Today’s pilot comes from one of the most successful spec writers of the decade and stars the biggest TV action star in the universe!

Genre: TV Pilot Thriller/Drama
Premise: When the president of the United States and his immediate chain of command are killed in a terrorist attack, the Secretary of State, a man ill-suited for the job, is thrust into the position.
About: David Guggenheim burst onto the scene when his spec, Safe House, went nuclear, garnering the rare “fast track” green light from the studio and nabbing Denzel Washington in the process. The success of the sale as well as the film allowed Guggenheim to follow up with several high-profile spec sales, and I’m sure untold lucrative writing assignments. Guggenheim has turned his focus to TV now, and Designated Survivor was probably the highest profile sale of the season, opening up a huge bidding war, no doubt helped by the addition of Keifer Sutherland in the lead role
Writer: David Guggenheim
Details: 69 pages (undated – no title page so I’m not sure what draft this is)

I swore it would never happen again. I was so disappointed with the straight-down-the-middle product that the Big 4 networks were churning out that I refused to ever read a Big 4 pilot again. Allow me to paddle down the stream of a Netflix adventure. Allow me to Hulu-hoop my way through a Hulu original. But one more of these cringe-worthy by-the-book eye-closers on a Big 4? I’d rather wrap my face inside of a Brisket Burrito (inside Twitter joke).

So let me tell you why I lifted my moratorium on these shows today. One, because I’m too tired to read a feature. Two, this is a very feature-like premise. Three, it’s written by one of the most successful spec writers of the last five years. And four, because it sparked a major bidding war. Now does any of this mean the pilot will actually be good? Probably not. But we can hope!

Man, can Tim Kirkman catch a break? The 41 year-old Secretary of State is seen by just about everyone as a governmental liability. His main issue? He isn’t strong enough. When the going gets tough, the tough may get going, but Tim Kirkman gets going in the other direction.

So it isn’t much of a surprise when the President of the United States calls him in and asks him to demote himself to a Canadian Advisory position. Kirkman tells the prez he needs a night to think about it (translation: I’ll do what you ask but pretend to think about it overnight to save face). And that’s when shit go cray-cray.

While giving a speech, someone blows the president and several other high-ranking government officers up, leaving guess-who as the successor to the presidential throne? None other than the guy who just got fired earlier in the day.

Kirkman is sworn in and, with the country on a high state of alert, immediately faces a whirlwind of problems. Is this just the first of many attacks? What’s coming next? What do they do? All eyes are on Kirkman, and not a single person in the White House believes in him.

Shit gets real when an oil tanker heading into an East Coast port won’t respond to a ‘stand down’ order. The tanker is just 60 seconds away from being capable of blowing up an entire East Coast City if, indeed, it’s being operated by terrorists. Everyone turns to Kirkman. Can they blow it up? Give the word. Their missiles are waiting. At the last second, the tanker stops, apologizing for a radio malfunction. Whoa, Kirkman thinks. A couple more seconds and he would’ve killed 250 innocent people. This job is hard!

Next up is the most important presidential speech in the history of the country. Kirkman must work hand in hand with a young speech writer to convince not just the United States that he’s capable of leading them, but every single man and woman working underneath him here at the White House. Will he succeed? We’ll have to see.

Straight up truth? This was good. A lot better than I thought it would be. And was it straight-down-the-middle Big 4 generic TV? Kind of. But what Guggenheim brings from his feature spec roots is an ability to MOVE THE STORY FORWARD QUICKLY. This pilot had a ton of urgency, preventing even the tiniest slivers of boredom to creep in.

You can usually spot a good writer by what they do after the setup. Because the setup of these shows/movies is always easy. Who’s going to screw up the president of the United States getting killed? Or our next-in-line being ushered by the Secret Service to get sworn in at the White House? Those scenes write themselves.

But once Kirkman becomes the president, what now? And Guggenheim immediately moves into a problem – the oil tanker. Our protagonist is immediately being tested.

And once that problem is solved, a new one arrives. Iran takes advantage of the U.S.’s distraction to secure the Strait of Hormuz, effectively choking off our access to oil. Kirkman now has to figure that problem out as well.

And while these scenes seem obvious in retrospect, most writers don’t know to write them. They’d rather deal with the mundane directionless details of “What happens when a new person becomes president?” You have an entire series to explore that. Right now, you need to place your protagonist in DRAMATIC SITUATIONS that test him. You’re going to find urgency in these moments and you’re going to find drama. I’d much rather watch that than a scene where Kirkman meets with his staff and discusses the do’s and don’ts of being a president.

Another smart move was not telling us who killed the president. There’s a tendency from TV writers to cram all the plot into the pilot. But remember, you have to give us reasons to come back. And you do that through big unanswered questions. The fact that who killed the president is going to be an ongoing mystery is a reason for me to come back. Otherwise, I’ve just a TV sized feature.

One of the more amusing discoveries from the script was when Kirkman was sitting with his wife, at a low point, thinking he couldn’t do this, and his wife takes him by the hand and says, “Do you remember STORY ABOUT HIS EARLY DAYS OF POLITICS?” As in, literally, that’s what’s written. And I just found it funny that even the top screenwriters don’t always know what to write and will put up a placeholder to figure it out later.

It’s a small thing but I know a lot of writers will refuse to keep writing until they figure out that problem. And what happens is, because they can’t figure it out, they’re not writing anything. One day of not writing turns into two. Two into four. Four into a week. A week into a month. Sometimes it’s best to leave a problem alone for now and keep writing so you’re getting pages down. Often what will happen is the solution to your problem will come while you’re exploring some other part of the story.

Look, is Designated Survivor going to be able to do what House of Cards did? Probably not. I don’t see Kirkman and his wife having a three-way with their security detail. But it’s a nice West Wing slash 24 hybrid that should satiate the wind-down-from-work crowd. I’ll probably check out the pilot this fall.

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

What I learned: When in doubt, present your hero with a problem. The more elaborate the problem, the higher the stakes the problem, the better. I loved the oil tanker scene here. I loved the Iran scene here. And all Guggenheim did was present our protagonist with a problem. When you think about it, this is the lifeblood of television. You place problems in front of your protagonist. If you can make those problems unique, if you can make them DIFFICULT, chances are you’re going to keep the audience entertained.

Genre: True Story/Comedy
Premise: Facing financial ruin, auteur filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is forced to direct the adaptation of Mario Puzo’s pulp novel, The Godfather.
About: Andrew Farotte is another fresh-faced writer no one knew about until he landed on the low end of last year’s Black List with this script. He’d done a few shorts, a tiny TV series, but this is first big breakthrough moment.
Writer: Andrew Farotte
Details: 107 pages (undated)

Personally, I’m not a fan of these “making of movies” scripts. My issue with them is that the writer is piggy-backing on top of something so gigantic, so successful, that all they have to do is stand around and let the story tell itself. They don’t have to display any skills of their own, which feels like a cheat.

Plus, let’s face it, these “making of movies” scripts are getting out of control. We’ve seen it with Star Wars. We’ve seen it with Jaws. I could’ve sworn one was written about Apocalypse Now. We’re teetering on the next biopic-era craze here.

But a script about the making of The Godfather has an ace up its sleeve. Robert Evans. Talk about a personality. He’s like the male version of Carrie Fischer. I figured, if there was any “making of” script that had a shot at entertaining me, it would be one with this guy. And so away I read…

It’s 1970 and director Francis Ford Coppola, as many of you know, was in the midst of his experimental hippy-ish studio project, Zoetrope (whose members included, among others, George Lucas). The idea was to move away from the corrupt profits-obsessed studio system and have a place where everyone just, like, shared, man.

Well sharing didn’t turn into caring as everyone in Zoetrope did a lot more taking than giving. As a result, Zoetrope was in some financial dire straits, which brings us to Paramount’s upcoming adaptation of the popular novel, The Godfather. Legendary weirdo/studio-head Robert Evans was ready to turn this into a hit, but nobody wanted to direct it for him. Reluctantly, then, he called up Coppola.

The funny thing? Coppola didn’t want to do it either! In one of the many surprising tidbits you learn from this script, The Godfather novel was considered trashy smut. Which is exactly why Coppola didn’t want anything to do with it. But with Lucas chirping in his ear about Zoetrope bills needing to be paid, Coppola finally relented.

Once committed, that’s when the real fun began, starting with who they were going to cast as the star, Michael Corleone. Evans was set on pretty boy, Ryan O’Neal. But Coppola wanted an unknown, a little mumbling troll of an actor named Al Pacino. This war would be fought viciously throughout pre-production.

In addition to worrying about Pacino, the local New York Italian League, fresh off being smeared in the media, was set on erasing Italian stereotypes, and when they found out about the mafia-sensationalizing Godfather, stopping the production became their number 1 priority. If Coppola and Evans even thought about filming in New York, they would feel the full wrath of the Italian community. It was ironic, to say the least, since this league also happened to be a front for a major Italian crime syndicate.

And who could forget Brando? Needing that big splashy name to sell tickets, Coppola went after Brando hard, who’d only recently started his descent into madness. At the time, Brando was set on giving the land back to its rightful owners, the Native Americans, and had scheduled regular Native American ritualistic dances at his Hollywood Hills home, which he procured by promising said Native Americans SAG cards (of which he had no sway to actually deliver).

After getting the mob off their back by promising them roles in the film, the final battle was whether Pacino or O’Neal would win the role. It would be a race that went down to the wire, and one that would end up affecting the history of film forevermore.

So what’s the first thing I noticed about “Francis & The Godfather?” The TIGHT SPACING feature on Final Draft!!! Guys, you think we can’t tell that the bottom of the letters and the top of the letters on the next line aren’t touching??? We know you want your page count to be low, but this attempted gimmick never gets past savvy readers and actually infuriates them.

Moving on from there, I have to admit that this is the best “making of movie” script I’ve read so far. Part of that is due to me not knowing much about the production. So when I read fellow Black Lister, Chewie, there wasn’t a single Star Wars production fact I hadn’t heard before. Here, I was learning something new on every page.

But it wasn’t just that. When you write these scripts, it’s important that you’re not just transcribing, but rather ELEVATING the material. And Farrote elevates. I’ll give you an example. This easily could’ve been a straight-forward facts-driven “making-of” project. But Farotte appears to bypass some of the hard facts in favor of humor, which gives the story a point-of-view, which makes it feel like more than a wikipedia entry.

The Italian League subplot was the perfect embodiment of this. That these guys were fuming about being portrayed as gangsters when they were, in fact, gangsters.

On top of that, there’s a nice theme woven into the story about art versus commerce. We tend to look back at the 70s as this “golden era” where people made movies without money in mind. But going off of this script, the argument was just as intense back then as it is now. I loved Mario Puzo’s (the author of the book) monologue that he’d tried to stay true to himself for his first three books and barely made 15 thousand dollars. Then he sold out, wrote The Godfather, and became rich. And his takeaway? So the fuck what.

If there’s a weak link in the script, it’s probably Francis himself. This is the risk you run when you have so many big characters in your story and your main character has to play the straight man. How do they not get swept away in the tornado of personalities? Especially since Francis didn’t want to make the movie in the first place.

I always have an issue with that – protagonists who don’t want to achieve their goal. Because then you can say, “Well if he fails, he gets exactly what he wants.” And if that’s the case, why would we care if he successfully directs the film?

But I realized through reading this that there’s an addendum to that rule: NEED. Francis may not have wanted to make the movie, but he NEEDED to make the movie because his business, with all his friends’ livelihoods, was at stake. My only issue is that they didn’t make this need powerful enough. If we would’ve felt Zoetrope’s potential collapse as inevitable without the success of The Godfather, we may have been more invested in Francis’s journey.

This was a really amusing screenplay nonetheless and of all the “making of movies” projects out there, this is the one I’d pay for in the theater. Definitely worth checking out.

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

What I learned: So just this week, I was giving notes on a script where there was an ensemble of characters, two of whom (both major), I kept mixing up. Didn’t matter if I was on page 20 or 80. Every time we’d cut back to them, I had to go back to my notes to remember who was who. And I wondered, “Why am I having such a hard time differentiating these two??” And I realized that both characters spoke EXACTLY THE SAME. There weren’t any differences in their cadence, speech patterns, vocabulary, demeanor. While it’s not a necessity, if we can identify a character through their dialogue alone, it’s a huge advantage. It doesn’t just make it easier to read, it makes the script better. I noticed here with Robert Evans, that he always spoke in the third person: “Robert doesn’t like that.” It was such a simple thing, and yet I could instantly identify him solely through his dialogue. Look for ways to differentiate your own characters through dialogue alone.

I just sent the newsletter out seconds ago. It’s got the Max Landis “Deeper” review, which is a VERY interesting review if I do say so myself. If you didn’t get the newsletter, check your SPAM and PROMOTIONS folders. If you still didn’t get it, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com and let me know. If you’re not on the newsletter mailing list and want to be, also e-mail me at that address with the subject line: NEWSLETTER. Enjoy everybody!

Congrats to yesterday’s “worth the read” amateur script. Lawrence e-mailed me to let me know he’s slogging through a particularly rough time in his life and this review helped him remember what he was doing this for. Let’s give more writers that moment. Bring your best stuff, guys. And if you’re new to Amateur Offerings and want a shot at getting your script reviewed, e-mail carsonreeves3@gmail.com with your title, genre, logline, and why you think your script deserves a shot. Don’t forget to include a PDF of your script. Now on to today. Read as much as you can from each script and cast your vote in the comments section (leave a comment with your pick). Let’s find an IMPRESSIVE! :)

Title: Vampire United
Genre: Comedy Horror Action.
Logline: A shamed ex-soccer pro must rise up against the new owner of his local team when he discovers he’s an Eastern European vampire bent on destroying the beautiful game.
Why You Should Read: I’m an English screenwriter living in Berlin aspiring to have a career in LA and would love to have my script reviewed to know if the script is ready to present to the industry, or not. I’m aware the story and its execution have to be amazing and I’m submitting the script in the hope I get notes to help reach that goal. The script is in the vein of Shaun Of The Dead, and The World’s End but with the heart of The Full Monty and Billy Elliot. I spent months in Whitby researching/writing the script. And for that I deserve good things to happen! Whitby is a small seaside town in North Yorkshire where Bram Stoker wrote and set much of Dracula. A goal I have is to make the association between Whitby and Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel more known. Why? Because despite there being 300 + movies, TV series, etc. made from the novel none have ever mentioned the location of Whitby, which I find incredible. Whitby is the place where Dracula landed in the UK from Transylvania on the Russian Schooner ship the Demeter to curse the nation with vampirism. Vampire United is inspired by that set up. I have an MA in screenwriting and attended the UCLA professional Program in screenwriting some years back. My previous script was a top 13 finalist of 4000 entries in the Scriptapalooza competition and Vampire United recently received three high grades on the Black List. I see this script as a perfect fit for Ben Wheatley and plan to get it to him when it’s ready.

Title: My Druncle Kevin
Comedy: Family Comedy
Logline: When her Mother goes missing on Black Friday, a strong-willed Teen is forced to quest into the shopping chaos with the person whose company she enjoys least – her perpetually immature and inebriated Uncle.
Why You Should Read: Why should you read My Druncle Kevin? I can sit here and make bold, downright blasphemous claims about my script being “Hughes-ian” or in the vein of a “Family Style Hangover,” but no one wants to hear that. Instead, here are ten stone cold bullet points…

1. It’s a comedy with heart for days.
2. It’s a script set during a time of year that is oddly underrepresented in movies.
3. It centers on a refreshing “buddy coppy” duo not often seen in film.
4. It’s all about family at its core.
5. It features the best dopey small car action since “The Italian Job.”
6. It cracked the ScriptShadow 250!
7. Too much pressure, skip to #8.
8. It’ll make you appreciate your mother.
9. My friend Joe said it was “pretty good,” and he doesn’t even read scripts!
10. It will put you in the holiday spirit just in time for… Spring. I’m nothing if not topical.

Title: The Mars Exploit
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Logline: After telepathic extremists seize control of the Solar system, an elite programmer must sneak onto occupied Mars and subvert the enemy’s communications network, or say goodbye to freedom of thought forever.
Why You Should Read: When Alex told me this story, I don’t think he had any idea what it would do to me. How I’d be up until three in the morning writing down every word he’d said, because I was too excited about it to sleep. After he graciously gave me permission to turn it into a screenplay, I spent many more sleepless nights, first teaching myself screenplay format (which, as a novelist, I hadn’t touched since college), then working out each new plot twist and character – because I just couldn’t wait to share this amazing story with everyone else. I hope I’ve done it justice!

Title: Refugee
Genre: Action/Adventure
Logline: A dishonorably discharged Marine breaks a stalemate between the US military and the gangs that inhabit what’s left of a flooded New York City.
Why You Should Read: I’m a Sydney based writer with a mixed background. With an Iraqi father and an Algerian mother, I was born in Poland, grew up in Australia, lived in Italy and the Netherlands and traveled most of the world. I’ve been held up at gunpoint, jumped from 70 foot cliffs and out of aeroplanes. I don’t say it to boast, but to show how varied my experiences have been. Refugee was written with input from actual US Marines and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on it. If it doesn’t get reviewed, I at least hope you enjoy the ride.

Title: Punks
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Four friends try to have a normal day, until everything starts going wrong.
Why You Should Read: My name is Ty Brantley. I am 15 years old and I am also an aspiring writer just trying to get his script read. I think you should read my script because of my age and this will most likely help get my name out there. Also, most people who have read it say it’s pretty good.

Today’s amateur script was beaten out in the last amateur showdown. But today’s review will point out how wrong those voters were.

Genre: Heist
Premise: An estranged group of musicians, of a once successful band, reunite in order to pull a series of robberies at major concert venues, all in one night, in an attempt to take back the millions they feel were stolen from them by their ex-manager, who now runs the venues they target. Their greatest hits, are robberies.
Why You Should Read: I love heist films. Primarily, grounded heist films. Shit that could happen. Shit that, if we put our minds to it, and had just the right opportunity, for just the right reason, we might be able to pull off and would risk doing so. Any heist situation is absolutely nuts to attempt, so it has to be about more than the money. There has to be something so wrong with the system, the person, the past or the present where it seems there is no other choice. Vultures N Doves is unique twist on the heist film, something I’ve never seen in a movie before, it’s amped up fun, there’s a couple of outrageous set pieces, and most importantly, a main character with a rockstar ego, who is struggling to keep his band, marriage, and life together.
Writer: Lawrence Lamovec
Details: 115 pages

I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t thrilled with this premise. It’s the kind of thing you can see working as a real life story. A middle-of-the-road band spent the entirety of the 70s and 80s robbing the very venues they worked at. But once you turn this premise into a fictional story, it feels a bit absurd. I was wondering if I’d be able to suspend my disbelief.

On top of that, you have an endless logline, which almost always indicates a bad screenplay. Why? Because when writers can’t stop going on in their logline, it probably means they can’t stop going on in their script – that things are going to be uncomfortably unfocused and rambling. I’m not sure why this is such a problem for writers – eliminating extraneous words and phrases from their logline. It’s something that has to be done.

So for Lawrence’s logline here, I’d rewrite it as: A once successful band reunites to rob a series of music venues and take back the millions that were stolen from them by a corrupt concert promoter.

Now here’s the thing. We find out in the script that the “corrupt concert promoter” is actually their ex-manager, who happens to also promote these concerts. It’s a detail that can be explained properly over the course of an entire screenplay, but not so much in a brief logline. However, if you write, “…that were stolen from them by their ex-manager, who also happens to be a concert promoter,” it’s clunky as shit. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the small details of your story so that your logline reads cleanly.

While the logline itself may have been a bad experience, I was surprised to find that the script itself was not. In fact, Vultures ’N’ Doves surprised me on numerous levels. This was some damn fine writing, my friends.

35 year-old Cash used to be a rock star. His band, Vultures N Doves, played all the biggest venues in the world, and turned out numerous number hits along the way. The only problem is that they signed a shitty record deal when they were teenagers with a slimy Chicago manager named James Degrazia, leaving them broke and Degrazia a millionaire many times over.

If there were a face for “music industry corruption,” Degrazia would be it. Even worse, his father ran all the concert venues in the area, which Degrazia has since taken over. The borderline mobster basically owns the Chicago music scene.

When Cash and his band lose their final court battle to Degrazia to get the money they’re owed, Cash comes up with an idea. There’s nobody who knows how concerts work better than they do. What if they robbed two venues in town on the biggest night of the year?

His band, which consists of a British twerp named Legend, a scrawny sweetheart named Zero, and a tough-as nails Latino named Matador, think he’s crazy. But Cash is a brilliant pitch man. And as he points out, they’re not really robbing anyone of anything. They’re taking back the money that Degrazia owes them.

Complicating matters is the fact that Cash’s wife, Rosa, is secretly sleeping with Degrazia and thinking of running away with him. As much as she loves Cash, life with him has been one disappointment after another, and she needs someone who can take care of her, which Degrazia is more than happy to do.

The plan is to rob the United Center first where the Rolling Stones are playing, and then head up to Grant Park, where a younger crowd participates in Lollapalooza. The idea is, if they don’t hit up both venues on the same night, the robbery will result in bolstered security that will stave off any future heist attempts.

So in the course of 24 hours, Cash and crew are either going to get their revenge, or end up in jail. But it’s going to be a hell of a wild night either way.

One of the first things I realized with “Vultures” was how focused it was. We start off seeing Cash and company lose to Degrazia in court, then we’re right into “What now?” which results in Cash coming up with the heist scheme. As I’ve told you guys numerous times, you want to get into your story quickly. Show the reader that you’re not going to waste their time.

Another good sign was the dual-heist format. One of the things you get used to after writing a lot of screenplays is how long stuff is going to take. You know that a heist, for example, probably isn’t going to last more than 30 pages. That leaves you 80 pages left. Do you have enough story for those 80 pages? Are you going to give us 80 pages of the band preparing for the heist?

Of course not. Half of that will end up being filler. So to add another heist during the evening was smart. The heist just got twice as difficult (more uncertainty in the character’s goal is always good) and you’ve got 50 pages worth of heists (assuming each one moves a little faster) instead of 30.

That still leaves 60 pages though. So what are you going to fill that up with? Part of it will be preparation, yes, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to keep preparation alone interesting for 60 pages.

So from there, you go to subplots. Find the most interesting characters in your script and see if you can explore parallel storylines with them. One of the subplots Lawrence chooses is the Rosa-Cash love story. Making Rosa Degrazia’s secret lover made us hate him even more, and it made Rosa a lot more complex.

Lawrence also builds a subplot that involves some back-door corruption between the well-connected Degrazia and the Chicago Mayor. The duo have some shady dealings together that Lawrence cleverly links up with the money Cash is stealing from the venues. Degrazia realizes that he can’t just go to the police, as the dirty money is tied back to the mayor.

I think that’s the moment where the script truly came together for me. When writers can weave a subplot and a main plot together in an unexpected and satisfying way, it’s the sign that they know what they’re doing.

And Lawrence definitely knows his stuff. This premise still might be too weird for me, but I have to give Lawrence credit for executing the shit out of it. :)

Screenplay link: Vultures ’N’ Doves

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

What I learned: Try and plot out, to the best of your knowledge, how long each key event in your script is going to take to get an idea of how many pages will be left. So if your key events add up to 40 pages, that still leaves 70 pages to fill up. If you don’t have a solid plan for filling up 70 pages, you’re going to have a lot of filler. Either add another main event like Lawrence did here, or be prepared to include a wealth of subplots.