The second episode always reveals the truth of whether you have a good show or a bad one

If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m fascinated by this series.

I think it’s kinda gangster, and also kinda insane, to try and make a show that looks exactly like another show that happens to be one of the most popular shows of all time in The Walking Dead.

So from a screenwriting perspective, I’m interested in how you get around that. It’s a big challenge. And I wanted to see how they were going to do it. I became even more interested when they went all in on the marketing. It showed they were really backing this show. So maybe they did figure out the trick to make it work.

But then last week, the same thing that happens to me when I read a bad script happened to me when I watched the pilot. Which is that these little red flags popped up. The super-generic post-apocalyptic city, for example. A main character who wasn’t compelling enough to carry an entire series. A secondary character – the girl – who has some standard lame secret power that’s going to be revealed later.

All of it felt way too familiar.

And that’s why I’m reviewing this second episode. I’m curious to see if my suspicions are correct. I believe that this show is in major trouble. The only hope I have for it is if they sacrificed story quality for setup purposes.

The weakness I saw in that pilot were a crippling reminder of how critical character is in a TV show. If we don’t fall in love with those characters right away… the show is screwed. And what’s so frustrating about screenwriting is that, theoretically, I should like Joel. We meet him, we see how much he loves his daughter, then watch his daughter get killed in front of him. Why am I not all-in on this guy?

I don’t know. All I know is that when we fast-forward 20 years Joel is this grumpy guy you kind of sort of like but also don’t. You know who he reminded me of? Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Obi-Wan show. Same idea. Grumpy. Head down. Goes to work every day. “Grumpy” is a tough character trait to make work. Audiences generally don’t like grumpy people. It’s possible, of course. “Up” did it. But, usually, it’s a bad move.

I want to be proven wrong about all this. Let’s get into episode 2’s plot and see if I was.

In this episode, we start back in 2003 in Jakarta. It’s here, apparently, where the virus was born and is starting to spread. The government’s head scientist determines that there’s no hope and they should immediately start bombing the city they’re in!

Cut to Joel and Ellie (the little girl) and Tess (the girlfriend) in the present. The three need to get through downtown Boston for some reason that isn’t well explained at all. I think they’re going to a courthouse for some reason? It’s confusing.

That setup is mostly an excuse to start playing with this world and seeing what it looks like. Buildings have fallen over onto each other. Hotel lobbies have become frog ponds. And the infected monster people are scattered about in various locations. Although, surprisingly, for most of our trio’s journey, we barely see them.

Eventually, our group get to the courthouse – again, I don’t know why they’re going there but they get there – and that’s when Tess reveals that she’s infected. Which means she’s going to have to off herself soon. Joel and Ellie then have to get out of Dodge, leaving Tess to lure in some other monsters so she can take them out along with herself. The End.

So… was I entertained?

Funny enough, this episode felt a lot like the first episode. It started off strong. Then got worse from there.

The show’s central problem continues to be its weak characters. Joel doesn’t talk much and, when he does, he usually says boring stuff. Tess is like a female version of Joe. She’s equally as moody and talks in that sort of angry whisper that all cliched characters in these shows talk like.

I guess Ellie, the girl, is supposed to be the comedic relief. But comedic reliefs only work when they’re not annoying.

With that said, at least we’re on the move now. We’re walking through this city. There’s potential danger around every corner, which heightens the tension whenever we’re in a scene.

But there’s just no X-FACTOR here. There’s nothing about this show to get you excited. Nobody’s going to finish an episode of this show, text their friend, and say, “Oh my God, did you see the latest episode of Last of Us!!??” And that’s what you need these days. Because the modern day equivalent of telling your friends is telling the internet. So if nobody’s running to social media to talk about how awesome the episode was, your show is in trouble.

House of the Dragon had that quality. White Lotus had that quality. This is missing something. And I think the problem is two-fold. Boring characters and a world that’s too familiar.

The one big difference between this show and The Walking Dead, I guess, is that these zombies are more like monsters. They can morph into more exciting beings. But is looking forward to these monsters enough to drive an entire show? I don’t think it is.

What matters most is CHARACTER. We need to love the characters. I wish I could put up one post a week that just repeated that line a thousand times. And I’m not even going to lay all this at the feet of the writers. Casting comes into this too. This is the fourth role in a row for Pedro Pascal where I am not impressed by him at all (Mandalorian, WW1984, The Bubble were the other three). I’m not sure how this guy became popular. But I think he’s freaking boring. He’s like Gerard Butler without the charm. So that’s probably playing into it why the show feels stuck in second gear.

Look. This show is better than some of the other high-profile releases that have come out recently. Rings of Power. Willow. Obi-Wan. But it’s nowhere near the class of House of the Dragon, White Lotus, and Stranger Things. It’s not even as good as Westworld.

This marks the last time I will watch The Last of Us. What about you?

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

What I learned: I love the writing move of a character sitting down somewhere random and the military comes up to get them, because this person is needed by the president to help them figure out a top secret problem. I love that moment where they walk up, stop in front of them, and then no words are spoken. We just cut to them in the car. Or in the helicopter. Because why do you need your characters to say anything? The audience understands what’s going on. Don’t write a line if you don’t have to. — This happens in the opening of this episode.

As I continue to read tons of amateur screenplays for my consulting services, I’ve noticed that I continue to give one note again and again. That note is, “Take a risk!” Take a risk SOMEWHERE in your screenplay. Because if you don’t take any risks at all, it’s very hard to write a screenplay that people actually remember.

Risks are scary. If I were to assess where I went wrong as a screenwriter, a lack of risk-taking would be up there near the top of the list. I can write you the most technically proficient screenplay that you’ve ever read. But without any risks taken, that’s all it would be.

Sometimes readers of this site erroneously assume that I’m Mr. Follow The Rules. And if you don’t follow the rules, that I believe it’s impossible to write a good screenplay. Well, I’m Mr. Follow The Rules with one major caveat. I want you to take at least one big risk in your script. Because that’s what’s going to bring your script alive.

But telling someone to take a risk is a weak note because what is a risk? Does anyone know how to break the word down into actionable tasks you can actually implement?

Yes.

I do.

Risk-taking breaks down into five distinct categories. I’m sure there are a few more. But these are the main ones. They are…

Concept
Plot
Character
Perspective
Time

Concept – Concept is picking a movie idea that is challenging just through its concept alone.

Plot – Something BIG happens in your plot that’s completely surprising and sets the story onto a previously unexpected path.

Character – You do something with one of your key characters that’s very risky. Something most movies wouldn’t do.

Perspective – The perspective from which you tell your story. Make it a little different, a little unexpected.

Time – Playing with time in such a way that challenges the story and challenges the audience.

Recently, I’ve been watching this show on Hulu called Fleishman is In Trouble. It’s about a New York doctor in his 30s, Toby, who’s in the midst of a divorce and, one weekend, when he’s taking care of the kids, his wife doesn’t show up to pick them up. She’s pretty much disappeared. We then spend the episodes bouncing back and forth in time, learning about how Toby met his wife and how they got to this point.

The show often contains narration by a third character, Libby, who is a former friend of Toby’s. She’s the one who takes us through Toby and his wife’s past and how they got to this point in their marriage.

So, in the case of Fleishman is in Trouble, the show is taking two of the six risks. First, the perspective. We’re not in some standard CW high school show where we dutifully see the story through each of the four main characters’ eyes, jumping back and forth between them in a very traditional 1-hour drama way. Instead, we’ve got Libby equal parts shot-putting and dragging us through this complicated relationship. The choice to make this random third character our narrator is definitely a big risk.

The other risk is Time. We’re jumping all over the place here. We’re in the present. We’re a year ago. We’re fifteen years ago. We’re five years ago. We’re never on this straight-forward linear path. That’s a risk.

Go watch an episode and see for yourself. The show doesn’t feel like other shows out there. And that’s because it’s taking two of the six risks!

In order to make this all a little bit clearer for you, here are five movies that took risks in each of the five categories.

Title: Parasite
Risk Type: Plot

Parasite was already a good movie before the big plot risk it took. This story about a family infiltrating another family’s home was one of the most entertaining commentaries on the disparity between the rich and the poor that we’ve ever seen. But the midpoint twist of there being an unknown basement in the home where another character was living, one who was even poorer than our protagonist family, elevated the film into an all-time classic.

Title: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Risk Type: Perspective

If you haven’t seen Marcel The Shell, it’s an animated film (for the most part) about a shell who’s living in this AirBnB house. The big risk the writers made was to tell the story in documentary style. This was a particularly risky choice due to the fact that animated films just don’t ever do documentary style. Which is a good lesson to internalize. Some risks are riskier than others. And this was definitely a huge one.

Title: Red Rocket
Risk Type: Character

One of my favorite movies from a couple of years ago, Red Rocket, follows a character, Mikey, a former porn star who’s been forced to move back to his tiny Texas town. Mikey starts dating a teenager who works at a local donut shop. The reason I liked this movie so much was because it was the biggest risk-taking character movie of that year. Sean Baker, the writer, made Mikey extremely likable. And you’re not supposed to do that in a story like this. And it made for a very complex viewing experience where you were constantly battling with how you felt versus how you were supposed to feel. And it was amazing for that very reason. I hold this movie up in the pantheon of how to take a big risk with a character.

Title: 1917
Risk Type: Time

When I say the words, “World War 1 movie,” what comes to mind? I’m guessing long-drawn out narratives about soldiers on the front lines for months if not years, and then coming home and dealing with the PTSD of war and not being able to re-integrate into society. Boring s—t, right? 1917 erased all that with one simple risk-taking choice. It made a World War 1 film real-time. Boom. Just like that, you have the most original World War 1 movie ever made.

Title: A Quiet Place
Risk Type: Concept

A Quiet Place did something very similar for the horror genre. It came up with a concept where nobody can speak. This instantly turned the movie into a silent film. That’s a pretty darn big risk. A major studio budgeted and promoted a horror film that was silent? Risks don’t get much bigger than that.

So I’m sure plenty of you are wondering, “Do you HAVE to take a risk?” The answer is no. You don’t have to. There are plenty of movies, with scripts, that didn’t take much of a risk at all. John Wick comes to mind. Top Gun Maverick. Black Widow. Free Guy. Knives Out. These are movies that know their lane and stay squarely inside of it.

But, here’s the thing. When you write a screenplay, you are now competing for readers’ interest. And readers read a lot of stuff. They see the same stories over and over again. The same characters. The same tropes. So, while it is possible to write this perfect version of a basic story, you can kind of hack the system with one big risky swing (assuming it pays off).

Uncut Gems is a huge character risk. We’re rooting for a truly despicable man. Barbarian took a plot risk. After that captivating opening, it jumped to a completely different character and now we don’t know where the script is going. Everything Everywhere All At Once, I believe, takes risks in all five categories. Which is why the movie is so beloved by the film community.

Risks are just like a lot of tools in screenwriting. You have to decide whether you want to use them or not. I can tell you, from personal experience, that when a writer a takes a big risk, that screenplay is always more memorable than the scripts that didn’t take a risk. Even if the risk doesn’t work.

So go out there and put your testicular fortitude on the line and take a risk in your screenplay. Something tells me it’s going to pay off.

Today’s script JUST SET THE BAR for 2023!!!

Genre: Sci-Fi Comedy
Premise: A low-level worker on a spaceship run by a dark god must steal the most powerful weapon in the universe to save his workplace crush.
About: This script finished Top 10 on last year’s Black List. The writer has a lot of credits in the animated kids TV space. He wrote on such shows as Monsters at Work and Vampirina. Which, after you read this review, is going to be beyond shocking.
Writer: Travis Braun
Details: 97 pages

This has Holland written all over it!

You are about to experience something so rare that you may not know what to do with yourself afterwards. The rumors are true. You’re about to read a glowing review of a Black List script.

This is no ordinary script. This isn’t graded on a curve to adjust for the current level of the Black List. This is a legit awesome script. I don’t know who this writer is. I don’t know where he came from. But if he doesn’t get snatched up by the Marvel universe by the end of this weekend, I’ll be shocked.

24 year old Charlie was delivering a package when earth was invaded and aliens either killed or enslaved everyone. Charlie is one of the enslaved. He lives on a Death Star like ship that travels around the galaxy, destroying planets.

The ship is run by a terrifying alien named Morticus. Morticus is the embodiment of evil. All he cares about is killing. The only reason Charlie, the other humans, or the other enslaved aliens on the ship, aren’t dead, is because he needs people to keep the ship running.

Charlie spends most of his time cleaning up weapons that have just been discarded during battles. This place is like the Wild West. If the guards aren’t killing you, another slave is. This is Charlie’s every single day. It is pure misery. He has no reason to live. The only reason he doesn’t kill himself is because he’s too much of a wimp to.

Then one day, he gets a message on his food ration plate. It says, simply, “Have fun.” Perplexed, Charlie looks to see who wrote the message, and sees Emma. Charlie is instantly smitten.

He writes her back a message, and the two continue to go about their days, stealing glances and smiles, but never actually talking to each other because if you talk to other people, they kill you.

For once, Charlie has a reason to be alive. And boy is he happy about it. (Spoiler) That is until Morticus comes down from his tower, finds out Emma was planning to escape, and takes his scepter and thrashes it into her, making her die the most horrible death imaginable.

Now, Charlie is even more devastated than he was before he knew Emma! His life truly sucks. That is until he hears a rumor that Morticus’s scepter has the power to bring people back alive. For the first time since he’s been on this hellscape, Charlie is going to rock the boat. He’s going to travel to Morticus’s tower, steal his scepter, and reanimate his girlfriend!

This.

Script.

Was.

Bonkers.

Good.

There’s so much bonkers good here, I don’t know where to start.

You read ten scripts in a row that are all somewhere between bad and average and you start to think that a) nobody knows how to write anymore. b) your standards have gotten too high, or c) some combination of the two.

But then a script like this comes along and reminds you that there is still good writing out there! Which means we have another script to place in the ‘good script’ archives to learn from.

First, I’ll start with the writing. It was so light and clever and effortless. It was such a joy to read. I know that’s cliche. But it really was. I found myself not just looking forward to plot beats, but looking forward to actual line descriptions. Which is crazy. Cause that never happens.

I mean how great is this line: “Charlie and Sodros enter the vast throne room. It’s cold and empty, no doubt a design choice to match Morticus’ soul.” Despite what one of the commenters here will say via a 750 word essay about why this isn’t a clever or good line, trust me, it is. I’ve read everything. I read anything. Nobody writes lines this effortlessly funny like this. It’s super rare. And Braun somehow keeps it up the whole script.

I mean check out this description of the ship: “A massive engine of intergalactic evil.” I don’t know many writers who can capture the essence of an object inside such a concise simple line with the kind panache that Braun does here.

And it’s just fun. The line is fun. The story is fun. Everything here is fun. Here’s a quick dialogue exchange.

HAYNES: C’mon man. I’m your bestie. I can practically tell everything you’re thinking.

CHARLIE: You’re a telepath.

HAYNES: That’s fair. But if I wasn’t, I’d like to think our connection was such that I could still tell.

Now if it was just about the description and dialogue, that wouldn’t be enough for me. It’s the way the story is told as well. This is a writer who understands the craft. For example, Charlie’s job is to clean weapons. Weapons are used non-stop on this ship because all anybody does here is kill. The script lures us into that reality without us really thinking about it. Then, when Charlie finally decides to do something and re-animate his girlfriend, guess who has access to a bunch of weapons in order to do so?

You can always tell seasoned writers because they’re great with setups and payoffs.

But probably the thing that I liked about this script the most and what really separated Braun’s script from all the others is his dedication to turning moments on their head end not giving you what you expect.

For example, we’ve got Charlie and Emma flirting from afar with the kind of sexual tension that, if converted into raw energy, could power a mid-size country. Braun builds that up to crazy levels over the course of 15 pages. Then there’s a big dust-up and several creatures are killed. Charlie and Emma are order to transfer the dead aliens’ armor and weapons down to another floor.

The two wheel the armor into an elevator, and it’s the first time they’ve ever been alone together. As soon as the doors close, Emma says, “I think we have about ninety seconds.” “Yeah,” Charlie replies. “We should use it wisely,” she says. “Totally.” I think you know where this is going.

One of the biggest teaching tools out there for screenwriters is measuring what you would write versus what a great screenwriter would write. I can honestly say that, 99% of the time, the weak screenwriter writes what you expect. This is why only 1% break through. Because those are the screenwriters who think differently. They’re the ones who come up with the moments that the audience couldn’t have come up with themselves.

So when you look at the above scene that I set up, where they’re in the elevator together, I’m guessing 99% of you assumed that we would then cut to them having sex. Or cut to the end of the elevator ride, the doors opening, and them looking disheveled, clearly just having had sex.

Guess what?

That’s not what happened. And if you would’ve written that, you would’ve lost the game of screenwriting. Because EVERYBODY would’ve written that. The accountant in the back of the theater who’s never written so much as essay in his life would’ve come up with that reveal.

Instead, after their little exchange, we smash cut to them each wearing the alien armor, swords raised and they proceed to play fight with it.

It’s such a clever cut that you can’t help but smile. But, more importantly, it displays pro-writer behavior. Which is to ask what the audience expects and then make sure to give them something different.

This happens repeatedly throughout the script.

Later on, Charlie, while sneaking around trying to get to Morticus, gets stuck in a fuel pipe, and is all of a sudden sucked deep into this thing by fuel, and will for sure drown. Except, at the last second, he gets yanked out of this thing by a cool Oscar Isaac like character named Ignacio. Ignacio is this bada$$ who’s been living here in the front of the ship, using his awesomeness to survive. We immediately love the guy.

Him and Charlie get to chatting and I’m all psyched about how Charlie is going to team up with this dude and they’re going to save Emma’s life together. That is until Ignacio confides that he’s heartless and only cares about himself. Charlie says, “No you’re not. You saved me.” And Ignacio’s entire persona flips on a dime. He replies, “Who says I saved you?”

All of a sudden, straps whip around Charlie’s arms and legs, tying him to the chair. Ignacio then says he’s sorry but he’s got to kill Charlie and sell him off for food pound by pound, cause human flesh is worth a lot around here.

Braun had me hook, line, and sinker. He set up the Ignacio character so well that I never in a million years thought he was a bad guy. But, again, this is what good writers do. They lead the reader towards a conclusion they’re sure of, then repeatedly pull the rug out from under them.

On a slightly different topic, today’s script is the perfect comparison piece to yesterday’s script. You may be saying, “Carson, are you insane? Yesterday’s script was set on earth and followed a depressed pregnant pizza deliver girl struggling to accept whether she would be a good mother or not. What does that have to do with running around a spaceship trying to reanimate the love of your life?”

Quite a bit, actually.

You see, movies are great at exploring universal themes, the things we all experience in life. But they’re not good at doing that LITERALLY. They’re much more effective when you find larger-than-life stories in larger-than-life genres that explore those same themes on a much larger tapestry.

Dying For You is about depression just like Pizza Girl is about depression.

The difference is, the depression is explored on a much bigger canvas, which allows us to actually be entertained while we’re exploring that theme. Writers make the mistake of thinking that if they’re very literal and show dying and crying and drug addiction and daddy hit me exactly how they happen, that we’ll eat it up. But if you show that exactly the way it happens in the real world, there’s a good chance we’re going to be bored and miss the point.

That doesn’t happen in a movie like Dying For You. This is a story about a guy who has zero reason to live. He’s a slave on a spaceship where everything is designed to kill you. The love of his life was killed in front of him. His baseline is depression. But because we get these fun exchanges between him and friend. Because we get this exciting adventure where he goes off and gets in all these battles and chases – we’re actually entertained. And because we’re entertained, we’re more present – WHICH ALLOWS US TO FEEL THE DEPRESSION MORE INTENSELY.

Let me summarize that: “If we’re more present, we care more about what’s happening. Which means we feel your emotional beats more effectively.”

Now, I can already hear some of you rolling your eyes. “So I should never write a drama Carson? What about Lost In Translation? What about Good Will Hunting? Those weren’t great movies that made us feel for the characters?”

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that as an unknown screenwriter trying to capture a reader – or even as a professional writer trying to bring in a real audience to his movie – you’re much better off looking for a larger-than-life setup to explore universal themes than you are doing it literally via a drama.

There’s a version of Everything Everywhere All At Once that doesn’t have multi-verses. That’s just about an Asian family that a mother has checked out of. The Daniels could’ve written that movie. And guess how many people would’ve seen it? Hold up both your hands, fingers extended, then lower three of those fingers. Count the rest. That’s how many people would’ve gone to see that movie.

I’m getting off-track here.

The point is, this is a great script. It’s honestly everything a spec screenplay should be. It’s got a big fun premise. It’s got a likable main character. It’s written in a fun, effortless manner with tons of white on the page. The dialogue is funny. The writer is constantly surprising us. The mythology is great. This is it, man. This script IS screenwriting.

All Hail Morticus.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (Top 25!)
[ ] genius

What I learned: This script reminded me that when you create a scenario where two people can’t be around each other (in this case Charlie and Emma), every single moment they do get together is CHARGED. When these two were around each other, I can’t remember a time where a scene between romantic interests felt so big and important.

Genre: Horror
Premise: A workaholic toymaker’s life is turned upside-down when her sister dies and she gains custody of her young niece.  So, to keep her niece company, she creates the ultimate toy, M3GAN.
About: While the big box office story right now is Avatar reaching 1.7 billion and confirming that James Cameron truly is the king of all the worlds, M3GAN’s box office success isn’t so shabby itself. The film scored 30 million this weekend, surprising the industry, who thought it’d be much closer to 20. Screenwriter Akela Cooper now has two hit horror films on her resume. This and Malignant.
Writer: Akela Cooper (script) and James Wan (story)
Details: about 2 hours

Once again, we are reminded that if you want to break into this business with an original screenplay, this is the genre to do it in. Because where else can you make 6 times your budget on opening weekend than with a horror flick?

The frustrating thing about this strategy, though, is the unknown in regards to choosing your concept. Horror concepts are total wildcards. I mean, this is just an updated version of Child’s Play and Annabelle. And Child’s Play even had a reboot a few years ago, which, you would think, would make this movie irrelevant.

Sure, it’s an AI toy, which introduces a new twist. But not much of one. It’s still an angry killer toy. We’ve seen that before.

I think that younger demos who are looking for somewhere to go with their friends are always going to be into fun horror movies because they get to escape their parents as well as get their emotions stimulated.  You know what they say.  Fear is our most primal emotion.

So maybe the screenwriting lesson here is to write a horror script within a template that Hollywood has made before and, therefore, knows they can market. As we just established, Hollywood knows how to make Annabelle and Chucky sell tickets. So they can apply that same strategy to M3GAN. Make Hollywood’s job easy for them.

Aren’t we here for a movie review, Carson?  Was M3GAN any good?

Gemma is a cutting edge toy-maker who develops advanced computer-aided toys. She’s routinely blasted by her boss, David, for making these toys unaffordable. But Gemma doesn’t care! She’s determined to change the toy game, giving everything she creates that ChatGPT flare.

But single-and-not-ready-to-mingle-cause-families-are-for-suckers, Gemma, gets the shock of her life when her sister, brother-in-law, and niece get in a car crash and only her niece, Cady, survives. Gemma is given custody of Cady and, all of a sudden, she’s got to split duties between work and family.

As a way to ease her time commitments, she finishes up M3GAN, an artificially intelligent little girl that can act as Cady’s friend. M3GAN is an instant hit with Cady, who begins to hang out with her all the time.

M3GAN is a hit with Gemma’s boss as well, who realizes this can completely change the toy game. The two formulate a launch plan that will begin with a streaming announcement in two weeks (remember what I told you about movie timeframes staying within 2 weeks??).

But while Gemma gets ready for the big announcement, M3GAN starts to get more and more possessive of Cady, first killing the neighbor and her dog for threatening Cady, and then killing a little boy who’s mean to Cady. Also, when M3GAN gets really angry, she dances. Which I can totally relate to.

When M3GAN finally realizes that her creator is standing in the way of her and Cady being BFFs, she constructs a plan to kill her. It will ultimately be up to Cady to decide who’s more important in her life, M3GAN or Gemma. Let the best girl win!

So how do you write a professional level horror script?

Cause they look easy. But, obviously, not everyone can write them.

You’re basically looking at three things. One, you need a plot that’s tight and that moves towards a clear destination. Here, we have Gemma trying to launch this toy.

In reality, all the audience cares about in these movies is watching the doll kill people. Unfortunately, you can’t just go from doll-killing-people-scene to doll-killing-people scene. There has to be the illusion of some sort of story in the meantime. And that’s what the “toy launch” plotline is. It makes us feel like there’s an actual story here.

Going back to my Friday the 13th review – a movie I found to have had a terrible screenplay – you can see what happens when you don’t have that plot pushing the story forward. They didn’t have that in that movie, even though it was available to them (they could’ve focused more on having to get the camp ready for the arrival of the campers). Without it, it just felt like an empty excuse to create a bunch of gory kills.

The other thing you gotta do a FAIRLY good job with is the character struggle. You don’t have to nail this – M3GAN certainly doesn’t – but you can’t ignore it. You need something that the main character is unknowingly struggling with or actively trying to overcome. With Gemma, it’s that she’s super-selfish. She cares more about work than her own niece. And there’s this question of, is she cut out to be a mother?

Again, Cooper didn’t execute this very well. But she made it serviceable. And the reason you want to it to be, at least, serviceable, is because it makes the character feel more real. If you don’t include this, then the character becomes an empty vessel with nothing going on, and it’s clear that they only exist because the movie needs a main character.

The final thing you need is three great scary set pieces. Ideally, you want the set pieces to be specific to your concept. In other words, you don’t want some garden-variety haunted house scene in a cursed doll movie. You want your set pieces to revolve around stuff only a cursed doll movie could have.

What’s different about M3GAN is that the villain is, many times, also the hero. She’s getting rid of people we want gotten ride of. So she takes out the neighbor, whose dog viciously bites Cady. She takes out the evil kid who tries to beat up Cady. In a weird way, I guess you could call M3GAN an anti-hero. And that helped her scenes feel a little different than traditional scary bad guy scenes.

If we take the screenplay out of it, M3GAN was like an Eastern European gift basket. You got some things in there that are worth trying out and others that’ll probably send you to a military ER.

I can tell you this. The movie worked well with my crowd. Every time M3GAN started singing, my crowd howled with laughter. And they were always giggling at things M3GAN would say. So I can see why the film was so popular.

But if you look a little deeper, this was a super-cheap film. They must’ve spent all the money on M3GAN because there were 4 sets in this movie. It’s so overt that the big final fight takes place in a 10-12 foot basement.

And Allison Williams is about as convincing as a geeky toymaker as I am a professional opera singer.

There is no world in which this movie deserves a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s barely better than average. And most of that is attributed to how weird M3GAN is. I’m not even convinced that weirdness was purposeful, by the way. I think they got a little lucky with it.

M3GAN is a campy horror film that is way more appropriate for streaming than paying 15 bucks for. But it’s a fun harmless movie that feels like it would be a blast for the 12-17 crowd. This one just BARELY passes into ‘worth the watch’ territory.

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

What I learned: Dramatize your exposition, don’t state your exposition. Early in the script, we need to establish that both Gemma and Cady have voice control over M3GAN. This will be relevant later on when M3GAN starts ignoring Gemma. But you must first set that rule up.

Weak screenwriters will do this with a straight-exposition scene. They’ll have Gemma sit everyone down and carefully explain how M3GAN works (“You can have multiple people paired with M3GAN so Cady’s going to be paired with her and also I’m going to be paired with her…”). This can work but it’s boring and unimaginative.

Strong screenwriters look for ways to dramatize this information within a scene. So what Cooper does here is Gemma and Cady get into a fight while eating lunch and M3GAN is sitting next to them. M3GAN keeps trying to interject so Gemma says, “M3GAN, turn off.” And as the arguing continues, Cady says, “M3GAN, turn on.” Gemma continues to spar with Cady, and looks at M3GAN again, “M3GAN, turn off.” “M3GAN, turn on,” Cady immediately retorts.

What this does is it establishes that both Gemma and Cady have voice control over M3GAN, and it does so within a dramatic framework – the two of them arguing. This is so much more effective than a straight, “Let’s list out all the doll rules” exposition scene.

Genre: Comedy/Sci-Fi
Premise: A married couple attending a gender reveal party are quickly informed that they must stop the reveal party at all costs… or the world will blow up.
About: This script finished top 10 on the Black List. Jack Waz has been slowly working his way up the ranks. He was a writer’s assistant on Starz’s, Get Shorty. He wrote a small TV movie called, “Love Blooms.” And now he’s made it to the Black List.
Writer: Jack Waz
Details: 99 pages

Is it finally going to happen?

Am I going to genuinely laugh during a comedy screenplay?

It’d be a first.

Why is being funny so hard for people?

I’m hilarious. Just be more like me.

This script’s got a head start, though, cause I love the logline. As I stated in my annual Black List assessment post, I think gender reveal parties are HI-larious in how stupidly insane they are. Especially because of how much it sucks when you find out it isn’t a boy.

Carson, it’s 4 days into the New Year. Let’s not get cancelled!

Meg and Andy, both in their 30s and still acting like they’re in their 20s (getting wasted every night), reluctantly agree to go to Meg’s sister’s (Grace) gender reveal party. Since these two are not into kids, going to a gender reveal party is their own personal nightmare.

Of course, it’s about to become an actual nightmare, because once they get there and everyone settles in, a giant shipping container is opened and blue balloons shoot out into the sky. It’s a boy!

Except Air Force One happens to be flying by at that very second, the balloons get pulled into the engine, the engine explodes, the president dies, and the United States retaliates against Russia and China, who they think shot the president down, and ten minutes later there is no earth.

Luckily, right before Meg and Andy die, some guy named Tank shows up. He’s buff, naked, wears a fanny pack, and is from the future. He tells them he’s time traveled back here to stop this gender reveal party in the hopes of saving the world.

So Tank time travels them back to the morning, tells them they’ve got five shots at stopping the gender reveal party. And off they go. But in their initial attempt, which includes popping all the balloons ahead of time, the sister’s husband has a backup plan! A series of fireworks go off that, when they blow up, reveal the gender. Oh, except it triggers a massive earthquake and the earth splits in two!

The group quickly learn that there are forces bigger than them determined to make sure this reveal happens. They will have to outwit fate to save the planet. But, more importantly, put an end to this evil attention-seeking practice that soon-to-be parents all across the United States participate in – the gender reveal party!

Baby Boom, which definitely needs a title change with the words, “Gender Reveal Party” in it somewhere, is its own unique beast. It’s a quasi-time loop comedy with a spritz of Final Destination thrown in.

The script is written in a brisk effortless style, as every comedy should be. The structure is solid, as it’s divided into five sections, each with a big goal (prevent the world from blowing up).

But for me, it’s more of a “smile” comedy than an “lol” comedy. To be fair, most comedy scripts I read get nowhere close to “smile” level. They live closer to “neutral” and “scowl” level. So I don’t want it to sound like I’m dissing Baby Boom for only making me smile. That’s actually a compliment.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about comedy.

It’s mostly about performance. It’s about the actor adding their own flourish to the action, to the line, to the performance. When you think about the funniest moments you’ve watched (imagine Step Brothers for example), virtually none of them work without that particular actor delivering that particular line or that particular action in that moment in that particular way.

So it’s hard to judge comedy on the page.

With that said, it goes to show that if you *can* manage to make a script funny on the page, you have something incredibly special. So I’m always looking for that. Even if it is a unicorn.

One thing that can really ramp up your comedy is stakes. The reason for this is that when stakes are higher, it creates tension. We feel that tension since more is on the line. This creates a tightening of your body and primes it for release, which of course comes in the form of laughter. When you don’t have that tightening, there’s no need for release.

Baby Boom low-key doesn’t have any stakes.

On the surface, it looks like it does. The world is at stake!

But they tell us, right from the beginning, that we’re going to get five shots at this. So we know we’re good for the next 75 minutes. They’re going to make it out of each world-ending catastrophe just fine.

Baby Boom has stakes in its fifth and final attempt. But you’ve asked us to endure four meaningless sections to get to the actual danger.

Just so you know, this is not a hard and fast rule. There are examples of screenplays that work with low stakes. To do this, though, you have to excel in other areas of your script, usually the character front. But I just wasn’t into the characters here. I mean, I thought they were fine. Meg and Andy did a solid job taking us through this journey.

But my ultimate character litmus test is, “Would they be interesting without this particular plot surrounding them?” Are Meg and Andy interesting as everyday people? If we were to follow them around for a day, would we be infatuated with them? Not really. There’s some late script stuff where they battle whether they’re ready to have their own child that’s pretty good. But as people, I only ever smiled at a few things they said or did.

Tank was clearly constructed to be the breakout character here but he was just too wacky for me. A naked guy from the future wearing only a fanny pack is a funny image but it felt like it belonged in a South Park episode, not this movie.

Despite all this, I thought the Final Destination angle was a stroke of genius. Waz seemed to anticipate a problem with all the repetition that came with the five similar sequences. So he made sure to keep us guessing on how the world was going to go belly up each time. My favorite was the AI takeover. I thought that was clever. And the Air Force One accident was fun as well.

As confident as I feel in my assessment, I’m aware that I haven’t laughed at a comedy script in forever so the problem could very well be me. Also, this script reminded me A LOT of the script Michael Waldron wrote to get on the Black List, The Worst Guy in the World and the Girl Who Came To Kill Him. And we all know how things turned out for him.

Anyway, did anybody read this? What did you think?

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

What I learned: It used to be that you could sell a comedy script pretty quickly by following the simple rule of capitalizing on a popular cultural trend. Remember when “Bromance” was a thing? There were like five comedy specs about bromances that sold. When Uber came out, we got a couple of ride-share comedies, with, “Stuber” getting produced. Wedding Crashers is another example. Baby Boom’s high placement on the Black List proves there’s still interest in this approach. So if you’re looking for a comedy idea, this is a good well to draw from. Maybe we can all brainstorm in the comments section current popular culture terms that would make good movies. Getting cancelled is probably a good starting point.