take care of his dog when he dies.
About: Talk about an 80s film package! This was a spec script that got a lot of heat at the end of last year, eventually landing Tom Hanks (presumably for the role of the robot). It’s being produced by Robert Zemeckis and Keven Misher AND Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. The film will be directed by Game of Thrones director, Miguel Sapochnik. The script went on to finish in the bottom third of last year’s Black List.
Writers: Craig Luck and Ivor Powell.
Details: 110 pages

It always makes me happy to see a spec script muscle its way through a system that’s become increasingly resistant to specs. I’m hearing that Amblin is ramping up again. So between them and Bad Robot, we have two companies open to high-concept (reasonably priced) specs in the mould of today’s story.

Bios is part of the new “man and dog” sub-genre. We have the novel, “The Dog Stars,” which seems to have partly inspired this script. We have the ex-Navy SEAL stranded with his dog script, Heart of the Beast, that I reviewed a few months ago. And now we have Bios. Let’s find out where it ranks.

Two months is all it took for society to implode. That’s how long it was before the food disappeared. We’re a few years north of that now, and while there are survivors, they’re few and far between. One of those survivors is Finch, a 30-something former robotics engineer who’s been savvy enough to build a bunker into a hill.

Finch lives for his dog, scavenging a decaying wasteland for any food he can find for it. In his spare time, he puts together “Jeff,” a robot with a special direction – to take care of his dog when he dies. Oh yeah, there’s that too. Finch is dying.

His plan is anything but airtight. The robot’s programming is barebones. It’s never walked before. And worst of all, the dog hates him (their first interaction has the dog pissing on its leg).

When an unexpected super-storm rolls in (these seem common in the post apocalypse – although it’s not explained how they’re tied to all the food going bad) Finch realizes that if they don’t flee, his place will be leveled.

So he grabs Jeff and has dog, jumps in his Winnebago, and starts driving West. On the way, he teaches Jeff as much as he can about humanity and the world, hoping he’ll be ready to protect when he dies. Eventually, Jeff starts becoming interested in consciousness, hoping that one day he’ll be human too.

The group runs into a series of obstacles along the way (crashes, pursuers), each setback potentially deadly since their lives depend on outrunning the storm. (spoiler) Eventually, Finch dies, and Jeff’s schooling is put to the test. But when we realize he’s woefully underprepared, it’s only a matter of time before Finch’s dog is in major danger.

This started out great. How great? I was preparing a pre-post to announce a new Top 25 script. The first act is flawless. Luck and Powell paint a picture of a post-apocalypse that is both familiar yet unique. We’ve seen these scenes before and yet the level of detail used to describe scavenging a Walmart feels altogether fresh.

It doesn’t hurt that they have “Save The Cat” (Dog) built right into the concept. The second Finch gets home, we realize he’s out there specifically to find food for his dog. And when he feeds the starving dog with the food he found, we fall in love with him immediately. As I always say here on Scriptshadow: Make us love your hero immediately and we’re yours.

Once we realize how sick Finch is, the potential of this story levels up considerably. Finch is going to die, this robot he is going to have to travel with this dog that hates him, all in the hope of getting across country to safety.

How daring is that. Focusing a story solely on a robot and a dog. I’d never seen anything like it and was dying to see how they’d make it work. But then Finch not only comes with them, but is alive for most of the screenplay. This turned a smart and simple two-hander into an unnecessarily complex three-way relationship. Once Jeff’s “Pinocchio” storyline entered the picture, I was no longer clear what story the writers were trying to tell.

There’s still a lot to like here though. For example, I’m a big fan of adding chases to narratives. When you have something pursuing your heroes, it adds an urgency to the proceedings that gives the script energy. Usually, the chase comes in the form of cops, or the villain (Darth Vader in Star Wars). Using.a storm felt like a fresh way to incorporate the chase aspect.

Also, the script was clever in the way it dispensed exposition. Throughout the first act, I was wondering what year it was. In your average newbie sci-fi spec, that exposition would come in the form of a character clumsily saying, “Ever since the Food Wars of 2031, nothing’s been the same.”

Instead, Finch is fine-tuning Jeff, attempting to get him acting like a human. “So tell me something interesting,” Finch asks him. “Giraffes can go longer without water than a camel.” Finch chuckles. “Is that fact?” “Yes.” Finch turns to his dog. “I bet you didn’t know that.” The robot continues. “In February 2031, over 13 million people searched “interesting facts” on Google.” “Tell me something interesting about you,” Jeff replies.

There. Did you catch it? In the midst of him and this robot calibrating, we learned that it’s at least past the year 2031. This was achieved in an organic invisible way, within the context of the conversation. Remember, exposition is only bad when it draws attention to itself. As long as information is given within context, the reader won’t notice it.

But yeah, I think they missed opportunities here. Finch should’ve died at the end of the first act. They should’ve traveled on foot, not within the safety of a Winnebago. The movie should’ve been about the unresolved relationship between Jeff and the dog. And Finch needed to give the robot his own voice. That way the actor gets to play both parts.

I don’t throw these opinions out arbitrarily. All of them make the story simpler, which is what that first act promised, then deviated from.

With that said, I still enjoyed the script. I want big prodcos like Amblin to make more movies like this – give us a superhero breather every once in awhile. That makes me Team Bios, warts and all.

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

What I learned: A neat little screenwriting trick is to upgrade a problem from bad to worse. In Bios, we learn that a superstorm is coming in and will obliterate everything within an 800 mile radius. A day later, as they’re putting together an impossible escape plan, they learn that two other storms are colliding with this storm, increasing the deadly diameter to 2000 miles. Within the span of 15 pages, we go from worried to terrified. It’s a simple tool, but very effective