Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from IMDB) In 2039 Detroit, when Alex Murphy – a loving husband, father and good cop – is critically injured in the line of duty, the multinational conglomerate OmniCorp sees their chance for a part-man, part-robot police officer.
About: This draft of Robocop was written by Joshua Zetumer. Zetumer sold his first script, Villain, to 2929 studios a few years ago. Although he started out writing big sprawling action films, Villain was the script that got him noticed, secured him an agent, and ultimately landed him a sale. The script impressed director Marc Forster enough that he asked Zetumer to rewrite Quantum of Solace. In fact, the script led to a whole host of large scale assignments, including the Leonardo DiCaprio project, The Infiltrator, and the remake of Dune. Zetumer cites Chinatown as the biggest influence on his work. Despite all the work Zetumer’s been doing since the Villain sale, Robocop will be his first feature credit, a strange byproduct of the Hollywood screenwriting system (when are they going to add an “employed writers” credit? They give a credit to the guy who cleans the director’s car for God’s sake). The director of Robocop, Jose Padilha, first broke on the scene with his chilling documentary, Bus 174, about a drug-crazed madman’s takeover of a Rio de Janeiro bus.
Writers: Joshua Zetumer (revisions by Nick Schenk)
Details: 126 pages – January 20th, 2012 draft (this is an earlier draft of the script and does not reflect the final film)

Like many people who saw the original Robocop as a child, my view of movies was forever changed. Okay, well, maybe it didn’t have THAT big of an effect on me, but it was a really cool movie. I mean, what kid didn’t want to be Robocop after seeing that suit? And then, of course, there was the violence. You see, back in the day we didn’t have “warnings” and parental movie-watchdog sites that told parents every little potential thing that could psychologically damage your child for the rest of his life. You just showed up at the movie and whatever you saw, you saw. So no one knew their kids would be watching a gang of criminals heartlessly tearing our hero to shreds for what seemed like ten minutes onscreen. By the time that showed up, it was too late to turn back.

Revisiting the film a few years ago, though, it was notably a lot cheesier than I remembered it. It was still good, don’t get me wrong. But with violence no longer being at the top of my “why I enjoy movies” list, I found the movie a little less engaging.

Now what this means for a remake, I don’t know. Usually when something’s being remade, you have a strong opinion on it. What! They’re remaking Psycho! F*ck that! Or: Oh hell no! They’re redoing The Wicker Man! That’s a classic! I hate you, world! — With Robocop, though, I don’t really feel anything. On the one hand, it makes sense to remake it. A robot cop kicking the asses of all the bad guys can still be a cool film. On the other, I don’t know if today’s audience cares. I’m reminded of the recent Total Recall remake, which had way better special effects and production value than the original, but ultimately felt like a vapid film. And I think it’s because Total Recall’s success was a product of its time, something I’m afraid may also be the case with Robocop. And these trailers of the film aren’t helping. They’re not bad. But to stand out from the pack with an effects-driven concept film, you gotta be better than “not bad.”

It’s the year 2039 and Officer Alex Murphy is Detroit’s top cop. But he’s fighting a battle he can’t win. Crime has gotten so bad in the city, most of the cops have given up and joined the bad guys. The worst bad guy of them all is Antoine Vallon, a crime lord who’s got most of Detroit in the palm of his hand, and it’s only a matter of time before he has the rest.

Meanwhile, a corporation named Omnicorp is the fastest rising company in the world. Their products are robotic drones that go into places like Iran and clear them out so that the U.S. army doesn’t have to. We can now fight wars without losing a single soldier. Pretty sweet. Omnicorp wants to use these drones as policemen in the U.S. but the U.S. is too litigious. If a robot-drone accidentally kills one person, Omnicorp will be sued up the ying-yang.

So someone in the company comes up with a nifty idea to FUSE a robot-drone with a person. This way, it’s still the person making the decisions. Bye-bye lawsuit. Now they just need their first volunteer. Except who’s going to volunteer to become half-robot? Well, turns out the decision’s made for our poor Alex Murphy, as Antoine shoots him up until he’s basically a stump.

Since becoming a robot-cop is the only way he’ll live, Alex’s wife agrees to the procedure, and we get Robocop! Unlike the original Robocop, however, he doesn’t go right to the streets. He trains in places like China and Iran. Why? Ya got me! A few years later, he comes back to Detroit and begins his career as the first Robocop. Things go well at first until Alex starts yearning to be with his family again, which results in a very personal journey that ends with him finding out the shocking truth about his transformation.

Vintage Robocop!

Robocop is obviously trying to make a statement about the world – about drones in particular. It’s a hot-button topic so I applaud Padilha for wanting to take it on in a Hollywood film. The thing is, it doesn’t fit. This is Robocop. We’re supposed to be in Detroit watching him kick ass, Robocop-style. So every time we’re in another country taking on terrorists or training, I’m sitting there going, “Uh, what’s going on right now?” I mean, yes, it does mirror the drone debate. We use drones in other countries and the next question is, will we use them here? But again, just from a pure story standpoint, I was confused as to why we were spending so much time away from Detroit. I mean, Robocop doesn’t start fighting crime until page 70!  Not only was that late, but it meant the real story here (cleaning up Detroit) didn’t get started until page 80!  Might explain why the script is 126 pages.

That leads to another plot point, the legalese of it all. In the script, a TON of attention is given to this idea that they can’t build a drone in the U.S. because of the legal implications of it killing someone. So someone comes up with the idea of fusing a drone with a person. That way the person still makes a mistake and they’re free of liability. The problem is, the reasoning is really flimsy and I mean, come on — you think just because a person’s in that suit that Omnicorp isn’t getting sued to the nines if it kills someone? Of course they are. Sometimes, as writers, we want something to work so badly that we over-explain it in hopes that the reader will eventually buy in. But if the idea is flawed from the get-go, it’s not going to work. And it didn’t work here.

A lot of you are probably wondering what the difference is between old Robocop and new Robocop. Well, Robocop goes through 4 stages as he trains over a few years (Robocop 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0). So he’s got a lot of different looks. He also has a ‘social’ and ‘swat’ mode. Social mode looks nice and cuddly for the general public. But when he switches into swat mode, his suit darkens and he looks more like a badass motherf*cker. You’re also going to get a Robocop who can run as fast as a car and that has his own Robobike, which he can “fuse” into. Oh, and Robocop can dodge bullets!

I think I heard that the new Robocop is rated PG-13, which would make sense because they DON’T SHOW the big scene where Alex Murphy is shot up, deciding instead to skip over it. I was a little disappointed by this because THAT was the scene that made us care about Robocop so much.  Anything you can do to create sympathy for our hero and hate for our bad guy is going to make us root for our protagonist more.  So I’m not sure getting rid of the scene (which I’m thinking was done for PG-13 reasons) was a good idea.  However, that scene’s absence does come back to the story in an interesting way, so I’ll give Zetumer and Padhila that.

Oh, and if they keep the ending of the script, a veritable war in the Detroit streets, and they execute it right, that right there might be worth the price of admission. While a lot of Robocop was by-the-numbers, the final climax showed so much promise. It’s Robocop versus those huge AT-AT Walker things from the original Robocop. I’ll buy that for a dollar.

But yeah, while I admire this script for being ambitious and tackling a big debate (drones), I think that actually hurt the script. You guys know I like focus in my movies, and the international stuff always seemed to unfocus the script. We were all over the place. I mean at one point Robocop is fighting Al-Queda in the Middle East. What?? I don’t know if Padhila could’ve explored the drone stuff by only staying in Detroit. But it would’ve made for a better more focused film in my opinion. Still, Zetumer does a decent job with what he’s asked to do, and since Justin Bieber is executed in this script (yes, you read that right – well sort of anyway), that’s going to tip the scales to a “worth the read.” Sorry Biebs.

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

What I learned: Action-ize boring scenes. There are certain perfunctory scenes in your script that you must write. They’re required by the story. But don’t think they have to stay perfunctory. Look for ways to throw a wrench into the scene, a surprise if you will, that’ll force your hero to act. In other words, action-ize the scene. In the middle of the script, Robocop needs to be introduced to Detroit by the mayor. This is potentially a straight-forward scene. The mayor introduces Robocop. Long boring speech. A reaction from the audience. Scene over. Instead, however, Zetumer introduces a criminal in the audience. Robocop immediately switches to SWAT MODE and must take the criminal down. In other words, don’t be afraid to break open traditionally boring scenes and turn them into something exciting.

Genre: Romantic Comedy-Drama
Premise: A young, cocky New Jersey man obsessed with porn finds his obsession challenged when he meets a girl who tells him it’s either porn or her.
About: As many of you know, this is long-time actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) first foray into writing and directing. The film played strongly at Sundance, inspiring a bidding war which Relativity ultimately won, under the condition that it be released wide (over 2000 theaters). Now for those of you who don’t know the distribution business, this is a big deal. Rarely does a film that doesn’t have huge stars or a big budget get a wide release. Typically, as an indie, you start out small, anywhere from 15-200 theaters, and then if you do well, you keep expanding. So for them to bust this tiny film out into 2400 theaters was a huge risk. Now while it didn’t light the box office on fire, it did almost beat the much more heavily marketed Rush (9m to 11m), which had 15 times the production budget and twice the advertising budget. It’s a non-traditional “romantic-comedy” so it’ll be interesting to see where it goes but movie folks seem to like it, especially critics, who gave it an 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Writer: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Details: 90 minute running time

First of all, I want to talk about the box office this week. I’m not sure what Ron Howard is doing anymore. He’s pigeonholed himself into these safe, fluffy movies that leave so little of an impression, you don’t even have a reaction when you see the posters or trailers anymore. Rush (the car-racing movie he made) just looked so bland. Same with Angels and Demons and The Dilemma. I think these kinds of films did better in the 80s and 90s. These days, you need more edge to your film. You can’t spend 50 million on a movie, have 50 million to advertise it, and almost lose to an indie film. You just can’t. You have to reevaluate what you’re doing and learn to change with the times. I’m sure Howard said, “Fast and Furious’s success shows that people want to watch car racing movies,” which is how he got this made. But the reason that series has done so well is because it has attitude. It’s in your face. It’s flashy. Rush looks like something you catch on cable at 2pm on a Sunday during which you then take a nap. I’m baffled that he thought anyone would want to see this movie.

What does any of this have to do with Don Jon? Not much. However, I have to admit, I thought this movie would do a lot worse. I didn’t like its advertising campaign either. It was just so one-note and non-believable. Basing your story on a woman who’s shocked that her boyfriend watches porn? What year are we in? 2002? I just didn’t see the depth there. But that’s what happens with these marketing approaches sometimes. They believe so little in the audience, they distill their stories down to the most basic of elements. I.E. “Guy with porn problem. Girl no like it.” In actuality, this movie is a lot more complex, a rich character study, and way more unpredictable than your average “romantic comedy.”

Don Jon is about a young New Jersey ladies man, not too far removed from the guys you’d see on Jersey Shore, who lives a very structured lifestyle. He cleans his pad, rides around in his car, goes out with his boys, goes home with a girl… and he watches porn.

You see, even though Don can have any girl he wants, the girls he really wants are made of pixels and frame-rates. Don will masturbate to porn anywhere from 3-5 times a day, many of those times right after he’s taken a girl home who could’ve had her own Maxim spread. Clearly, Don has some issues with intimacy and connection, and that’s not changing any time soon.

Enter Barbara (Scarlett Johansen). This girl is hoootttt. The two start dating, but after she catches Don watching porn, she tells him that if that ever happens again, she’s gone. So now Don has the choice of all choices to make. Does he give up porn for a girl? Naturally, because Don’s a guy, he decides not to make a decision, but rather have both. He’ll be with Barbara and continue to watch porn (or “porno” as she calls it) in secret.

Meanwhile, while taking classes at a local community college, Don gets approached by Esther, a “MILF” as the kids like to say, who’s clearly going through some real-life shit of her own, the kind of shit so bad that she’ll spontaneously cry in public. Esther makes it clear she just wants some young no-strings-attached man-meat, but she is so far off Don’s radar that he won’t even give her the time of day.

However, Don’s own life begins to spiral out of control when Barbara finds out he’s been lying to her and still watches “porno.” So the best girl Don’s ever snagged is all of a sudden out of his life, which Don’s pretty torn up about. Meanwhile, as Esther continues to pester him, he lets her in, and she teaches him the potential of what a real relationship can be if you he can just look past the surface.

Okay, a couple of things I want to commend Don Jon for right off the bat. First, it’s edgy. Tackling a hardcore porn addiction in a romantic comedy has a little more punch to it than say, the lure of soccer moms (recent romantic comedy “Playing for Keeps”). So it’s nice to see a romantic comedy taking a chance.

Second, I LOVED how it didn’t go according to plan. (Spoiler) I mean who’s going into a Scarlett Johansson romantic comedy and not thinking that our leading man and her aren’t going to end up together? Yet they don’t. Don ends up with Esther, which came completely out of left field for me. And I can count the amount of times I’ve been shocked by a romantic comedy ending on one hand. So that was cool.

Which brings us to the actual structure of the screenplay. Now remember, when you have a romantic comedy, story isn’t as important. There isn’t a whole lot of story in When Harry Met Sally. If you can create enough conflict between the characters, and the audience likes a) the lead, b) the girl, and c) is interested in whether they’ll end up together, then you’ve done your job. But you still have to provide some structure to it all, and I thought Don Jon did that in an interesting way.

We start by introducing Don’s addiction. This is the main character’s “problem.” Then, we introduce Barbara, the element that will CHALLENGE that problem. This leads us into the courting stage. Remember, as long as your character is pursuing something, trying to achieve something, the reader should remain engaged. And here, of course, Don is courting Barbara, trying to get into Barbara’s pants (sex is the goal). So we want to see if that’s going to happen.

Where Don Jon gets interesting is when Don finally does get laid. Technically, there’s nothing left for the reader to really “look forward to” at this point. Don is satisfied. He got what he wanted. What’s left to care about? Well, whether Joseph Gordon-Levitt did it on purpose or not, he cleverly switches the objective over to Barbara. It’s Barbara who now wants something, to start controlling Don. She wants him to take classes so he can get a better job. She wants him to get a cleaning lady so he’s not doing manual labor anymore. And she, of course, doesn’t want him watching porn. Barbara is driving the story.

As Don begins to get frustrated with this control, we get the sense that this is all going to blow up at some point, and that’s why we keep watching. In other words, nothing in the movie ever gets too settled. There are always things grinding against and working to unfurl the relationship. That conflict is what provides the entertainment.

Another really smart decision was bringing in this class and the Esther character. I usually don’t advocate bringing in brand new characters this late in a script, but Esther is so persistent, so intriguing, that we’re wondering where her inclusion’s going to go, especially because it isn’t your run-of-the-mill temptation situation where a young smokin’ lady lures our male protagonist into the bedroom. Esther is older and unattractive to Don, which adds an extra element of mystery to the ordeal. We really have no idea how that’s going to end up.

That relationship then takes us to the end of the movie, where again, Gordon-Levitt made a smart choice. He kept the script short. Only 90 pages (if it’s the same as the running time). So we don’t linger around on anything too long here. We move quickly from one section to the next and therefore no time is wasted. I read three scripts this week that each could’ve cut 30 pages because the writers were writing all these extra unnecessary scenes that only peripherally added to the story. Gordon-Levitt did the opposite. He only included what was necessary and not a single scene more.

I know I talk a lot about rules on this site. But I also say that the rules you break are what make your script different from everything else and therefore, you should always try to break a few when writing. It doesn’t always turn out well (and can easily veer into disaster-territory) but when you do it right, you come up with a movie like Don Jon, one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

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

What I learned: Except for special circumstances, never let things get too happy in your main romantic relationship. There should always be an element working to unseat the relationship. If it’s not your lead, it should be the romantic interest. If it’s not the lead or the romantic interest, it should be something outside the relationship. The second a relationship becomes perfect, is the second it becomes boring.

What I learned #2: Miss Scriptshadow told me this would be a good movie and I didn’t believe her, so this is a public apology for thinking she could possibly be wrong. Miss Scriptshadow, like all other women, is never wrong. I will buy her Starbucks to make up for my heinous gaffe.

This is your chance to discuss the week’s amateur scripts, offered originally in the Scriptshadow newsletter. The primary goal for this discussion is to find out which script(s) is the best candidate for a future Amateur Friday review. The secondary goal is to keep things positive in the comments with constructive criticism.

Below are the scripts up for review, along with the download links. Want to receive the scripts early? Head over to the Contact page, e-mail us, and “Opt In” to the newsletter.

Happy reading!

Submit your own script for a review!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if it gets reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from writer) A team of scientists at an Antarctic research facility unleashes a deadly prehistoric creature from two miles beneath the ice.
Why you should read: (from writer) “The script was a ‘Featured Submission’ on Triggerstreet and top three in Zoetrope’s monthly competition, so I believe it’s on the right track. A solid script that could make a solid film if paired with the right filmmaker.”
Writer: Richard McMahon
Details: 103 pages

Except for Tuesday, this week has been all about the drama. Heck, there’s been more drama than a season of Housewives of New Jersey. Prisoners, Captain Phillips, Promised Land. And I’ll tell ya, it’s gotten me all drama’d out. That’s the thing with drama – it sucks all the energy out of you. So I was excited, today, to read something that actually had some “movie” in it. I wrote about PDA a few weeks ago, and without reading a single page of Volstok, I can tell you it already has the P and the D.

But just picking a marketable idea doesn’t get you to the front of the line. You’re still going to have to go through security like everyone else. And that’s where you’re going to find out whether you forgot to put your wallet and your cell phone in the x-ray trays. Okay, that wasn’t the best analogy, but give me a break — it’s the end of the week and I’m tired and Miss SS is making me go see Don Jon, which I’m convinced will be a one-note script that probably would’ve been relevant when porn first hit the internet in, say… 1999? When you eagerly waited for those GIFS to slowly load, vertical chunk by vertical chunk until that entire wonderful NSFW picture laid before you? It didn’t matter if the woman was 300 pounds and had a tumor growing out of her neck.  Just the fact that you were downloading a naked picture on the internet was sooooo coooool.  Yup, definitely the end of the week. Let’s get to Vostok!

We’re out in the middle of Antarctica, a place where heat stroke and sunscreen aren’t in the vocabulary. The Vostok Research Facility has been working diligently towards drilling 3700 meters down to the last giant unknown lake in the world. It’s such a big deal that all the media outlets are sending their people in for the big break-through. Well, that was the plan anyway, until a major Antarctic storm (since just BEING in Antarctica is a storm, I can only imagine what a real storm there would be like) ruins their plans. Oh well, they’ll have to wait another six months until the media can grace them with their presence again.

Not so fast says our hero Gus Downey, a 50 year old marine biologist. What if they just drilled into the lake anyway! Bad idea, says the rest of the crew, including Abby, Gus’s lover. They could get in a lot of trouble for that. In fact, one of the facility’s crew members jumps up and reveals he’s been secretly sent here to make sure Gus doesn’t try any such tricks. Except Gus doesn’t care. “Go ahead and try and stop me,” he says, and starts the drilling.

They drill through the final round of ice and after accidentally contaminating the lake (a big no-no in the science community I guess), everything seems to be okay. They then start studying microbes from the lake. Unfortunately, while this is happening, crew members start dying one by one, including the nice French guy (Richard must have been inspired by my French Week). Eventually they learn that some giant lizard-like piranha creature has fused with one of their crew members and is now… well… EATING everybody.

This becomes personal when Piranha Thing eats Boris, the Russian father of crew-member Victor. Victor takes this very seriously and does his best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, going out to hunt the thing. The rest of the crew-members would rather just wait it out, but when the creature knocks out the power, they have no choice but to go outside – where the creature lurks – to turn on the backup generators. I don’t think I have to tell you that this probably isn’t going to end well.

The contained thriller monster pic is one of the oldest and most dependable genres in the book. You’ve got The Thing. You’ve got Alien. Descent. Jurassic Park. The list goes on. Here’s the thing with this genre, though: It’s so formulaic that if you don’t do something unique with it – if you don’t try to set your movie apart from all the other contained monster thrillers – it’ll get stuck in Samesville, a script purgatory of sorts where many scripts go to disappear. And unfortunately, I believe that’s what’s happened with Volstok.

I think it’s good to wear your influences on your sleeve. But there’s a difference between being influenced and rewriting your favorite movie. Volstok is way too similar to The Thing and Alien. We’re out in the middle of Antarctica. Strange monsters are infesting human bodies, using them to grow into vicious hybrids. The big danger in that is not only are you not giving your reader something original. But you’re asking him to compare your script to one of the best movies of all time. And EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Your movie will lose. Those movies are the best for a reason. Cause they’re awesome! That’s why I advocate being original so much. Because that way nobody can compare your script to something else. I mean, all I kept thinking here was, “The Thing was better because they had that element of ‘any one of them can be the monster.’” Volstok didn’t have that layer, giving it a “not-as-complex” tag.

The thing is, the writing itself here, while it doesn’t set the world on fire, is pretty darn good. Richard’s clearly written a number of scripts and knows how to work with in the screenwriting medium. The paragraphs are sparse and to the point. The story moves quickly (except for one part – which I’ll get to in a sec). He’s created something that can be marketed and sold.

I’m afraid he’s only put about 60% of himself into Vostok though. It feels like something that was thrown together quickly. I don’t get a sense of depth with this world, especially when it comes to the characters. Nobody has any deep-set problems or flaws or issues. The problems only come AFTER the creatures arrive. Yeah, Gus is an alcoholic but it feels tacked on. I didn’t even know he was an alcoholic until one of the characters told me. That’s the kiss of death, when a character has to tell you something. It should’ve been clearly SHOWN. When a supply crew shows up, have him take the guy around back and give him an extra $200, where we see the supply guy secretly give him a big stash of whiskey.

I think that’s something that hurt the script as well. There weren’t really any surprises. Everything kind of went by the book for this kind of script and that’s a killer because, again, you’re writing in a genre that EVERYBODY writes in. So you have to work the story more. I mean just last night in my newsletter I reviewed a script called Flower about a messed up teenage girl who starts a weird relationship with her step-brother. That was just a basic character piece and there were ALL SORTS of weird twists and turns in the script. If writers are throwing twists, turns, reversals, surprises, and secrets into character-pieces, you better bet that you need them in something like Volstok, which is strictly plot-driven.

I guess, to summarize, this script was too simple. It didn’t go beyond the call of duty. I didn’t get the impression that the writer shed any blood, sweat, or tears while writing this. You have to push yourself to come up with an original take on an old idea, then continue to push yourself to come up with original variations of the formula itself. Look at The Descent. Nobody had done a deep cave monster-in-a-box thriller before. That’s why that movie stood out. If I were Richard, I’d start with writing down 10 ideas to make Volstok unlike any of these films we’ve seen before. Just by doing that simple exercise, I guarantee you the script will start to separate itself from the pack.

Script link: Vostok

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

What I learned: Beware the “pausing” phenomenon. “Pausing” is when you’re trying to follow specific page number beats (i.e., the inciting incident on page 12, the first act turn on page 25 or 27) and you don’t have enough material to get to those beats, so you “pause,” writing in a bunch of filler until you get to those page numbers. That happened here in my opinion. The first act turn, Gus and crew deciding to drill into the lake, happens around page 29. But in my opinion, it was a total pause. The previous 10-15 pages were all filler and we could’ve gotten to this moment way sooner. Don’t be a slave to your page number beats. If the script feels like it’s reaching a point faster than it should, go with it and come up with other options for the following story beats, because readers can tell when you’re writing filler. Beware the pause!

Okay, I’m going to talk today about a movie many of you probably don’t even know about. Which is okay because that’s the point. I’ve become strangely fascinated by this movie because I read (and reviewed) the script last year and it was a really good script! The kind of thing I may have even put in my Top 25 when I first started the site. The script and movie is called Promised Land. And while it attempted to position itself for the Oscar race (coming out at the tail end of 2012) it failed miserably. It made 8 million dollars at the box office and was promptly never heard from again. My question is, how come a film with one of the biggest movie stars in the world (Matt Damon), one in which everyone involved was confident it could compete for the Oscars, simply disappear? And what does that mean for those of you trying to write similar scripts?

As I said, Promised Land was a really good script. It was about this guy, Steve Butler (played by Damon), who worked for a major energy company, who was responsible for going into small towns and cutting deals with the residents to allow the company to frack on their land. Fracking is a controversial procedure that involves drilling deep underground for natural gas. Typically, converting residents is easy because you’re giving them more money than they’ve ever seen in their life. But things get complicated when certain members of the town start challenging the safety of fracking. And when a young, arrogant environmentalist, Dustin Noble (played by John Krasinski, who co-wrote the film with Damon), starts exposing the big bad energy company for the con artists they are, not only is converting this town in doubt, Steve Butler’s entire career is in jeopardy.

The script is really well-structured and well-written. We have a clear goal for Steve – convert the town. The stakes are huge – if he fails, he’s going to lose his job and his career in energy will be over forever. And we have urgency in the form of a ticking time bomb – he’s got 2 weeks before the town votes on whether to allow their town to be fracked or not. We have a fun little villain in Dustin Noble. Obstacles are constantly thrown at Steve, making his success more and more unlikely (in screenwriting, you always want to make things harder and harder for your hero as your story moves on). It even has a great little twist ending. There really wasn’t a whole lot this script or movie did wrong. So why the hell didn’t anybody see it?

That’s the question that’s been dogging me ever since the film came out. And it’s an important one. Part of your job, as a screenwriter, is to track every single movie in the business and how it does, and then be able to explain, to a reasonable degree, why it succeeded or failed. Why? Because you’re writing movies for the same market. If you don’t understand why something works or doesn’t work, you won’t be able to accurately position your own scripts for the market.

In fact, you should try and keep track of projects from the inception stage, when they were first purchased or announced. You should then make predictions on how well you think the project will do. If you’re right, it means you have a reasonably good grasp of the market, which means you understand what kind of screenplays do well. Prisoners was a great example. I knew when that script sold it was probably going to make between 20-25 million dollars opening weekend. It was something that could easily be marketed, but didn’t have splashy enough elements to take it beyond that. It opened at 22 million dollars.

Which leads us back to Promised Land. Why wasn’t it able to keep its promise? Whenever something fails at the box office, the first thing you have to look at is the concept. Promised Land is about fracking, which isn’t a very well-known practice in the public’s eye. It also sounds like a political issue, and one of the least lucrative subject matters at the box office is politics. Yesterday I pointed out that there are movies that you feel like you “should” see and movies that you “want to” see. No doubt Promised Land feels like the former. And the problem with movies you feel like you should see is that you usually never get around to seeing them. Which was clearly the case here.

And that brings us to the sad reality of where we are with this kind of film – Promised Land is the kind of movie that audiences don’t care about anymore. They used to. It used to be that audiences enjoyed going to the theater and watching a character-driven drama. Even as close back as Good Will Hunting, another Matt Damon writing-starring project (even directed by the same director, Gus Van Sant). But the reality is that these days, there’s too much competition. Not only has the amount of product quadrupled since then (there are like 10 new movies hitting straight-to-video every week), but you have video games (Grand Theft Auto just made 800 million dollars in its first week of release) and the internet. Not to mention we’re in the midst of the Golden Age of TV. Seriously, how fun is it to just lay back, bust open a bag of chips, and watch your favorite show while surfing the net? THAT’S what these movies are competing with. Which is why they’re suffering so badly. They don’t provide that big “oomph” factor that a film like Fast and Furious does to actually motivate you to get off your couch and go to the theater.

Oh, and don’t get confused with what makes YOU get out of your seat and go see a movie. You’re an anomaly. You want to be part of this business. So you see everything. And you get excited by quirky little independent films that the average moviegoer has no idea about. That doesn’t count. I’m talking about the guy in Middle America with a job that tires him the frack out every week with three kids. That’s the guy you gotta convince to get off the couch.

There’s only one exception to all this. If the movie is fucking amazing. If the movie is amazing, like American Beauty amazing, then a film like this can break out. But how often does that happen anymore? And this is why producers are so wary about this kind of script. Because they know that even if they do everything right – even if they cast one of the biggest movie stars in the world! – that the film could still bomb. If you’re a producer with two kids at private school and a $7500 mortgage every month, are you really going to take a chance on that kind of film? Of course not. It’s too freaking risky. Which is why I tell you guys to avoid these scripts – as spec scripts – like the plague. The sad reality is, if Promised Land would’ve come to me as an amateur spec, I would have said, “Holy shit! This is really good. But sorry guys, it’s too risky to gamble on.”

Another thing I believe doomed Promised Land was the lack of a memorable character. It’s my belief that the more “plain” your concept is, the more important it is to have a big memorable character, like a psycho therapist who will choke you if you fuck with him (Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting). I think they tried to do that here with Dustin Noble, but he wasn’t memorable enough. And that left us with a plain idea with plain characters. What’s there to get excited about? Matt Damon should’ve done more with his character. I mean, if he hadn’t written this himself, would he have wanted to play the straight-forward Steve Butler? My guess is probably not. You HAVE to have memorable characters in your script, especially with a drama, because the eccentricity of those characters is probably going to be the only thing you can market in your trailers. No effects. No exciting plot. But at least you’ll have a character we’ll want to see.

I have a new term I’ve been using lately – SOFT. The more I look at the movie industry, the more I see that the movies and scripts that fail to stand out are “soft.” There’s no edginess to the plot or characters or anything. They don’t really take chances. Instead of throwing you around, they massage you. And to me, those are the easiest movies to forget. Promised Land was really soft. And people don’t go to see soft. The concept was too “blah.” The characters were too “blah.” And that softness guaranteed people weren’t going to show up. But I’m interested in what you have to say. Did you know about Promised Land? Did you not go see it? Why not?