It’s Monday morning and the talk of the town is how a little movie about cancer kids beat Tom Cruise in the middle of Blockbuster Season. The little film that could (The Fault In Our Stars) grossed 48 million to Tommy Boy’s (Edge of Tomorrow) paltry 28 million. That’s not just a beating. That’s a slaughter. Twenty years ago – heck, even ten years ago – this never would’ve happened. So why is it happening now? Anybody who tells you they know for sure is a liar. And I don’t know either. But what’s so interesting about this particular battle is that there are a ton of factors involved. And they’re all so damn juicy that I can’t wait to get to them!

1) Is Tom Cruise a movie star anymore?

If you’re going to put your money on one horse for Tomorrow’s lackluster showing, it’s probably that Cruise isn’t a movie star anymore. His last three films (Oblivion, Jack Reacher, Rock of Ages) failed to hit 100 million here in the States. Whether this has to do with Cruise getting older, Cruise going through his crazy streak, or people just losing interest in the actor isn’t clear. But it’s looking like his glory days are over. The question is, is this representative of a much larger trend?

2) Is the movie star dead?

As people stood on the hilltops and claimed the death of the movie star these last few years, I didn’t buy it. But a look at this year’s crop of summer films says otherwise. From X-Men to Godzilla to Spider-Man 2 to Rise of the Apes. The star in all these movies is the property. The owners of these properties then plug in the casting holes with whomever they deem worthy. You’re seeing less and less movies being made like Die Hard, where the star’s the star. With that being said, this is mostly (at least for now) a symptom of the summer season. As we get into the last quarter of the year and ACTING is actually required to make the movie good, movie stars are needed. How long that lasts, we will have to see.

3) Was the concept too weird?

Even though I loved the script for Tomorrow, the one thing I worried about was whether a mass audience would buy into the concept. I get nervous when you mash two big ideas into a single film, because, typically, audiences will only buy into one. They can accept aliens invading. They can accept time-travel. But can they accept an alien time-travel movie? I’m still not sure.

4) The title sucked.

I don’t talk about movie titles much because it’s one of the most objective parts of the business. But if Hollywood isn’t given a property that already has a name, they almost always fuck it up. “Edge of Tomorrow??” What the hell does that even mean?? It’s the most generic title ever and reeks of compromise. Edge of Tomorrow dudes, let me help you out here. When you have a property that nobody knows about and you’re trying to compete against properties (X-Men, Spider-Man) that have been around for decades?? You don’t want a title that’s going to make you MORE invisible. You have to take a chance and use something that stands out. The script’s original title, “All You Need Is Kill,” would’ve been so much better. It’s way edgier, and probably would’ve brought in more of the key demo you wanted – teenagers.

5) Does this fuck things up even further for spec writers?

While “All You Need is Kill” was based on a graphic novel, for the most part, it was a spec script. Nobody knew about the graphic novel. And it was written on spec (and sold for a million bucks). With the failures of high-profile specs this year like Transcendence, Draft Day and now, to a lesser extent, Edge of Tomorrow, is Hollywood going to be further terrified of betting on non-IP? Also, if the movie star system is dead, what are screenwriters supposed to write about now?  It used to be, write a male lead inside a marketable genre.  If that’s gone, and the studios are only dealing with high-profile IP anyway, then what’s the strategy of the average screenwriter?  Should he even write original material anymore?  Will it be like TV used to be, where you write a spec episode of your favorite show?  So writers would write a feature in a long-standing franchise, like X-Men or Batman, in order to break in?  Probably not, but it’s not clear where this is going yet.  So we’ll need time to figure it out.

6) Did Fault really win the weekend?

Ah-ha, now we get to the part of the box office that the media still hasn’t figured out yet. Fault did beat Tomorrow at the domestic box office, but it’s not going to come anywhere NEAR Tomorrow internationally. Tomorrow has already racked up 80 million dollars internationally, putting it at 110 worldwide. When it’s all said and done, it should make close to 300 million. Fault will be lucky to make half that.  The thing is, for the last 20 years, the media has put so much focus on domestic, they still think that’s the race to talk about. They understand that race. But movies make more overseas now than they do at home. Sometimes a hell of a lot more. But how do you write that definitive worldwide box office column when one of the key movies hasn’t even hit all of the available territories? It’s kind of a confusing byline (“Edge of Tomorrow maybe won the world box office this weekend…as it was in 65% of the territories but hasn’t hit the major European circuit yet and still hasn’t bowed in Peru, where Tom Cruise is enormous” doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Shailene takes down Tom!”). Since the domestic box office is definitive, I’m guessing they’ll continue to use it in stories. But at some point, this has to change.

7) People still read?

Probably one of the most confusing things about the modern-day box office is this whole reading thing. Studio heads, executives and producers claim the sky is falling because young people don’t want to spend two hours to see movies anymore when they can play on the internet, watch all that awesome TV, and play video games. It sure sounds logical, except that one of Hollywood’s biggest sources of income over the last 15 years has been book series adaptations. Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, now Fault in our Stars. Movies are becoming antiquated but people still have time to engross themselves in a 2000 year old medium for 10 hours a story? Clearly, if people are spending that much time reading to the tune of adding billions of dollars to the box office, producers can’t bitch that it’s getting too hard to compete for people’s time.

8) Cancer curse.

Hollywood is TERRIFIED of cancer. People don’t want to be reminded of death when they go to the movies. They generally want to be happy. They want to be reminded of why life’s awesome. So how did Fault in Our Stars overcome that prejudice? Well, partly because it IS a movie about life’s awesomeness. The characters here have a lot of fun together. It goes to some dark places, but for the most part, there’s lots of positive energy here. The reason it beat the curse though is because it’s a really well-told story. It’s got a nice narrative drive (with the Amsterdam goal) and the characters rarely do or say the obvious thing, which gave it a fresh feel. The thing is, it was able to prove this in book form first, so people already knew it was good. I’d go so far as to say this wouldn’t have made 10 million opening weekend if it wasn’t a book first. I’ll say this though. I’ve never seen a movie this aggressively market itself as a cancer flick and do so well.

9) Tomorrow is good!

The big tragedy here is that Edge of Tomorrow is a really good movie! Not that I can say that myself yet (I was home sick all weekend), but a dozen site readers e-mailed me to say it was awesome, some going so far as to say it was the best movie they’ve seen all year. Usually, when a movie’s good, even if it doesn’t open well, it’ll make up for it with a long healthy run. But Edge of Tomorrow is planted right smack dab in the middle of the Summer Season, where even monstrous movies can disappear on their second weekend. Then again, it’s only real demographic competition the next two weeks is 22 Jump Street and Jersey Boys, and neither of those films directly crosses over with Tomorrow. So let’s hope that word-of-mouth spreads and the movie rebounds. If not, it might be the fault in Tom Cruise’s star.

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Genre: Buddy cop/Action
Premise (from writer): A maimed EOD Technician turned L.A.P.D. detective must work with a troubled young cop in order to bring down a team of cyber terrorists masquerading as Pharmacy thieves.
Why You Should Read (from writers): Do you wish TRUE DETECTIVE was still airing on HBO? Do you fondly remember the end of the 80′s and the little gem that was Lethal Weapon? Do you crave the perfect blend of action, plot, characters, and jokes? Of course you do!
“Down to the Wire” is a 21st century take on the genre, set to revive your hopes and trigger your nostalgia. This script has been polished with a particular focus on lean, realistic dialogue. The pacing is brisk, the jokes land, and the characters are fleshed out. One of the authors recently placed in the top 15 of the Sheldon Turner Writers Store Contest. Thanks for your consideration!
Writers: Byron Burton & Chris Mulligan Murray
Details: 113 pages

James Franco for Boots?

I want to talk a little bit about loglines before we get started. Loglines are tricky. First of all, a logline’s quality is limited to the story it’s summarizing. If your concept isn’t compelling enough, nothing you do with the logline will work.

With that said, not every story is “logline friendly.” There are some concepts that are perfect for the logline universe, like Liar Liar. And there are others that aren’t, like Dallas Buyers Club. Sometimes, the concept is so un-logline-friendly that your only shot at creating an interesting logline is to highlight the most unique aspects of your story and slap a summary around them.

The thing is, you want to avoid that if at all possible. One of the biggest contributors to logline confusion is irrelevant details, which is kind of what I’m seeing here.  A “maimed EOD Technician” for example. How does that connect to two cops “bringing down a team of cyber terrorists masquerading as pharmacy thieves?” Whether he’s a maimed bomb technician or not doesn’t seem to matter in this particular case.

Now if you said a “maimed EOD Technician turned cop” had to take down “a group of local terrorists using car bombs to wreak terror,” there’d be a connection. Or if you said an “old school cop who shuns technology” had to take down a group of “cyber terrorists,” there’d be a connection. Or if you said an “ex-junkie pharmaceutical rep turned cop” had to take down “a group of cyber-terrorists masquerading as pharmacy thieves,” there’d be a connection.

But I don’t see how being in Afghanistan as an EOD tech has any connection to a case about pharmaceuticals. So something feels off about the setup. I’m not saying it can’t work. Maybe this just needs more room to explain. But it did make me worried. Let’s see if I’m getting all bent out of shape over nothing.

“Down to the Wire” follows Travis Boots, a former bomb tech in Afghanistan. Think Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker. After a bomb kills a local girl and six other soldiers, Boots is sent back home with a prosthetic foot and the knowledge that he has a brain aneurysm that could burst at any moment. I guess that makes Boots a walking time bomb.

Strangely enough, this gives Boots a carefree attitude that he takes all the way to the local police force. It’s there where he teams up with Joe Durmont, an alcoholic cop with very little initiative. Boots instills a brash unorthodox approach to their crime-fighting ways and pretty soon, they’re getting into all sorts of trouble.

Eventually, they make their way onto the hot case in the city. A team of thieves have been hitting pharmacies all over town, stealing thousands of dollars worth of pills. A charged up Boots believes that a recent overdose at the hospital is tied to the case and pursues the potential suspect.

But just when they have him in their grasp, he’s shot and killed by a sniper from afar, letting the two know that this case goes deeper than they suspected. They eventually catch up with the crew responsible and learn that the pills are a front – that the real crime is the customer database at all these pharmacies. But by that time, it’s too late. The baddies have caught Boots and Joe with plans of killing them. Will the duo make it out alive? Or will they be taking the world’s strongest sleeping pill?

I can see why “Wire” was picked. A lot of you read the first scene to see if the writer has chops and this has a very strong first scene. We’re in a war zone. There’s a bomb ticking away. There’s a little girl in the middle of it. A huge decision needs to be made: kill the girl or keep trying to defuse the bomb. It’s an intense harrowing opening. Kudos to Byron and Chris for writing it!

The thing is, after that scene, my fears were realized. I couldn’t figure out why it was so important for our main character to have previously been a bomb technician in Afghanistan. What did it have to do with any part of the story? He ended up with a prosthetic foot, but that didn’t come into play at all. He had a brain aneurysm, but that didn’t seem to come from the bomb incident. So why was he a bomb tech? Why was he a soldier at all?

If your main character has an extensive backstory, it has to play into the story somehow. For example, if I wrote Gravity, I wouldn’t give Sandra Bullock a long botany backstory. I suppose there’s some interesting juxtaposition between gardening and space shuttle repair, but because it doesn’t play into the story (in either a direct or ironic way), I wouldn’t use it. And that’s how I felt here.

I was also hoping for a lot more from the pharmaceutical storyline. My big worry going in was that stealing pills was going to be too small. There’s something almost impotent about it. I mean, when the bad guys rob a bank in a movie, they’re stealing everybody else’s hard-earned money. That’s why we get so mad. When these guys steal pills, all I thought was, “Well, they’ll just send more pills.” The pharmaceutical companies are billion dollar businesses. Who cares if they lose 10 grand worth of Adderall?

I wanted the pills to lead to something bigger early on, which would lead to something bigger, and eventually bigger. Instead, we find out at the end that the pills were a front for stealing personal information. Again, that’s a really tiny reveal. From my understanding, the thieves hit 6 pharmacies. Let’s say in each of those pharmacy computers there were 5000 names. So these people now have the personal information of 30,000 people. That doesn’t scare me at night. That sounds like the kind of thing that would be straightened out in a few days. Plus, I don’t know who these people are, so why should I care about them?

Basically, this comes down to a lack of stakes. They aren’t big enough. Not only did the pharmaceutical robberies feel low-priority for a typical Los Angeles police department, but I wasn’t sure what Boots and Joe got out of solving the case. Joe had just gotten a promotion. So it’s not like this was going to get him anything more. And Boots didn’t seem to have anything he wanted. He was just doing this because. I think in real life, that makes sense. You do something because it’s your job. But in the movie-world, audiences want to know why this case is so important to you because it’s the case they’re spending 2 hours of their life watching.

I like that Byron and Chris tried to do something with their characters. Boots could die at any moment, so he was a little unorthodox and crazy. And Joe was an alcoholic with a dementia-ridden mother (though I found it strange that his mom was 55 years older than him). The thing is, I felt like we could’ve done more. If Byron really could die at any second, then you have to go crazy with him. You have to have unbridled no-holds-barred fun with him. As of now, he’s operating at 70%. And we’ve seen the alcoholism and dementia-mother thing before. I read that stuff all the time in screenplays. You have to find something unique to each character. You can’t just copy and paste stuff from other characters you’ve seen and expect it to work.

If I were Byron and Chris, I’d think BIGGER. BIGGER BIGGER BIGGER. This is the MOVIES! When you’re thinking about the problem that would challenge your protagonist cops, you want it to be the kind of problem that would be on the FRONT PAGE of the newspaper for a week straight. I see pharmacy robberies being buried somewhere on page 5 or 6. Now if the pharmacy robberies escalated quickly and the bad guys’ plan kept getting bigger and bigger every 20 pages, that’s a different story. I’d love to see that. But that didn’t happen here.

I know Byron is a hard working writer who’s really in to getting better. So help him out. Read “Wire,” and give him some constructive criticism. I’m sure you guys can think of some ways to beef up the story. Good luck to Byron and Chris and thanks for letting me read your script!

Screenplay link: Down To The Wire

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

Number of times I checked the internet: 14

What I learned: Plot ingenuity. When you’re talking about an age-old genre, plot ingenuity becomes key. You’re already dealing with a generic setup (two cops forced together on a case), so a generic execution is a death sentence for your screenplay. That was one of the problems here. The execution was by-the-numbers. There weren’t any surprises until the very end. You have to take some chances and play around with the plot in these scenarios or else your script is going to look like every other cookie-cutter buddy cop procedural (or whatever genre it is you’re writing). Twists, turns, escalations, reversals, surprises, unique scenarios, imagination. Do more with the plot!

Carson here.  Been feeling lousy all week, therefore I am, sadly, going to take a sick day today.  Luckily I still have something to post.  The other day when I was talking about the age-old screenwriting question of which kind of script you should write (something personal or something commercial), commenter Tom gave the best answer to the question I think I’ve ever seen.  So I’m re-publishing the comment below. — I like the idea of rewarding good comments so I’m thinking of making this a possible monthly thing.  Publish the 3-5 best comments of the month.  Thoughts?

From Commenter Tom:
The question of “commercial vs. personal” is not black and white. There’s a Goldilocks zone to it, and it’s one that some writers never reach. Ultimately, there’s an artistic side to your brain and a mathematical side to your brain, and unless you have unbridled raw talent, you have to find a way to get Pappa Bear and Mama Bear to play together.

I see a common progression in amateur writers.

1. The Sum Is GREATER than the Parts

Many writers start out with personal, artistic projects. Stories about their life experiences, or their high school friends, or some small article they read that sparked their imagination. And the scripts? Unreadable. The dialogue is stilted, the scenes are cliche, the conflict and pacing is scattershot. These scripts suck. But there’s an undeniable heart at the core of them. Although the individual components suck ass, there’s a purity to the overall story. But no one can bare to read more than 10 pages.

The writer then retreats. He/she reads other scripts, modeling the voices of those writers. They buy copies of Save The Cat and Story. They follow the industry and see what kind of scripts are selling, modeling their next effort on some of the trends. They log line, beat sheet, and outline. The result is:

2. The Sum Is LESS than the Parts.

Welcome to 95% of the Amateur Friday entries. Each individual scene is adequate, perhaps even exemplary. Dialogue is clean. Characters have flaws. Act I turning point hits exactly on page 25. The lead is a 35 year old male who has a mentor, a love interest, and a cat that he saves on page 4. The concept, while not “blow your mind” is solid. Yet, these scripts are… soulless. It’s all calculation. Commercial, yes. But forgettable.

A lot of writers never leave this stage. They marvel at how easily their early scripts flowed, and they can’t seem to replicate that old creative vision. Every time they start setting a script in an early period, or with a female lead they block themselves. These writers, while not hitting home runs, get a few singles or doubles. They get repped by baby managers who have them submit 10 log lines a week to determine their next project. They get stuck in this mathematical, calculating style of writing. Their projects never gain traction.

But after some time in this zone, a few finally say “Fuck it. I’m going to write what I want.”

3. The Goldilocks Zone

These are the writers who finally get noticed. The commercial side of their brain is no longer boxing out the creative side. The stories are personal, but with a larger, worldly-accessible twist. The story flows naturally, and yet subconsciously matches up with the 3-act structure.

The time spent in Zone 2 was invaluable because now they know and understand structure. They know how to bottle Blake Snyder and put him on a shelf, away from the process, but always ready to help. They can step back and see their story not as disassociated gears on a clock, but as a full living organism.

And the real key is they LIKE the stories they’re writing.

The Zone 1 scripts were hard to read. The Zone 2 scripts were hard to write. But these Goldilocks scripts are fun. And as a result, the writer’s voice begins to seep into the pages.

That’s the balance all writers have to find. You MUST know structure. You MUST know what’s commercial. You MUST be able to forget it all.

Genre: Drama
Premise: An intensely angry woman in a chronic pain support group starts looking into another member’s suicide while not really trying to put her life back together.
About: This finished on last year’s Black List and is currently in post-production with Jennifer Aniston and Anna Kendrick starring. In a testament to the value of hard work and perseverance, the writer, Patrick Tobin, has been writing for over 30 years, graduating from USC film school almost 25 years ago! This is his first big breakthrough success. The script has led him to another job adapting the Pulitzer-prize winning novel, “A Visit From the Goon Squad.”
Writer: Patrick Tobin
Details: 106 pages

Thank you to the Dragon Gods of Screenplay Heaven for an easy screenplay to read! Been waiting for a script like this for awhile. One that was minimalist but STILL contained depth! I hereby implore all of you, Scriptshadow Readers, to find this script and read it (it’s in the 2013 Black List folder, which everyone on my mailing list should have). This script embodies the spirit of the original Black List. Unknown writer taking a chance, writing something different and non-commercial, and getting recognition for it.

We’re on day 2 of the “passion v. commercialism” argument. And if these last two scripts are any indication, passion is winning! Ah, but that doesn’t mean you can write about your boring everyday life and get away with it. You gotta have skillz! You need to know how to burn this kind of joint before you can smoke it. Which I’m going to get to. But first, let’s take a bite of this delicious cake.

Cake is about 30-something Claire. We meet Claire in a Chronic Pain support group, where she’s sporting some scars on her face and neck. Clearly, she’s been in some sort of bad accident. But it isn’t just Claire’s body that’s hurting. Yup, you guessed it. It’s her soul, too.

A former attorney, Claire probably wasn’t the nicest person to begin with. But this accident – whatever happened – has turned her downright nasty. She’s almost excited to share with the group, for example, that their recent group member’s suicide (which involved a woman jumping off a bridge onto a cargo ship) ended with the gooey remains being shipped back to her husband in a Rubbermaid Cooler.

The suicide in question is a young woman named Nina. Claire envies Nina because she had the guts to get out. And while she’s not sure yet if she wants the same, she becomes infatuated with Nina’s decision, and by association, her life. This eventually leads her to Roy, Nina’s angry husband (lots of angry people here). It’s refreshing meeting someone with so much anger though, so the two begin a dysfunctional relationship based on pretty much anything but love and happiness.

(spoiler) It’s here where we finally get a window into Claire’s past. That car accident she was in killed her son. And when that loss turned her into the monster she is now, it lost her her husband too. Ironically enough, Roy has a son of his own. And maybe, just maybe, through spending time with them, Claire can find a way back to happiness.

This was fun!

I bet you’re confused upon hearing that, seeing as that synopsis is pretty depressing. But this is the thing about “Cake.” Claire is really funny! This is something a lot of you writers want to take note of. The great thing about writing someone at the bottom – someone who has nothing to lose and who doesn’t give a shit – is that they can say anything!

Real people are the opposite of that. We’re all giant liars. When we’re feeling bad and someone asks us how we’re doing, we fake a smile and say “Good!” When we have issues with a friend, instead of rocking the boat, we bury our frustrations and pretend everything’s great. Claire doesn’t do that. When you say, how are you, she says, with as much sarcasm as she can possibly muster, fucking dandy, before she shoots you a bitch smile and walks off.

Watching someone so untamed for 106 pages was refreshing. Now it’s a balancing act, because having an unlikable protagonist can backfire, but the thing about Claire was you understood why she was upset. She’s living through hell.

Also, there’s a huge difference between being unlikable fun and being unlikable boring. If Claire just kept to herself the whole time and was super duper depressed and barely said anything, we would’ve hated her. The fact that she’s so sarcastic and hilariously mean to everyone makes her fun to watch.

Recently, somebody asked me about the “slow build.” How do you do it? Cake is a nice template because you really don’t have much of a story here. Claire’s “goal” is to learn about Nina, but it’s a fairly loose thread.

When you’re building stuff up slowly, it’s important to set up mysteries (or you can call them “questions”). Mysteries allow you to move through your story slowly because the reader will still want to find out the answers to the mysteries.

Here, for example, we see those scars on Claire’s face and neck. We want to know what caused them. Claire wants to know why Nina killed herself. We do as well. Claire and her ex-husband have a bizarre relationship. We want to understand it.

Tobin keeps setting these little mysteries up, and they string us along. Combined with a fascinating character who’s acting the complete opposite of how normal human beings act, and it’s pretty easy to see why this is so readable.

Another thing that was nice to see was (spoiler) there was no super-deep melodramatic monologue moment. Usually when you have a script with a dying child like this, particularly one where the main character played a part in the kid’s death, you get the obligatory scene where they monologue their memories of the event, which ends in them crying and saying something to the effect of how they now know it wasn’t their fault.

It’s not that you don’t want highly emotional moments. But you don’t want anything obligatory about your script. Particularly if you’re not writing a mainstream movie. I mean, if you’re going to write something personal, it better be fucking unique. So say it with me everyone: Obligatory is a bad word. Bad obligatory!

Another reason this really worked for me is that with these protagonists that hate the world, there’s an inherent need to see them change. We want to see Claire find happiness again. We want her to overcome her boy’s death and her physical pain and want to live again and, frankly, not be so mean to everyone.

But this ONLY works if you’re truthful with the character. You have to be real. You can’t candy-coat the character and give them some artificial likable quality so we like them. You have to be honest and make her really mean.

Unfortunately, this comes with its own share of risks. People might end up hating your character if you don’t make them just right. I liked Claire because she was real, she was funny, and I understood why she was angry. But for other readers, it might be too much. They might not be able to excuse those qualities in anyone.

And also, these movies never make a lot of money. They’re always going to cater to niche cinephile audiences unless every single aspect of the production hits it out of the park, which is rare. So know that when you write these movies, you’re writing to an indie audience, which makes them a lot harder to sell.

With that said, this was a wonderful little script that totally surprised me. I love Patrick Tobin’s writing style and his unique voice. I’m actually shocked it took him this long to break through. Now let’s just hope the movie’s good!

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

Number of times I checked the internet during read: only once!

What I learned: If you’re going to make your main character “unlikable” in the form of them being an asshole or a bitch, just make sure it’s motivated. Nina is a bitch because she lost everything. She lost her son. She lost her marriage. She lost her looks. She’s angry at the world for a reason, so we understand it. If she’s a bitch “just because,” the reader’s going to hate her.

Genre: TV Pilot – Drama
Premise: A former cop who’s lost custody of his son to a vindictive ex-wife, moves back home to plot how to get him back. In the process, he meets some old friends on the wrong side of the law, friends who may be the only people who can help him.
About: Okay, I’m super confused here. I read on Deadline that Badlands was a show that showrunner Shawn Ryan (The Shield) was doing for HBO. It covered a mining town in Wyoming. But this pilot, which was labeled as “HBO – Badlands” in the document title, is not about mining at all (thank God). So I’m guessing this is a completely separate pilot named “Badlands” that someone erroneously thought was the HBO pilot? Or Deadline was just way off? Either way, the writer, Joe Nienalt, has a short but sweet interview over at “The Boring Stuff” blog about the difficulties of being an “almost there” screenwriter. UPDATE: Okay, I got some new info here.  Joe is NOT from Australia.  The guy who interviewed him was.  Joe is from Philly.  Also, this is not the HBO Badlands.  But, this pilot did get Joe invited to submit to the Sundance TV Lab (you have to have someone vouch for you to submit).  I know Sundance really helps people get their stuff made, so maybe you can ask Joe about that process in the comments. — Also, I changed the dialogue sample.  I knew it wasn’t the perfect sample but I’m still learning this screen grab thing (I can’t scroll and capture long scenes. I can only capture what’s on the physical screen, which limits me).  Hope it’s a better representation.
Writer: Joe Nienalt
Details: 62 pages

I wouldn’t mind seeing Clive Owen take on a TV role. 

So I was reading the interview I linked above for today’s writer when I came upon something he said that happens to be one of the most debated topics in screenwriting. Joe said that when he stopped worrying about what was marketable and what Hollywood wanted and focused more on himself and what he cared about, that’s when Hollywood noticed him.

Writers can go crazy overthinking this, and I’ve gone back and forth on it over the years. Then recently, something occurred to me that I hadn’t thought of before: timing. Writers break through when they’re ready – when their mastery of the craft gets to the point where they can write good screenplays. Therefore, whatever genre they’re writing at that time (a big action movie or a small personal drama) becomes the one that breaks them in.

The writer then says to himself, “I broke in with an action movie so Hollywood is about being commercial,” or “I broke in with a personal script so Hollywood is about being true to yourself,” and then they ride that mantra along for the rest of their career, believing it’s the only way. That can be misleading because maybe you’d just gotten good enough that whatever you wrote next was going to be the one.

Because the thing is, you can take either of these approaches too far. If you think it’s all about being true to yourself and ignoring the commercial aspect of the industry, you can write something that’s so innocuous, nobody gives a crap. And if you think it’s all about giving them vampires and robots wrapped inside a catchy hook, you can write something so vapid that nobody gives a crap.

So I love reading scripts from writers who have declared themselves believers of one way over the other, as I feel that each of these scripts gets me one step closer to finding the definitive answer.

Now I originally thought this pilot was about mining, and boy did I wonder how the hell someone was going to make that interesting. The subject matter isn’t quite that boring, but it was lacking a hook. So let’s see if Joe was still able to make it entertaining.

30-something Joseph “Buddy” Shields, a former cop, happened to marry the wrong woman. Like a really terrible woman. And that woman, who’s now his ex, is raping him of everything he has, including his home, and most importantly, his son. The ruling is so bad that not only does Buddy have to leave his home, but he still has to pay the mortgage while his ex-wife lives there. His reward? Seeing his kid once every other weekend.

That isn’t enough for Buddy. His kid means everything to him and he’s willing to fight to get him back. The problem is, he doesn’t have any money for a good lawyer, and lawyers are the people who get your kids back in these wars.

Broke, Buddy is forced to head back home to Philadelphia and live in his mother’s house. His old neighborhood, Badlands, is the worst in the city, and we quickly realize Buddy was one of the few to escape and actually do something with his life.

Now that he’s back, all those “bad influence” friends start visiting him again, including his old buddy “Fast,” who’s become a bit of a criminal in his middle-age. Fast sees how badly Buddy wants his kid back and offers him a deal. Join him, run some “jobs,” and he’ll be able to afford any lawyer he wants.

Buddy doesn’t think twice. His kid is everything to him. If he has to lie, cheat, and steal to get him back, that’s what he’s going to do. But when Buddy realizes that some of these jobs entail killing some of his old friends, he realizes just how deep this rabbit hole goes. But in the end he feels that if his son is at the bottom of that rabbit hole, then fuck it, he’s willing to dig.

I got to give it to Nienalt. This was really good writing. I know something’s good when a) I’m involved even without a story hook, and b) when the writer can make things I’ve already seen before interesting.

That’s the biggest shock of Badlands, is that we’ve seen all this before. I’ve seen the divorcee desperately trying to get visitation. I’ve seen the middle-age protagonist who has to go back to his hometown to regroup. I’ve seen the hero who, once back home, is pulled into a crime ring.

But what makes Nienalt different is he addresses all of this in such detail. I think this is what he meant when he said (in his interview) that he became a better writer once he looked inward, because he states in that interview that he got a divorce, and we see all that pain and those unfair custody hearing details right there on the page. I’ve never had to fight for custody before, but if I had to guess, it would be something like this.

And when you add details, when you add REALITY to your script, the reader REALLY begins to trust your story. They know this isn’t something somebody slapped together in a month, but rather the blood, sweat and tears of someone who’s been through these things. And that gets to you. Because you know the writer really suffered. And it draws you towards the protagonist in a way that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Now as far as the criminal stuff – like when they robbed a marijuana store – I don’t know how he pulled that off. I hope Joe isn’t doing that in his spare time. But man, he knows this Badlands town so well that if you told me tomorrow Joe had been in prison for robbery, I’d probably believe it.

And you can really tell when someone knows an area when the dialogue feels authentic to that area. Usually, when I see writers trying to write low-income criminal type dialogue, its wrapped inside this upper middle-class entitlement sheen, the way some middle class kid THINKS people like that talk because they’ve watched a lot of movies. You can always tell the difference when a writer has a true ear for this stuff.

The only real issue I had with the pilot was the longevity question. As you well know, the one big difference with a TV pilot is you have to be able to see 50-100 more episodes going forward. With the only real goal in this setup being for Buddy to get his kid back, I’m not sure where the story goes afterwards.

There is (spoiler) a scene at the end that reveals Fast is a cop, and he brings Buddy in as a Badlands cop too, which was a nice little twist. But I’m not sure what that means. Does that mean we’re going the basic “corrupt cop” route that we’ve already seen before? Does it mean these guys are going to pull a bunch of heists/robberies as cops? I feel like these are trails already well-traveled so it’s hard for me to envision the future of the show.

The thing is, Nienalt is so good at making “been there, done that” scenarios feel authentic and fresh, that he might be able to make it work. If not for this show then for something else. I really like this guy and will be watching him a lot closer after this.

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

What I learned: You’d like to include things in your script that you can talk about with some level of expertise, whether it’s a job or an experience or something from your personal life. The more expertise you have, the more detailed and, therefore, authentic your story will be. I loved how Nienalt included these custody hearing details. It made me sympathize with the protagonist in a way I wouldn’t have if the execution of that stuff was more generic.  Remember, the reader can always tell when you’re bullshitting them – when you don’t know any more than they do about something.