Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A calloused medical actuary is sent to evaluate an exciting new procedure that could cure human disease forever.
About: This script has not yet sold but finished number 7 on this year’s Hit List, one below The Water Man, and one above Pale Blue Dot. The writer, Takashi Doscher, is actually a documentary filmmaker who specializes in sports documentaries. His film, A Fighting Chance, about a wrestler without any arms or legs, sold to ESPN’s prestigious 30 for 30 series. He’s repped by spec sale king Mike Esola, who recently moved from WME over to UTA.
Writer: Takashi Doscher
Details: 103 pages

james-james-mcavoy-10189911-2560-1707

McAvoy needs a big film. Could this be the one?

I’m still trying to recover after yesterday. “Libertine Fever” is a real thing, according to the national survey of screenplay diseases. It occurs after a particularly bad script, sending the reader into a spiraling depression that starts with ordering two Dominos pizzas at 12:49 a.m., and ends with waking up in a pile of Nutter Butter crumbs (and strangely, no packaging in sight). I will neither confirm nor deny that any of this happened to me. But I will say that I’ve added a new day of therapy to my week, putting the total at 4 (my therapist is off Thursdays).

You’d think I wouldn’t be able to make it though another Hit List script after the Libertine debacle, but this next script has been getting some solid marks from Scriptshadow readers, and high-concept sci-fi sounded like the perfect answer to whatever the hell genre I endured yesterday.

Dylan Simms is an actuary. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, cause I don’t either. From what I could tell, Dylan works for a giant medical company that invests in a lot of projects. When we first meet him, he’s telling two scientists (who are also a couple) that their infertility project has been nixed. The two are devastated, and plead for more time, but the calloused Dylan tells them not to let the door hit them on the way out.

Telling people he doesn’t care about unborn babies seems to be Dylan’s thing. When his girlfriend, Nicole, informs him later that she’s pregnant, he tells her that she needs to get an abortion STAT. Nicole breaks up with him on the spot, to which Dylan barely reacts.

Later, Dylan’s boss sends him to a top-secret project the company is working on to determine if it’ll fly legally. Imagine Dylan’s surprise when he finds out the project is shrinking people down and placing them inside of bodies so that they can fix fractures, cure diseases, and live forever! Dylan is even shrunk down and thrown inside of someone’s body to get an up-close look at the technology.

However, when the vessel they’re in is attacked by a group of T-cells, Dylan is thrust out of the ship in just a protective suit. Everyone else dies. Dylan eventually makes audio contact with mission leader Rebecca Curry, who’s back in the lab, and she navigates him through the insane geography of the human body in an attempt to save him.

Along the way, we learn that the woman whose body we’re in has Lupas, which is causing all cells everywhere to attack everything, especially foreign bodies like Dylan. As Dylan eventually navigates himself to the center of the body, he sees that the woman is pregnant. Looking at this giant unborn child flips a switch in Dylan, and now he’ll do anything to get out and save the child he told Nicole to get rid of.

A lot of writers ask me, “What’s the point of writing a spec that would cost a studio 150 million dollars when there’s a 99% chance they’re going to spend that money on already established IP?” The point is that writing one of these specs proves to the studios that you can do it. Which means you might get hired to write one of those 150 million dollar IP properties. So sure, you may not get your script purchased. But does it matter when you cash that first half-a-million dollar assignment check six months later?

Now you may be one of those writers who’s actually gone the 150 million dollar idea route and gotten nowhere. You then deluge all the internet screenwriting message boards with your tale: “I tried the huge spec route,” you say, “and I didn’t get a single bite. Studios aren’t interested in these scripts!!!”

Let’s be clear about something. Every strategy you engage in is predicated on you actually writing a good script. If you write a big popcorn flick and it sucks, that doesn’t mean your strategy was a bad one. It means you have to work on your writing. Of course, it’s very hard to judge your writing, since every writer is hopeful and taste is subjective.

I can’t help you with that without reading your screenplay. But what I can help you with in regards to popcorn flicks, is understanding what Hollywood responds to. New writers believe that writing these script is all about the action. It’s all about the set pieces and the creativity of the world. And that’s part of it. But that pales in comparison to what Hollywood is really looking for – which is to see if you can find an emotional center to a giant story.

Take the movie San Andreas. It’s a big goofy summer action film. The definition of a popcorn flick. What is it about? An earthquake, right. No, it’s not about an earthquake. It’s about a father trying to save his daughter and bring his family back together. I can hear you cynics saying, “but that was so cheeeeesy.” Okay, call it whatever you want. But Hollywood wants you to move the audience emotionally. Which means your action script needs an emotional core.

That’s what Doscher does here. He creates this character who doesn’t want children, who always puts work and himself above others, and uses this journey to help him see the other side of coin. This isn’t so much about a man travelling through a body as it is about a man coming to terms with who he’s become and whether he wants to keep being that person for the rest of his life.

Did it work? Ehhhh, that’s debatable. An argument can be made that it was too on-the-nose. And yeah, I felt Doscher went over the top at times (Dylan’s battle against the T-Cells that attack the baby’s placenta was a bit much – how come the T-cells waited 24 months, until the exact moment when Dylan entered the uterus, to attack the baby?). But the point is, he committed to exploring the emotional side of the movie and that’s what Hollywood wants!

ANYBODY can write a big action set piece. They’re all the same. Car chase this, building falls down that, gun gun gun, bang bang bang, robots. But it takes a real writer to move people (or at least attempt to), and that’s how you stand out in this genre.

Despite this endorsement on the script’s approach, The Life Inside ultimately fell short for me. Like I said, it was too on-the-nose. And it didn’t surprise me enough. I felt there was more of an opportunity with the mystery of whose body we were in (it ended up being someone random). Also, there’s this whole second older submarine Dylan swims to that’s military in nature. It seemed like we were going to get some cool twist. But it never happened. It was just another shrunk submarine.

Which sucks. Because I thought the angle here was spot on. With a little more practice at subtlety, I think Doscher could be a writer to watch out for.

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

What I learned: I’m thinking we need to update this exchange in movies: “Mr. Smith.” “Please, call me Harry.” “Harry, I was wondering…” It may be the most overused exchange in all of writing. Impomptu Scriptshadow writing challenge: Give us a NEW variation (or entirely new exchange) of the “Call me [Name]” exchange.

Genre: Drama? Comedy?
Premise: Inspired by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal, The Libertine follows the aftermath of a French politician accused of sexually mistreating a hotel maid.
About: A hot spec script that sold to Warner Brothers a few months ago from Ben Kopit, an up-and-coming screenwriter who only recently graduated from UCLA’s MFA screenwriting program.
Writer: Ben Kopit
Details: 99 pages

Gerard-Depardieu-Russia-Ukraine-Vladimir-Putin-conflict-banned-blacklisted-320452

Gerard Depardieu for Maurice??

This script has gotten a lot of heat around town the last few months. The only reason I’ve avoided it is because it’s not my thing. I don’t even know who Dominque Strauss-Khan is, nor do I care about world leaders in other countries and their extracurricular activities.

But the script won’t go away. It finished high on the just-released Hit List, and with its political leanings, you can bet your ass the politics-obsessed Black List is going to give it high marks. Which brings us to today. I guess I’m reviewing The Libertine!

Maurice Lunel-Caspi, 60, is a major player in the French government. Which makes the fact that he inappropriately touched a maid at a New York hotel a big deal. The maid went to the police, and now Maurice is being kept in New York on house arrest until trial, where his media titan wife, Edith, is reluctantly staying with him.

“Reluctantly” may actually be an understatement. Edith HATES her husband. Not because she knows he’s guilty, but because she knows he’s been fucking anything with a protruding chest for as long as they’ve been together, and therefore, it’s likely that whatever he’s been accused of is true.

The Libertine is possibly the most unambitious screenplay I’ve read this year. All we do for 99 minutes is hang out in this dreadfully boring apartment while Maurice, Edith, and their angry daughter, Jaqueline, argue. I guess later on, Maurice’s lawyer makes an appearance to update him on what’s happening with the charges. And maybe that could be considered “story.” But it’s dealt with so passively that it could just as easily be seen as an interruption.

In the end, the fighting only increases, and everyone’s hate for one another grows from a 7 to an all out 10, until finally, in the end, through no doing of our characters’ actions (because god forbid our characters actually have an effect on the story) Maurice learns that the charges against him have been dropped because the maid has some shady immigration issues.

Were you one of the people who, after seeing Jobs, said to yourself, “Man, I wish there was a movie out there with a main character 180,000 times more of an asshole than this guy,” then my friends, I’ve found you your movie!

I have never – I don’t think in all of my script reading – read a script with a more deplorable main character. I don’t know if Maurice touched this maid or not (and neither does the script – it’s not interested in exploring anything that involves mystery, drama, interest, or suspense). But what I do know is that this married gentleman whose wife has given him unimaginable wealth, invites over prostitutes the second she leaves the building, jacks off when he’s bored, goes to online sex chat rooms to order women around, takes his wife’s favorite pen and, when she’s not around, rubs it inside his crotch and asshole before replacing it, and after somehow finally getting his wife to care enough about him to have sex with him again, starts surfing porn sites not five minutes later.

But here’s the thing about The Libertine. It’s not just Maurice. EVERYBODY in this script has more anger, sadness, evilness, negativity, narcissism, whininess, and overall shitiness than anyone you will ever meet in your life. Edith, the wife, is a bitch as well. And the one person who had a chance at being a likable character, the social crusading daughter who hates what her dad has done, is just as big of an asshole as her parents.

Everybody just yells at each other here. And there’s NO STORY. NONE! What is the goal? What is anybody attempting to do?? Even the problem, the thing that needs to be dealt with, is being tackled by a lawyer character in a storyline that never reaches the screen. So we’re not even seeing the interesting stuff. We’re just watching these miserable despicable human beings argue while the real story happens behind them.

The killer for me was the mid-point. We get this dinner scene with another man being kept under house arrest in the same building – a financial swindler. Why does this dinner occur? Oh, because Maurice feels like having a dinner with another person under house arrest. There’s no actual STORY REASON for this dinner to occur, of course. It’s there because this script is so threadbare, so devoid of a point, that if it wasn’t there, it would be 70 pages at most. So sure, why not invite a random character with no ties to anything and no reason to actually be in the story into the mix. Makes sense to me!

And if you had to make a bet, would you put money on this gentleman and his wife being nice caring people? You know, maybe to create some contrast in the conversation for once? Of course not! They’re total swindling assholes JUST LIKE OUR MAIN CHARACTERS. I guess when you’re holding an Asshole Fest, the policy is only assholes allowed.

The Libertine attempts to conclude its “story” with some sort of ironic anecdote. Maurice, in order to get back in his daughter’s good graces, pulls a favor to get her a job with an old friend. But when she meets this friend, he ends up making a pass at her. I guess we’re supposed to feel some karmic retribution that this man finally understands what it’s like to be on the receiving end of sexual abuse. But we hate everybody in this script so much, including Jacquline, that this moment leaves us feeling nothing other than contempt for coming this far only to be subjected to a half-assed cobbled-together ending. It’s one last-ditch attempt for the script to seem relevant.

I’m begging those of you who liked this enough to vote for it. Tell me what I’m missing. What is it that makes this script appealing? I honestly can’t find a thing. I suppose the dialogue moves quickly, but it’s laced with so much anger that the snappy rhythm is undermined by pure hatred. Help me understand!

In the meantime, please don’t let anything with a heartbeat near this script less they turn to stone. Now excuse me while I go google puppy images for the rest of the night.

desktop-hd-puppy-dog-eyes-pics

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

What I learned: One of the things that works well in screenwriting is contrast. You want extremes clashing against each other. So if someone’s a real asshole, you want to put them in a room with someone who’s really nice. That clash in ideology typically results in a lot of interesting dialogue. But if all the characters are assholes, there is no contrast. It’s just empty conflict, a lot of yelling and disagreeing with the same boring predictable tone. That sums up every single page of The Libertine.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A teenage boy, Caleb, and his friends, all of whom live on a moon mining colony, take a road trip to an old cave to fulfill a wish from Caleb’s father.
About: This script just finished NUMBER 1 on The Hit List, which is the screenwriting community’s appetizer for the later-to-come Black List. The Hit List is run by The Tracking Board and consists of the best SPEC screenplays of the year (the Black List, by contrast, tabulates the best of all scripts, including assignments). Because most professional writers are being hired by studios to write their projects, and because the best way to break into the business is still with a good spec, the majority of the writers on The Hit List are writers getting noticed for the first time. To give you a little perspective on the list, Bubbles, which I thought was great, finished number 2. The Water Man, which I reviewed last week and absolutely loved, finished number 4. And Collateral Beauty, written by Allan Loeb, which created some debate on the site, finished number 19. Actually, a script that was featured here on the site, Carver Gray’s Unlawful, finished in front of Collateral, in the number 12 spot. Congrats, Carver!
Writer: John Griffin
Details: 113 pages

radtke_mondfarm

So to start off, a lot of you have been asking about the Scriptshadow 250 and when the damn announcements are going to be made. And I feel your impatience! The two hundred and fifty script reads amongst an already busy schedule was always going to be a challenge, but maybe I wasn’t prepared for just how challenging it was going to be.

So the reality is, if I have any hope of finishing this month, I’ll likely need to take a week off from posting to do so. And that week will likely be next week. I’ll be hunkering down like a Jawa during a sandstorm and calling upon my speed-reading Force powers to get things finished. I’ll keep you posted on how that’s going. But there’s a chance this could eat into Scriptshadow posting throughout the month, with Christmas Week coming right after that, and then the weird “nothing week” between Christmas and New Years.

What sucks is that we’re swinging into the heart of “Awards Season” for screenwriting, with The Hit List coming out last week and the Black List soon to follow. At the very least, we’ll get one of those scripts in to review, as “Crater” nabbed the top spot on this list. Let’s see if its lunar pattern matches up with good screenwriting.

It’s sometime in the future where we now have a mining colony on the moon. Caleb O’Connell, 14, is a son of one of the miners. A big reason Caleb’s father and the rest of these miners agreed to this gig was that their children got to go to “Omega,” a utopia planet that, normally, only the richest people get to go to. That timeline gets accelerated if your parent dies in the line of work, and Caleb’s dad just did. Which means in 72 hours, he’ll be on a ship to Omega.

The thing is, Caleb doesn’t want to leave his friends: the rebellious Dylan, the wimpy Borney, the slow-witted Marcus, and his newest friend, Addison. Addison isn’t like these kids though. She actually grew up on earth. Her father was a scientist, which makes her the one “scholar” of the group.

What we come to learn through Caleb’s flashbacks with his father, is that his father made him promise that if he ever died, Caleb would go on a road trip with his buddies to deliver an old piece of memorabilia (a bobblehead), that Caleb’s father once gave him, to a deserted moon cave. So that’s what Caleb does. He steals a moon rover with his four friends and the group heads out to complete the mission.

All of them then talk about the difficulties of being a moon miner’s kid, get their flirt on with the one female in the group, and ultimately learn to let their de facto captain (Caleb) go. The question is, when they run into trouble, will they be able to make it back to the moon colony alive?

I’m not sure I was prepared for this. I saw a number 1 script on the ultra-hip Hit List, I saw the genre “sci-fi,” I saw a title, “Crater,” that elicited a degree of edge. I went into this thing (keep in mind this was before I read the logline) thinking I was about to read something maybe Darren Aronofsky would want to direct.

So I was not expecting what I eventually got, which was “The Maze Runner meets Earth to Echo.” It was kind of like ordering a ribeye at the best steak house in town, only for a grilled cheese sandwich to show up. I like grilled cheese sandwiches… when I’m in the mood for them. In this case, I wanted the steak.

Griffin’s heart is in the right place. He’s trying to create a nostalgic teenage road trip film with heart – I’m guessing “Goonies on the moon?” And I have to give it him, he definitely created something unique.

The structure is pretty solid too. I liked that we had a time crunch here (they’ve got 72 hours). The stakes are high. These are the last moments these guys will ever spend together. There’s obstacles too. The meteor shower looms over their trip. And then, of course, there’s the goal of getting to the cave.

But the script starts sending out red flags almost immediately. One character is described as, “14 going on 15.” Ummm… what other age would he be going on to? And then the flashbacks to Caleb’s father begin. I don’t like flashbacks. But I can live with them if the rest of the script is good. However, we’d go into a flashback with Caleb and his father, only to then jump into Caleb’s father’s flashback of HIS OWN father. So we’d get a flashback within a flashback.

???

Caleb’s motivation is also murky. His father received an astronaut bobblehead from Caleb’s grandfather. So Caleb’s father gives the bobblehead to Caleb, making him promise that, if he dies, he’ll bring the bobblehead to the caves. Which I guess means that Caleb’s goal is to deliver something for a grandfather he’s never met??

Even more egregious, there’s a lot of sitting around and talking in Crater. The characters talk about everything from what earth’s like to religion to their parents’ divorces.

This kind of thing drives me crazy because it feels to the writer like they’re being “deep,” like they’re letting you into their character’s lives and learning more about them. But these scenes never resonate with readers. We don’t care if someone’s dad used to be mean or if someone is scared because when they were nine, their mom made them turn off the bedside light every night.

We care about NOW, specifically the actions our characters take. For the most part, movies are about putting your characters in peril (whether that peril be losing your food supply, like in The Martian, or losing your mind, like in Still Alice) and then seeing how they react to that peril. Actions will always speak louder than words.

Go watch Cast Away, which barely has a lick of dialogue for 90 minutes. Watch how that entire character is built on his actions. Even the similar Stand By Me, reveals so much more through action (running from the train, escaping the junkyard) than through sharing stories about each other.

And even small moments are botched in Crater. There’s a moment when the group has infiltrated an old deserted base. Late in the sequence, Addison walks into a room and sees a tree standing in the middle of it. She’s taken aback, gob-smacked, can’t believe what she’s looking at. But wait a minute. Isn’t Addison the one character who used to live on earth and therefore has seen a billion trees? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to have one of the characters who’s never seen a tree be the one to discover and be gob-smacked by it?

I don’t know. Maybe that early bias put me on the offensive here. But even if I’d gone into this knowing what I was getting into, these issues are pretty huge. The concept’s different. So that’s good. But man, this was tough to get behind. There was so much that felt “off” about Crater. I’ll be honest. I’m kinda surprised this finished number 1.

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

What I learned: Everybody in your story needs motivation to do what they’re doing. Mad Max doesn’t join Furiosa cause he’s up for a rollicking adventure. He joins her because teaming up with her is his best option at escape. One of the common mistakes I see in these “group goes on a journey” scripts, is that it doesn’t make sense why half the people are there! At some point the writer, usually through feedback, is alerted to this. They then try to solve the problem by doing what I call, “retrofitting motivation.” This is where they have one of the characters ask the motivation-less character why they’re doing this, and that character gives a vague unsatisfying answer of sorts (here, the answer from Caleb’s friends is, “You go where your friends need you to go.”) The writer now believes they’ve solved the problem but all they’ve done is highlight it. It’s so much better if you do the hard work ahead of time and give each character a personal reason for going on the journey – or, at the very least, something they need to achieve before the journey’s over. The character ends up feeling more like an individual as well as more active. I didn’t get that from any of the supporting characters here, which contributed to my issues with the script.

Each week myself or one of the site’s readers will suggest an obscure, unknown, or under-appreciated film that you guys can then watch on a Lazy Sunday and discuss the screenwriting merits of. If you’re interested in submitting a suggestion, e-mail me at Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the movie and a 300 word “pitch” on why you think people would enjoy the film. Together, I hope we can all find some hidden gems.

large_5gBgMsTgYK5hqKekFimCpJdOlAd

I wish someone would come up with an idea like this today. Ironically, The Freshman was way ahead of its time. It was not a big hit by any means, and it’s likely because the concept was too odd for the average moviegoer. In a time where it was harder to reach the niche film customer, the film didn’t get the credit it deserved. But this is the kind of script that, today, would finish #1 on The Black List. I’d suggest going into it not knowing anything, but if you need a little nudge, here’s the logline: A struggling film school student gets involved with a mobster involved in an extremely eccentric underground activity.

IMG02150-20111112-1336

What you see above? That is all I want for Christmas. I’m serious. If you want to thank me for any help on the screenwriting front, bless me with that sugar parade. That is all the thanks I need. I just want to mash that thing in my face. Like rub the chocolate all over my forehead and then stuff it in my mouth. Then wrap the second cup up and hide it like a squirrel for later. Wait until the family is asleep and then sneak in another face-mashing session. Okay, now this is just getting weird. But the 2 pound reeses is not weird. It is wonderful. And I wish a merry Christmas to whomever eats one. Or two. Or three.

Title: Weep, Crave, Loathe
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Three socially impaired women, who think they have superpowers during PMS, believe they must find the remedy to menopause or risk losing their powers forever.
Why You Should Read: This is my attempt at a superhero script where there are no actual superpowers. It’s just three women who make some questionable choices because of issues with self-perception. It’s meant to be farcical fun so the humor tends towards sophomoric and crude. Curious what you think.
Thanks ahead of time if you take a look.

Title: Throw Away Love
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A disillusioned trophy wife has an affair with a photographer, unaware that he’s a serial killer.
Why You Should Read: I refined the logline in the comments section during the Thanksgiving Holiday. I got great feedback and now I’m hoping to get some more great feedback on the rest of the script. This script takes inspiration from films like “Body Heat”, “Unfaithful”, “Blood Simple”, and “Fatal Attraction”. I decided to write a Thriller because it’s a sell-able genre. “Throw Away Love” is the first script I’ve written since discovering Scriptshadow. From the initial idea, all the way to this current draft, I’ve made a concentrated effort to incorporate many of the tips from this site. I’m really excited to see how I’ve grown as a writer since discovering this site and its community.

Title: Recon
Genre: Action/Sci-fi
Logline: An Alien invasion seen through the eyes and the perspective of an Alien soldier. [Cloverfield meets Independence Day]
Why You Should Read: Well, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d spend the majority of the day splurging on a bunch’a nonsense that I’ve always dreamed of having… and then come home and type “FADE IN”. So yes, my name is Landon Collins and I’m an aspiring scribe [“Hiiii, Landon”]. Twice placed in the Nicholl Fellowships including 2015 as a Quarterfinalist. “RECON” is not my Nicholl script, but instead, it’s my latest script that’s been toiling in the back of my mind for about 5 years, and I just now gathered the testicular fortitude to hash it out this year. Not since my first couple of scripts a decade ago have I had as much fun writing and I hope you have at least half as much fun reading it.

Title: For Your Eyes Only
Genre: Espionage thriller
Logline: James Bond undertakes an unofficial mission of revenge in the first true adaptation of Ian Fleming’s story since it entered the public domain
Why You Should Read: I’m sending this script in response to your recent post (Increase Your Chances of Selling a Screenplay 100-fold). The public domain is fascinating, if tricky, place to play, with opportunities and potholes in equal measure. I’m hoping to get through without breaking an axel. In short: on January 1, 2015, Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels entered the public domain in Canada (and in numerous other territories worldwide, including the mega-market of China). I saw an opportunity, and wrote a feature screenplay based on Fleming’s short story For Your Eyes Only. The script presents a fully realized James Bond (no, it’s not another origin story, because who needs that?) at a crucial turning point in his life and follows him through an adventure that sets up a proposed four-film series — along with a potential spin-off series and cross-media tie-in content, both adapted and original. So yes, I’m thinking big here. — I think this could be an interesting case-in-point for your argument (or a cautionary tale, depending on how things work out). I had to contend with exactly what you describe in your article: how to tell a familiar story in a fresh way; how to breath new life into a character everyone knows; how to simultaneously meet and thwart expectations. Even if it never gets produced, this was one of the most educational screenplays I’ve ever written. (I have six produce features under my belt thus far, all very indie; this, if it got made, would be a whole new phase of my career.) — I’m pretty happy with the script now, but I don’t bruise easily, so I’m open for some honest criticism. (Btw, my choice for Bond: Cillian Murphy.)

Carson, you made a mistake.

You passed over this script for the 250. I understand these things happen, but lemme help correct that and show you my chops.

I’m a Chicago man like yourself and you picked my twin brother’s script for the 250 and amateur offerings and now he has a big head and is giving me shit. Among brothers, this cannot stand.

Here’s my submission:

Title: Team Deathmatch
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a crusty workaholic gets canned for an office meltdown, he must work together with his burnout son to win a million dollar video game competition and save their house from foreclosure.
Why You Should Read:

Because I wanna make you feel good.

Yeah…

That’s right.

But sadly, I can’t touch you. So let my script touch you… in the best way possible… and make you feel good.

E-sports (video games in non-douchey terms) is an untapped subculture ripe for parody. And these people go to the movies for R-rated comedies. Nice.

On top of that… day jobs can suck. So who can’t get behind a protagonist leaving his/her work-a-day life for a shot rarified glory, financial security, and more time with his/her family? That’s what this story is about.

But don’t all movies remotely tied to video games end up as catastrophic failures? Well… yeah. But this ain’t them. NOBODY has approached the video game subculture from this angle. Games, particularly ‘e-sports’, are GROWING in popularity. They aren’t going away and somebody’s gonna get it right. Eventually. Maybe now?

So spend some time with me, yeah? I’ll make it worth your while.

002