Genre: Comedy
Premise: Show business today may be a snake pit of jealousy and backstabbing, but for an aspiring Court Jester in the late 1800s, it isn’t even THAT nice.
Why you should read: I’m a UK-based writer and I’ve always loved film and TV about the inner workings of show-business, and the chaos, desperation and joy involved when art meets money. ‘I’m Alan Partridge,’ ‘The Larry Sanders Show,’ ‘Bullets Over Broadway,’ etc – it’s been done brilliantly many times but I think with FOOL I’ve found a new angle on it. I love sharp, witty dialogue as much as I love broad slap-stick, and in FOOL I’ve tried to them throw both in together. So if you want a fresh take on a much-loved genre, have a read of FOOL. I hope you enjoy it but if you don’t, you can have fun tearing it to bits – another great showbiz tradition.
Writer: Neil MacLennan
Details: 95 pages
So the new Star Wars trailer hit yesterday and boy do I have some freaking opinions. There is so much subtext behind that trailer and what’s going on with that project, I don’t know where to begin. But clearly something is wrong. I’m going to throw up a dedicated post about it tomorrow. But in the meantime, in the immortal words of Mr. T., I pity the fool who didn’t read Fool!
It’s the early 1800s, my favorite time in history, and can’t a comedian catch a break? Rasmussen is doing everything he can to move up the comedy ladder, playing any tavern that will have him, yet seems to routinely get thrown out the window every time he performs.
The problem seems to be that Rasmussen’s wit is too sophisticated for the clientele. Rasmussen is all about the wordplay. For example, a typical Rasmussen joke might be, “Which animal has death no effect upon? The pig! Because after you’ve killed him, you can cure him, and save his bacon!”
Unfortunately, so few people actually understand Rasmussen’s jokes that he always has to explain them. That is until he gets the opportunity of a lifetime. When the city’s preeminent master of wordplay, Blackridge, is informed by the king that he needs more entertainment for his wedding, Blackridge is assigned to find more comedians!
Terrified that other comedians might show him up, Blackridge and his lackey, Sleev, set out to find the most untalented comedian in the land. And that, of course, is how Rasmussen gets invited to the tryouts.
Here’s the problem. The rich are so terrified to look like they don’t understand wordplay, that they actually laugh at all of Rasmussen’s jokes, which allows him to keep advancing in the tryouts.
Blackridge is freaking out that everyone’s about to realize he’s a farce, and so does everything in his power to ensure Rasmussen fails. Things are going so well for the Ras, though, that he’s able to quit his job shoveling manure. But will he be able to ride this wave of good luck to a primetime spot at the king’s wedding? We’ll have to see!
Fool was funny!
And original!
Imagine that. A comedy script that didn’t have yet another 32 year old white male acting a fool. Actually, now that I think about it, Rassmussen is a 32 year old white male who is literally a fool. BUT at least he’s not driving an Uber.
Fool combines two worlds you rarely see in comedy scripts these days. It gets the funny right AND it has something to say. Neil explores the eternal struggle of what it means to be an artist, discussing the same themes we still talk about today (and in fact, what I just ranted about in my most recent newsletter). When is it time to hang it up?
“Fool” doesn’t just follow Rasmussen on his comedy journey, but consistently takes us into his home, where his pregnant wife and beastly mother-in-law do everything short of begging him to quit his comedy pursuit so he can support his wife. There are nights where he doesn’t even have enough money to bring home food.
And yet Rasmussen continues to pursue his dream.
And I think that’s a lesson all comedy writers should learn. When you write a comedy, it’s not just about being goofy. It’s about putting EVERYTHING ON THE LINE. The more of an “all or nothing” pursuit that it is, the funnier the comedy gets, since we feel the stakes of every joke. Rasmussen is putting all his eggs in this wedding performance basket, risking his family’s livelihood. Each joke is live or die.
The thing is, I read just as many comedies where the writers know how to structure a screenplay, yet aren’t actually funny. “Fool” doesn’t have this problem.
We can’t stop laughing at Rasmussen. Every time he tells one of his wordplay jokes at the pub, not a soul laughs, so he has to explain why the joke is funny, which results in the audience getting angry, which results in Rasmussen getting thrown out the window. Every time.
And it’s clever too. I loved the contrast of how the royalty audience only laughed out of fear that they’d look like they didn’t understand the joke, and how that propelled Rasmussen’s plight.
I loved his dopey manure-shoveling co-worker who Rasmussen would routinely philosophize to, only to turn and see him let out a giant belch and go back to shoveling shit. Or Rasmussen quietly boiling in the corner of the tavern when the town fool performed his pratfall routine and the customers ate it up. Or watching his fellow performer, the wizard, bumble around with his fire routine, always accidentally setting himself on fire.
But I think my favorite part of Fool was how much I cared about Rasmussen. I really wanted him to succeed. I really enjoyed his battle of whether to keep pursuing his dream, give up and support his family, or sell out (by acting a fool and stumbling around on stage).
I think someone should take a chance on this movie. And I think a comedic actor would LOVE to play this part, as it’s unlike any other role they’re likely to get offered.
Nice job, Neil!
Script link: Fool
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the most likable types of characters is the character who keeps getting knocked down and yet always gets back up, always keeps fighting. This script doesn’t work unless we love Rasmussen. And his positive attitude despite every endeavor telling him he should throw in the towel, is one of the script’s many charms.
So the other day, I was talking to someone outside the industry and she had strong opinions about screenwriting (doesn’t everybody?). According to her, it was all a matter of subjectivity. It came down to who was reading your script and if their sensibilities matched up with your own, that’s what determined whether the script sold or not. The Hollywood system was one big game of chance. You had to find the best match, not write the best script.
I held my tongue because we were in public and I didn’t want to pull a Christian Bale on Terminator Salvation.
But what frustrates me is how common this belief is, especially for people just getting into screenwriting. That it isn’t about craft, about working on all the little parts of screenwriting that make you a better screenwriter, but about typing up a Harry Potter knock-off and finding someone who likes Harry Potter.
This is why the majority of people who get into screenwriting give up after 2-3 years. They find it difficult to get their scripts in front of the “difference maker” people. And since they’ve trained themselves to think connecting with someone who has the same movie sensibilities as you do is the only criteria for making it, they throw in the typewriter when they don’t get the chance.
By the way, when they say 99% of all screenwriters fail, those 2-3 year guys are factored into that percentage. Which is hilarious when you think about it. Imagine if you tried to be a professional soccer player in 3 years. Or a neurosurgeon. Or a lawyer. Of COURSE those people never make it. They BARELY put in the effort. 3 years in screenwriting is NOTHING. That’s enough to learn structure, formatting, and the beginnings of character development. You’ll be lucky if you can write a cohesive 110 page story after three years, much less something that people fall in love with.
Now I’m not saying that subjectivity doesn’t play a role in your career. For example, if I was sent a biopic and a science-fiction script, I’d be more inclined to like the science-fiction script. But I can give you a hundred examples of weeks where I read both a biopic and a science-fiction script and I liked the biopic better. Why? BECAUSE THEY WERE BETTER WRITTEN. Because the writer knew how to tell a better story, develop better characters, keep my interest better.
If you want to be a successful screenwriter, STUDY THE SHIT out of screenwriting, write a lot of fucking screenplays, and read a lot of fucking screenplays. If you do those three things, you commit to the long haul, you have some hustle in you, and you have even a little bit of talent, you will succeed. Guaranteed. But for the rest of you who think this is all about sensibility? Here are 10 ways that myself and any Hollywood reader worth his salt can spot the NOT READYS and the READYS.
YOU ARE NOT READY IF…
You’re making basic formatting and protocol errors. I’ve yet to read a screenplay where a writer who doesn’t know how to properly introduce a character (capitalize name, give age, give description) or understand how a slugline works or any of the other basic formatting protocols, is ready for the professional stage.
You can’t stay focused. This is one of the easiest ways for readers to spot newbies. The tone is all over the place. The genre keeps changing. The story jumps all over the place. The best stories tend to be simple and focused.
You’re not exploring character flaws in at least one of your major characters. This is the classic wall between intermediate and advanced level screenwriters and one that many writers never cross because they don’t have any interest in exploring people. If you want to write a screenplay that Hollywood buys, you need to have a deep interest in people and what makes them tick.
Your scenes are just “there.” They don’t seek to entertain, to explore conflict, to highlight something interesting or fun about the characters involved. The scenes are just there to take up space. Each scene should be a tiny little movie. It should entertain the reader. See basically any Coen Brothers scene for reference. They mini-movie the shit out of their scenes.
You’re consistently unclear about basic things. The worst scripts to read are the ones that exist in a haze because tiny bits of information are consistently kept from you, leaving you unsure about the most basic information. Is Karen Dan’s mom? I think so because she was acting motherly a second ago, is 45 when he’s 23, and they live in the same house. Then three pages later, Karen and Dan are making out. I guess they’re not mother and son after all! Wow, that could’ve been so easily cleared up had the writer just TOLD ME THAT. Readers who don’t make basic pieces of information clear are a special kind of evil as they drive readers to the brink of insanity.
YOU ARE READY IF…
You’re consistently making surprising choices. The majority of writers write the same scenes, the same characters, and the same plot beats, because they’re all watching the same movies and are therefore being inspired by the same things. Either start watching movies and shows that nobody else watches, or push yourself beyond the obvious choice and come up with as many, “I’ve never seen this before” moments as you can. Challenge yourself. See how many fresh scenes you can add to your script!
Your script is the epitome of professionalism. You have zero grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors. Your formatting is perfect. So is your protocol. You can tell each sentence has been meticulously combed over to be as short, and yet as informative, as possible. The character descriptions are well-thought through, yet simple and clear. The best scripts I read are usually mistake-free or near-mistake-free. The same people who take pride in their presentation are the people who have worked hard on their craft.
Your choices are story-driven as opposed to gimmick-driven. – This took me longer to figure out, but I’ve discovered that writers who are gimmicky in their writing (write in a self-referential style or depend a lot on twists and reversals and breaking the fourth wall shit) do so because they don’t trust their ability to keep you entertained with basic sound storytelling. Have you ever watched a comedian who’s jumping around the stage like a lunatic, farting and falling and doing anything for the laugh? It’s funny but often in an empty way. Then you see guys like Jerry Seinfeld or Louis C.K. and they just stand there. And they’re so confident in their material, they know that’s all they need to do. Screenwriting is the same way. Just tell a good story. You don’t need a bunch of flash and pizazz. That’s typically an indication that you’re overcompensating for something.
You’re consistently using the Golden Triangle for your scene-writing. The Golden Triangle is conflict, suspense, and dramatic irony. If you’re using one of these three things in each scene, there’s a good chance that your scene is entertaining. Most newbies don’t know what these are or their different variations or the different ways in which you can use them. So the majority of their scenes lack spark.
No matter where we are in your script, your story is always building towards something. A good script always pushes toward its climax. And every ten pages, we should feel like the story is a little bigger than it was ten pages prior.
Getting good at screenwriting doesn’t happen overnight. You have to improve at it piece by piece and that takes time. So locate a weakness of yours (you don’t know how to add suspense, for example) and spend 1-3 months researching, studying, and writing suspenseful scenes. If you don’t know what you need work on, get some feedback. Send your script to friends, send it to fellow Scriptshadowers, send it to me. And ask us: “What do I need to work on?”
I remember this writer who’d send me these scripts and they had ZERO detail. Like if he were to describe a downtown area, he would write, “We’re down town. There’s an intersection and a few people around.” So you couldn’t envision being in any of his locations and it made his scripts feel empty. I told him that he needed to become more detail-oriented and start painting pictures of his world on the page. He worked hard on that and a year later, he sold a script for half-a-million dollars. This wasn’t long ago. But unless you know what’s wrong, you can’t fix it.
Just remember that your success is within your control. This is not a lottery. It is not a game of luck, despite frustrated people on the internet trying to convince you otherwise. If your scripts aren’t impressing people, it’s because you still have work to do. So get back in there and do the work!
Today’s script comes out of nowhere to become one of the best screenplays I’ve read all year!
Genre: Dark Comedy
Premise: After an awkward young woman moves back into her parents’ house, she gets a strange invitation from a man who claims to sell unicorns.
About: Oh yeah, um, count me in for anything Brie Larson does. I mean, I don’t know about this Captain Marvel stuff she signed up for. I’m not sure I see her as a superhero. But if she’s acting and directing The Unicorn Store, then stab a horn into my side and call me Peanut Butter because I’m there for indie Larson. Brie, of course, acted in my favorite movie from last year, Room. This is going to be her feature directing debut, but it is NOT her directing debut, as she did co-direct a short film called “The Arm” (which I can’t find online – anyone have a link?), which won the special jury short film prize at Sundance, a pretty big deal since they have a couple hundred shorts in that festival. The Unicorn Store was written by Samantha McIntyre, whose biggest writing gig was the short-lived FX show, Married. McIntyre wrote this script all the way back in 2009. But it appears that Brie Larson just now read it, and decided it was the perfect movie to make her directing debut on.
Writer: Samantha McIntyre
Details: 104 pages – July 6, 2009 draft
Continuing a longstanding tradition here on Scriptshadow of reviewing any script that has “unicorn” in the title, we’re going to review The Unicorn Store today. Neeeee-iiighhhhey!
I ain’t gonna let my nose grow here. As I made my way through the first act of Unicorn Store, I was skeptical. It seemed like a strange knock-off of a bunch of early 2000s movies like Lars and the Real Girl, Juno, and Garden State.
But the deeper I ventured into the forest, the more I realized this was its own thing. And by the time I got to the second half, I found myself routinely stopping to think about the story. But what really surprised me was how much the ending moved me. This is truly a script like no other, and I couldn’t help leaving impressed.
The story follows Kit, a 28 year-old woman-child who’s spent the last 6 years of her life adding as many years of college courses as she can. Now, with no more classes left to take, she moves back into her parents’ house, a couple of gung-ho gym-teacher types who wear whistles around their necks.
Kit has no idea what she wants to do with her life so she gets a job at a lame PR firm to kill time while she figures things out. Kit has always been a weirdo. She’s never had a boyfriend, never even been out on a date. I mean, she spends the majority of her time talking to her stuffed bears.
Then Kit gets a special glitter-coated invite to a secret store. Curious, she goes there and meets The Salesman, a goofy guy who’s very serious about one thing: Unicorns. It turns out, according to The Salesman, that they’re getting a new unicorn in and that Kit has been chosen to receive said unicorn should she meet the basic requiements of unicorn ownage.
Thrilled, Kit starts building a stable for her unicorn in her parents’ back yard, but realizes she needs help. She hires a guy with a dorky name (Virgil) on Craig’s List in hopes that he’ll be a nerd and therefore won’t judge her. But Virgil turns out to be a total stud, throwing Kit’s confused never-had-a-man-before’s hormones into overdrive.
Of course, she knows that Virgil would never go for a girl like her, so focuses on friendship instead. Kit decides to tell Virgil that she’s getting a pony to avoid judgment, but it doesn’t take long for Virgil to sense he’s not getting the whole story.
He finally demands to know what’s going on, and Kit believes the best course of action is to show him. So she takes him to the Unicorn Store only for there to not be a Unicorn Store. Just an empty warehouse. Kit must confront the reality that she’s so messed up, she imagined the whole thing, and now she’s going to lose her best friend over it.
But maybe, just maybe, there’s still hope for a unicorn arrival yet.
So let me tell you why I was skeptical of this script, and how it ultimately won me over.
I don’t like character setups that come from an artificial place. If your hero is only the way they are because this is a movie and having those quirks best sets up your story, that character won’t feel like a real person. They’re clearly a construction of the writer.
I didn’t understand why Kit still acted like she was 7 other than it was a cutesy quirky thing to do. What happened to make her this way? That wasn’t explained. And so I felt like I was watching a caricature as opposed to a character.
Compare this to Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” The reason the main character in that show is so mind-numbingly naive is because she’s spent her entire life in a bunker brainwashed by a cult leader. There’s something there to explain how she became so weird.
So Unicorn Store started off on the wrong hoof. The thing is, Kit eventually overcomes this by being so damn relatable. Kit is weird. And she hates that she’s weird. And she just wants to fit in but she doesn’t contain the same social genes that the rest of the world operates on, making her a perennial outsider.
Anybody who’s pursuing this craft or acting or directing or singing, or participating in any artistic endeavor, knows how that feels. You never feel quite connected to the masses. And it’s frustrating and you try all these ways to bridge that gap but you never seem to get there. And that’s when I fell in love with this character, because I knew how she felt.
Then, when you added the unicorn metaphor, it put the script over-the-top. Because it really made you think. And I can give you my interpretation of the unicorn, but what’s great about this script is that my interpretation won’t be yours. That’s when you know a script is doing its job. When it’s able to give everyone their own unique experience.
So the unicorn to me was that we’re all promised this perfect life when we’re young. And then when we become adults, we’re told, “You’re so close! All you have to do now is achieve this one thing and you get your perfect life.” And maybe that thing is a high-paying job, or a husband, or a car, or a house. But each time you get that thing, they tell you, “Oh, you’re almost there. Now you just have to get this one other thing.”
And so you get that thing, and then you’re told, okay, just one more thing. And this cycle keeps repeating itself. And the “unicorn,” it turns out, is the perfect life. It doesn’t actually exist. And we’re so focused on checking these boxes so we can get our unicorn, that we never realize that it isn’t there. The irony being, that if we figure that out, we can live a perfect life. Because we can appreciate all the things we have right in front of us instead of chasing something that doesn’t exist.
And that’s what The Unicorn Store meant to me.
I can’t stress how few scripts actually make me think. So this really left an impression on me. If I was looking for a unicorn script for the summer, I think I just found it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you think you have something special – and I mean something truly different, not another Taken clone – bring that puppy out of the closet every couple of years, dust it off (that means write a new draft), and put it in front of some new eyes. Strong voice-y material usually finds a home in fellow weirdos. But let me stress that it truly needs to be special and not some garden-variety high concept script or melodramatic passion project. Because the flip side of this is a writer holding onto a script that’s never going to go anywhere instead of writing something new, which is what I usually encourage. How do you know if your script is special? It’s usually that script you can’t stop thinking about years after you wrote it. It’s that one that won’t go away. It’s your unicorn screenplay.
Genre: Spy/Action
Premise: Years after a psychotic spy is kicked out of his agency, he’s pulled back in to complete a top secret mission.
About: This script comes from Wanted writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas. You might be wondering where these two disappeared to after Wanted. After a couple of slow years, they developed Chicago Fire, which led to Chicago P.D., which led to Chicago Med, which is now leading to Chicago Justice. The funny thing is, when all was said and done, I’d be surprised if Brandt and Haas cleared 750k for their work on Wanted. But when you have a network TV show? CHA-CHING! When you have two? BA-BING! When you have three??? RA-RINNNNGGG! And if you have four, forget about it. You can afford a 2 bedroom apartment in San Francisco. TV is where writers make money, guys. It’s the sad truth us feature lovers hate to admit. Matt Helm is born out of a series of spy novels of the same name. In the 1960s and 70s, four films were made based on the books, but bore zero resemblance to them, since the filmmakers didn’t think they could compete with Bond. So a more tongue-in-cheek style was created, with Dean Martin starring. In 2002, Dreamworks purchased the rights to Matt Helm, and that’s the iteration that today’s script is based on. When Dreamworks left Paramount, Paramount kept the rights to Helm, at which point Spielberg himself flirted with the series. But he ultimately passed and the franchise is still stuck in development hell.
Writers: Michael Brandt & Derek Haas (based on the Matt Helm novel, “Death of a Citizen” by Donald Hamilton)
Details: 108 pages (10/07/06 draft)
One of the bankable arenas for a spec writer is the Agent and/or Spy spec. Hollywood is always looking for the next Jason Bourne. In fact, a “Female Bourne” spec just sold last week, called Red Widow.
If you’re interested in this, there are a couple of ways to go about it. First, there are a million of these book series to option. Don’t worry if they’re 10 years old, 20, 50. All Hollywood cares about is if they were once published somewhere and more than a hundred people have heard about them. Some of the older stuff shouldn’t be tough to get an option on. And lots of writers who’ve secured options on book material have told me they didn’t think it would be as easy as it was. It never hurts to ask, guys!
If you want to go spec script, then you have to find a new twist to the spy thing. Because Hollywood is more risk averse when it comes to specs. It takes that fresh angle to get their wallets horny. I’m a little sad that all Red Widow had to do was change the part from male to female, but hey, it’s the trend right now, and good job to the writer for capitalizing on it.
On to today’s script…
Matt Helm loves his job. Sure, he’s a little bit nuts and takes anti-psychotic meds, but he’s so good at what he does, the agency looks past it. That is until Helm fingers and kills the wrong mark, resulting in his prickly boss “reassigning” him to the suburbs. Subtext? “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
It takes another three years for a now stir-crazy Helm to get the call again. A trio of scientists have created a scary ass explosive called a “spider-bomb.” I could go into details, but let’s just say, like most bombs, it’s something you don’t want to be around when it blows up.
The agency believes that our scientists are going to sell Charlotte’s Web on the black market within the next few days, and need Helm to do his thing before that happens. Helm is paired with his former co-worker and former sex-partner, Tina, who will be in charge of the mission.
For some reason, Helm takes five random items into each mission, each of which are seemingly mundane, but in Helm’s hands, tools that can be unleashed to do the unthinkable. Helm is so damn good, that he easily takes care of 2 of the first 3 bad guys.
But while looking for the third spiderman, poor Helm has another one of his psychotic episodes, and becomes convinced that an ordinary woman is his mark. Terrified, Tina tries to stop him from killing her, but Helm is positive she’s a baddie. This results in the most intense scene in the script, with Helm, Tina, and us, wondering if this chick is, indeed, out to get him.
The fallout from this moment changes the entire complexion of the movie, and Helm will find that both his life, and his sanity, are officially on the line.
Let me ask you a question. And feel free to answer in the comments section. If someone were to pay you to come up with a spy franchise, what would you bring to the table to make it different?
Matt Helm goes with a psychotic agent. I like that angle, which I’ll talk about more in a second. But think about how many options you have. You can make the agent really young, desperate to prove himself. You can make him older, out of touch with the way the game works these days. You can make him a family man. You can get weird and have your agency based on a secret society that’s been around for centuries (Kingsman, Wanted). But the point is, you have to do something unique.
Like I said, Matt Helm went with psycho. Which was a sweet angle. Imagine Martin Riggs (Lethal Weapon) as a secret agent. That’s a movie right there.
But Matt Helm made the mistake that so many writers have made before it. They TOLD us Helm was crazy a bunch of times, but they didn’t SHOW us Helm was crazy a bunch of times. And telling never works. You can have a character tell us “Gary is funny” 75 times in a row. But if Gary never makes us laugh, Gary’s not funny.
It sucks because Helm’s best scene is that late scene with the woman where he isn’t sure if she’s bad or good since he’s going nuts. But that’s on page 70. Up until that point, we’re mostly told Helm is psychotic, with our primary visual reminder being Helm taking his medication.
You want to watch someone SHOW and not TELL us they’re crazy? Go watch The Joker in Suicide Squad. A good way to gauge if you’re doing the show and don’t tell thing is to ask, if none of your characters ever stated that your hero was crazy (or whatever it is you’re trying to get across), would the audience still leave the theater going, “Holy shit, that dude was crazy!”
The “Five Items” thing didn’t work either. The ways in which the items were used was uninspiring. This is another mistake I see all the time. Writers paint themselves into these corners with these rules, then they don’t deliver on them. So if your hero’s thing is that he cleverly uses 5 items on every mission, then his use of those items better live up to the hype.
It’s like the Boomerang Guy in Suicide Squad. We’re told he was able to do things with a boomerang that would make a nuclear missile look like a pop rock. Except all I saw him do was throw a boomerang and watch it come back to him. Mogli the Wolf Boy from Mad Max had more impressive boomerang skills than Captain Kangaroo.
This may sound like I didn’t like Matt Helm. But actually, despite being a tad predictable, I thought the writing itself was awesome. Brandt and Haas are super-enjoyable to read. They strike the perfect balance between crisp minimalistic action lines and the occasional chunkster paragraph required to feed the reader a lot of info.
And the character of Helm himself was fun. Not as fun as he could’ve been had they gone Full Nutzos, but fun nonetheless.
If I were them, I’d go full-tilt into this psychotic secret agent idea. We’ve never seen anything like that before, and that’s the only reason to get into this genre – if you’ve got something fresh. We’ll see if Matt Helm ever climbs out of development hell and gets a chance to prove itself. Jason Bourne is done, right? So there’s an open locker in the locker room.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Repeated “show don’t tell” shots of pills don’t sell the condition your character is suffering from. Whether it’s depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, being psychotic – if you want to sell us that the character is suffering from these things, we must SEE THEM SUFFERING FROM THESE THINGS. Shots of them staring at the pills is NOT a “show don’t tell” moment. It’s more like a visual “tell.” Not nearly as effective.
Genre: Superhero
Premise: A rag-tag team of super-villains are released from prison to help the military destroy a powerful witch who has taken over the city.
About: What originally began as a secondary project in DC’s plans to do what Marvel’s done, got called up to the big leagues when Batman vs. Superman didn’t do well and Suicide Squad’s first trailer generated a ton of unexpected heat. All of a sudden, DC considered Squad its top priority, and since then, just about everything that could’ve happened with the project did happen. The film had already been rushed into production from the start (they gave writer-director David Ayer only six weeks to write the script). And now the first cut was considered too serious, a common complaint with Batman vs. Superman. So they rushed into reshoots that would focus on adding more humor, all of which was denied by Ayer, DC, and Warner Brothers. Meanwhile, two separate cuts of the movie were being edited – one serious, one funny, and were later screened for audiences to see which tested better. Funny won and Ayer’s serious take was deep-sixed. Ayer seems to have learned from his predecessors though. Instead of throwing the film under the bus like Josh Trank did for Fantastic Four and Joss Whedon did for Avengers 2, Ayer has proudly claimed that he loves the movie. The film debuted this weekend to 135 million dollars, which is either really high (it’s the highest ever opening in August) or really low (it was projected to hit 150 million) depending on who you talk to. For reference, Batman vs. Superman, which consisted of the two best known superheroes in history, opened with 166 million.
Writer: David Ayer
Details: 120 minutes
Six weeks.
SIX WEEKS!
Remember that time when I gave you guys four months to write a script and most of you said it was impossible and I was moving way too fast and that you NEEDED MORE TIME. Well imagine someone telling you that you had six weeks to write a 180 million dollar movie. Oh, and by the way. It wasn’t some simple narrative that followed a superhero’s origin story.
No. It was an ENSEMBLE PIECE of brand new characters that hadn’t been seen on the big screen before. So you were going to have to introduce each of them, make us understand and care about them within a couple of minutes, and, while you were doing this, create a plot that would offer these characters something important to do.
When you consider all that? I think David Ayer did a damn good job.
I mean, from the way people were talking about this movie, I thought I was walking into Transformers 4 or Pan. This was a solid, albeit rushed superhero movie that felt different enough from the usual suspects, that it left me feeling like I’d spent my money well.
Now before you go all, “But Carson. It doesn’t do all these things that you tell us to do. Why are you giving it a pass?” Believe me, I’m aware of the things it does badly. But the combination of zero expectations and knowing they wrote a script in six weeks (SIX WEEKS!), left me actually impressed that they came up with something comprehensible at all.
This is something I tell you guys. Get ready for how it really is in the big leagues. Cause a time like this WILL happen to you, where someone asks you to write a script in six weeks, or four, or two, or ten days. I’ve heard it happen before. If you don’t have a game plan down for how to approach that problem, say goodbye to some potentially lucrative jobs.
For those who didn’t see the film, here’s the Five Tweets plot-breakdown. An extremely powerful witch tries to take over the city. They recruit super-villains from prison to stop her, the key players of whom are Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and firestarter, Diablo. They’re led by Sergeant Rick Flag, who happens to be in love with the woman who the witch has possessed. Oh, and while they go after the witch, the Joker, who’s Harley Quinn’s boyfriend, attempts to get her back.
The rushed-ness of the script is felt almost immediately.
They give us an introductory scene for both Deadshot and Harley Quinn. They then do one of those dossier montages where a woman runs down each of the villains, while we see them in action, giving us a SECOND introductory scene for both Deadshot and Harley Quinn. Finally, before the mission begins, we get a THIRD introductory scene for Deadshot.
Look, we can hurl hate from our ivory towers all we want. But I’ve heard how some of these high level 15 producers sitting at a table with the studio head and a dozen executives, all of whom’s jobs depend on this movie, each giving opinions on what they think needs to be in the film, go. And I can only imagine the level of conflicting notes that come out of those meetings.
I can totally see a conversation that went something like: “But that Will Smith target practice scene is awesome!” “Well yeah, but we’ve already set up his character, um, twice.” “I don’t care. I love that scene. Put it in there.” “You’re the boss.”
Truth be told, the majority of the problems in this movie are problems that could’ve been fixed with time. For example, one of your best characters, The Joker, isn’t even part of the main plot. Why isn’t he a part of the Suicide Squad?
Then you realize, well, the Joker doesn’t have any powers. So it wouldn’t make sense for them to recruit him. Not only that, but he’s so big, he would overshadow everyone in the group. Who cares about Boomerang Guy or Katana Chick when the Joker is chewing up the scenery? Hence why they give him this subplot where he’s away from everyone else. But I’m sure with three or four drafts, you’d figure out a way to make him a bigger part of the story.
The lack of time also hurt the character creation. This is where time truly haunts the process. Because you can always cobble together a giant problem and a goal for characters to tackle. But making characters memorable and giving them something interesting going on is a whole other ball of wax.
I mean someone tell me what Croc did in this film. He’s the coolest-looking character of the bunch and he does absolutely nothing. Ditto Boomerang Guy, who’s relegated to an exaggerated Aussie accent and a boomerang that does the same thing a $19.99 drone from Toys R Us can do. And as much time as they spent on Deadshot, his entire character amounts to, “I’M DOING THIS FOR MY DAUGHTER” in big giant capital letters.
And again, I’m not blaming the lack of ability. I’m blaming the lack of time. Creating nuanced characters in an ENSEMBLE where you have a fraction of the time you’d have in a traditional single-hero film is hard. It takes a lot of trial and error.
But you could see Ayer trying. The choice to make Rick Flag and the Witch in love, so that destroying the witch meant destroying the love of his life – that’s the kind of the thing you want to do in screenplays. You want to make it personal. It was executed clumsily in a first-draftish way, but the intention was good.
And we did have a clear goal driving the story. We knew what we were after, which kept the journey focused.
I could’ve personally done without the witch-as-major-villain choice. I think witches belong in a separate universe from superheroes, which is why I never took to the witch character in the Avengers either. Then again, I don’t know how they come up with any villains in these superhero movies, since they have to construct something that is somehow more powerful than all of the most powerful superheroes combined.
It all feels so convoluted.
Is it any wonder why the two most popular villains in history (Lex Luthor and The Joker) have no powers?
That’s one of Nolan’s secrets to success. By eliminating anyone with ridiculous super powers, he didn’t have to come up with some silly villain who could blow up the planet with a wiggle of his left toe.
Is Suicide Squad great? It is not. But it’s not nearly as bad as people are saying it is. It’s DEFINITELY better than Batman vs. Superman, I can promise you that.
But I will say that if DC doesn’t put a better plan in place, they’re fucked. You can’t throw scripts together in six weeks and expect miracles. The key to Marvel’s success was that they mapped out a plan ahead of time, which gave projects the organic time to grow that they needed. In the few times that they rushed (Iron Man 2, Avengers 2), they paid the price. Then again, when has Hollywood ever listened to that advice? They keep making the same mistake again and again. Kind of like being told again and again that the reason we’re on this mission is because, “I’m gonna see my daughter!!!”
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Bad guys forced to do good things is a formula that audiences enjoy. It’s no surprise why three of the biggest surprise properties of the last few years have been: “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Deadpool,” and “Suicide Squad.” Audiences love that setup.
