Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: When a resilient and clever astronaut gets stuck on Mars, he must use every trick in the book to get rescued.
About: The Martian is one of the most anticipated movies of the fall. It’s got a great story behind it, too. Andy Weir self-published the book when he couldn’t get any publishers to bite. When it still didn’t sell, he was devastated. But then, just when he believed the book was a failure, sales began to pick up. Good old word-of-mouth propelled the book into a phenomenon, and Ridley Scott and Matt Damon came on in one of those rare “fast-track” scenarios that all writers dream of. The Martian is adapted by Drew Goddard, who’s become one of the biggest screenwriters in the business. He wrote for Lost, Cloverfield, World War Z, Cabin in the Woods, and Netflix’s Daredevil.
Writer: Drew Goddard (based on the book by Andy Weir)
Details: 10/4/13 draft

Last year, I wrote an “Adapt This Book” post about The Martian. The consensus I came to was that this would be a tough adaptation. You have one character, all by himself, in a tiny tent, doing math for hundreds of pages. How do you make that interesting?

But watching the recent trailers, I was surprised to see just how GOOD this movie looked. That seems to be the consensus of everyone who’s seen the trailers. People are REALLY FREAKING PUMPED for this movie! And it’s a reminder of just how much of a mind-fuck this business is. Why is it only obvious in hindsight how cool a movie can be? Because the idea of being stranded on Mars isn’t all that original. I’m sure someone’s thought of it (or something like it) before. Yet it’s this simple idea that’s captured the world’s imagination, and will probably make The Martian this year’s “Gravity.”

But for our sake – that sake being “how good is the f’ing script?” – I wanted to know how they’d tackled those “book-to-script” issues that worried me so much when I read the novel. So, let’s take a look…

For those who know nothing about “The Martian,” it follows Mark Watney, who was left for dead on Mars when his team had to make an emergency evacuation after a storm threatened to destroy their rocket home.

Word gets back to NASA that Watney didn’t make it, and the world is devastated.

There’s only one problem. Watney is very much alive.

Watney, a botanist, knows that the next mission to Mars is in four years. Which means he needs to figure out how to sustain himself for that long, which includes finding a food source on a dead planet. In his words, he needs to “science the shit out of this.”

Meanwhile, NASA’s Mars satellites pick up movement on the planet, allowing them to realize that Watney is still alive. After freaking out, they start designing a plan to save him.

When word arrives on the Mars mission ship heading back to earth that Watney is still alive, they decide to go against orders, turn around, and save him, despite the fact that they have no way to get back down onto the planet and actually pick him up. Will they succeed? Will Watney live? Is this script any good? I would answer these questions but I’d probably be spoiling the movie for you.

Okay, so my first adaptation worry was that Watney was communicating through a written diary. That doesn’t work in movies. So for the script, they went the Avatar route and changed it to a video-diary. This is probably the easiest solution when it came to the adaptation.

The next problem was you had 50-60 page chunks of Watney doing math. How oxygen needed to be coagulated to stabilize nitrogen and how that helped grow potatoes. Thankfully, Goddard got rid of all that. Which probably wasn’t an easy decision, since it’s the heart of the book and what Weir prided himself on (the realistic approach to the science side of the problem).

I was a little surprised at just HOW MUCH of this they cut though. Goddard makes the bold move to jump exclusively from major plot point to major plot point, skipping all that personal “I’m lonely and stuck on this planet” stuff in between. For example, whereas it would take 100 pages to get from Watney’s tent blowing up to him going out to find the Mars rover, here in the script it would take about 12 pages.

If there’s a lesson to take away from this script, it’s that. Screenplays aren’t made to explore the nuances of an event. You’ll have time to sneak a few in there. But ultimately, you have to keep the story moving, and we see that here.

Another thing that really surprised me was just how much time earth gets in this adaptation. In the book, it’s all about Watney. I’d say we stay with him about 70% of the time, and then cut back to earth 30% of the time.

I remember worrying about this when reading the book. I wondered how you could stay on a guy in a tent for 20 minutes at a time. Goddard and the producers appear to have had the same worry. Back on earth, lots of huge plot decisions are being made (the main one being how the hell are they going to save this guy before he runs out of food), so I guess they figured if that’s where all the action was, that’s where they needed to be. This has left us with a new ratio of 55% to 45% in favor of the earth scenes!!

But my spidey sense tells me that when Matt Damon came on (this draft was written a year before he became attached) he likely ordered more Watney time, and that appears to be what the trailers suggest. Still, it was interesting to see the script go away from Watney so much, almost as if they didn’t trust the movie to sustain itself when we were just with him.

Another adaptation issue I worried about was time. As you’re no doubt tired of hearing me talk about here, I believe that URGENCY is one of the key components to making a script work. Most movies you see take place within a 2-week period, and there’s a reason for that. It gives the story a sense of “SHIT NEEDS TO BE TAKEN CARE OF NOW.” If a story drifts on for too long without anything pushing it, the audience gets bored and loses interest.

But the one thing I keep forgetting is that a story needs to be as long as it needs to be. If your main character is stuck on Mars? And our scientific limitations say that we can’t get to him for another four years? Well, then that’s the time-frame you have to work with. As long as it makes sense to the audience, they’ll go with it.

And I liked the way Goddard handled time in the script. He wouldn’t make a huge deal about the passing time. We’d simply cut to a title: Sol 37. Then a few pages later. Sol 49. It was very unobtrusive and, in a way, made it so you weren’t even aware time was passing. That was clever.

Another thing I noticed – piggybacking off of yesterday’s post – is how much humor plays a role in Watney’s character. Watney has a very casual sarcastic sense of humor about the whole ordeal, and just like the humor in M. Night’s The Visit allowed us to fall in love with those kids, the focus on humor here ensures we fall in love with Watney.

A lot of energy in the screenwriting community is spent on determining how much you need to worry about making your protagonist likable, and my response to that is always: It depends on the movie. If you’re writing a movie where a serial killer is your protagonist, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to make the guy likable.

But in a movie like this, where your main character is all by himself with no one to talk to and you’re asking the audience to care enough about him for the world to spend 10 billion dollars to save him, then yeah, he’s got to be likable in some capacity. And giving your hero a sense of humor is one of the easiest ways to do that.

I’m going to finish up by saying something controversial but it’s something I’m feeling stronger about every day. The self-published book is the new spec script. With Hollywood terrified to take a chance on anything original, the self-published success story is the best of both worlds. It takes no money on your end to write and put the book up online. And when it sells a lot of copies, Hollywood gets their “proof-of-concept” they need to pull the trigger on a sale.

I say that to encourage you guys to try different avenues to get into this industry. Ask yourself if your idea would work as a novel and, if so, consider writing it as one. Even if you only do it once, you’ll have something tangible to point others to. In a business where a lot of writers don’t feel like “real” writers because they haven’t “made it” yet, this small victory can make your profession feel more real.

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

What I learned: When adapting a book, write out all the major plot beats in the story. In your script, you’ll hit those plot beats every 10-15 pages – so fairly frequently. Here we had…

1) Watney is presumed dead and left on planet.
2) Watney needs food – starts growing potatoes.
3) Watney needs to communicate with Earth, goes on journey to find Mars Rover.
4) Watney’s decompression bay blows up, destroying his tent and all his food.
5) NASA tries to send Watney a supply ship.
6) The supply ship blows up on launch.
7) The Mars Mission crew decides to turn back and rescue Watney.

And so on and so forth. While a lot of the introspective stuff in between the book’s major plot points is great for novel readers, it’s not necessarily great for movie viewers, who want the story to move quickly. Which is why you see so much of that stuff excised in the screenplay version of “The Martian.”

M. Night’s new film shocks with a bigger than expected opening. But is this a “visit” worth taking?

Genre: Horror
Premise: (from IMDB) A single mother finds that things in her family’s life go very wrong after her two young children visit their grandparents.
About: You’ve loved him, you’ve hated him, you’ve laughed with him and you’ve laughed at him. And whether you like it or not, the once pop-culture directing icon (The Sixth Sense, The Happening, Signs) is back with a new film. Yes, I’m talking about M. Night Shyamalan. Night has sunk so low in the eyes of the paying public that he’s been forced to play by Hollywood’s new horror-film rules: 1) Get a hall pass from Jason Blum. 2) Don’t spend more than a million dollars. But darnit if Night didn’t make the most out of the opportunity. While his movie didn’t win the weekend, it did finish with 25 million dollars, almost 10 million more than what was expected. It’s a huge win for Night. But is it a win for us?
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Details: 94 minutes

One of the quirkiest parts of my day-to-day existence is how much I think about M. Night Shaymalan’s career. I probably think about it (usually negatively) once every couple of days. Even if he hasn’t made a movie in years.

This probably reflects more on me than it does Night. But as a screenwriting obsessist, there’s a part of me that gets really angry at the fact that he’s still making films. Not because he makes bad movies. Every writer-director has their Grindhouse. But because he makes REALLY REALLY bad movies. Like bad enough that if 20 years from now Night revealed that, as an experiment, he had a 5th grader write “The Happening,” I wouldn’t bat an eye.

It seems, at times, that he’s so out of touch (placing “symbology” higher on the priority list than THE ACTUAL FUCKING STORY), that someone ought to take the proverbial keys from him and get him an Uber. To retirement.

I remember when Unbreakable came out, his first movie after The Sixth Sense. The world was so drunk on Night Fever that they went into that thing with Night-as-my-God colored glasses and came out believing they’d just seen Citizen Kane 2.

I tried to rally the “what the fuck did I just experience” troops to no avail. But the signs were there. The entire movie was an empty excuse to set up a twist ending that made little, if any, sense. That’s one of the signs of a bad writer – someone who ignores the story itself in service of trying to wow the viewer at the end.

While everyone told me I was crazy, I watched as the mistakes I saw in that film became more and more pronounced with each new effort (Signs, The Village, The Little Mermaid 2), and, in that sense, I haven’t been surprised at all at how terrible his movies have become. For those paying attention, this was inevitable.

Which brings us to The Visit. Now, I’m pulling a “before I watch” written intro, which means I’m writing all of this down before I go see this movie. What am I expecting? Despite attempts to avoid spoilers, I’ve heard spits and whistles saying this is Night’s best movie since his early days. But, honestly, I don’t believe it.

I think everybody’s just so used to garbage from this guy that anything not garbage is going to seem great. So with that uplifting attitude, off I go to watch the movie. Wish me luck!

The Visit follows 13 year-old aspiring rapper, Tyler, and his sister, 15 year-old aspiring filmmaker, Becca, who really really want to meet their grandparents, and so have convinced their mom to allow them to spend a week at their home.

The family hasn’t had the best go of it. Mom left her parents in a huff 15 years ago after meeting a guy and hasn’t spoken to them since. She married him, had Tyler and Becca, but he left the family five years ago and hasn’t kept in touch since.

Told in a “found footage” type style, with the entire movie seen through the eyes of Becca’s TWO really expensive cameras, serious Becca and goofball Tyler start to notice their grandparents are a little strange. For example, “Nana” will just join in on “hide-and-seek” time wearing nothing but her nightgown and galloping around on all fours like a child.

With their mother busy on a cruise with her new boyfriend, the kids are only able to share their concerns about the grandparents in small doses. But when Nana starts trying to climb walls naked, that’s when bro and sis realize it’s time to jet. Too bad the grandparents catch on. And by then, it’s too late.

Let me start off by saying the crowd I saw this with really dug it. They were laughing their asses off. And if there’s one area The Visit should be praised for, it’s humor. Tyler, with his awkward rap obsession, along with the goofy vibe that both Nana and “Pop Pop” put out, give The Visit, at the very least, a quirky watchability that isn’t present in any of Night’s previous films, mainly due to the fact that he takes himself so seriously.

But the humor wasn’t just a win because it provided laughs. The humor brought us closer to the characters. That’s something screenwriters don’t talk enough about. Once you start laughing with characters, you feel closer to them (not unlike how you feel closer to people you laugh with in real life), and that makes you care more about what happens to them, which is key in any movie, but especially horror, where you want the audience to be engaged when the character encounters danger.

While this was a pleasant surprise, it couldn’t hide some of the movie’s clunkier issues. One of the stranger additives here was the “found footage” approach. For those who watch Night’s films, you know that Night’s directing style is THE OPPPOSITE of found footage. He likes to control every aspect of the frame, every camera movement, every line of dialogue, even down to the finite moves of the actors.

Remember the most manufactured scene in movie history? When the family in Night’s film, Signs, gets up on a car together and holds onto each other in order to get a walkie-talkie signal? That’s what Night loves to do.

Good “found footage” movies leave a lot of control up to the actors (Blair Witch), knowing that that’s the only way the footage is going to truly feel “real.” So when you watch The Visit, you can see that tug-of-war happening in every shot. The desire to create something organic and natural, ruined by the need to make every shot look, sound, and feel perfect.

I’ll give Night this though. It gives the movie a feel unlike anything else you’ve seen before. I’m still not sure if it’s a “good” feel. But it’s unique. And that counts for something.

Surprisingly, what saves this movie is the writing. Night has clearly spent more time on this script than his last 7 combined. And let me explain to you how I know that. Unfortunately, it’s going to require me to get into some big spoilers. So skip to the “What I learned” section if you haven’t seen the film yet.

Early on, we establish that mom hasn’t spoken to her grandparents in 15 years. She hasn’t even spoken to them for this trip. Everything was set up through the kids. We later find out why this plot point is needed. When the kids point out their grandparents in the yard over a late-movie Skype session, the mother’s face goes white. “Those aren’t your grandparents” she says. It turns out they’re a couple of escaped mental hospital patients posing as the grandparents.

In other words, if Night hadn’t written in this “I don’t talk to my parents anymore” plot point, there’s no film. The mom would’ve been able to talk/Skype with the kids AND the grandparents at the same time, immediately exposing them as imposters.

That gives the movie a bit of a “held together by popsicle sticks and rubber bands” feel to it, but there’s just enough there to make it work.

Now in the past, Night would’ve left it at that. And it’s indeed a fun twist that would’ve worked just fine. But what Night does here is HE MAKES THIS PLOT POINT WORK FOR THE STORY. Specifically, the whole reason that the daughter wants to meet her grandparents is to help repair the relationship between them and mom.

Between scares, Becca is asking her grandmother and grandfather about what happened. Why did the family fall apart? It becomes a major part of the story. This way, when the twist happens (they’re not the real grandparents) it doesn’t feel cheap, since Night milked the most of the storyline that allowed that twist to happen. That’s good writing!

Unfortunatley, I’m left wondering how long this new M. Night aroma will last. He’s FINALLY made a solid flick again. Yet his next movie will be a production of the very first script he sold, Labor of Love. I can honestly say that this is the worst script Night has ever written. It’s even worse than The Little Mermaid 2 (it’s a super-sap-fest about a man who walks across America after his wife dies).

If Night wants the adulation of movie fans and the industry – which deep down I think he does – he needs to keep playing in this sandbox. Tiny horror movies with no expectations. Small budgets that force him to get creative with his storytelling. That’s where he makes his best stuff. However, I’m afraid we’ll be cursed with M. Night Egomalan again. And just like old geezers who turn crazy after sundown, there’s not much we can do about it.

[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Movies are about unresolved relationships. We talk about this all the time here. In every relationship in your movie, you want to pick out something big or small that’s unresolved, then use your story to explore and resolve that issue. The Visit taught me that you can have unresolved relationships with characters who aren’t even in the movie! A big off-screen character here is the father, who brother, sister, and mom, all have issues with for leaving them. I liked how The Visit used those unresolved relationships with dad to drive a lot of the character development here. Tyler, in particular, seems very hurt by the fact that his father left, and partly blames it on himself. I also really liked the way they resolved this relationship. No, it wasn’t by calling the father and demanding answers. If you read Thursday’s “Cinematic Writing” post, you know that you want to solve all script problems by SHOWING AND NOT TELLING. We get closure when Becca, who swore she’d never use any footage of her father in her documentary, ends up including footage of him with them when they were younger. All we see are the images of him/them spliced into the final cut, but that’s all we need. We know they’ve finally found closure with the dad.

Next Friday I’ll be reviewing the amateur winner from a couple of weeks ago, “Small Slices.” A weird but intriguing little script. You can download it back on the Offerings page here. In the meantime, we have a tasty smorgasbord of script treats today, including a script from one of the top leaders at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). This gentleman was in charge of a half a billion dollars worth of projects every year! How awesome is that??!! Of course,he could be lying and he’s actually the leader of CARPA, the national carpet registry of America. I’ll leave it up to you to decide. As always, read as much of each script as you can, offer constructive criticism to the writers, including why you stopped reading when you did, and PROMINENTLY VOTE for the script you want me to review. Let’s find something good here!

Title: Gravity Kills
Genre: Sci-fi/suspense
Logline: A man awakens without memory in the nightmarish world of history’s largest super-prison. As he fights for his freedom, he develops visions of a past he cannot recall, causing him to lose grip on the present — leaving only a matter of time before his past & present collide.
Why you should read: It’s the Bourne trilogy meets Oldboy. — You once gave some advice on how to generate a good starting point for your script. Basically, you had it down to: confined space, central hero, a mystery to solve, and keep them moving. I really took that into consideration when starting Gravity Kills. I love The Twilight Zone. I love that the best stories involve basic human fears, and then build and twist them into simple, confusing, haunting stories. And I had a great idea: a regular guy (or is he..?) wakes up in a super-prison without any memory of how he got there. He’s innocent as far as he knows. It involves fears we all share: the innocent man accused, held against our will, losing our mind – really frightening shit. So that’s what Gravity Kills is…hopefully.

Title: Doppelgänger
Genre: Supernatural thriller
Logline: A detective with the power of bilocation must catch a serial killer who posseses the same power.
Why you should read: Because it’s GHOST meets SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

Title: The Apocalypse Chronicles
Genre: Horror Anthology
Logline: Trapped in a nightmarish hellscape, a wounded drifter struggles to remember his true identity as he’s forced to play a sinister game of chance against three mysterious madmen fixated on telling him tales of the supernatural, the macabre and the downright unholy.
Why you should read: I’ve been a lurker on here for a while now, never a commenter. Just watching, reading, observing. I thought I’d take the plunge and see if our script is up to snuff. Both myself and my writing partner love dark horror that doesn’t pussyfoot around the idea of death in a cosmic sense and goes right for the throat. We wanted to come up with an anthology format where the wraparound story was just as compelling as the individual stories, not simply an excuse for getting from one tale to the next. I know anthologies are a hard sell (both literally and figuratively) unless a couple horror maestros are attached to it right off the bat, but we had a lot of fun writing it and I think you’ll enjoy reading it.

Title: Guise of the Devil
Genre: Horror /Thriller
Logline: The leader of a California commune investigating a rash of murders must deal with disturbing hallucinations, sinister conspiracies, and a mysterious woman visitor who may be connected to the occult, all while questioning his own grip on reality.
Why you should read: I believe with its layered plot and narrative twists, “Guise of the Devil” will be an intriguing, elevated thriller/horror film in the rein of films such as “Identity” and classic films such as “Angel Heart.”

Title: Emergency Exit
Genre: Science Fiction
Logline: A geeky astrophysicist, a Native American anthropologist and a Scottish geneticist dig up the past and find their future.
Why you should read: I imagine it’s unlikely that you’ve gotten a spec script from a former leader at DARPA – who was charged with spending $500M per year inventing the future? During my tenure at DARPA I created the 100 Year Star Ship Study and challenged Hollywood to shoulder the burden of inspiring new generations of geeks. In 2011 I had the privilege of speaking to a packed room at CAA on my DARPA view that “Life Imitates Art” and told them they had the responsibility to shepherd the future. It had an impact on at least one. This spring I was contacted by Julia Enescu (Production Asst. for Scwhentke) to chat at length with Jim Madigan and Alec Hammond – and in July had the opportunity to visit with Robert Schwentke to discuss the role of science fiction. So why read my submission? Science for science’s sake in science fiction doesn’t entertain (but you know that). But it does need to be accurate and believable. I think it can be and I mean to prove it.

One of the things I’ve always tried to convey to you guys is that screenwriting is NOT about writing. It’s about storytelling. This can be confusing and a little frustrating and has actually caused quite a few arguments in the past. Because I don’t want to go into some long explanation of the difference between the two, I’ll give you an example of each.

Example 1:
The placid grey sky beats down on Carly, a former social outcast turned flower child. She drags her last cigarette out of a dirty box stuck between the car seats and lights it with an immediacy that belies an obsession with her addiction.

Example 2:
Carly taps the wheel of her car nervously. She checks her side-view mirror. A cop is getting out of his car. She’s been pulled over. She takes a deep breath and sucks down a cigarette. She checks the passenger seat. A newspaper lies there. She slides it forward, revealing a GUN. She checks the side-view mirror again. The cop is coming towards her. She glances at the gun again, her mind racing. Another drag of the cigarette. With the cop only a second away, she GRABS THE GUN, and hides it under her shirt.

Do you notice the difference? In the first example, or the “writing” example, there’s nothing happening other than the writer talking about the character and the setting. In the second example, there’s an actual STORY. Someone’s in trouble. They have to make a choice. There’s an element of suspense. That is STORYTELLING.

The sooner the screenwriter understands the difference between these two things (I’ve found it takes most writers 3-5 scripts to get there), and adapts the storyteller method, the sooner they start writing good scripts.

Now this doesn’t mean you’ll never take a moment to describe a scene or introduce us to a key character. Of course you’ll need to do this. But the “writer” always makes his/her words the star, as opposed to looking for ways to create mystery or build suspense. And that’s where they get into trouble.

Despite this, I realize that storytelling cannot exist without writing. You cannot convey character actions and plot without putting words on the page. And so which words you choose and how you string those words together matters. What I’d like to do today is give you a road map for showcasing your writing in a way that supports your story.

I call this CINEMATIC WRITING. Cinematic writing is writing that makes your screenplay feel like a movie. The goal here is to eliminate the “novelistic” writing approach, where you’re basically just showing off, and make your words work for your script.

Cinematic Writing comes in three flavors.

1) Show don’t tell.
2) Visual cues.
3) Supplementation.

SHOW DON’T TELL
The first one should be obvious. Yet time and time again, I see writers fail to do it. But this is one of the easiest ways to make your writing cinematic – by conveying your story in actions as opposed to dialogue. And it really kicks ass when you do it well. There’s something about an action that hits the reader harder than a line. The trick to adopting this method is to simply ask, in every instance of your script where dialogue is spoken, “Can I convey this moment visually instead?” In the opening scene of “It Follows,” for example, we see a seemingly crazy girl running from something in the middle of her suburban neighborhood, despite the fact that nothing is there. It’s a purely visual scene that sets up an intriguing mystery. I’d much rather see that than have two people discussing the act. Now, of course, sometimes dialogue is necessary (and even preferable) when writing a scene, but if you want your script to contain that cinematic flourish that convinces the reader they’re reading a MOVIE, you need a lot of showing (and less telling!).

VISUAL CUEING
Let’s say you’re writing a scene that has a couple arguing in an apartment. How do you write that scene? Chances are, you’ll describe the apartment, the characters, and then go into basic back-and-forth dialogue between them. In other words, the most UN-CINEMATIC representation of the scene you could possibly write. When you visually cue, you look for visual ways to creatively explore the scene cinematically. For example, instead of the basic “two-character-talk” scenario, maybe the scene starts on a photograph taped to a refrigerator. It’s of our couple, at a baseball game, looking as happy as any couple you’ve ever seen. In the meantime, we hear (but do not see) an argument in the background. We slowly back away from the fridge, where we see more happy photos of the couple, and continue to hear the argument in the background. We move along the floor, where we see a scared dog staring up at his screaming owners, and finally end up on the couple, as they’re ending their argument. Do you see how much more cinematic this second option is? The trick to visually cueing is to imagine you’re the director. Find interesting places to put the camera. Take note that you don’t want to write camera directions into your script. But you want to think in terms of camera placement. By doing so, you open yourself up to way more visually creative scenes.

SUPPLEMENTATION
Fancy writing on its own is useless. As I pointed out in the opening example, who the hell cares how visually Carly smokes a cigarette? To avoid this, make your fancy writing a tool to supplement the action on the page. For example, if you write three paragraphs on how beautiful the mountain our main character is climbing is, we could give two shits. HOWEVER, if that same character is in danger? If he’s stuck on a mountain ledge and his next few moves will determine whether he lives or dies? Now you can start describing the mountain around him in detail and we’ll be riveted. Why? BECAUSE NOW THE DETAILS MATTER. They directly influence the fate of our hero. This is supplementation. It’s using expressive prose to supplement important story beats. I’m reminded of one my favorite scripts of the year, February, when a character is creeping through a room because she’s heard a noise. The writer covers every little sound and movement in extreme detail. But it works. Why? Because the character is in potential danger. We get the sense that something bad is nearby. Therefore, the details pull us in. Had the writer tried to describe the room in that kind of detail BEFORE our character was in danger? It would’ve been boring-sauce.

The main idea I want to convey here is that your writing should never be the star of your screenplay. Writing is a tool that should be used to support the storytelling. I’m yet to hear a producer say, “I hated that story but man, that script was really well-written. Let’s buy it.” It just doesn’t happen. By transitioning your novelistic writing approach to a cinematic one, you’re allowing your words to work for you as opposed to against you. So get in there and start writing movies as opposed to glorified writing exercises. I promise you a more positive response from readers. Good luck!

Genre: Drama/Satire/Comedy?
Premise: A washed up political strategist becomes the campaign manager for a soulless presidential candidate in Bolivia.
About: “Our Brand is Crisis” is Sandra Bullock’s attempt to add another Oscar to her mantel. The script is based on a documentary that chronicled a Bolivian election, although I don’t know how close to real life they’re playing it since our main character in the documentary as well as in this draft of the script, Bill Bodine, has been changed to a woman (now being played by Sandra Bullock). The project has some major firepower behind it. The producers of Argo. And Bullock’s bestie, George Clooney, is pitching in with his partner, Grant Heslov, to help produce. The script made the 2008 Black List with 22 mentions, somehow beating out Inglorious Basterds (I’d like to see the voting behind that political process). Writer Peter Straughan is highly regarded amongst actors. He got Clooney to star in The Men Who Stare at Goats, Michael Fassbender to star in Frank, Gary Oldman to star in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and now Bullock to star in this.
Writer: Peter Straughan
Details: 126 pages (this is the draft that made the Black List in 2008)

Despite a ton of strong buzz and making the Black List, I’ve avoided “Our Brand is Crisis” like Bolivian street meat. For those not aware, screenplays lose 60% of their entertainment value the second you write “Bolivia” into the margins.

The only redeeming factor here is that they somehow got Sandra Bullock to sacrifice her self-respect and commit to this role. I LOVE me some Sandra Bullock. She’s one of the only movie stars on the planet who embraces her flaws, which is the secret to her longevity.

But that actually makes me question this movie even more. If they had to change the sex of the main character so they could cast one of the most likable actresses on the planet, what does that say about their confidence in the material?

“Crisis” introduces us to Pedro Gallo, the president of Bolivia, as he prepares for his re-election. Despite being the incumbent, Gallo is a million points behind his opponent because he’s a ruthless dictator who has a few rough spots on his resume – such as the time he murdered a bunch of his people.

In comes Bill Bodine to save the day (this is Sandra Bullock’s character before the gender-change rewrite). Bodine was a once kind-of successful campaign manager until his nemesis, Pat Candy, destroyed him in a small-town Texas mayoral campaign. Since then he’s been drifting through life.

Why he’s even in Bolivia to run Gallo’s campaign, then, is one of the many mysteries of the script. He doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t appear to need the job. His team members are smarter and seem to care more about winning than him. Uh, why is this guy in our movie again?

Eventually, Bodine decides to give a shit about the campaign (nothing brings this on – he just feels like it one day), and is spurred on when he finds out that good old Pat Candy is advising Gallo’s opposition. Finally, a chance to defeat the man who ruined his life!

Bodine opines that the only time people vote bad leaders into office is when the country is going through a crisis. Since their client is a horrible person, all they need to do is find a crisis to put the country in, then everyone will vote Gallo president.

Sticking with the theme of bad storytelling and lack of clarity, it’s never made clear what the actual crisis they come up with is. But why explain a component so critical to the story that it’s in the title when you can instead drag us through one of the most rudimentary political campaigns in history? I’ll let you answer that.

Have you ever been on a date where you order coke and your date orders coffee? Where you order steak and your date orders salad? Where you wanna talk about music but your date wants to talk politics? Where every time you laugh, your date is stone-faced, and vice-versa? Where you and your date seem to be diametrically opposed to every single topic of conversation on the face of the planet?

That’s how I feel when I read Peter Straughan. I didn’t know Straughan had written this but had I, I never would’ve opened it. I just don’t see eye-to-eye with this man. The Men Who Stare at Goats is one of the worst scripts I’ve ever read. And “Frank” represents everything wrong with indie movies (all quirk and zero bite). Even Straughan’s best offering, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I found both boring and tedious.

So it should be no surprise that I absolutely despised this. And look, I’m well aware of the fact that when you’re not into something, you pick it apart. So you’ll have to take this review with a grain of salt. But, I mean, come on. The guy practically handed me the shaker.

Let’s start with Bill Bodine. We spend the first 25 pages watching this guy stare at walls and ceilings. Why? WE HAVE NO IDEA. Pages and pages go by where Bill refuses to come out of his hotel room. And there’s no indication as to what’s causing this. Not even a hint!

It’s not only boring, but FRUSTRATING! As a reader, when a character is acting in any sort of extreme manner, you’d like to have an idea of why. Or else the character becomes a big ball of confusion. Sure, there are times where you want to keep some information (the character’s backstory) from the reader. But we go 60 pages before we learn anything about why this dude is acting like such a putz. I was pulling my hair out.

And because of this, I grew to hate Bill Bodine. I mean, when have you ever liked a character who mopes around, feels sorry for himself, is inactive, and is pathetic? Nobody likes that person. Ever. So even when Bodine started acting like a normal person (70 pages into the script), I’d already formed my opinion. He hadn’t given me a single reason to root for him (it’s making more and more sense why they cast Sandra Bullock).

When we finally do learn what drove Bodine crazy (losing to his rival, Pat Candy, in a tiny mayoral election in Texas 15 years ago), we’re again stuck throwing our hands in the air. THIS IS HIS BIG SECRET??? He lost an election as a young campaign manager in a tiny Texas town forever ago???? I’m sorry but this makes the character even MORE pathetic.

Then there’s Pat Candy, Bodine’s “rival.” Candy is supposed to represent success, the “winner” who’s gone on to become everything Bill Bodine hasn’t. Well pardon me for asking, but if that’s the case, WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING SLUMMING IT UP AS A CAMPAIGN MANAGER IN BOLIVIA??? He obviously can’t be that successful. Which was just one of many WTF moments I had reading this.

As if that wasn’t perplexing enough, the election storyline devolves into the cliché, “Do we run a negative campaign or not” debate. I mean, the one unique thing you have going for you with this idea is that it’s set in a third-world nation. This gives you the opportunity to explore aspects of a campaign that you’d never be able to if this were set in America.

Instead, we get “Should we go negative with the ads?” which is a trope we’ve seen used in every single one of these movies ever. If you’re not going to exploit the most unique aspect of your premise, why not just move the election to America where the story will be more relatable and draw a bigger audience?

I mean you’re representing a man who has murdered his own people. This is supposed to be a comedy (I think). So why not have fun with that? Why not show them trying to spin that? Yet that’s another problem with this script. It kind of wants to be a comedy but it’s afraid to commit. And you can see this in the trailer. It wants to be taken seriously enough to be called a “satire.” But it still wants those goofy Sandra Bullock moments (or scenes where llamas blow up). It can’t make up its mind.

And I will tell you this right now. If a script is ever unsure of what it wants to be, it’s a dead script. Because, as the writer, you’ll be dancing around the entire screenplay, trying to walk that line, and it ALWAYS shows up in the finished product. The readers and the audience always pick up on it.

I’m going to turn to you guys now. Does this movie appeal to you at all? If so, why? What is it that I’m missing? Because all I see is…

a) Extremely boring subject matter (politics).
b) A film set in the most boring country I can think of.
c) A film unsure of its own tone.
d) A lack of a hook.
e) A script afraid to exploit its concept.

If this movie has a chance, it’s Sandra Bullock. That’s it. Her face and the trust her audience has in her that she won’t lead them down a rotten path. But I don’t think even she can save this. I wish I could latch onto something here to finish on a positive note but I’m struggling, guys. Maybe the documentary was good? Go check that out? But do me a favor and don’t tell me about it. I’d like this review to be the last time I ever hear about Our Brand is Crisis.

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

What I learned: I think it’s okay to keep the backstory for your SECONDARY CHARACTERS a secret for an extended period of time (Abraham from the great script, The Brigands of Rattleborge, comes to mind). But I don’t think you can do that with your main character. There are a few exceptions, of course. But, generally speaking, the audience wants to know their hero. The hero is the one taking them on this journey. So if they’re a bottomless pit of mystery boxes for 60 pages, the audience is going to get frustrated and turn on them. That’s what happened to me here with Bill Bodine. I wanted to know why the hell this guy was acting so bizarre, but it took Straughan forever to tell me. I lost interest in the meantime.