One of the coolest screenplay ideas I’ve seen all year. But does the execution match the concept?

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A former criminal is convicted of killing his ex-wife and young daughter, who’s gone missing. Looking at life in prison, he participates in a unique experimental program where he will scientifically “hibernate” during the entirety of his sentence.
About: This script was picked up for Fast Five director (and future Terminator 5 director?) Justin Lin to direct. The script has been getting a lot of buzz lately. Let’s find out why.
Writers: Geneva Robertson-Dworet & Will Frank (story by Dave Hill and Geneva Robertson-Dworet & Will Frank)
Details: 112 pages – undated

I’d been hearing about this one for a couple of weeks now. Dozens of people have read it and almost all of them have e-mailed me with the same reaction: “Wow.” It’s not often that I see universal support for a script. There’s something about the art of storytelling that divides people. Some people want their stories to be direct and over-the-top. Others want them to be reserved and subtle. That’s why you get so many divided reactions and why Hollywood has such a hard time figuring out that elusive formula for box office success. How do you appease two polar opposite audiences? Isn’t that the definition of impossible?

But as I opened up “Hibernation” and read its first line: “Anna Bagnehold was skiing the first time she died,” I got goosebumps. Talk about roping the reader in immediately. Writers spend years trying to come up with a line like that – something that instantly gives you 20 pages with a reader. And then, once you get to the first act turn of Hibernation, it gets even better. This is a REALLY clever idea – one of those ideas that makes you groan and go, “Oh maaaan. Why couldn’t I think of that???” And I bet you’re all wondering what this idea is exactly. Well, may I tempt you with a story that pulls its inspiration from Scriptshadow favorites The Disciple Program and Source Code? Yeah, I have your attention now don’t I?

34 year old Sean Quinn is a big guy, the type of dude you’d see working on the docks, lifting heavy boxes. He used to be an enforcer for some not-so-nice criminal types, but has since left that life so he can be closer to his daughter, 5 year old Chloe. It’s not an ideal circumstance. His choices have put him and his ex at odds. But at least he gets to see his little girl every once in awhile.

If only Andrew Moran would see it that way. Moran is Quinn’s thuggish former employer. And as these thuggish boss-types usually go, he’s not a fan of Quinn quitting on him. And he lets him know it. But Quinn reiterates that he’s left that world behind. Sorry dude. Gonna have to find yourself a new rat.

Turns out that wasn’t the best idea by our guy Quinn. Because that night, after a couple of drinks, he passes out. And when he wakes up? His wife has been killed and his daughter, Chloe? She’s nowhere to be found. Before Quinn can even figure out what’s going on, the cops show up. And it isn’t difficult to see how this is going to shake down. All the evidence points to him as the killer.

So off to a lifetime jail sentence Quinn goes. Which would normally suck but there’s a new program the prison is trying out and it’s looking for volunteers. In order to lower the cost of upkeep, prisoners can choose to enter the “Hibernation Program,” which allows them to go into a state of stasis, sort of a cryogenic freeze, for their term. Go to sleep, wake up in 50 years. You’re still young when you’re released. Not a bad deal.

As a perk, they take you out of hibernation every five years, give you six hours of parole to reboot yourself, and back to sleep you go. With the alternative being growing old and dying in prison, Quinn decides to take a chance. So asleep he goes. For five years.

After waking up, he’s given his first six hours of parole. And you know what Quinn is doing with that six hours. He’s looking for information on what happened to his daughter. So he snoops around, asks a few people what they know, with most of the focus centering on his former employer, Moran. Did he kill his ex-wife and daughter because he wouldn’t work for him?

But just as he’s starting to make progress, his time is up and he’s forced to come back to prison, where he’s put back in hibernation. And five more years pass. And he wakes up. And he’s let out. With six more hours to look for clues about what happened to Chloe. Except now it’s five MORE years in the future. And he’s less familiar with the world. And the evidence is getting older. And when those six hours are up, he goes back to the prison, is put back to sleep, and five MORE years go by. And the world is even more different. He’s even LESS familiar with it. And the evidence is five years older. And so on and so forth.

I mean, just stop and think about that for a second. “The Fugitive” except that with every fifteen minutes of screen time, the world reboots into something more futuristic and less familiar to our hero. How freaking awesome of an idea is that??? It ain’t going to be cheap to make. But unlike a lot of flashy ideas out there, the production of this one would actually warrant the cost. It’s that good.

Now, I’m not going all in here YET because, at least with this draft, things are still messy. This is the kind of idea that you have to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. When you have something this good, you don’t want a single messy plot point, a single bad choice. Reading the opening of Hibernation, before I knew the hook, I was getting a little impatient. The dialogue in particular was really…plain, and a little bit clunky. When characters speak to each other, I never want to think about the writer. I don’t want to think, “Ooh, they tried too hard on that line.” It has to be seamless. And the dialogue here wasn’t seamless.

I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the secondary characters either. I thought Sorenson (the main doctor) was strong. I thought Lara, the love interest, worked. But Andrew Moran, the bad guy, wasn’t bad enough. The bad guy’s gotta be memorable in your movie and this guy just felt thin. Austin, the brother of the bad guy, was a little more memorable, but felt like the kind of guy you’d be afraid of at the schoolyard, not as a criminal. Then Raj, the cab driver, well, I mean you got a guy named “Raj” who is a cab driver. So you can see why that choice isn’t very inspired.

And while I liked some of the futuristic stuff, I think it could’ve been pushed further. A lot further. That’s the big draw here – how this mission extends across many time periods, with each time period getting more and more futuristic. That’s cool! I mean I can see the trailer already, cutting between these time periods. But as you cut, each time period needs to be noticeably different, noticeably more advanced. And I wished we would’ve seen more advancement, especially in the last time period, where the futuristic aspect is barely even breached.

My final issue is one I just can’t ignore. Six hours? Huh? Why would this program give someone six hours of parole every five years? It’s so little time as to seem insignificant. And with Quinn being such a high commodity asset, I’m having a hard time believing they’d just let him walk around willy-nilly. The explanation for this could’ve been much cleaner. As of now, it sticks out like a candy cane at a Thanksgiving dinner.

I’m assuming that many of these problems are due to the script still being in its early stages, but the pillars to build the empire are there. Also working in “Hibernation’s” favor is its ending. Whenever you have these time-bending narratives, you gotta have a stellar ending. There’s nothing worse than going through 2 hours of a really cool time-travel script only to have some pedestrian climax. I won’t spoil it here but Hibernation definitely delivers on that front. There were a couple of quick “But wait a minutes,” but nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

Hibernation is the kind of script that stands out in the spec world. It’s got a catchy hook and an exciting fast-paced narrative. More writers need to be studying scripts like this as a way to break into the industry. I wasn’t thrilled with the execution in places, which I’d probably rate as “worth the read,” but since this is one of the best spec ideas I’ve run across in awhile, I’m bumping it up to “double worth the read” status.

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

What I learned: I’m always wary of forced ticking time bombs. They pop out at you like flaming roman numerals. A man gets six hours of parole every five years when he’s woken up from hibernation? Why six hours? Why every five years? What’s the point of it? I mean, yeah, this works great as a ticking time bomb. Only having six hours to do something as complicated as catch your daughter’s killer is intense. But it’s GOTTA make sense. So add your ticking time bombs, yes. But build them into the story in an organic way so we’re not questioning them.

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Hello everybody.  Like a lot of you preparing for Thanksgiving, today is a travel day for me.  I’m heading back to Chicago.  Do not fear, however.  One of Scriptshadow’s new consultants, Alexander, will be taking over review duties.  I’d link you to his bio so you could learn more about him but I’m still at a point where WordPress won’t allow me to link anything! Very frustrating.  But anyway, just click “Script Notes” up above and look for “Alexander.”  — I want to apologize about comments disappearing or taking a long time to show up.  Still sorting that out.  Also, when I get to Chicago tonight, I’ll put up a post where you guys can give me your feedback and note any issues you’ve had with the site.  I know “mobile” is a big one.  I’m going to try and get to everything as soon as I can.  In the meantime, enjoy Alexander’s review.  I thought it was great!  

Genre: Period Drama
Premise: Based on the true story of a New York City architect involved in the race to build the world’s tallest building in the year 1930.
About: Writer’s most recent spec, POMPEII, was taken into studios this summer by big time producers but he’s still looking for his first sale as far as I know.
Writer: Eric Kirsten
Details: 115 pages

The spec market is tough. Looking to sell a period spec? Strike one. Looking to sell a period spec that’s a small historical drama/biopic? You’re probably staring down at least two strikes unless your subject is iconic or eccentric enough to attract a big piece of talent.

THE LIGHTHOUSE doesn’t quite fall into either of those categories, but Kirsten manages to take a pretty straight-forward story that doesn’t sound all that sexy and crafts an engaging and entertaining script. That’s only done with good writing. And having a good writing sample is often better in the long run than managing to somehow sell a commercial idea that’s a bad piece of writing.

We open on two workers sitting on top of the metal frame of an in-construction skyscraper in the middle of New York City. It’s 1930, and these guys are wrapping up an 11-hour shift….which was preceded by a 12-hour shift. Needless to say, they’re having a hard time concentrating. As a crane sends a huge metal beam their way, Worker #1 starts to clip his buddy onto the support frame – except with all the Sandman’s dust in his eyes he doesn’t do it right and the hook comes loose, causing Worker #2 to lose his balance and plummet hundreds of feet to his death as his bloodshot friend can only watch and wake up real fast.

Good idea to grab our attention with an unexpected death scene instead of opening up on a guy using a protractor or something. If it worked for CLIFFHANGER… And we learned an important lesson: Building a skyscraper was dangerous shit back in those days.

Flashback seven years to Paris, where recent architecture grad Will Van Alen and his socialite best friend Harry Tanning decide to partner up and start a design firm of their own back in the States. With Will’s design talent and Harry’s contacts, they’re confident they’ll make a name for themselves. And when businessman Alan Reynolds approaches Will in an attempt to hire him to be part of a team designing a swanky new hotel in NYC, Will successfully uses his confidence and determination to convince Alan to give Will and Harry’s new firm the gig.

Unfortunately, with success comes responsibility and Harry’s just not pulling his weight bringing in new clients, so Will gives in to pressure from Alan to hire the slick, ego-driven Craig Severence as his new business partner, relegating Harry to mere “employee” status. Needless to say, Harry is pissed and his friendship with Will is deeply fractured.

Flash forward six years later: Will and Harry are still estranged, though Harry is now a model employee. Will meets spunky photographer Meg Bagley and they hit it off. Plus, Alan loves the new, innovative design that Will secretly sent him and greenlights construction! Will is thrilled. Craig, however, is less than pleased, making it known to Will that he is never to present a set of designs without consulting him first. It’s the first time that Will’s seen this darker side of Craig and it’s unsettling.

Meanwhile, Will makes a trip to see his older brother, Terry, who’s rotting away in Sing Sing for an unknown crime but one that Will implies helped him survive their tough childhood. Clearly wanting to make Terry proud, Will excitedly tells Terry about the imminent construction of his building and vows to find a way to get Terry out of prison.

But just as construction is about to start on Will’s awesome hotel design, Will gets called to see Alan. Seems the stock market crashed and Alan’s fortune disappeared along with it, which means Will’s building is dead and so is his company. As Craig and Will say their acrimonious goodbyes, Craig breaks the news that Alan has killed himself. The beginning of The Great Depression, both literally and figuratively for Will.

Everyone goes their separate ways and soon, Will finds himself standing in a food line, unable to find a job. Luckily, Harry shows up and wants to get their two-man band back together, tipping him off that Alan sold his land to William Chrysler (the car guy), who’s looking to build his new headquarters. So Will applies…and is promptly sent a standard rejection letter.

After a nice bender to try and drink his misery away, Meg and Terry convince Will to try and get his designs directly to Chrylser himself. Will manages to sneak his plans into Chrysler’s office but isn’t hopeful about his prospects until Chrysler makes a surprise appearance at Will’s modest apartment and requests to pay a visit to his company the next day…the company that doesn’t exist anymore. So Will rounds up a bunch of unemployed construction workers and breaks into his old office, succeeding in convincing Chrysler that he runs a reputable firm and getting the greenlight to start construction on what will be the world’s tallest building.

Except that at the groundbreaking, the press informs Will that his old partner/new nemesis Craig is working on an even taller skyscraper for the Bank of Manhattan. Chrysler tells Will that if he beats Craig, he’ll use his connections to get Terry out of prison. Will assures Chrysler that he has a plan…which he doesn’t. The race is on!

Which brings us back to the sleepy head at the start and his dead friend, who, it turns out, dies as a consequence of this race, having worked those multiple double shifts so that Craig’s building could come out on top. Wanting to make sure no one else dies because of their egotistical battle, Will agrees to not add anymore floors to his building plan, assuring that Craig will have the tallest building in the world, which Craig soon unveils to great fanfare.

So how does Will keep his word to Craig while simultaneously keeping his promise to Chrysler? In a dramatic unveiling of Will’s building, which Craig attends, a crane pulls out a HUGE GLEAMING SPIRE from the base of the building, placing it on the very top, making it taller than Craig’s and the tallest in the world. Our guys win!

Sadly, this being the real world, and the business world at that, we get a dose of “not so fast” when Chrysler reneges on his deal to help Terry get out of prison and it’s announced that the Chrysler Building will only remain the tallest for a few more months…until a little thing known as the Empire State Building is completed.

Historical/biopic scripts can often be generic and/or boring, following the same, simplistic dramatic clichés (“I’m gonna be somebody!”) or bogging themselves down by relying on a dense rundown of “the facts” to tell a story without giving much thought to the characters, dialogue and actual storytelling. And I guess that’s why THE LIGHTHOUSE kept me engaged throughout – because Kirsten focuses on, and does a good job with, crafting believable and well-written characters that we care about in a world that felt authentic.

Rather than focus on the big names behind the race to build the world’s tallest building, or the race itself on a superficial level, Kirsten finds a more personal way to tell the story by introducing us to Will Van Alen, a man with very relatable hopes, dreams, relationships, failures and triumphs. We come to know Will so well through the first two-thirds of the script that by the time the “race” enters the equation, we’re invested in Will’s goals and thereby invested in the skyscraper race – not the other way around – which wouldn’t have worked. If Chrysler himself had been made our protagonist, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have cared whether or not a rich guy managed to satisfy his ego and gain a little more notoriety. In fact, I probably would’ve rooted against him. Similarly, a multi-character take on the race would’ve likely come across as impersonal and cold. But in this version, we’re rooting for the likeable Will – not to win anything per se, but to realize his dream of building a towering monument and to get Terry out of prison. Okay, maybe we want him to smack Craig a little in the process, which doesn’t hurt. In the script, Kirsten reveals that Chrysler and the Bank of Manhattan honcho hated each other and desperately wanted to top the other and, sure, Kirsten could’ve told the story through this specific rivalry, but focusing on the rivalry between Will and his former partner Craig offers the same relationship dynamic albeit with characters and situations we could probably all relate to in some way, shape or form.

I will say that I wish Will wasn’t portrayed as such a good guy throughout the whole script (his dis of Harry notwithstanding). I think it would’ve made him a more interesting, complex character if we would’ve seen his darker side at some point. He admits to Meg that all architects are driven by ego, but he willing offers up that insight, and in a cheerful way. I would’ve rather seen Meg drag an angry confession out of him, her concern for Will’s obsession the ultimate reason why he calls the race off. What can I say? I wouldn’t have minded some shades of a version that could’ve been called THERE WILL BE BUILDING.

All in all, one of the more enjoyable historical biopics I’ve read in recent years.

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

What I learned: Often when people write historical scripts, it’s difficult for them to resist the urge to focus on the “big” elements in the tale, rather than find ways to create a more character-driven entrance into a particular story. The former version can end up reading like the kind of generic “highlights” biography I’d find in the Kids section of the book store, or, conversely, like I’m reading an encyclopedia. It’s generally more interesting to read a script that’s a personal story touched by an historical event rather than the other way around.

Welcome.  Come one, come all.  Take a look around.  Click on the toolbar up above.  Play.  Dance.  Be merry.

The truth is this site was supposed to be up weeks ago but I’m starting to realize that WordPress is a feisty little bugger.  Whatever you tell it to do, it doesn’t want to do, and when it does do, it usually does it wrong.  Unfortunately, that means bigger problems have needed to take precedence, and some of the smaller things aren’t in place yet.  The links don’t all work yet.  The “About” section doesn’t have my…”Abouty” stuff.  But we’ll get there in time.  So hang with me.

Also, I’ve noticed that the commenting situation is not clean yet.  If your comments don’t post, don’t freak out.  I’m going to try and get the comments moving as fast as I can.  But in the meantime, enjoy the new site!  Special thanks to my assistant, Sveta, my web designers, Dustin and Zoe, and my graphic design guy, Brian, who developed the neat look of the new site (you can also get him to make a poster for you on the CONCEPT ARTISTS page – he’s worth it!).  And, of course, thanks to ALL OF YOU for being fans and contributors of the site and inspiring me to go to these lengths of creating a new site.  You guys are what keep me going. :)

Hang with me while I try to figure this damn WordPress thing out (I’ve literally spent the last hour trying to post a picture in my latest post.  A PICTURE.  Yet WordPress doesn’t like when you say, “Add Picture”).  Argh!!!

It’s time to put the controversy to rest. Which draft of the Prometheus screenplay was better? Spaiths or Lindelof’s?

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A group of scientists head to a distant star system in search of intelligent life.  But what they find instead is an ancient race hellbent on destroying Earth.
About: This is the last draft of Prometheus that Jon Spaiths worked on before being replaced by Damon Lindelof.
Writer: Jon Spaiths
Details: 117 pages (undated)

The emergence of this script is strange.  There’s been a lot of chatter since the release of Prometheus that Damon Lindelof ruined Prometheus’ screenplay, with the assumption being that the writer before him, Jon Spaiths, had written a much better draft.  So one has to wonder, did Team Lindelof release this draft to prove that he didn’t “ruin” anything?  Or did Team Spaiths release this draft to prove, “Hey, the rumors are true.  My version was better!”  It’s a particularly strange situation here on Scriptshadow because I’m one of the only people who actually LIKED Prometheus.  So I can’t even voice the same concerns as the masses.  I thought the script for the film I saw was pretty  solid (though, admittedly, the subject matter was right up my alley).  Another thing you have to factor in is that Ridley Scott was guiding the creation of the story.  So many of the ideas in the script were, I’m assuming, his, and therefore may have nothing to do with Spaiths or Lindelof.  Anyway, I’m just curious as a script-lover to see what changes were made and what we can learn from those changes.  Let’s check it out.

Reading through the opening of “Alien: Engineers” triggered some major deja-vu.  In fact, after the first half of the script, I wondered how the hell Lindelof even got credit on the screenplay.  Everything was exactly the same.  We follow the same two main characters, Doctor Jocelyn Watts and Professor Martin Holloway, as they discover evidence pointing to the whereabouts of alien intelligence (this time deep underwater instead of in a cave – I assume they changed this for budgetary reasons).

The rest of the characters are exactly the same as well.  You have the seriously grouchy Lydia Vickers (Charlize Theron) as well as our favorite OCD android, David (Michael Fassbender).  You have the goofy guys who go into the tunnel and the deadly serious Captain Janek.

They get to Moon LV-426 and, just like before, find the engineers beheaded in the hallway.  They start doing research and gradually realize that the engineers were here to terraform this world but something stopped them before they could do it.

Where things change significantly is that the ALIENS (and I mean the ORIGINAL aliens)  play a bigger role in Spaiths version of the screenplay.  A two foot long caterpillar attacks one of the goofy dudes and I guess that caterpillar lays the first alien egg.  This leads to one of the facehuggers emerging, which later impregnates someone else, which results in a slightly bigger alien, and so on and so forth until we have full grown aliens running around.

The thing is, this still doesn’t happen until way late in the screenplay.  After the mid-point.  So for those hoping for more of a classic “Aliens Contained Thriller” like we got in the first two movies, you don’t get that here.  By the time the aliens actually get dangerous, the script is almost over, so I can see why they decided to nix it.  You either gotta go all in with these things or not.  You can’t go half-way, which seemed to be the case here.

I’m also imagining that at some point someone said, “We got two competing ideas here.  We gotta choose one or the other.”  Which is true.  You had aliens running all over the place, and then you had these completely separate big engineer dudes waking up.  It’s kind of confusing, so when Lindelof came in, I’m guessing Ridley just went, “You know what?  Let’s scratch the aliens and commit to the engineers.”  Was that a good decision?  Hmm, probably.  Like I said, if you’re going to go aliens, you gotta go all the way.  And I think they realized they weren’t making an alien movie anymore.

Another change was the late twist.  Instead of the Old Weyland being released from hyper-sleep, four secret soldiers were woken up, who were apparently there to enact “Phase 2.”  While the soldier thing had potential, it wasn’t effectively utilized here and I’m not even sure what happened to the soldiers ten pages after their arrival.  They disappeared off the face of the moon.  Lindelof likely noticed this and decided to change the twist to the old man – and this is what lead to a lot of people complaining that this plot point didn’t make sense.  It was a neat idea, but Lindelof didn’t have the time to implement it in a logical way.  That’s the thing you have to remember.  With us amateurs, we have as much time as we want to get our plot points in order.  These guys are on a deadline, and sometimes that means not being able to perfect your additions.

The other big change Lindelof made was fleshing out David.  In Spaiths’ draft, David always seemed to be on the brink of going mad, but for the most part stayed on the sidelines.  In the shooting draft, obviously, he goes full blown nuts and you can even argue that the second half of the film is his.  My take on this choice?  I think it was a good one.  David was clearly the most interesting character on the ship, so exploring him more and expanding his storyline made sense.  Again, it looks like they ran out of time to ensure that all those changes made sense.  In the movie, it wasn’t entirely clear why David decided to be the bad guy or do what he did, but it was almost there.  They just needed a couple of more drafts.

A big problem with both drafts was the unfocused second act.  So many characters had been introduced and the writers were trying to keep track of them all and they just couldn’t.  There’s a period of about 20 pages where everybody’s running around, both in the ship and in the pyramid, and I have no idea why or what any of them are doing.  That’s the danger you run into when you have tons of characters.  You have to keep track of them all.  If two people are getting killed off in this room, you have to have a good reason why nobody else is around to help.  Where are they?  What are they doing?  These are the kinds of things screenwriters never get credit for  yet it’s one of the hardest things about the craft – keeping track of everything.  And if you don’t have enough time or you don’t give it enough attention, these large-character pieces can get confusing quickly, which is unfortunately what happened here.

It’s also interesting to see how little things get lost from draft to draft and how that can lead to unintended “WTF” moments.  For example, I remember seeing Vickers sprawling over-the-top sleeping quarters on Prometheus and thinking, “There is no way in hell they would spend all that money on that room.  This isn’t a stay at the Waldorf Astoria.  It’s a spaceship where every cubic foot needs to be utilized.”  Well in this draft, we learn via a quick line of dialogue that Vickers refused to go on this expedition unless she traveled in luxury.  Somebody probably decided to cut that line since it wasn’t essential, but just that little cut made the writers look sloppy.

After reading “Alien: Engineers,” my assessment is that Lindelof’s draft(s) did make the script better.  Nothing major was really done.  Lindelof  fleshed stuff out a little more and got rid of an alien subplot that felt half-baked.   But the drafts really weren’t that different.  When you get this many drafts into the script, you’re never going to see that much of a story transformation.  The quality of the story is likely going to be the same, with just some slight differences in the specifics. I thought this script was decent, but still enjoyed the final draft better.

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

What I learned: Many writers spend 40-50 times as much time on the first half of their screenplay as the second.  This happens because whenever someone opens their script to start working, they start from the top.  So scenes in the first 30 pages have likely been gone over 50 times as much as scenes in the last 30 pages.  Seeing how much sloppier this script was in the second half as opposed to the first, it just reminded me that you gotta give both halves equal attention.