Genre: Horror
Premise: A childhood folktale comes to life when children of the neighborhood start to go missing after playing hide and seek.
About: Camrus Johnson is on the rise. He is best known as an actor who had small parts in Quiz Lady and Batwoman. He also created two animated shorts that debuted at Sundance and Tribeca. He’s from Georgia and this script of his finished with six votes on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Campus Johnson (based on the novel by Daka Hermon)
Details: 109 pages
Actor/Writer/Director Camrus Johnson
Horror may be the only genre where you have literally no idea if it’s going to work until opening weekend. But I do know this. The simpler the idea, the better the chance it’s got. The Exorcist – someone is possessed. It Follows – something follows you. A Quiet Place – monsters hunt by sound. M3GAN – there’s an evil AI doll. The Nun – there’s an evil nun.
Today’s concept falls right in line with that simplicity. Hide and Seek! It’s a game where every audience member already knows the rules. And it does feel like a game that could be reincarnated into something really scary.
We’re in Atlanta and 11-year-olds Justin (leader), Nia (brains), and Lyric (lone white kid) are a group of young detectives. They used to have a fourth member to their team, a kid named “Zee.” But Zee disappeared during a game of hide and seek a year ago.
However, they just found Zee yesterday so he’s back home. Unfortunately, nobody can get through to him. He speaks in tongues and riddles. So we don’t know where the guy was during that time.
When “adorkable” Quincy and his bully sister, Carla, show up, Carla starts trash-talking the detectives that they’re all wimps and afraid to play Hide and Seek, believing in the old myth that if you lose the game, you disappear. So she forces them all to play and that they do.
After the game is over and the kids go home, Quincy arrives at Justin’s house and says that his sister has disappeared. Justin rounds up the crew and, upon doing so, Quincy disappears as well. They all suspect this has something to do with the game so they begin their search for their friend and his sister. What they discover is that there’s another plane of existence called “Nowhere” where the rules of the living are no longer applicable.
In all of my days operating Scriptshadow, I’ve only ever stopped reading a script a handful of times. You can add this one to the list.
I don’t see any redeeming qualities in this screenplay that anybody can learn from.
I knew I was in trouble when one of the kids’ limbs disappeared and then his head turned into a cloud of purple smoke.
I’m big time struggling to understand how this made the Black List.
What do we have here that is in any way redeeming to Black List voters? This isn’t a marketable idea. It’s not a cool idea. It’s not a heady idea. It’s not a clever idea. It’s not written in a unique voice. The execution is okay but far from exceptional. Why would people vote for this?
This is basically the definition of a writer-for-hire script. Nobody takes a job like this cause they have a passion for telling the story. I’d probably take the money too. Well, maybe not. Depends on how much it was. But why is a blatant writer-for-hire script making the Black List? Isn’t this list supposed to be about self-expression? Creativity?
The thing is, I do believe that there is a market for a Hide and Seek horror film. It’s got to be done right but just that title with a spooky poster… it would for sure sell tickets. I don’t know what this is, though. If I’m being generous, it’s somewhere between Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and It. But it’s not nearly as good as either of those films.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I’m going to remind writers of the importance of expectation in a script, specifically when you market your script as something MORE SERIOUS THAN IT IS. So if you make me think I’m going to read the next HEAT, but instead I get John Wick, I’m going to be upset. If you make me think I’m going to read the next John Wick, but instead I get The Lost City, I’m going to be upset. If you tell me I’m going to get The Lost City and instead I get Spy Kids, I’m going to be upset. Always be 100% clear about what kind of movie your script is to the reader. Cause if they have something in their head that isn’t what they end up getting, they’re almost always going to be disappointed.
Can it be possible?
Is the Hunger Games sequel actually good?
The film made 44 million on its opening weekend, which was considered a proper fail. But it made 28 million on its second weekend, only a 35% drop. For comparison’s sake, another sequel, John Wick 4, dropped 60%. Even Guardians of the Galaxy 3 dropped 47%.
This would seem to indicate that Songbirds and Snakes is getting great word of mouth. But I have a theory here. And it’s a two-pronged theory. I’ll let you guys decide if I’m descending more into the conspiracy zone.
Part 1 is that Taylor Swift has a cameo in the film as an extra. With the Swiftie Army in full assemblage, I’m betting that a bunch of girls came to this film to grab a glimpse, a tiny visual nugget, of the famous singer.
Part 2 – and the bigger reason – is that I think everyone’s sick of Disney. I’ll get into this more in a second. But anything that doesn’t look like Disney right now, people are interested in. They don’t want superheroes. They don’t want space men. They don’t want live mermaids. They want something that feels new.
It’s Hollywood’s biggest blind spot. They milk the cow long after it stops making milk. They can’t help themselves. To be fair, Lionsgate, the studio behind Songbirds and Snakes, would probably do the same. They just don’t have any of those fancy properties. So they’re forced to make stuff that’s different. And, although it took a while to finally start digging into that Disney pie, apparently Thanksgiving was the breaking point for America. They’re finally telling you they want something new with their hard-earned money.
Speaking of Hollywood they’re, once again, using their tricky box office reporting practices to sell a not-so-accurate picture of Napoleon’s debut. Everyone’s touting this 32.5 million dollar opening weekend for the film, a significant box office upgrade over its primary Oscar competition, Killers of the Flower Moon, which only made 22 million its opening weekend. Until you realize they’re using the 5-day holiday take rather than the 3-day take. Napoleon only made 20 million dollars for the 3-day, less than Killers did.
I suppose you want the biggest numbers possible behind your opening weekend but everyone knows that these movies aren’t built to be giant blockbusters. Anything adult-skewing is lucky to hit 30 million on opening weekend. 20+ million is still quite good. Oppenheimer skewed everything but it was an outlier. It probably made 15 million alone that first weekend on dads being forced to take their wives and daughters to Barbie. An atomic bomb was the perfect escape route, lest they be permanently ported into Barbie’s perpetually pink universe.
I tried to get my family to come see the movie with me on Friday but there wasn’t a taker in the bunch. It was an indictment on what streaming has done to the movie-going public. The general consensus seemed to be, “Why go through all that when we can just watch something here on one of our eight streaming services?”
To be fair, it’s a hard point to argue against. Jaqouin Phoenix is one of the five weirdest people on the planet, a total wild card. Who’s to say we aren’t stumbling into another Beau is Afraid as opposed to another Joker?
Maybe the biggest surprise of the weekend is Disney’s Wish. Disney should own any holiday weekend it debuts a movie in. Especially going up against adult fare. Yet Wish found itself the stray coin, far removed from the fountain it was hurled towards—a toss so errant that the U.S. Treasury resolved to expunge its existence from the annals of the mint.
A lot of people are saying that Wish is the culmination of the 2016-2022 Disney era strategy of prioritizing social change over stories that people actually want to see. From Turning Red to Strange World to The Little Mermaid. I think the answer’s a lot simpler: NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE F*&% THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT.
I actually liked the trailer. The villain is hateable. The lead is likable. The music sounded great. The secondary characters were funny. But it just goes to show that if you don’t get your concept right, nothing else matters. You’re building a house on a foundation of sandpaper.
Either way, Disney’s been playing with fire lately and they’ve turned their head long enough to miss the fact that the fire is now a raging inferno. Marvel is in trouble. Star Wars is in trouble. Pixar is in trouble. Disney Animation is in trouble. Disney animation-to-live-action is in trouble.
I remember writing an article six years ago about how every one of these divisions was churning out record-breaking hits. For each one of them to now be as abysmal as they are is kind of shocking. There are a lot of areas you can blame here but, whatever the reason is, they need to figure it out fast. Cause even Disney can’t keep losing 200+ million dollars a movie.
They don’t even have a strategy to get out of this. Their next Star Wars movie is being directed by the director of the least watched Marvel show Disney has ever made and starring the most average character Star Wars has ever created – Rey. And Marvel is expecting to make an Avengers film in 2025? They haven’t even filled in the empty slots that the last Avengers left. The whole reason that the Avengers worked was because it was carefully built up to over 8 years. Maybe they can squeeze Deadpool in there. He’s the only superhero that has a chance of making that interesting.
But they’re in trouble, man.
To finish off on a positive note, I keep running into people who tell me All The Light We Cannot See – the Netflix adaptation of the super bestselling novel – is awesome. They don’t even say, “It’s pretty good.” Or “It’s good.” They literally say “It’s amazing.” Or, “It’s one of the best shows I’ve seen this year.” I have been ignoring all these recommendations because it’s unheard of that I’ll like something that gets in the 20s for an RT score (All The Light has a 28% currently). But I can’t ignore this anymore. I have to watch this show.
Are you guys going to watch it with me?
I need some backup.
Feel free to opine on this weekend’s box office. And remember that Thursday we have a Logline Showdown. So make sure you enter!
Come one, come all. You can get 4 pages of notes on your feature or pilot script for just $199!
I’m only giving out 5 of these, people. Maybe one or two extra. It depends on how into the holiday spirit I am. You do not need to have a finished script yet. You just have to pay before the end of the weekend. You can take as much time as you want to get me your script.
If interested, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with subject line: BLACK FRIDAY
Also, I wanted to remind you that this month’s Logline Showdown is NEXT WEEK. So I need your entries in by Thursday night!
What: November Logline Showdown
Send me: the logline for any script you have (features will take precedence over pilots but if you’ve got the best tv show idea ever, send it in)
I need: The title, genre, and logline
Also: Your script must be written because I’ll be reviewing the winning entry the following week
When: Deadline is Thursday, November 30th, 10:00pm Pacific Time
Send entries to: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Remember that the comments section is a great place to battle-test your logline. So feel free to spend the weekend trying out loglines and getting feedback. You’ve got almost an entire week so do everything you can to get those loglines in tip-top shape!
Finally, I’m making a really fun announcement in this month’s newsletter so if you’re not signed up, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with subject line: NEWSLETTER. What’s the announcement? Let’s just say I’m taking over your entire 2024 and turning you into a repped and working screenwriter. :)
Genre: Crime/True Story
Premise: Based on a true story, a young Los Angeles Sheriff’s dream job sours when he realizes that the department he serves in is mired in corruption and a systemic culture of moral depravity. Based on a true story.
About: Today’s script comes from a Scriptshadow veteran, Kevin Sheridan. I’ve done some consultations with Kevin in the past when he was just a young eager screenwriter, so it’s great to see his career continue to progress. The script finished with 14 votes on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Kevin Sheridan
Details: 123 pages
Gordon-Levitt for Sexton?
I think I need to hire FanofYou, the commenter who turned me onto yesterday’s awesome screenplay, Himbo, and now this script, Colors of Authority. This would make my job so much easier because I’d always get to read good scripts! The man (or woman) seems to know what makes for a sharp screenplay.
Better yet, let’s take a look at the process that led to these two discoveries, as it’s a great lesson to screenwriters everywhere. The way that FanofYou found these screenplays was (and FanofYou can correct me if I’m wrong here) to read the first page of every screenplay that made the Black List to learn what the writing bar was for a Black List script.
Himbo and Colors of Authority were the only scripts that, after reading the first page, he felt compelled to keep reading. And then keep reading. And then keep reading. All the way to the end.
This is what I’ve always preached on the site. People have ZERO ATTENTION SPAN. So you have to write a great first page to pull them in, and then a great second page, and a third, and a fourth. You have to make it impossible to stop reading. Let me say that again. The strategy of writing a screenplay should be:
I have to make it impossible for the reader to stop reading.
But the strategy I see most screenwriters employ is:
I’m going to tell a story and I expect the reader to care.
In other words, they think they have leeway to start slow or casually set up a bunch of characters or throw in the occasional average scene. No. No no no no no. The reader owes you nothing. Actually, it’s worse than that. The reader reads so much bad stuff that they actively don’t trust you. They think you’re bad before they’ve even opened your script. You need to prove them wrong. And that’s why you need to start on page one.
So what does page one look like here? It uses a nifty little trick that gets you to page two.
We, of course, could’ve started inside the car. But how interesting would that have been? Jumping from this random shot of the animals (which is actually a set up for a later moment) into the car is a creative choice that says: “I’m not going to write your typical boring obvious script. I’m actually thinking about how to entertain you.”
Deputy James Sexton is part of a Los Angeles special unit called OSJ, which stands for Operation Safe Jails. The LAPD realized that all the information they need about gangs and criminals is right there in their jails and prisons. So James and his team interrogate and observe prisoners, getting any little bit of info they can so they can make these colossal busts.
But one day, while James and his partner, Tony, are watching a video feed of a prisoner-of-interest, they see him discreetly pass a manila envelope to one of the guards. James and Tony decide to follow the guard, who drives to a remote neighborhood where he meets up with three LA cops, and makes a drug exchange with an Aryan gang.
James and Tony are gobsmacked. They now have to make a crucial decision. Do they write up a report on these men? Cause if they do, and things go sideways, they’ll be seen as snitches. James believes it’s the right thing to do so he writes up the report for their superior, Lt. Gutterson (described as a man “with the gravitas of a four-ton boulder.”)
Big problem. Gutterson doesn’t call back, doesn’t write back, doesn’t e-mail, doesn’t text. He ghosts them. That’s when James realizes… they’re f*&%d. James and Tony are blasted all over an internal company memo, which means every cop now knows they snitched on fellow cops. Nobody seems to be seeing this the right way. Which is that cops are in cahoots with the Aryan Brotherhood.
James’s wife gets felt up on a traffic stop. Tony’s mother’s home gets targeted. And it’s clear that’s only the beginning. The goal here will be to snuff these two out. The LAPD just has to find the right time to do it. As if all of that isn’t bad enough, James’s father, a famous Sheriff from the South, joins the very team James is trying to take down. James realizes that his only way of getting out of this is with the help of the FBI. The problem is, the FBI wants something in return. They want James to take down his entire division.
The reason it took me so long to read this script is that when you see loglines for scripts like this, you know it’s going to be WORK. You see intense concentration, keeping notes for long character lists, intricate plot beats that could blow right by you unless you catch every little nuance in the screenplay.
When you’re reading a script like that and it’s bad? It’s one of the worst experiences you can have. Cause not only do these scripts take three times as long to read. But none of that extra work is rewarded. So if you’re going to write one of these, it HAS to be good. Luckily, Kevin’s script is.
That moment where James and Tony see the cops making the deal with the skinheads, that’s what hooked me. I love it when writers put their characters in situations that don’t have a right choice. Both options are bad. If James writes up the officers, he risks being outed, and in the process his career (maybe even his life) destroyed. But if he doesn’t write them up and someone else takes the unit down, he’ll go down with them. So he can’t stay silent either.
Most writers write these false “don’t have a choice” scenarios. This is how it looks when it’s done right. We feel that if this were real life, that the protagonist truly wouldn’t have a good choice.
I also love stand-out bad guys. Gutterson was perfect. He not only ignores James’ write-up on the matter, he tries to take James down for it! Is there anyone more hatable than someone who represents good who’s secretly bad and will take out all good people who threaten him?
The script was well on its way to an “impressive” rating through the first half and while it’s still a good script, the second half wasn’t as strong. There’s an intense subplot involving James’ Sheriff father, who’s good friends with the top brass at the LAPD. This provided a safety net that told me James was always going to be okay. None of these dudes are going to kill James if his dad asks them not to. I know Kevin was trying to create this intense plot between father and son. But I’m not convinced it was worth it for that reason.
Also, James becomes less active as the script goes on. As soon as the FBI grabs him, James is basically waiting for them to tell him how high to jump. He has little moments of activity, of breaking out. But in the first half of the script, he was making all of these strong active choices. He felt more like a hero. For the second half, his character basically resorted to worrying a lot.
But that can be fixed. The script still works. I would be shocked if this didn’t become a movie with a big director and some heavy-hitting actors. It’s got that “Departed” aroma wafting off of it. And Kevin is really good at placing his hero in these impossible-to-navigate situations. It’s so fun to watch the main character in a burning building and every exit is blocked. What do you do?
What. Do. You. Do?
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You must use names that have RECALL in a script like this. Intricately plotted scripts with lots of characters work great on screen because faces are easy to remember, especially since movies are cast to make each character look distinctive. But you don’t have that advantage on the page. So pick names with RECALL, names that contain visual personality. Gutterson and Baca over Smith and Davis. I know the irony here is that these are all real people. So Kevin lucked out a little bit. But if you want to make sure your reader can keep up with what’s going on, RECALL NAMES should be a huge part of your naming strategy.
It may have taken an entire calendar year, but we may have just found the best script on the 2022 Black List.
Genre: Thriller/Dark Comedy
Premise: A male stripper in Arizona who’s sleeping with his boss’s wife is propositioned by her to kill her hubby and run away together but things get complicated when they learn about the boss’s improbable money-making venture.
About: Jason Hellerman is an example of why it’s hard out there for screenwriters. He wrote a movie, Shovel Buddies, in 2015, but has struggled to find work since. At this point, he doesn’t even have an agent or manager. But he was still able to get this script onto last year’s Black List.
Writer: Jason Hellerman
Details: 90 pages
Jacob Elordi for Kevin Kreamer?
I forgot which commenter recommended this to me.
But THANK YOU!
Wow, this gem was hidden beneath all these vanilla obvious straightforward Black List screenplays and we didn’t know it! But if we were smart, we could’ve figured it out. Himbo was the only script on the Black List that didn’t have an agent, manager, or producer.
For those who don’t know, agents and managers pump their clients’ scripts into as many hands as possible in the hopes that when voting time comes, the sheer number of people who read it will result in enough votes to make the Black List.
But if you didn’t have someone pimping your script and you STILL got enough votes to make the list??? That’s nearly impossible to do and a sign that you have a REALLY good script. Cause it’s the rare instance of your script getting passed around organically. Which is actually how the original Black List was conceived, before people learned to manipulate it.
This one’s so wild, I’m going to need you to put on your hazmat suits.
We’re in some mid-sized town in Arizona and 20-something dimwitted Kevin Kreamer (stage name) is a male stripper working at Hot Dawgs Strip Club. Hot Dawgs is owned by 50-something Argento Papadakis, who’s one of the few people around town who actually has real money.
One night after Kevin performs, he asks Argento for a ride home, but first Argento has to help his wife, former stripper Lisa, who got a flat tire on the highway. As Kevin helps change the flat, Lisa stares at him like a dog in heat. It’s clear that Argento and Lisa’s marriage is not going well.
Later, when Kevin gets home, none other than Lisa is waiting for him. We learn that the flat tire was a setup so that they could both throw Argento in front of a passing semi and get away with murder. That’s right. Kevin and Lisa are banging. And as soon as they kill Argento, they can run off together with his money and live happily ever after. But Kevin chickened out during the plan. So now they’ll have to do it some other way.
A couple of nights later, after work, Argento and Kevin get wasted, and Argento shows him his big secret. You see, Argento was actually dead broke. Until he stumbled upon a small hidden cave in the Arizona desert. And in that cave? Gold shavings everywhere. You set up a dozen sieves in key places where the water weaves through the cracks, bringing unlimited gold shavings with it, and those sieves are full of gold every time you came back. Argento, who’s been secretly in love with Kevin, offers him all of this if they can be together. And Kevin says yes.
Kevin then heads home to Lisa and tells her it’s over. He doesn’t want to kill Argento anymore. Lisa is furious and starts yelling at him. What neither of them know, however, is that Argento’s been dying to get out of this marriage and only needed proof of Lisa cheating to meet the prenup’s standard of her getting zero in the divorce. So he hired a PI to catch her in the act.
He finally confronts her. But he had no idea Lisa was cheating on him with Kevin. Devastated, he goes home, butthurt, and he tells his PI, “You want to make some real money? Kill them both.” The PI (a crazed woman named Melanie) doesn’t blink. She’s in. Until she overhears something about this cave of gold. Now she, and Lisa, and Kevin, all want what they believe they deserve – a literal money-making cave. Will they get it? Or will they all perish in their greedy pursuit?
This is a small thing but as soon as I saw that this story was set in a small Arizona town, I had a good feeling. Let me explain. When I pick up a script, it is almost always set in New York, Los Angeles, Texas, Paris, London, sometimes Chicago — all the big obvious places.
My belief is that most screenwriters are on cruise-control without realizing it. They’re not trying to be cliche. But they go with the first thing that pops into their head – whether that be a character, a scene, a location. So they’re setting their stories in these locations without even realizing it.
You have to understand that, as a reader, we’re always wanting to be taken to some place new. Cause the new places have things that we haven’t experienced before. For a writer to set their story in Arizona tells me that they’re not like every other writer. So, immediately, I felt good about this script. It turned out, my instincts were right.
The descriptions here were a cut above the average script. Like when we first get inside Kevin’s tiny house, here’s the first description line:
“A front door that has a view of the backdoor.”
Simple. Clever. Descriptive. I rarely see that combo.
This was followed by several fun exchanges. Such as this one…
KEVIN: My mom said money makes you more of who you really are on the inside.
ARGENTO: That’s how I know you’re poor.
And then you had these characters. Every one had something that differentiated them from the characters that I usually come across. Here’s the introduction of Melanie, the PI who Argento hires…
You also have a writer who understands shorthand. He understands that a script needs to move. So, at a certain point, Argento decides he wants to catch his wife in the act of cheating. Now, normally, when you’re writing a plot line such as this, your mind thinks linearly. You think, “Okay, Argento has to hire a PI. He doesn’t know any PIs. So he has to go to some office, interview the guy, tell him what he wants, and then the guy accepts the job and we’re off to the races.”
But that’s boring and logical and there’s too much boring setup involved. So, instead, we show Argento at a diner, ready to meet the PI, and this woman sits down across from him and she’s like, “Okay, let’s rock.” He has no idea who she is. He’d sent a message to an old PI friend he knew from before to come help him out. But it turns out that guy is dead and his daughter, this woman, has taken over the company. As soon as he realizes that, we’re off to the races.
This is what I mean by “shorthand.” Instead of taking time out of your script to do logical boring stuff (go find a PI and tell the PI your whole reason for being there) so that you can get to the fun stuff, you come up with a way to fast-forward through that. He always knows this girl’s family. Her dad worked for him. A thousand times more interesting and we move quicker into the PI plot.
And then, the dialogue was just so good here throughout – a cut above 99% of the dialogue I read. Even some of the dialogue hawks who snipe down any dialogue I post here are going to have to admit this dialogue is better than all the other scripts on the Black List.
Finally, the script has this “lived in” quality. What I mean by that is, the writer has lived with this script for so long that he’s added a million little things so that it all feels connected. It doesn’t feel like one of those scripts where the writer was figuring it out as he went along.
For example, there’s this whole running gag with dumb Kevin trying to keep up with Lisa, who’s really smart. So his bible is Google. He loves googling and learning things. And he’s always telling these things to Lisa and it pisses her off. She always tells him to stop with the Google. Late in the script, when she’s trying to make this grand point, she brings up the infamous story of the guy who sold Victoria’s Secret for 500 grand only to then “put a gun in his mouth after he sold out because he couldn’t deal with missing a chance at a fortune that lasts past this life.”
While she’s been telling the story, Kevin has been pecking at his phone, clearly googling the story, and he turns to her and replies. “It says he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.” And she’s, of course, livid.
That’s a very lived-in response. You don’t figure that moment out the first time through the script. You’re still feeling everything out. That’s the kind of thing where you’re going back through the screenplay numerous times, have read through the same sequence over and over, and then it finally hits you – hey, this is a good place to use that running google joke.
Outside of getting a little sloppy at the end, this was a really good script. It’s definitely going to finish in the top 5 of my 2022 Black List re-ranking. If you can find it (and someone may have it in the comments section) definitely read it!
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The power of the “WTF” script element. I already liked this script. But the second this random gold cave entered the equation, I loved it. I have never encountered something like that in a script like this before. Getting a WTF moment into your script that feels believable yet not too random is incredibly challenging. But when you nail it, like Himbo does, it takes your script up to a whole new level.
