Last week we discussed box office surprises and how those movies’ screenplays factored into their success. The idea is that when something unexpected happens in this industry, we, as writers, should know why it happened, so we can then use that knowledge in our own writing. Well today, we’re going to do the opposite. We’re going to look at some box office duds and see if we can’t figure out why they dudded. Again, the more knowledge we have, the better equipped we are to find success.

As I noted last week, directing, marketing and star power are all going to play a big role in a movie’s success. But everything stems from the screenplay. When you’re talking about the reasons for a box office failure (from a screenwriting perspective), you’re talking about two things. You’re talking about the concept, that 3-5 second pitch you can convey on a poster or billboard, and you’re talking about the story, since most trailers are going to convey the gist of your story within their two-minute running time. All else being equal, if nobody shows up to your movie, you can probably blame one of those two things.

The Lone Ranger
Projected Box Office: 250-300 million
Actual Box Office: 90 million
There are tons of theories on why this movie bombed. Even Johnny Depp has one (the American press conspired to destroy it). Many of these theories are probably right, but I’ll tell you something I noticed that not a lot of people talked about. When you watched The Lone Ranger trailer, you saw absolutely nothing new. Train chases, seen’em. Cowboys, seen’em. Indians, seen’em. Shootouts, seen’em. There wasn’t a single thing in that trailer that I hadn’t seen before. And if you’re writing a summer blockbuster script, and you aren’t giving us something we haven’t seen before, you may as well throw in the white flag, because audiences aren’t going to show up. The summer season is the “Thrill Season” for the movie business, and you gotta knock us out if you expect to compete. I mean look at the movie that came out last weekend, Gravity. That’s the perfect example of something new and different and fresh we HAVEN’T seen before, which is why so many people showed up for it.

R.I.P.D.
Projected Box Office: 130-150 million
Actual Box Office: 33 million
I actually thought this script was pretty good. Not great. But fun. However, the exact issue I spotted during that first read was exactly what doomed it. R.I.P.D. felt too similar to another film franchise – Men In Black. This is one of the trickiest games you play as a writer because you’re told to write something similar enough to other films that studios can envision it, but fresh enough that audiences won’t see it as old hat. R.I.P.D., in its trailer, felt too similar to a huge franchise and the reason that’s a killer is because even if you do a really good job of copying that franchise (or film), you’ll still be seen as the “lower quality” version of it. Now you can sometimes circumvent this issue if there’s been enough time between the film you’re copying and the one you’re releasing, but Men In Black 3 had just come out a year earlier, so people were bound to see this as Copycat Nation. Always have something different about your screenplay. If it’s too similar to something else we’ve seen, we’re on to the next script.

After Earth
Projected Box Office: 140-160 million
Actual Box Office: 60 million
I think the main reason this movie didn’t do well was the casting. There’s something about Will Smith doing a movie with his teenage son that gets people  riled up. A father who can hand you the starring role in a giant effects-driven action movie reeks of the worst form of entitlement, right? In this country, we like to see people earn it. And while I know Jayden Smith did well with Karate Kid, I think America’s still waiting for him to prove himself before he’s ready for major action parts. With that said, this script didn’t open THAT terribly. It made 27 million dollars on its opening weekend. So if it really impressed its audiences, it could’ve made 75, maybe even 90 million dollars from word-of-mouth. So why didn’t it? Well, I noticed something about this film in retrospect that I now believe is killing all of M. Night’s  films. They’re all so MONOTONE. Every character is one-note. They’re either sad, angry, or a combination of the two. The obsession with this downbeat tone results in audiences leaving the theater… down. And if moviegoers are leaving a movie down, do you think they’re running off to their friends to tell them to see the movie? Of course not. This when you had two of the more charismatic actors in the world!

Man On A Ledge
Projected Box Office: 65-75 million
Actual Box Office: 18.6 million
It’s too bad this movie bombed because I heard the original writer is a really nice guy and his script got shredded into something that barely resembled his original idea. Having said that, Man On A Ledge’s failure can be attributed to a mistake I see often in the amateur community – a confusing premise. A good premise is clear and strong and obvious to the audience as soon as they see it. A bad premise takes a lot of extra explaining, and often still leaves unanswered questions. I read Man On A Ledge AND watched the trailer and I’m still not a hundred percent on what’s going on. A guy is pretending that he’s going to jump off a building so that his friends can secretly rob the bank across the street? I mean that sorta makes sense, but with all the ways you can rob a bank, is a fake ledge-jumping decoy really the most logical option? If I don’t understand the concept, I’m not going to see the movie. So that’s one of those things where there’s no wiggle room on. This is why you wanna run your concepts by your no-bullshit crew (people who are honest with you and tell you when your stuff sucks). If they’re confused or not impressed, move on to the next idea.

Runner Runner
Projected Box Office: 60-70 million
Actual Box Office (as of October 9, 2013): 9 million
Runner Runner is what I refer to as a middle-of-the-road script. It’s a decent read, it keeps things interesting enough that you turn the pages, but it doesn’t do an inch more. In other words, it’s generic. And to me, generic is the worst crime you can commit as a writer, because it’s the opposite of everything a writer should be: committed, hard-working, always challenging himself, never satisfied. These qualities ensure you’ll keep writing until you’ve got that fresh new concept, that fresh new scene, or that unique character that nobody’s seen before. A driven writer knows when a section of his script is average or derivative and keeps working on it until it pops. Runner Runner is the opposite of that and audiences don’t need an entire movie to see that. They can pick that up by watching the trailer. So when Runner Runner’s trailer displayed 2 minutes of generic characters, lines, and imagery, of course we’re not going to show up and pay ten bucks for it.

Cloud Atlas
Projected Box Office: 80-100 million
Actual Box Office: 27 million
When agents or producers tell you that your 180 page epic sci-fi script doesn’t have a market, and therefore, there’s no point in sending it out, this is what they mean. There may be 2 or 3 directors who could’ve done a better job than the Wachowski Siblings with Cloud Atlas, and it wouldn’t have mattered. It still would’ve made 25-40 million. That’s because serious takes on esoteric science-fiction fare don’t make money. We’ve seen it with movies like The Fountain. We’ve seen it with movies like Solaris (2002). Even Blade Runner didn’t do that well. If you want to survive in sci-fi, you have to go more mainstream. Robots trying to assassinate people. Guys waking up every 8 minutes in a train after it keeps blowing up. Giant Robots battling monsters. And the thing is, you can still explore some dark themes in those scripts. You’re just not being pretentious about it or over-complicating the narrative. It should be noted, though, that you can make your pretentious esoteric sci-fi flicks if they cost very little (like Primer). There IS an audience out there for these films. It’s just not very big.

There’s an old saying in Hollywood that no one sets out to make a bad movie. And, for the most part, I believe that. It’s in everyone’s best interest to make a good movie because it ensures they’ll keep getting work. BUT, I still think there are a lot of lazy people in Hollywood who aren’t trying as hard as they think they are. Being honest with yourselves when something isn’t working and figuring out a solution (particularly at the script stage) can be the difference between a good and a bad movie, or in some cases, stopping a movie that’s going to lose everyone money.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A 12 year old boy is visited by a mysterious man from the future, who claims he needs his help to save the world.
About: Paramount picked this script up exactly 1 year ago with Tom Cruise attached. It’s said that the script went for a hefty price (I’m guessing high six-figures). It’s stated on the script’s title page that this is a first draft. However, I have another draft of the script marked nine months earlier that’s listed as a “revised draft.” So maybe they started over? Were possibly released by one production company before moving to another? If I had the time to read both, I would, but I’m just going to go with the one that’s more recent. However, if it is an early draft, we should take that into consideration. Likely, more changes will come. Co-writer T.S. Nowlin wrote the upcoming sci-fi film “The Maze Runner,” as well as contributed to the new Fantastic Four reboot. Co-writing team Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett wrote Journey To The Center Of The Earth and Wimbledon.
Writers: T.S. Nowlin and Mark Levin & Jennifer Flackett
Details: 10/9/2012 (First Draft)

Usually I use the “SS” acronym to refer to Scriptshadow. But today, I’m using it to reference something else.

SCRIPT SLUMP

I haven’t read anything that’s knocked me out in a long time. I’ve run into the occasional well-executed screenplay (solid structure, solid characters, good story), but this is what amateur writers seem to forget. The people reading your scripts aren’t interested in reading something solid. They’re looking for something great. They’re looking for something that stands out from the pack. Those are the only scripts that have a chance of doing anything in the industry.

This requires big ideas, taking chances that pay off, concepts we haven’t seen before, or if you do write a traditional story, executing the hell out of it. “Solid” might get you into meetings or land you low-level representation, but in order to stand out in this business, you have to blow people away. And it’s been a long time since I’ve been blown away. I think Nightcrawler by Dan Gilroy was the last time that happened (you’ll only have seen that review if you receive my newsletter).

So guys, stop being okay with “okay.” Push yourselves more. Tiger Woods didn’t become the best in the world by shooting for par. Neither should you.

Okay, now that I got that rant out of the way, let’s look at the curiously titled, Our Name Is Adam.

“Adam” introduces us to none other than… Adam! A 12 year-old boy who looks about 9. Adam is a runt of a kid with an asthma problem to boot. And to make matters worse, his 16 year-old brother Tommy is the Golden Boy, the guy who hits the home run at the end of the game and has the prettiest gal in school waiting for him at home plate.

But Adam’s life is about to get juicier. One night while home alone, he hears a noise in the shed, so he goes outside to check it out (a necessity in all movies – Must check out that noise! No matter how dangerous!). There he meets a 30-something man in a space suit. The man eventually convinces Adam that he needs his help for a very special mission, and the two head off on a road trip across the country.

Not long after that, we learn that our pilot guy (spoiler) is actually Adam as an adult! And he’s come back from the future to destroy the program that allowed time travel in the first place. You see, his megalomaniac boss is using time travel to take over the world and this is the only way to stop him! A little complicated for a 12 year-old to understand, but after the pilot proves that he is, indeed, Adam as an adult, Young Adam is in.

Problems arise when OTHER pilots come back from the future to stop Adam and Adam. And we’re floored (spoiler) when we learn that the leader of these pilots is the adult version of Adam’s older brother, golden boy Tommy!

Adult Adam’s plan is a little complicated, but it amounts to finding the woman who discovered time travel and telling her not to share it with her business partner, the guy who eventually uses it for nefarious purposes. When Evil Company Leader finds out this happening, hell hath no fury. He will do everything in his power to take the Adams down!

Okay, before reading a new script, I try not to research the writers (I usually write the “About” section after I read the script). I don’t want their past works to affect my opinion of the script. It’s kind of like when you’re jamming to a song only to later find out Katy Perry sings it. Had you known that ahead of time, you would’ve hated it. Your ignorance, however, allows you to judge the song on its own merits.

So I didn’t find out until AFTERWARDS that this was written by the same writers who wrote Journey To The Center Of The Earth. In this case, unfortunately, I didn’t want to put “Our Name Is Adam” on repeat. Knowing these were the “Journey” writers actually made a lot of sense. “Adam” has a light safe feel to it geared towards a very un-discerning audience, much like that film. Good if you’re a ten year old boy. Bad if you’re me. As I was looking for a lot more.

Even if its expectations weren’t that high, however, I still think the script missed the mark. You see, when writers make the excuse that they’re writing for kids and therefore don’t need a lot of depth, I point them to none-other than Pixar, which makes films for kids as young as six years old and they tackle themes like death and grief and abandonment – really intense stuff – all the time. And kids turn out for those films in droves. So when I look at a script like “Our Name is Adam,” I feel kinda gypped. There isn’t any depth here. Everything’s too easy and too light. And no, I don’t think there’s an excuse for that.

Let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean. First of all, I’m ALWAYS wary when I see a kid with an inhaler in a script. Not that it can’t work, but it usually implies a lack of imagination, which is never a good thing. Now an ADULT CHARACTER with an inhaler?  That’d be different.  By no means a mind-blowing idea.  But it’d at least be unexpected. I mean how many times have we seen the meek kid with the inhaler? 500? 1000? So Adam having asthma didn’t instill a lot of confidence.

Then early in the script, Adam’s mom comes home to find Adam hanging out with a strange 35 year old man (the pilot). She says, “Who is this?” He lies, “This is my science tutor. I paid for him with my allowance money.” She shrugs her shoulders and invites the man to dinner. I’m sorry but WHAT??? IN what universe does a mother catch her kid sneaking around with a 35 year old man and then invite that man for dinner? If I walk in on my 12 year-old with a 35 year old man, I’m calling 9-1-1. There were a lot of little moments like this that kept me at arm’s length from the script.

With that said, the script DOES pick up in the second half once Adam and Adam go on their road trip. It just goes to show how powerful a solid goal that keeps your protagonists moving can be. Because up until that point, we’re just hanging out at this house and I don’t care what story you’re telling or how good of a writer you are. It’s hard to keep things interesting when your characters are just hanging around in a house all day.

As you’re likely picking up on, this script wasn’t for me. So you’re probably asking, “Okay well Carson, you just said that we needed to write something great to break in. And then this sells for a million bucks and you don’t like it. What gives?” Well, the answer to that question is easy. Journey To The Center Of The Earth. That movie made money. And if there’s one universal truth in Hollywood, it’s that if you make money with a movie, Hollywood will buy up whatever you have next. Even if they don’t understand it. Even if they don’t like it. Because there are so few guarantees in this business that the only thing anybody has to go on is the past success of writers, directors and actors. If you have proven that your material makes money, Hollywood will continue to throw money at you, regardless of your rotten tomatoes score.

You the unsold amateur screenwriter, unfortunately, do not have that advantage. Therefore you must write something great in order to stand out. You might be one of the lucky ones to sell a mediocre script, but that will always be the exception and not the rule. And to bank on being the exception is the same as banking on the lottery.

Our Name Is Adam started slow, gained steam, but ultimately had too generic of an execution. With that said, I’d categorize “Journey To The Center Of The Earth” the same way. And that film made 240 million worldwide. So what do I know? Either way, big script sales are good for all writers as it keeps the studios buying. For that reason, I’m happy “Adam” sold.

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

What I learned: Take time to make the mundane story points in your script realistic. Cutting corners and going with schlocky reasoning always results in an un-engaging reading experience. The reason this happens is because writers are so focused on the complicated parts of their story, they de-prioritize the smaller stuff. The thing is, the smaller stuff still needs to make sense. So when I see a mother casually invite Stranger Danger to dinner after he was sneaking around with her little boy, I’m jumping script. That just isn’t believable. It’s your job as a writer to make every situation believable, whether it’s a major plot point or a tiny one.

Okay, I’m going to be honest. I have an ulterior motive for today’s “10 Tips” post. Toy Story 3 was written by Michael Arndt. And as Star Wars geeks all know, well, Arndt is writing the new Star Wars film. So I guess I’m checking up on him. Now here’s the thing with Arndt. There are folks out there who have complained he’s a little too technical in his writing approach. To them, his movies feel “constructed” and “written,” and I’m trying to figure out why that is. I suppose Arndt struggled for a long time to break into the business (which he finally did with Little Miss Sunshine) and therefore had a lot of time to study screenplays. When you study the craft for that long, you get to know the innards of a screenplay really well. That vast knowledge may explain his uber-dependence on his craft. Having said that, I don’t share that point of view. I think Arndt is a really good screenwriter and was relieved when he got the Star Wars job because I knew, at the very least, the script wouldn’t suck. We had no such guarantees with the last three Star Wars films. For those unfamiliar with Arndt’s work, he wrote Little Miss Sunshine, Brave, Oblivion, and the upcoming, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

1) What is structure? – When we talk about structure, we’re typically talking about the three major acts your story will be divided into (setup, conflict, resolution), the goals driving your characters forward (the toys must get back to Andy before he leaves for college!), stakes and urgency (They have less than a week to get back to Andy. If they don’t, they’re stuck in this prison daycare center forever!), the major story beats along the way (i.e. Lotso is revealed to be an evil dictator!), and your character arcs (Woody must learn to let go of Andy!). These things need to be appropriately paced in order to keep your story interesting for its entire running time. A lack of (or a badly executed) structure will always result in your audience getting bored early.

2) The Structure Paradox – Here’s something I recently realized after reading a bout of bad scripts. The writers who don’t know structure are the ones who need to focus on it. And the writers who obsess over structure are the ones who need to pull back from it. Beginner writers want to blaze their own trails, do it “their way,” and ignore 100 years worth of storytelling knowledge. The problem is, they don’t know enough about structure to go against it, so their scripts are usually rambling, incoherent, and unfocused. Experienced writers, on the other hand, know how important structure is and therefore make it a priority. The problem with them is that they depend on it too much, which means their scripts lose any and all unpredictability, resulting in a lot of “run-of-the-mill” stories. It’s okay to break away from a planned story beat every once in awhile or have your character do something out-of-character. So if you’re a beginner, embrace structure. If you’re a vet, resist it every once in awhile. Your writing will get better.

3) The Invisible Man – Structure is the beams, the foundation, of your script. But just like a building, you don’t leave all those beams exposed, do you? No, you cover them up with walls, paint, pictures, plants, bookcases, until it’s impossible to imagine the skeletal framework it used to be. Screenplays are no different. You add the structure (the acts, the goals, the character arcs) and then you start exploring relationships, seamlessly transitioning your scenes, adding realistic dialogue, all the things that make that structure invisible. Being able to incorporate structure is great. Being able to incorporate structure INVISBLY is what separates the pros from the nos.

4) Real writers cover – Arndt says that a big part of his improvement as a writer came from covering scripts for production companies (meaning he read and broke down a script’s strengths and weaknesses). Having a gut reaction on a screenplay or a movie (“That script sucked”) doesn’t help you as a writer. It’s only when you specifically break down WHY it didn’t work for you that you begin to understand the inner workings of a screenplay. So if you’re not already, read some spec sale scripts and cover them. Or read the Amateur Offerings scripts (which I post every Saturday) and give your analysis in the comments section. Or give detailed notes to your friends on their scripts. However you go about it, analytically breaking down screenplays is going to make you a better screenwriter.

5) CONFLICT ALERT – Remember that conflict should be present in every single scene in your movie. An example of it here is when the toys arrive at the Sunnyside Day Care Center. All the toys are excited that they’ll now have a place to be played with. Everyone EXCEPT for Woody that is. Woody thinks they need to be back with their owner, Andy. His resistance adds the necessary conflict to keep the scenes lively. If everyone agrees they should be here, how interesting is that?

6) Set up expectations, then reverse them – Setting up expectations is a neat little tool you can use to juice up any part of your script. For example, when the toys are on their way to Sunnyside, Woody warns the others that it’s going to be terrible there. That’s the expectation. But they get there and it’s wonderful! Expectation reversed! Lotso the Bear is another expectation. He’s presented as a wonderful helpful leader. All the toys love this guy! But he turns out to be a heartless dictator. Expectations are essentially story twists, and since you always need 3-6 twists in every script, they’re a good tool to have at your disposal.

7) Dialogue Tip: Tweak well-known phrases – Well-known sayings or phrases are fun (“Are you ready?” “I’ve been ready my whole life.”). But in movies, you want to tweak them and make them unique to your characters. So at one point in Toy Story 3, Mr. Potato Head retrieves his old body. The well-known phrase he uses is, “You’re a sight for sore eyes.” The line, however, is tweaked to, “You’re a sight for detachable eyes.”

8) Michael Arndt never writes a script unless he knows the ending – If you know where your script ends, it’s much easier to plot it, since you know where all your characters need to end up. So if you want to make things easier on yourself, figure out your ending before you start.

9) A character’s disposition shouldn’t always match his appearance –Toy Story has made an entire franchise out of this, but it’s a great practice to use, even if you’re not writing an animated feature. Try to give a few of your characters traits that are the opposite of their appearance. So the T-Rex is a scaredy cat. The big cuddly pink bear is an evil dictator. His main henchman is a baby. Or, since JJ’s directing Arndt’s current Star Wars script, let’s look at JJ’s Lost. Sawyer, the big bully on the island, is an avid book reader. This practice almost always makes characters more interesting.

10) A Deus-Ex-Machina ending can work IF it’s properly set up – In the end of Toy Story 3 (spoiler alert!), the toys are about to fall into an incinerator when a GIANT CLAW comes down to save them. A total deus-ex-machina moment (the characters do nothing to get out of their own predicament. They’re saved by someone else). BUT, that claw happens to be operated by the little aliens who our characters first encountered in the original Toy Story (they were in the “Claw-Machine” at the arcade). Granted it was a bit of a cheat to use something set up 2 movies ago. But the point is, it WAS a payoff and therefore the deus-ex-machina did not feel like a deus-ex-machina.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: An astronaut finds herself fighting for her life when the space shuttle is destroyed during a space walk.
About: Alfonso Cuaron is paving his way towards becoming the best director in the world. The Children of Men and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban director is known for his long takes that leave fellow industry folks shaking their heads in awe. But he’s gone to a new level with his new film, setting up dozens of never-ending shots in space, with the camera often drifting instead of cutting, leaving you wondering, “How the heck did he do that?” Gravity stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and came out this weekend. It WAY over-performed, grossing 55 million dollars.
Writers: Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron (his brother)
Details: 90 minutes

Oh Gravity.

Why do you make it so difficult for me?

You have one of the greatest directors in the world directing your film. You have cutting edge special effects. You invented new equipment to make your movie (who does that besides James Cameron??). You’re one of the only films in existence that can claim its use of 3-D actually made the movie better. From a macro sense, you’re everything movies should be. You’re new. You’re different. You’re taking chances. You’re showing the audience something they’ve never seen before. In short, you’ve made going to the movies exciting.

But mannnnn….

Why?

Why does it feel like you missed the mark?

Missed the mark??? Carson, are you crazy? This movie was a tour de force, a cinematic opus, a cumberbatch of movement, frenzy, and Clooney. It was a pan fried chocolate peanut butter cup dipped in caramel and served on top of free-range ice cream. It was freaking awesome!

Yeah, but, but, but the script! The script I say! I loved watching Gravity. But I never CONNECTED to Gravity. I was always spinning just out of its orbit, desperately trying, just like Sandra Bullock, to feel something. Yet I couldn’t. Why? Why couldn’t I love this???

In order to explain this, you have to understand what we’re dealing with. And since I pretty awesomely summarized the plot of Gravity in my script review, I’m going to re-post it here:

Ryan Stone is a young medical engineer who never planned on becoming an astronaut. In fact, she had a job as a regular engineer down on earth as little as eight months ago. But now – right now – she’s up on the space shuttle, fixing one of the many “panels” that always seem to need fixing up in space. There are a few other astronauts drifting nearby as she does this, the most important of whom is Matt Kowalski, as veteran an astronaut as Ryan is a newbie. He’s bummed out because this might be his last mission.

I got news for you Matt. Ain’t no “might be” here. It *is* your last mission.

That’s because the next most abundant thing in space besides panels are satellites, and those wascally Russians just blew up one of theirs. The aftermath creates a chain reaction of spraying debris that hits multiple satellites, which also end up exploding, and all of a sudden thousands of pieces of debris are heading straight towards the space shuttle.

(lots of spoilers follow) Before the group can react, the debris destroys the shuttle and everyone on it except for Ryan and Matt. The two must then make their way down to the International Space Station – in their space suits only – before they run out of air and before this debris field destroys the space station as well. Along the way, poor Matt has to sacrifice himself to keep Ryan alive and the next thing you know, this girl who didn’t know the first thing about space eight months ago is drifting through it with no communication and next-to-no experience, desperately trying to find a way to survive this.

Everything that can go wrong does go wrong as the movie becomes a series of near death experiences. Ryan must jump from point to point – whether it be to a vessel, a station, or an oxygen tank – and survive long enough to make the journey to the next point after that (and so on). Each destination is accompanied by dangerous debris, dropping oxygen, and the likely chance that wherever she’s trying to go might not be there. Think Apollo 13, but with the odds stacked 1 million times higher against you, if that’s possible.

Okay, I don’t mean to keep bringing up the power of GSU, I really don’t. But this script has it in spades. Goal – GET TO SAFETY. Stakes – If you don’t, you die. Urgency – Always running out of oxygen, always running out of time. This kept Gravity moving at a brisk pace. And really, when you think about it, it wouldn’t have worked any other way. This movie took place in real time. No time cuts allowed. Under those circumstnaces, if you don’t have goals, stakes, and urgency, your script is going to taste like one drawn out piece of boring meat. So kudos for the strong use of GSU.

But where I really thought Cuaron excelled was in the obstacles category. When you send your main character after a goal, your job is to place lots of obstacles in front of that goal. You gotta make it hard for them or else it’ll be boring. I mean, what if, after the space shuttle blew up, a Russian shuttle flew by, snatched up Ryan, and brought her back to earth? Would that have been an interesting movie? My guess is no. Unless Ryan and the strapping Russian cosmonaut got into a steamy BDSM affair on the way back to earth a la 50 Shades Of Grey. But I’m thinking that movie MAY have been attacked for a shift in tone.

Instead, Cuaron provides a TON of obstacles. And not just any obstacles. Really freaking difficult obstacles. Ryan and Matt have to steer themselves to the Russian space station with 5 ounces of thrust left. Ryan must get there with only 3% oxygen left. Once she gets inside of the station, there’s a fire. Once in the escape vessel, she doesn’t have any fuel. Once she gets to the Chinese vessel, she must pilot the ship with everything labeled in Chinese. (SUPER MAJOR SPOILERS) Even when she finally gets to earth and lands in the water, the module sinks and she’s going to drown. Even when she GETS OUT of the module. Her suit weighs her down so she can’t swim to the surface.

So it’s not just placing the obstacles in front of your protagonist. It’s making them REALLY DIFFICULT obstacles. That’s why Gravity is so intense. Nothing was easy for our heroine. And it’s a great thing to remember when you write your own script.

But the same problem I had with the Gravity script doomed the Gravity film. Well, I shouldn’t say “doomed.” But kept it from becoming great.

Ryan, our protagonist, wasn’t very interesting.

And they tried. They really tried. She had a kid who died. You can’t say characters with dead children don’t have depth. But man, it just felt… I don’t know, false. I never really believed that her kid died. It felt like a band-aid, one of those things we writers add because we THINK it makes our characters deep, but it actually backfires because it feels so cliché and easy.

That’s not to say Cuaron’s job was easy. I always say that every script has its own challenges, its own unique issues that no writer has had to deal with before. And Gravity had some tough things to maneuver around. It was in space the whole time and our main character is in a space suit floating around for most of the movie. Besides her conversations with Matt, there isn’t really an opportunity to develop her. You can’t cut away because we’re not dealing with other characters. You can’t time jump because we’re telling this in real time. You can’t do flashbacks because that would defeat the whole purpose of us feeling like we were stuck in space.

So the only way to develop the character is through her conversations with Matt and the choices she makes. Trying to develop a character via dialogue is really hard. Someone can talk about the pain they feel cause their kid died, but without us ever knowing that kid or seeing that kid, it’s kinda hard to care, as terrible as that sounds.

I mean imagine in Castaway (another one-man show) if we would’ve started the movie on the airplane. We never would’ve met Chuck’s girlfriend. And then, once on the island, we would’ve shown him looking at the picture of her to develop some depth to him, and it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well because we never actually MET his girlfriend. That made her a real person that we really cared about. With Gravity, you don’t get that. And so I never really believed it or cared about it.

And this affected everything! Because her entire character was built off of her finally being able to let go of the past, represented by not giving up. That’s why character development is so important. It affects your screenplay in ways you don’t even think about. You’re thinking, “Okay, this scene where she’s trying to decide if she wants to keep fighting or not is going to be so compelling!” But it isn’t, because we’re not affected by the reason she’s thinking about giving up. We never got on board with that thirty pages ago.

But an even bigger problem, for me at least, was the TONE of Ryan’s character. She was just so down. She didn’t have any personality. She was flat. And it’s hard to get excited by that kind of character, to care about that kind of character. I felt this way in the script and I felt it here. Ryan was just not a very interesting character. And I’m finally understanding why so many actresses publicly passed over this part. There’s nothing here. I mean look at her opening scene. She’s changing panels! We learn nothing about the woman other than that she really wants to change panels.  And that’s about as much character development as we get for another 30 minutes.

I think Cauron would argue that that’s who she is. She probably became an astronaut to escape the pain of her real life, to be out in the middle of nowhere where she can only worry about mundane things like changing panels. And that’s fine. But I just thought it made the character boring. And the thing is, when you strip away all that craziness that happens to Ryan, what you have is a character piece. This has to be a character journey if we’re going to care about her making it through. And the overly vague backstory of a dead daughter just didn’t do it for me.

The thing is, this movie is such a f*cking amazing piece of cinema and Cuaron is such an amazing filmmaker that he’s able to overcome this issue and still make this movie worth watching. If you like movies, you have no reason not to see Gravity. But being the perfectionist I am, I wanted more. I didn’t want to just be moved technically, I wanted to be moved emotionally. And it didn’t happen.

[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission (3-D if you can afford it)
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Sometimes we pick flaws for our characters without thinking about WHAT KIND OF PERSON that flaw makes our character. We’re so excited to give our character a flaw (screenwriting books say this is good so YAY that we succeeded!) that we’re not aware it’s bullying our character into a certain personality. So say you decide, “I want to make my character unable to connect with people. That’s going to be his flaw.” Not a bad flaw to explore. But you realize, then, that your character will likely be quiet, stand-offish and introverted. Those are not qualities that make a character fun to watch. So are you really okay with that? By giving Ryan the character flaw that she can’t move past her child’s death, you’re also making her sad and depressing most of the time. Is that really the kind of character you want to write? Just make sure that when you’re coming up with your protagonist’s flaw, the resulting personality is something you like.

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!

TITLE: Noir of the Dead
GENRE: action horror/comedy
LOGLINE: A former gangster must once again take up the gun and unite rival Prohibition enemies in order to fight off marauding, mutant zombies.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “I wrote this script with the intention of having fun with some familiar tropes…Prohibition gangsters, zombies, a mad scientist, the lethal femme fatal. The script ended up in a digital sock drawer…until I dusted it off and entered it into the ScreenCraft Horror contest, where it made the finals. My prize was development notes from someone named Pat at LD Entertainment…and I’m actually embarrassed to repeat some of his complements, where the writing was compared to Billy Wilder and I.A.L Diamond…and now my girlfriend thinks I write like Willy Wonka and I’m sure Scriptshadow readers will think I write more like Lester Diamond. But some judges and a studio guy liked it, maybe a few others will too. You never know.

Can we have a word on zombie scripts? The other day I saw my 6 yr old niece playing some zombie game on her kid’s i-pad, and apparently it’s the most popular game. I had an apocalyptic vision of millions of kids growing up already hooked on zombies. Zombies ain’t going anywhere. Disco may be dead, but the undead…well, the undead never die.”

TITLE: Submerged
GENRE: Contained thriller
LOGLINE: Trapped in a shrinking air pocket deep beneath the ocean’s surface, the survivors of a plane crash battle to stay alive long enough for the rescue teams to locate them.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “This is my eighth screenplay, all in the action thriller genre. Submerged adheres rigidly to all of the spec script rules laid out on Scriptshadow – it is a low-budget, contained thriller with a marketable concept, set in a unique location, featuring a proactive protagonist who must conquer a potentially fatal flaw to succeed. And it all happens in a reader-friendly 94 pages!”

TITLE: Coin
GENRE: Thriller/Heist
LOGLINE: A brilliant young thief is forced to rob an auction in the heart of Manhattan, but, when the rules change, his mission becomes a life and death struggle to find his tormentor before he kills his mother.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “The script was inspired by your French Week review of the Untitled Hlavin project. To its credit, it’s an interesting departure from the normal heist story. Exhibit A. The object being sought is a coin and, although it is valuable, the protagonist stands to make zero dollars for his efforts. Not your standard 80/20 split. Already, things are different. Exhibit B. The protagonist is, for all intents and purposes, retired. Sure, he’s young. But he’s seen the flaw of his ways and changed. Exhibit C. The story is more about the journey than the goal as it explores his life and relationships as he figures out what his next moves will be. He has a good heart and it shows. Together with all of the twists and turns and backstabbing double-crosses, he’s never able to tell who’s with him and who’s not. It all adds up to thrilling adventure that pushes him to the limits of his abilities and wits, climaxing in a thrilling showdown you won’t see coming.”

TITLE: The After-Afterlife
GENRE: Comedy
LOGLINE: Terrified that there may not be life after the afterlife, a group of ghosts must convince the world that ghosts exist by revealing themselves to the crew of a cable ghost show on the night before their haunting place is bulldozed to the ground. It’s something that’s way easier said than done. It is a basic cable show, after all.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “In a word: story. This is a story first and foremost. It’s a funny story, but story always, always, always takes precedent over funny. Then, in many words: I wrote with a partner for many years, and we even scored well in a multitude of contests including Nicholl (Semifinals twice) and the Austin Film Festival (Finals). But now I’m trying a few solo scripts, and need to know if I’m good on my own, or if I should beg my partner to take me back.”

TITLE: Shifting.pdf)
GENRE: Supernatural Horror/Drama
LOGLINE: A teenage girl balances high school life with keeping her lycanthropy at bay.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: “I’ve worked for the city as a 911 call taker for the last, going on seven years. You hear stuff. One minute it’s a guy who robbed the local Best Buy (make that tried) of a PS3 console, tripped and fell in the parking lot, busting his head open in the process — now he’s got a brief hospital visit to look forward to, followed by a slightly longer stint in jail — the next it’s a man playing with his pet puppy, which ended up biting clean through his penis (do. not. ask.), and EMS has to walk him through how to contain the bleeding while his girlfriend laughs uncontrollably in the background.

Not to mention, of course, random conflicts among senior citizens involving tasers.

It can put your mind in a place. Which brings me to “Shifting”. I think I wrote this as a way of staying sane in my most unsanest of professions, but also out of genuine affection for werewolf cinema. Even ‘Bad Moon.'”