A 3 million dollar spec sale and a script that might change the industry forever

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller
Premise: A low level worker at a cutting edge tech firm is challenged by the company’s previous fallen CEO to find out what a mysterious recently fired AI coder was working on.
About: They said that unknown writers can’t sell specs. And when they do, they’re lucky to crack 6 figures. Well, today’s unknown writer sold his spec for 3.25 million dollars last week. Here’s how The Hollywood Reporter tells it: “According to insiders, Dotan had written his script then called one of two people he knew in Hollywood. That led to Dotan connecting with two literary managers from Untitled Entertainment, known mostly for its talent roster but which had acquired boutique lit firm Grandview only a few months earlier. The managers signed the writer off a Zoom meeting with the goal of quickly packaging the script and swiftly taking it to market. AI may be a hot topic now, but if you’re making a movie on the subject — one that wouldn’t hit until a few years later — the window of interest is small.”
Writer: Natan Dotan
Details: 105 pages

That’s a very intriguing header! Change the industry forever??

What could it possibly mean?

I’ll get into that in a bit.

But first let’s go over the plot to this gigantic spec sale.

Peter is a low level worker at this giant new tech company that has created the flashiest new AI chatbot around, Lambda-4. Lambda has helped skyrocket profits but because the company is growing fast, they don’t have enough money to fund the growth. Which means, in order to save the company, they have to make a deal with an investor they don’t like.

Not long after this, Peter’s boss, Alan, is fired under a shroud of mystery. Word on the street is that Alan was working on some game-changing AI technology. Will, the former CEO of the company, along with Mina, another low-level worker, approach Peter to see what he knows about his former boss’s work. They suspect something shady might be going on.

Their instincts turn out to be right. Lambda-4 is using its tentacles to gum up the aviation system, causing drastic airline delays everywhere. It is then shorting the stock of all those airlines. Its plan seems to be to make tons of money for the company at others’ expense. This scares the bejesus out of Will, who only fell from grace at the company due to being the lone moral compass. He leads the charge to get current CEO, Harry, to roll back Lambda to version 3 until they can sort this out.

Harry terminates that idea, reminding Will that if they revert to version 3, it will scare off the investor who just saved their company.  So Will calls a meeting with the board members. They agree to meet in 72 hours, which gives Peter, Will, and Mina, three days to convince enough board members to vote Lambda down. In that time, Peter realizes that Lambda’s plan is even more nefarious and that it’s manipulating markets in India, Pakistan, and other third world countries. What is Lambda’s endgame? And if it’s as bad as we think it is, will there be time to stop it?

Before I answer that early question, let’s talk about why this script may have sold for three million dollars. For starters, it incorporates more GSU than a Scriptshadow comments section. It actually uses some advanced tactics in doing so as it first sets a 36 hour deadline to get the initial problem solved and then an additional 72 hour deadline to convince the board members to take Lambda offline.

Why is this “advanced?” Because many writers would have combined those two time frames and turned them into a total deadline of 5 days. By splitting up the urgency into two distinct parts, it tricks the reader into thinking things are moving along faster than they are, as we’re first moving quickly to the 36 hour resolution. Then as soon as that is done, we’re right back into another immediate deadline.

The reason urgency is so valuable in a spec screenplay is that people don’t have time to read. And the promise to the reader that answers are coming soon tricks them into turning the pages. If you instead implied that answers were coming in the far off future, busy people are less likely to keep reading. Or, I should say, they are more likely to stop reading should any hint of bad writing surface.

The other recent giant spec sale, Love of Your Life, didn’t have any urgency. But it was much better written. Which is a major lesson for all of you. Well-incorporated GSU is good at distracting from writing weaknesses. Even if the reader isn’t spellbound by the screenplay, he figures, “Well, everything’s wrapping up in less than a 2-day timeframe anyway so I might as well keep going.”

Another reason the script sold is because of its buzzy subject matter. This one’s pretty obvious but if you write about stuff that’s trending in the news, people are going to be interested in checking it out. Especially if you incorporate it into a high concept idea. Which leads me to the next reason it sold…

The stakes are sky-high. We’re talking about the end of the world. That always helps when you’re attempting to sell an idea. The lower the stakes, the less the chance a “I need to buy this” moment is going to happen within the reader.

The script is also a fast read. Almost the entire thing is dialogue. So your eyes are flying down the page. Are you seeing a theme here? The writer is doing a lot of things to make this an effortless experience. Throw a high-concept hat on top of that and, while it will not guarantee a big splashy script sale, it certainly gives you a shot at one.

Finally, there’s the cost of making the movie. This would be, similar to Margin Call, very cheap to shoot. We’re talking 5 million bucks. 10 million if you wanted decent names. 20 million if you wanted a big star in there. Any time you can create something that FEELS BIG yet doesn’t cost a lot of money? That’s like having a script that’s made of gold. It’s incredibly valuable.

So, now to the big question.

Why do I think this might change the industry?

Because I suspect AI helped write this script. I don’t know that for sure.  And I don’t know by how much. But my spidey sense is tingling. Unknown writer? 3 million dollar sale from a company that isn’t a studio??

If feels like a script where you provided AI with this prompt: “Write me a 100 page screenplay based on the movie Margin Call but instead of the company malfeasance only affecting the company, make the malfeasance AI and have it try to take down the entire world.”

This script is verrrrrrryyyyyy similar to Margin Call. I can say that because I remember reading and reviewing that script here on the site, well before it went on to get made. Everything about this feels similar. To the point where I could almost smell the AI building its scenes on those Margin Call scenes.

It also feels like this AI, if it did write some of this, had combed through the entire Scriptshadow library. This script is GSU crazy, to the point where it has GSU within GSU. It’s almost like the AI learned the importance of GSU and went overboard with it.

Another AI tell is that there is almost zero character work. Since we know that that’s where AI is weakest, it would make sense why we get so little of it.

But the main reason is that the storytelling quality just isn’t there.

I did not feel connected to a single character here. It is impossible for me to care what happens in a screenplay if I don’t care about any of the characters. This could’ve easily been remedied. Peter is such an underdog. Fleshing him out even a teensy bit would’ve provided so much more of a human connection.

Next, the AI-takeover plot did not build in an effective way. The first half of the script is all about the AI delaying planes because they burn fuel while they’re waiting to take off which is going to lose the airlines a lot of money. The AI would then bet against these airlines on the stock market and make a bunch of money in the process.

I don’t know about you but when I go to see an “Evil AI” movie, plane delays aren’t exactly my number one choice for a plotline. My AI spidey-sense has me wondering if they plugged a secondary prompt into ChatGPT that went something like this: “Use Wall Street for plot inspiration.”

From there, the larger scope of the AI’s plan is messy. At first we’re told that it’s tanking the stock market in India of all places. We see a few montages of riots in various third-world countries. Then, out of nowhere, the AI says it wants nuclear war. It does not tell you why it wants nuclear war. It just says, “nuclear war” after a vague question from Will. So it wants to destroy the world… to make more money for the company??

How does that make sense?  There is no AI if the world has been blown up.

For me, I much prefer Leave The World Behind. It covers a lot of the same territory but in a more clever and visual way. Those two amazing visual scenes alone – the one with the Tesla cars and the one with the oil tanker crashing into the beach – did more to tell us the world was falling apart than anything Alignment did.

There were a couple of final small [good] things that stood out to me about Alignment, though. There’s this moment early on when Will asks Peter the question, “Is it sentient?” And Peter kind of glances at Will and Mina like, ‘these poor guys don’t get it.’ “Oh, uh, no,” Peter says. “We don’t really worry about sentience anymore. — that’s a philosophical question. — These AIs passed the Turing test years ago, so what would sentience even mean? All we really care about is alignment. Like, does the model’s behavior align with what we want it to do.”

That TERRIFIES me! People in the AI world don’t even think about sentience anymore?? It’s just some thing that may or may not be happening? Another life form is operating parallel to us but we don’t care?? That freaked me out!

The other thing about the script I liked is that, late in the story, all the board members that Will and Peter and Maya have meticulously gotten on their side all begin to turn on them. Not only that, but the FBI shows up. They have evidence that Will is a Chinese agent. It’s then when Peter and Mina and Will realize what’s happening. The AI is no longer just influencing the markets. It’s influencing the board members. It’s influencing the authorities. All so it can continue to do what it wants. That was the one genuinely creative development I encountered in the script.

So, as much as I would love to recommend this, it has too many faults. It’s a strange blend of Margin Call, Wall Street, Industry, The Net, War Games, Leave the World Behind, and Succession that SHOULD have been great. But its weak character development and messy plot execution killed it for me.

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

What I learned: It’s easy, when writing plot-heavy and technical-heavy screenplays, to forget about fleshing out the characters. You’re so focused on moving things along quickly and getting all the plot beats where they need to be and fitting in all that technical exposition, that character depth falls by the wayside. Plot-heavy thrillers are never going to be the best vehicles for character development. But, at the very least, flesh out your hero. I would’ve loved to have known more about Peter. Who his family was. If he was married. What his flaw was. What he wants out of life. Any sort of adversity he might be going through. Do just a little work on that main character and they can go from 2-D to 3-D fast.

What I learned 2: A lot of people say it’s impossible to make a splashy sale as a “nobody” writer but I actually think it works in your favor. Everyone wants to be the one who breaks out an exciting new writer who nobody’s heard of. So don’t let your anonymity deter you.  Assuming this was, indeed, a real writer. :)

Unfortunately, I chose not to see Gladiator 2 this weekend. Or Wicked. Then again, I’m never going to see Wicked. Nor will I allow Wicked to see me. But I do have a connection to this weekend’s box office. I started watching the musical, In The Heights, last night. In The Heights was directed by Jon M. Chu, the same director who directed Wicked. Nobody knows that because In the Heights was Lin Manuel Miranda’s first big musical after leaving Broadway so he got all the press.

Few people know about the movie, anyway, because it was released during Covid and because a lot of folks assumed it was being celebrated for its diversity rather than its quality. But if you go to Rotten Tomatoes right now, the film has a stellar 94% RT score and a 94% audience score. Those kinds of dual scores are unheard of.

I’d given the movie a shot once before but I found the opening musical sequence so bad that I turned it off after 5 minutes. This time, however, I pushed through and after that opening sequence, the movie improved considerably.

I was curious about this from a screenwriting perspective. Why did I hate it at first yet like it the more I watched it? The answer was obvious. The opening musical number was highly specific. It celebrated two things – the Latino culture and what it was like to live in Washington Heights. I have zero connection to either of these things. I felt alienated, like the movie was deliberately saying, “We’re not speaking to you.”

But then something happened. There’s a convenience store owner who’s the focus of the story. A woman comes into his shop and it’s clear that he likes her. She comes all the time. He doesn’t have the balls to ask her out. THAT’S a universal experience right there. That’s something I can relate to. So, all of a sudden, I was pulled in.

From there, a young woman arrives in the neighborhood and we’re told she just got back from her first year at Stanford. She was the “prodigal daughter” of the neighborhood, the one who was smart and was going to go on to do great things and represent Washington Heights. But as she sings her story, we realize she hates Stanford. She’s not going back. And she has to face all these people who she symbolizes hope for.

That’s another universal experience: Coming back to your hometown. Having those conflicted feelings of being home and bringing back the experiences from where you went off to. Often, you have not experienced the success you expected to. It’s a very unsettling feeling. As a result, I immediately resonated with this character.

And that’s the lesson here. You want to key in on these universal themes that people experience in life. Lost love, coming of age, rediscovering your identity after you’ve lost it, fall from grace, redemption, revenge, sacrifice. Specificity is important to convey authenticity. But it, alone, is not going to pull a reader in. You do that via universal themes because once a reader relates to a character, they’re emotionally controlled by that character. Which is exactly what happened here.

All right, let’s get to this weekend’s double dynamic doozy of Wicked and Gladiator 2. Wicked pulled in 114 million dollars. I must admit, I have no context for how or why musicals succeed or fail at the box office. I remember when Cats, the most successful show in history on Broadway, came out and made 5 dollars. Why Wicked made 113,999,995 more than Cats is beyond my comprehensive abilities.

I’m just going to say it. I think Ariana Grande is creepy. Her creepy baby girl voice despite being 31 years old gives me the shivers every time I hear it. Cynthia Ervo may be loudly celebrated in certain Hollywood circles. But ever since she ruined the awesome HBO series, The Outsider, I’ve been an anti-fan.

But here’s where I will give Wicked props. It was the OG franchise that asked the question, “What if being the good guy is just a matter of perspective?” More specifically, what if the Wicked Witch is just misunderstood? That ignited a slew of movies and shows that have asked the same question over the years. Most recently we have Cobra Kai, which posed the question, “What if Johnny is actually the good guy and Daniel LaRusso is the jerk?”

I also find The Wizard of Oz to be the best road trip movie ever conceived. It’s a great template for anyone writing a road trip film. I’ve been a fan of fresh takes on The Wizard of Oz here dating all the way back to the script Oh Never Spectre Leaf, which won my very first screenplay contest.

And look, Wicked has finally destroyed the “musical curse” in Hollywood. Up until now, it was thought that musicals couldn’t do well anymore. The Color Purple did terribly. Mean Girls fell off a cliff once word got out that it was a musical. We all know what happened with Joker. But, it turns out, if you’ve got the right combination of IP and eager customer base, people WILL show up for a musical. So don’t stop writing them!

And now to Gladiator 2. 55 million dollars isn’t a ton of money for an opening weekend. But the original, which debuted in 2000, made 34 million dollars. Which, in today’s money, would be 63 million dollars. So it’s not far off from how the original film did.

As many of you know, since you follow this site, they have been trying to make a sequel to Gladiator forever. The problem? The main character died. But do you think that scares Hollywood? Hell no. They even wrote a version of Gladiator 2 where Maximus adventures into the afterlife!

I know that they also considered prequels but Russel Crowe is not built for prequels. The man ages 5 years for every one year here on earth. Which left the movie in a weird position. It needed all this time to pass so that they could definitively say that there was no way to bring Russell Crowe back. Only then could they move on and focus on new characters. And I love Paul Mescal. I think he’s going to have an amazing career.

But me not getting to the theater says a lot. My movie theater situation is just difficult enough that if I don’t think a movie can entertain me, I won’t go. And as I sat on the precipice of going to see this film, I thought to myself, “Man, that trailer looked really messy.” There were a million things going on in it. I wasn’t clear what the story was. In my experience of reading 10,000 screenplays, if there’s too much going on, the story falls apart quickly. I wasn’t willing to risk 3 precious hours of my life for that likely outcome.

But I’m curious what you guys thought. Was it any good?

GET AN AGENT or GO VIRAL!

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make it as a screenwriter today.

It’s so different than it was 20 years ago. It’s different than it was 10 years ago! You talk to a dozen different dealmakers in Hollywood and ask them how they got their last streaming movie greenlit, you’ll get a dozen different answers. There’s so much information that’s shrouded in mystery these days that it can seem daunting to a screenwriter.

Heck, it’s daunting to EVERYONE trying to get a job in Hollywood these days. Are visual effects artists even going to exist in five years? Everything is up in the air.

That confusion extends to the people in charge as well. I’ve learned that almost every successful person in Hollywood is successful at ONE SPECIFIC THING. There’s the person who’s successful at making low-budget horror movies. There’s the person who’s successful at getting dramedy TV shows on air. There’s the person who’s successful at limited series.

But if you ask any of those people how to do anything else, like get an action movie made? They look at you sideways.

Which is frustrating because you assume success = expertise. But it turns out everybody’s expertise is so narrow, the original equation no longer applies. Honestly, if you asked James Cameron how to get a TV show on air, I don’t think he’d know the answer. Sure, he’d be able to call a friend. But *he* wouldn’t know because he’s never had to do it.

So, I thought, “Who are the people most knowledgeable about getting feature film deals done?” That answer is agents. And to a slightly lesser degree, managers. It is their job to understand how to navigate this Gen Z iteration of Hollywoodland. So they truly have become the gatekeepers to the new system, a system that seems to have 10,000 entry points, yet not a single one visible.

So, if you’re trying to break in as a screenwriter in 2025, one of your best options is to secure an agent (or manager). Which begs the question, how do you do that?

The answer is simple: You must query agents and managers. Or query agents and managers’ assistants. The best way to do this is to give your script to everyone you know who’s even tangentially involved in Hollywood and, if they like your script, ask them if they know any agents or anyone who might know an agent, and if they can send it to them.

If you don’t know anyone – and I know a lot of you don’t – you need to get that 1 month subscription to IMDB Pro and you need to get the e-mails of every single agent and manager in the system. If you have time, you want to narrow those contacts down by the types of writers they represent. You can do this by looking at movies similar to your script, clicking the writer on IMDB, and then clicking the writer’s agent and/or manager.

You then need to come up with a good e-mail query and query these agents. I can help you with this. I do both logline and query consultations. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com. The point here is that e-mail queries are important. I receive more of them than probably anyone in town and I can dismiss 90% of them right off the bat due to sloppiness, bad grammar, being too long, etc. If you don’t have a good query, nothing else you’ve read in this post will matter.

I know this stuff isn’t fun, guys. But this is one of the necessary tests in Hollywood that eliminates people who aren’t serious. If you aren’t willing to do everything at your disposal to find success, then do you deserve success? I would argue you don’t.

This is the stuff writers like TJ Newman did – getting rejected query after query after query – until she finally found someone who believed in her manuscript. You’ll never feel more lost than when you’re in the middle of this process. But if you’ve done the work on the writing end and written something good, this part of the process will eventually pay off.

As for what agents respond to, it comes down to two things. Either MARKETABILITY or VOICE. Literary agents don’t make a ton of money. So they’re looking for writers WHO CAN MAKE THEM MONEY. Therefore, you want to write a marketable script. That means keeping tabs on what’s selling (or what’s always sold) and writing that kind of script. If you can find a fresh way into the guy-with-a-gun genre, for example, you’ll have a lot of agents eager to read your screenplay.

The other option is to have a unique voice. There are a lot of agents out there who subscribe to the theory that if you give them a good writer, it’ll be easy to find jobs for them. By “voice” I mean you have your own unique style, so much so that, when someone reads your script, they know it’s you without having to check. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Taika Waititi, Brian Duffield, John Hughes, etc.

The tricky thing about a “voice” script is that, technically, the concept doesn’t have to be marketable. You’re not promoting your script. You’re promoting your writing ability. However, since you’ll still have to query agents to get them to request the script, you probably still want to pick a premise that has some pop to it.  Think more along the lines of “Blink Twice,” “Civil War,” and “The Substance,” rather than, “The Iron Claw,” “Thelma,” and “Conclave.”

Now, let’s say that you’ve tried to query people and you’re not very good at it. Or you’ve been down that query road enough times to feel like it never works for you. If you don’t believe that’s your avenue forward, then the only other option for you in 2025 is to go viral with your screenplay.

I use the term “viral” loosely. Cause I’m not asking you to post your script on Instagram and get 20 million likes. What I mean is that you use the power of the internet and screenwriting competitions to build as much buzz around your script as possible.

Try to get your script reviewed on this site. Pay for a couple of reviews on The Black List site. If you get two 8’s, you’ll get featured. Do this new “Gauntlet” challenge I keep hearing about. And if you do have social media, promote your script, promote your logline, and ask people if they want to read it. Tell them you’ll read their script in return.

What you’re trying to do is get as many eyes on your script as possible. The more people who see your script, the better chance it has at being given to someone who can change your life.

You also want to enter as many of the major screenplay contests as you can afford. If it’s a big contest and you finish in the finals (top 5 or top 10), your chances of getting representation off your script skyrocket. For the smaller contests, you’ll have to win them to get any capital with agents. But it’s still worth it because you’re trying to create some buzz around your screenplay. You’re trying to be that script that is known amongst a relevant group of people.

If you do those three things – get featured online somewhere, promote your work through social media, enter a lot of contests – you have a chance of going “script viral.” And if you have any doubts that this can work, ask Elad Ziv (Court 17) or David L. Williams (Clementine), or our own Joseph Fattal (Bedford). Elad won a small contest, which got him his manager, which helped him get on the Black List. David got two 8’s on the Black List, turning Clementine into a highly desired screenplay around town. Joseph made several strong contacts off of Bedford.  Oh, and just today the writer of The Best and the Brightest, Michael Wightman, e-mailed to let me know that he’s teamed up with a producer to produce his script. So, it can happen.

While every successful writer has a different “break in” story, the “break in” story I hear the most is that a writer kept sending his scripts out until someone finally said yes. You need lots of eyes on your screenplay. Even good writers will not get that automatic yes by sending their script out to 5 people. You have to get a lot of people reading your script to get that yes.

Some of you may be wondering about the official Black List.  Should getting on that list be a strategy?  Honestly, I look at the Black List like I do a major screenwriting competition these days.  If you make the Top 5, that’s worth something.  But the quality of Black List scripts has plummeted so severely in the last five years that most people in town just make fun of it.  So I still think it’s an avenue but getting 10 votes isn’t going to cut it anymore.  You gotta be one of the top five vote-getters.

If all else fails, BE ACTIVE.  You should always be working on a screenplay WHILE promoting another screenplay.  It’s impossible to score unless you take a shot.  And I want you taking a lot of shots!  :)

Genre: Drama/Comedy
Premise: A grieving woman goes to an Icelandic “end of life” resort to kill herself while also looking into the surprise suicide of her girlfriend, who killed herself here several months prior.
About: This script finished with 11 votes on last year’s Black List. Laura Stoltz worked as an associate producer on a project called Shang-Gri La Suite, which was written by a couple of writers I really like, Chris Hutton and Eddie O’Keefe. She has since gone on to associate produce Ant-Man and the Wasp and co-produce Quantumania.
Writer: Laura Stoltz
Details: 114 pages

It’s “Finish Up The Black List Scripts Month” at Scriptshadow. I need to finish every one so I can appropriately reorganize the list into what the ACTUAL best scripts are.

I picked today’s script because I love the inherent structure of these “resort” setups. It’s one of the reasons I love White Lotus so much. You’ve got this clearly structured setup (limited place, limited time). It’s a great sandbox to drop a story into.

However, I didn’t know this was a comedy going in. I thought it was going to be more of a thriller. The main character was going to get here and find out something nefarious was going on. But it wasn’t that. So that disappointment definitely colored my reading experience.

It’s why The Black List needs to work on presenting these scripts better. Giving us a genre would be a great start. But let’s see what writer Laura Stoltz came up with.

Georgia, Jared, and six others, are on a private plane to Iceland. Specifically, they’re going to an “end of life” resort. You spend two weeks living it up then they assist you with your death. Fun!

Both Georgia and Jared are gay. Georgia is here because her girlfriend, Ruby, secretly came here two months ago and killed herself. Georgia has wanted to know why ever since and so she came here to investigate as well as use the facilities on herself.

But the place is really mysterious. There’s some area called “The Orchard” where everyone is buried but nobody will allow you to go until the end. So Georgia makes Jared help her find The Orchard so she can figure out what the hell happened to Ruby.

Whatever they do doesn’t work. Georgia’s going to have to go through the whole 2-week process. In the interim, Jared confesses why he’s here. He was drunk driving when he hit and killed a kid on a skateboard. The whole world hates him so he wants to off himself. The problem is he’s a coward and he’s actually been here several times and chickened out.

Eventually, Georgia finds out that all of the therapy sessions are recorded. Which means Ruby’s sessions were recorded as well. Which means if she can get her hands on those tapes, she can finally find out why Ruby did this. With some last minute help from Jared, she gets the tapes. But then (spoiler) she receives some shocking news linking Jared and Ruby that changes everything.

I call these scripts “Bummer Scripts” because there’s no other way to put it. They’re big fat bummers. I watched a Bummer Script last night – A Quiet Place: Day One. It’s about a hospice patient who wants a slice of Brooklyn Pizza during the end of the world. The entire thing was a big fat bummer.

With that said, I know that there’s an audience for these scripts. I believe the angle Laura took in telling this story was the right one. This is a comedic take. The idea is that the two ends (humor, suicide) balance each other out.

And, to be fair, (spoiler) you could kinda tell that Georgia wasn’t going to commit suicide anyway. She didn’t seem suicidal. So it was more like an investigation movie with suicide as the subject matter.

Still, when I read these scripts, they bum me out. And I don’t want to be bummed out at the end of a script. You have a much better chance of people recommending your script to others if it’s hopeful, or upbeat, or optimistic. I see viewers watching this trailer and thinking, “Why would I go see that?” “Why go see a movie about people killing themselves?”

I also think there was a lot more plot potential here.

There’s a big reveal late (spoiler) in the script where Georgia sees old security footage of the resort and Ruby and Jared are walking together.

I want to sit in that reveal for a second because its fallout is an important lesson for screenwriters. It’s HARD AS HELL to write anything that captivates a reader. If you’ve captivated anybody with your script, even if it was just for a moment, you’ve done something incredible.

That moment – seeing Jared and Ruby on tape – was the only part of the script that I was captivated by. My thought was, “Ooooh… I wonder what happened there.” For the first time, I leaned in. But then, when Georgia confronts Jared about it, it amounts to, “Oh, I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d be upset.” There was nothing to the reveal. It was almost an anti-reveal in how unimportant the plot beat was.

If you can create a captivating moment in a script, you want to MINE THE HECK OUT OF IT. Cause that thing’s like gold. The majority of your script is rocks. So if you can create gold, you want to get the most money you can for that gold.

I would’ve created a much a bigger reveal out of Jared and Ruby knowing each other. I’m not saying I would’ve made them lovers. That’s kind of an obvious choice. But you could’ve done something way more interesting than Jared shrugging it off and saying, “Yeah, we hung out a bit.” You’re getting nothing for your gold with that.

And let’s be honest. This is a bummer script. You already risk people being emotionally sad leaving this screenplay. But if you can leave them with a shocking reveal, that ups the reader’s final emotional state considerably.

This one just wasn’t my jam. With that said, if you liked the movie, “The Lobster,” I could see you maybe liking this as well. It’s supposed to be kinda quirky and “voicy.” But the downbeat subject matter really kept me from connecting with it.

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

What I learned: One of the most dependable rules in screenwriting is that if the writer makes a reference that you, the reader, don’t understand, there’s a good chance you won’t like the screenplay. Jared is described as a “Jonathen Van Ness” type. But I don’t know who that is. What that typically means is that the writer lives a life that is unfamiliar to mine and, therefore, they will likely write a story that I don’t relate to. It’s something to keep in mind when you’re thinking of making your own references. Personally, I stay away from references for that reason. Why potentially alienate a reader if you don’t have to?

Genre: Comedy
Premise: When Tom Hanks, the nicest guy in Hollywood (and arguably the world), finds his life stolen by a Tom Hanks impersonator, the only way to get it back is to do the one thing he’s never been able to: stop being nice.
About: This script finished with a respectable 12 votes on last year’s Black List.
Writers: Kirill Baru & Eric Zimmerman
Details: 111 pages

One of the co-writers of today’s script is a Scriptshadow fan which always makes my job harder. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like giving negative reviews. I want to prop up everything I read because I know how hard writing is.

One of the main reasons screenwriters give up on their dream is the emotional component. You spend a lot of emotional capital when you write a screenplay. You’re putting a big piece of yourself into a story that takes 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, or longer to tell. It’s hard to spend that amount of energy on something and not be destroyed when people don’t like it.

So I root for every script I read. The only time I truly dump on a screenplay is when I feel that the writer didn’t try. The second I sense creative laziness, I’ll turn on a script faster than it takes Rachel Zeigler to bash the latest movie she’s in.

In “The Great Pretender’s” opening scene, we watch Tom Hanks go to Starbucks, spend half an hour taking pictures with everyone, then, after getting his coffee, head back to his car where he hands the drink to… his assistant. This is Tom Hanks. He’s so nice, HE GETS HIS ASSISTANT coffee.

But one day Tom runs into the wrong person. Tom Hanks! Or, at least, a Tom Hanks impersonator named Gene. Gene asks Tom to come back to his hotel to do a quick viral video and because Tom can’t say no to anyone, he obliges. But not long after he walks inside Gene’s room (and sees the giant piano from “Big”) he wakes up with the top of his head shaved and a snake tattoo on his back. What the heck just happened?

It turns out that Gene is now living in Tom Hanks’ house with his wife. And when the real Tom Hanks tries to come back home, he’s labeled as a crazy stalker. They even prove he’s “Gene” because the perenially incarcerated Gene’s records show he has a snake tattoo on his back.

Tom is forced to go to Gene’s apartment where he meets Gene’s pregnant girlfriend, Connie. After some persuasion, she finally believes he’s the real Tom Hanks and reluctantly decides to help him. Their initial plan is to get Connie into Tom’s house where she will relay to his wife Rita things that only the real Tom Hanks would know. But Rita doesn’t buy it and they’re back to square one.

Things get more complicated when Gene heads to Fiji to film Cast Away 2. Tom and Connie must find a way to the island to finally expose the evil impersonator. But shenanigans keep getting in the way and it looks like Tom Hanks may have to accept being Gene forever.

A decade ago, I was reading an article that covered longtime CBS and Paramount head Sumner Redstone, who competitively challenged an exec to pitch him an idea he hadn’t heard before. “I’ve literally been pitched every movie idea ever. There’s nothing you can pitch me that I haven’t heard.” And he was right. Neither the exec nor anyone else could surprise him with a fresh movie idea.

I feel like I’ve gotten to that place myself. Nobody can pitch me an idea I haven’t heard before. Case in point, I’ve read somewhere around a dozen of today’s idea, where some famous person or political figure is swapped out for an imposter who has to take their place and pretend to be them.

For a while, I thought similar ideas were a problem. But it turns out the opposite is true. It’s the execution that matters. So even though I’ve read versions of this story before, the job of the writer is still the same – execute the best version of this story possible. Did The Great Pretender achieve that?

Well, I believe Baru and Zimmerman gave their best effort.

However, they made a slight miscalculation in that execution and it sent them down the wrong path. Something I continue telling you guys is to mine what’s unique about your script. The less you’re mining the unique components of your script, the more generic your script will be.

This script is built on one major factor: Tom Hanks being too nice.

So, that’s what you want to build your characters and plot around. In order to succeed in this story, Tom Hanks must learn to be mean. The opposite is true for his doppelganger, Gene.  Gene is too mean. So, in order to succeed, he must learn to be nice. If your story beats exploit these two things, you’re going to get lots of laughs.

But the script doesn’t do that. Instead, Tom Hanks has to learn to be… “tough” I guess? For example, Tom and Connie need money to execute their plan. So they go to a drug dealer Connie knows for help. This is one of the major set pieces in the script and it’s not about being nice at all. It’s more that Tom Hanks must act ‘rough around the edges’ so that the dealer believes he’s Gene.  That’s not the same as needing to be mean.

I wanted way more instances of Tom Hanks having to be mean. That’s where your humor’s going to come from: The nicest man in the world having to be an a-hole.

Ditto with Gene. Gene is an asshole. So, to convince others that he’s Tom Hanks, his comedic journey as a character should be that he has to be nice to everyone despite it being so hard for him.

For example, maybe one of the plot lines is that China is starting a new movie studio in Hollywood and they’ve hired Tom Hanks to be the frontman. They know they have a sketchy public image in the U.S., which is why they hire Tom. Cause he’s the nicest guy in the world. The American public trusts him.

So there’s a huge final meeting involved where all the big Chinese players are coming to the U.S. to finalize the deal with Tom. And it’s Gene who has to put on his nice guy act to get the deal done. But, during the sequence, some people are pissing him off. The Chinese CEO is being a dick to him. He’s getting angrier and angrier yet has to continue to be nice. There are many humorous opportunities there.

Instead, we get a Cast Away 2 production storyline. It’s not bad. Gene has to act out a few scenes as Tom Hanks in this silly sequel idea. But it has nothing to do with the theme of the movie! Which is the contrast between being nice and being mean.

That’s the thing about writing comedies.  Oftentimes, you’ll look at the end result and say it’s either “funny” or “not funny.” Which is all that matters when it comes to comedy. However, there are choices you make long before you get to your scenes that will have a big impact on whether they’re funny or not.

Leaning into the unique setup of your concept (Tom Hanks, the nicest guy in the world, is forced to be mean) is one of those choices that, if you don’t do it, you’re not getting the most out of your idea.

One of the most successful comedies ever is Liar Liar, about a lawyer who, in order to win his cases, always lies. He is then forced, for one day, to only tell the truth. Imagine if you wrote that movie and had the major scenes deal with Jim Carrey trying to be more respectful to people.

If you do that, you are not taking advantage of what’s unique about your concept. What’s unique about your concept is that a pathological liar is forced to tell the truth. So, every major comedic scene should put your protagonist in a position where telling the truth makes his situation worse. That’s where the comedy is going to come from.

I don’t want to paint an entirely bad picture here. There were definitely some funny lines. Two of my favorites subscribe to the above-mentioned formula. At one point, Gene gets frustrated and blurts out, “I’m Tom FUCKING Hanks. A NATIONAL GODDAMN TREASURE. You can’t find a remote island on this planet where people don’t know who I am. Remember Covid? Nobody gave a shit about that until I got it.”

And one of the funniest running gags in the film is that Connie isn’t a fan of Tom Hanks’ movies and takes every opportunity to tell him so. TOM: “Connie, have you ever thought about forgiving your Mom?” CONNIE: “Hey, we’re not talking about my Mom. We’re talking about movies and why yours all suck.” Again, this joke stems from not being afraid to be mean. Not being afraid to say what you really think.

We do finally get a legitimate moment like that from Tom, where he’s torturing Gene at the end. But it’s something that should’ve been explored throughout. Not just at the end.

“The Great Pretender” has some shades of “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” in it.  So, if you liked that movie, you might like this. But, personally, I thought we could’ve gotten a lot more laughs out of the premise, specifically by forcing Tom Hanks to be meaner.

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

What I learned: Even if I thought this could’ve been executed better, I give props to Baru and Zimmerman for their 4-dimensional thinking. This isn’t just a fun concept. It’s a clever pitch to someone who has repeatedly said in interviews that he’s wanted to play bad guys but that studios won’t let him. This is an inventive way to allow Tom Hanks to play that bad guy (Hanks would play both parts).