It’s a travel day for me so I don’t have time for a full post. I will try to get posts up tomorrow and Friday but there are no promises since I’m technically on vacation.

I wanted to take this opportunity to shout out my favorite movie of all time, Back to the Future. Still the de facto screenplay when it comes to teaching setups and payoffs. There are 100+ setups and payoffs in this script. More than any other film by far.

As I’ve said here before, setups and payoffs are the best “bang for your buck” screenplay tool you have at your disposal. Go watch this movie now and learn how to set up and payoff yourself to a great script!

Genre: Action/Comedy
Premise: After Hollywood’s leading action star hits his head on set and wakes up thinking he’s a real-life action hero, he embarks on an international mission to track down a real stolen nuke before it’s too late.
About: This script made it onto last year’s Black List. Sean Tidwell, the writer, wrote another script, Super Dad, that was on another Black List that I thought was funny but I remember getting a lot of blowback for liking the script. I can’t win here!
Writer: Sean Tidwell
Details: 104 pages

If there’s one thing that’s clear about why people are going to see Barbie, it’s that it’s fun. It’s summer. It’s hot. People are in a good mood. Barbie is like the last piece of the happiness equation. Maybe that’s why nobody wanted to see The Last Voyage of the Demeter. It didn’t scream: “Fun summer movie!”

Then again, neither did Oppenheimer. And I’m pretty sure a lot of people saw that. I’d actually call Oppenheimer “anti-fun.” Man, this box office stuff is hard to figure out. Anyway! The point I was going to make was that Mega Action Hit is the perfect script to read right now. It screams “Fun!”

Dack Benson is the world’s coolest movie star. He’s also a gigantic workaholic. He never stops making films for his Mission Impossible-like franchise, where he plays a member of a super-secret government organization called I.B.S. It’s gotten bad enough that his wife is done with him. She wants a divorce.

Dack has done so many of these freaking movies that he gets careless on one of the wire stunts, falls, and hits his head. When he wakes up, he thinks he’s Dack Benson. Because… HE IS Dack Benson. Character Dack Benson’s name in real life is also Dack Benson. That’s how into making movies this guy is.

But now he thinks he’s his *character,* Dack Benson. And when he sees a news story about a guy named Ivan Shanko (warlord and nudist) procuring a nuke, he recruits his production’s two newest assistants, Julia and Max, to help him save the world. The two think he’s method acting and are so scared to upset the franchise star, they go along with it.

Because Dack does all his own stunts, he’s pretty proficient at a lot of the spy stuff and figures out that something is going down in Turkey. Dack asks the military to fly him to Turkey and because he’s a movie star, they oblige.

Once in Turkey, they learn of the elaborate plan to both secure the nuke, get the uranium, combine the two, and blow up a city! That city, it turns out, is going to be Liverpool. So off Dack, Julia, and Max go. But when they finally catch up to Ivan, Dack gets hit in the head AGAIN, and is now back to being actor, Dack. The problem is he’s so deep in it now, that actor Dack will have to figure out a way to save the world (or Liverpool).

First thing I need to remind you of is that this is one of the last genres you can still legit sell a spec script in. The reason for that is that audiences don’t care about IP when it comes to action comedies. And studios know that if they add action to comedy, it will sell all over the world.

Mega Action Hit asks the question, “What if Mission Impossible made fun of itself?” That’s the concept in a nutshell. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tidwell was hoping Tom Cruise played the part.

Indeed, that would be funny. Actually, I would love to see an in-his-prime Ben Stiller play this role, as he kind of already did back when he pretended to be Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible stuntman.

But these scripts are trickier than they look. They always sound fun in logline form. But when you have to sit down and flesh them out, you quickly wonder how you’re going to take 20 pages of flesh and stretch it out to 100 pages.

I suppose it doesn’t matter as long as it’s funny.

So is Mega Acton Hit funny?

I did laugh a few times. There’s this scene where Dack, Julia, and Max, are discussing their intricate plan of dismantling a nuclear syndicate while sitting around a computer, then we cut to a wide shot and they’re all sitting in the middle of a Fed Ex store, using one of their rented computers.

There were a lot of fun jabs at how silly the dialogue is in these movies. When the crew is thrust into a dangerous situation, you’d get exchanges like… Dack: “I have a plan!” Julia: “What is it?!” Dack: “I’ll let you know when I think of it!”

Probably my favorite joke was when Dack sees an IBS Treatment Center in the middle of Liverpool and believes it’s an extension of his agency. They, of course, mistake his passion for believing he has *actual* irritable bowel syndrome, and perform emergency surgery on him.

On the flip side, there was comedy I didn’t like. I don’t think that Ivan and his team of nudists were funny at all. Not because it isn’t my type of humor. But because it’s lazy. Just having naked people onscreen for no other reason than “naked is funny” is lazy comedy writing.

Whatever joke you want to include, do it in a clever way. Which is why I liked the IBS joke. It makes fun of the fact that all these industries have the most pointless acronyms. It found a way to work that joke into the story later on (with the IBS Treatment Center). That I can get on board with.

People being nude for no other reason than that naked penises are funny? That’s, quite frankly, lame. Take a lesson from the best comedy scene ever, Ted getting his testicles stuck in his zipper on prom night in There’s Something About Mary. You’ve created an actual scenario around the nakedness as opposed to saying, “These guys are naked. Funny, right???”

Plus, nude doesn’t work on the page because we can’t see them. So even if someone is going to find that funny, they won’t laugh because they can’t see it! And will often forget the characters are nude until you remind them (that’s what kept happening to me while reading this).

A lot more could’ve been done on the character front as well. In comedies, you want your characters rocking those fatal flaws in big bright flashing lights.

Tidwell *does* explore that with Dack wanting to quit to spend more time with his wife. But for some reason I didn’t care. There were no scenes that made me a fanatic Jessica cheerleader. So after the thirtieth time that Dack tells Julia and Max that he wants to quit acting and be with his wife, all I could do was roll my eyes.

It’s hard, I get it. One of the most frustrating things in screenwriting is wondering if something’s working. Is this character working? Is this plotline working? Is this scene working? Is this third act working? Is this CONCEPT working?

But you want to know what I’ve found? I’ve found that, deep down, we know when something’s not working. I know this because I’ve probably given a thousand consultations where, after I sent the notes back to the writer, they said, “Carson, I knew that [that thing] wasn’t working. I just needed you to say it.”

So we know. And the wife thing didn’t work at all here. Which sucks because Tidwell built the entire emotional arc of the movie around it.

Mega Action Hit is fun. But like a lot of these scripts, the fun is too empty. It’s not genuine fun. It’s the kind of fun you have passively watching TV while messing around on your computer. In other words, there’s not enough here for me to endorse it.

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

What I learned: A “bridge” scene is not an excuse to be boring. In scripts where your characters are on the move, there’s a temptation that, when they’re on a car ride, or a train ride, or a plane ride, to “offload” some exposition. If you EVER think you can use a scene as a “breather?” As an opportunity to place some important but boring exposition in there, that’s terrible writing. Screenwriting is not about YOU. It’s about the READER. It’s THEIR experience you want to be good. Not yours. Sure, being able to offload that exposition onto a plane scene where we’re waiting for the characters to get to the next destination – that may be helpful to you, the writer. But I can promise you it isn’t going to be fun for the reader. We have that here in a plane scene where Max and Julia share their backstories with each other. BAD! NO! Always always always look to make the scene entertaining. You don’t get any “off” scenes as a screenwriter.

Quick Reminder – Logline Showdown Deadline is Thursday, August 24th! Have a script and want to see how the concept measures up against real-world competition? Enter Logline Showdown and battle it out with four other contestants!

What: Logline Showdown (feature scripts only)
Send: title, genre, logline
Deadline: Thursday, August 24th, 9:59pm Pacific Time
Where: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com

A lot of you are probably looking at the box office this weekend, seeing Barbie take the crown once again, twiddling your fingers together mischievously, and whispering to yourself, “Yessssss. Yesssssssss. Take that, Carson. How wrong you turned out to be.”

And to you I say, “Okay, Barbie, let’s go party!” For the love of Sugar Baby Ken, I’m all for Barbie’s success. I want people seeing movies at the movie theater. I support every soldier fighting that war, even if that soldier would prefer that women and men live on opposite sides of the planet. I’m KIDDING! (But not really)

What I’m more invested in, at the moment, is The Last Voyage of the Demeter entering the box office ring. I hear you chirping from the peanut gallery. “Last Voyage of the Demeter? What the heck is that??” The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a cool little concept about a ship that inadvertently finds out that it’s transporting Dracula’s coffin. And when Dracula gets out, all hell breaks loose.

It’s a perfect setup for a spec script. You’ve got this contained ship in the middle of the sea. Nowhere to hide. It’s the 19th century, so no one to call either. And then you’ve got that strange attractor we were talking about on Friday, with Dracula himself being on the ship.

What’s crazy about this movie is that the spec has been kicking around for almost 15 years (it was a big spec sale way back in the day from Bragi Schut). And now, after all that time, it’s finally been made (by the director of the cool little movie gem, “Troll Hunter”). As someone who understands more and more every day just how difficult it is to get movies made, I can’t help but celebrate this accomplishment.

A lot of you have probably looked at the post title and thought, “Has Carson lost his mind?” Answer: Maaayyyyyybe. “This movie barely made six million bucks this weekend. That’s about as fail as failure gets.” Let me explain something to you: If you write a spec script AND IT GETS A WIDE THEATRICAL RELEASE, you have won. You have won the godd****ed screenwriting lottery.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a theatrical release for a movie? The amount of competition that goes into obtaining just one of those coveted slots? Especially today, when there are less theatrical releases than ever. Throw an original spec into the mix and the odds get even worse. Studios do not like releasing original material. It’s too much of a gamble.

So why didn’t Last Voyage do better? I think whenever you have a horror movie that traverses too far off the beaten path, it’s trickier getting horror fans interested. Ironically, the thing that sets this horror movie apart – the fact that it’s on a boat in the 1800s – is probably why people didn’t show up.

People can relate to scary people in masks in haunted houses (Insidious). They can relate to freaky dolls (M3GAN). But it’s harder to relate to something that you could never, yourself, experience. When’s the last time you were on a creaky old ship having to escape a monster?

Of course, nobody here has been on a spaceship with a face-hugging alien following them through the corridors and that movie, “Alien,” did all right. There’s a big difference between these two films though. Alien was a masterpiece. Masterpieces trump any and all box office logic. They’re so good that people go out and tell others about the film which means everyone goes to see it.

The large majority of movies are not masterpieces. So they can’t depend on that advantage. I think the setup may have been a mite too unfamiliar when it came down to it. And while vampires are cool, it’s unclear if Dracula is cool to the young crowd. Even as the OG vampire, there’s something a little dated about Mr. Dracula. It’s too bad people feel that way because the movie actually looks atmospheric and good!

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a serendipitous title when you think about it because it’s one of the last holdover specs from the days when you could still sell spec scripts. It made me wonder, what now? Now that they can no longer pull from that well, what will they pull from?

We’re reaching that point where the studios don’t have archives to plunder anymore. Demeter was one of the last spec sales that everyone agreed should be a movie.

Does that mean it’s Barbie and Marvel sequels for the rest of our lives? Maybe. But maybe not! Shall we talk about the pink elephant in the room? No Barbie sequel announced?? Does anybody find that strange?

Usually, when you’re a studio and you have a director you love in your fold, you make a deal immediately to get their next movie. It’s why directors like Christopher Nolan stayed at Warner Brothers for so long before the weird Tenet-Covid soap opera.

But Greta Gerwig did not sign up for a Barbie sequel with Warner Brothers. Or any movie with them. Which you would think, if WB liked the film, they would’ve done. Keep in mind, this all would’ve been before the movie became an unexpected super-hit. Before a movie is released, there’s always a lot of doubts, always a lot of second-guessing. As crazy as it sounds, maybe the people at Warner Brothers didn’t like the film. And now they’re regretting the heck out of their “wait and see” strategy.

Because instead of Barbie 2, Gerwig has signed a giant deal with Netflix to spearhead a Chronicles of Narnia franchise. Franchises can take up to 7-10 years of a director’s life. Which leaves the future of Barbie in total disarray. Would Gerwig try to sneak in a Barbie movie between Narnia movies? I’m not sure that’s going to happen. Which puts Warner Brothers in the awkward position of trying to find another director INSTEAD of re-hiring the director who just became the highest-grossing female director ever. How do they plan to spin that?

Another side note in this odd real life story is that Barbie being a feminist screed puts it squarely in the liberal storytelling aisle. Whereas Chronicles of Narnia is basically a retelling of the Bible. It seems like an odd choice, particularly because if Gerwig were to attempt to re-interpret Narnia to divert it away from its conservative roots, she would surely receive a ton of backlash from the Narnia audience.

It’s all rather confusing, weird, and slightly salacious.

Getting back to Last Voyage, what’s crazy is that this is a concept I would still tell a screenwriter to write RIGHT NOW. It still has all the ingredients for a great spec. Maybe that’s why the spec script and the feature film have never had a harmonious relationship. What’s good for one isn’t always good for the other. And to further confuse things, Last Voyage would probably make a perfect streaming movie, while Chronicles of Narnia feels like a theatrical release.

Does anything in Hollywood make sense?

It’s no secret that the industry is going through a transition.

The move away from original concepts at the box office as well as the rise of streaming has confused the marketplace in ways that probably won’t be settled for another five years.

The best way to explain it is that streaming has tried to pick up the slack on the original concept front and the results have been a mixed bag. We’ve gotten red-headed step-children like Ghosted, Red Notice and The Gray Man, which are more “shy concept” than “high concept.”

But there’s also been some golden children. Army of the Dead comes to mind. The Tomorrow War. Palm Springs. With these movies, we’re talking legitimate big ideas, the kind of “spec-y” material that gets industry folks jazzed up.

But I must be honest in saying that I’ve been questioning the value of “high concept” (or “flashy concept”) lately. It used to be the highest form of currency an unrepped writer possessed. Nowadays, the kind of script that gets a writer noticed is muddier than ever.

Take a movie like Extraction, on Netflix. Good movie. But how reliable is it that such a nuts-and-bolts action spec is going to get you noticed? That film was dependent on its direction to work. It was the furthest thing from a script-friendly concept.

You also have these screenwriting success stories that revolve around voice. Christy Hall, who wrote “Get Home Safe.” Shay Hatten, who writes all the John Wick stuff. He broke out because of his sixth gear writing style. Simon Rich, who’s positioning himself to be the next Charlie Kaufman. Emerald Fennel, with her eerie revenge story, Promising Young Woman.

So then, should writers forgo concept and write something that best showcases their voice?

The answer to that is a big fat “no” and I’ll tell you why. Because the one thing that has been true of Hollywood ever since its inception is that NO ONE WANTS TO READ YOUR SCRIPT.

They don’t. I love reading and I can’t even read your script. Not because I don’t want to. But because I’ve got a million other scripts to read so I don’t have time.

Now imagine someone who doesn’t like reading at all! How do you get them to read your script?

There are only four ways.

1. Already have a relationship with them.
2. Someone they respect must recommend the script to them.
3. There’s a monetary benefit to reading the script (an agent reading a project that already has funding to see if it’s right for their actor).
4. It’s a really good idea.

We know we can’t do anything about number three. And both one and two are dependent on you getting the script to someone in the first place. Which leaves us with number four. You have to come up with an idea that entices readers to want to read your script. And it has to be the best idea possible because, as we’ve established, nobody wants to read your script. So you have to make your idea irresistible.

I don’t think writers internalize this truth. A good way to cross that barrier is to imagine yourself pitching the script to a friend. That’s where you really know if your idea is a winner or a dud. A friend catches you off guard and asks you what your script is about.  No matter how well you explain it, it always ends up sounding boring (or weak, or bad).

Most writers live in Delusion Land when it comes to their movie ideas because they’re biased and have an emotional attachment to their ideas. Telling them their idea is bad just makes them want to prove you wrong. So let’s use this as an opportunity to remind you what makes for a good concept.

STRANGE ATTRACTOR
There are a lot of movie ideas out there that sound decent at first. Yet there’s clearly something missing. That thing is usually the strange attractor. The “strange attractor” is the element in your idea that’s unique enough to set your concept apart from others. A kid who gets kidnapped by a local serial killer and imprisoned in his basement is a dime-a-dozen concept. A kid who gets kidnapped by a local serial killer, imprisoned in his basement, and has access to a phone that can connect with all the killer’s previous victims is a concept with a strange attractor.

MARKETABLE
Would it require mountains to be moved to market your idea? Is your idea about a 19 year old selling bed mattresses in 1997? Is it about two nuns questioning their faith? Is it an impressionistic account of an American family’s rise and fall over two decades? I’m not saying these movies don’t occasionally break out. Aftersun is about a woman’s memories with her dad when she was 11. It would definitely fall into the “unmarketable” category. But remember that you’re not pitching people an already-finished movie. You’re pitching them a script and trying to get them to read it. How many of you have even seen Aftersun? If you haven’t seen a beloved movie that’s already finished and available for only 5 bucks, why would you think anyone would want to read your unmarketable premise, which *IS NOT* a movie that won a dozen awards? If you’re going indie, at least try and get *ONE* marketable element in there. Even Bones and All had cannibals. Even the indy-est film ever, “The Whale,” had a 600-pound man. Even “Pig,” had a truffle pig. Think about how your movie would be marketed to know if your average reader would be interested in reading it.

THE ‘ALMOST’ CONCEPT
The ‘almost’ concept is the fake Rolex of the screenwriting world. It looks good at first. But the closer you inspect it, the less it holds up. It basically amounts to using a lot of high concept buzz words that don’t add up to anything real. Here’s an example: “An advanced AI algorithm figures out a way to create the first real vampires, werewolves, and zombies, which are inadvertently released into the population.” Look at all the high concept buzzwords here. “Advanced AI algorithm.” “Vampires.” “Werewolves.” “Zombies.” It must be a good idea, right? No. Because it’s an inelegant collection of surface-level elements that lack a compelling narrative.

IRONY
Irony is the biggest concept cheat code you’re ever going to find. It’s actually quite difficult to come up with a good ironic concept, which means that, when you do, your idea is going to stand out. One of the reasons that The Lost City was a hit was because it had a fun ironic premise. The dopey clueless model on the book cover of all her romance-adventure novels is determined to save the author when she gets stuck in a real-life adventure. The great thing about ironic movie ideas is that they’ve proven they can stand the test of time. 1983’s Trading Places is about a poor guy who trades places with a rich guy. We all love watching a rich person who’s all of a sudden penniless. Or a poor person who becomes a millionaire. We all love irony.

PUSH THE ENVELOPE
Not everyone likes to write big flashy movies. But, if you’re going to write something smaller, you have to find ways to turbo-boost the idea or I’m afraid people just aren’t going to be interested. Promising Young Woman walked a dangerous line with some of the scenes in the script as well as its main character’s actions. Black List script, Magazine Dreams, about a disturbed man obsessed with bodybuilding, gets uncomfortably gnarly. If you’re thinking of writing an idea that’s both small and lightweight, you’re making things sooooooo hard on yourself.  If you’ve got one of the things listed above (irony, strange attractor, marketability) it can work. But if not, you need some edge. Look to push the envelope, usually with your main character. The Joker is the ‘best case scenario’ outcome of this strategy.

In the end, idea construction comes down to creativity. It starts with inspiration – you saw something and it gave you an idea for a movie. You then have to be honest with yourself.  Do I have a legitimate movie idea here? When I was in high school, I saw my friend’s brand new litter of puppies and I thought, “That would be a great idea if the puppies were all real smart and could communicate with humans.” So I came up with a drama idea (not comedy idea) about smart puppies. Again, just cause you’re inspired doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Once you have the idea, come up with the best way to present it. I’ve told this story before – screenwriter Ben Ripley’s first six drafts of Source Code centered around a detective trying to figure out why a train crashed. Once Ripley moved the script inside the train, in the mind of a character who keeps waking up on it every eight minutes, the idea came alive.

And from there, you have to field-test it. Ask people who have told you before that you have bad ideas what they think. If several of them are really pumped up about the idea, you probably have something on your hands. If everyone’s lukewarm or gives you that pleasant, “Yeah, it’s not bad” response? Or starts asking a lot of confused questions?  Throw the idea away. There isn’t time for you to waste on an idea that you’ll find out six months down the road wasn’t any good in the first place.

Feel free to field test ideas here in the comments. I’m going to ask for an amendment to the field-testing, though. If you are replying to someone’s idea, you must rank it on a 1-10 scale. BE HONEST. We’re trying to help people here. Not send them off on a wild bad-movie-idea goose chase. And writers? I’ve found that most people rating you on a 1-10 scale will rate you one number higher than what they really think. Just because most people don’t want to be mean. So if someone gives you a 6 out of 10, they’re probably giving you a 5 out of 10.

You can come to me as well. I will give it to you straight. My logline consults are $25. You can e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you want one!

For reference, I’ve done a few hundred logline consults this year and I’ve given about ten 8’s. A couple of 8.5’s. No 9’s or 10’s. And I use “7” as my floor for whether you should write the script or not.

Genre: Superhero/Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) When a washed-up superhero gets betrayed by a Mexican government, he must lead a populist social movement to fight the Narcos, topple the government, and free the people.
About: We’ve got another Black List script here, this one near the top with 15 votes. Miguel Flatow is a Mexican native who went to NYU for Creative Writing. In 2021 he wrote and directed his first feature film, called For Diego, which he shot on an iPhone for 70 grand.
Writer: Miguel Flatow
Details: 113 pages

No need to beat around the salvia clevelandii. This script wasn’t my jam.

It wasn’t a bad script. It moved along at a nice pace and everything. But it’s so uneven that it’s hard to get a handle on.

The read got me thinking about Black List scripts and which scripts make the coveted Black List (a yearly list of the best scripts in Hollywood). It’s a question I’ve been asked a million times before. “What’s the difference between a Black List script and my script?” In other words, what do I need to do to get my script on the Black List?

It’s a hard question to answer because the margin between Black List writers and the average aspiring screenwriter with at least five scripts under his/her belt is thinner than ever. If you held a blind vote between a lower-ranked Black List script and a veteran amateur script, the guess on which one was the Black List script would probably come back at 50/50.

So then let’s get back to the question. What’s the difference? What is it that the Black List script has that your script, which hasn’t made the Black List, doesn’t have?

Well, the best way I can think of to explain it is through a tennis analogy. A lot of you probably don’t watch college or professional tennis. But I watch both. And when I’m watching college tennis, I marvel at how good the players are. Almost all of them have serves eclipsing 120mph. They all have huge forehands. They have consistent and even, in some cases, aggressive backhands. If a weekend club player played the number 2 tennis player at UCLA, they would lose 6-0, 6-0.

However, the second you put a college tennis player up against a professional player – a guy in the top 100 – he’s the one who’s overmatched. He’ll definitely look respectable out there. But he’s still going to lose to the pro in straight sets.

The question of what’s the difference between a Black List writer and a seasoned amateur writer is similar to the difference between a pro tennis player and a college tennis player. And what that amounts to is that both players do everything well. But the pro player just does everything a little better.

The college player has a 120 mph serve. The pro player can buzz one in there at 130. The college player can sit in the pocket and groove the ball back through a 15 ball rally without getting tired. The pro player can stay in there for a 25 ball rally and is still be as fresh as he was at the start of the match. The college player can belt out 10 winners on their forehand side throughout the match. The pro player can hit up to 50% more than that.

How this relates back to screenwriting is that, at first glance, the Black List writer doesn’t seem to be doing much different from the amateur writer. But if you look closer, their character work is just a little more thought out. Their structure is a little cleaner. Their dialogue is a little more thoughtful. Their scene work is a bit better. And when you add all those things up, the Black List script reads better than the amateur script.

Now, you may point out that the Black List scripts are hardly show-stoppers. I agree. To extend the metaphor, if a pro player ranked 90 in the world goes up against a pro player ranked 7 in the world, the lower ranked pro player isn’t going to look so great. In other words, very rarely will someone on the Black List write a better script than Quentin Tarantino or Aaron Sorkin. Those guys are in another bracket. But, that doesn’t change that fact that the low-ranked pro player is still better than the college player.

That’s a very long intro into today’s script but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while and I wanted to share it with you guys. Cause I know how frustrating it can be to read some of these Black List scripts and be confused. So, in a second I’ll tell you how you can elevate your writing up to Black List level.

Viva Mexico follows a 40-something sometimes-commercial actor named John who also happens to be a former superhero named Captain Bald Eagle. John’s agent calls him to tell him that he’s been hired by the governor of a small southern Mexican city to take care of a recent issue involving a local cartel (called “Cartel Cartel”).

John flies down to Mexico in his Captain Bald Eagle uniform and is told by Governor Pena about a dangerous man named Juan Rojo who has kidnapped five congressmen. He wants Captain Bald Eagle to take Juan down.

But as soon as John is out of the meeting, he’s kidnapped by a nasty looking tattooed fellow named Sordomudo. Sordomudo busses John to a warehouse, puts on a Mission Impossible mask of Juan Rojo, and proceeds to video tape a decapitation of John.

Well, an “almost” decapitation because a bunch of gnarly men break into the warehouse and kidnap John. John wakes up at the compound of the real Juan Rojo and learns that Sordomundo was working with the governor. Their plan was to stage a video murder of Captain Bald Eagle, making it look like he was killed by Juan Rojo, which would’ve given the government international approval to go scorched earth on Juan Rojo.

But, according to Juan Rojo, the government is the real cartel. Juan and his community are the good guys. And yes, they did kidnap those politicians. But only because they plan on exposing the government. Captain Bald Eagle decides to join Juan Rojo in this endeavor which gets complicated after Sordomundo kidnaps a young Mexican woman John has fallen in love with. Juan and John decide that this will end on Mexcian Independence Day. They are are going to battle Sordomundo’s cartel to the death. And they’re going to take back Mexico for the people in the process.

I could never grasp what this script was trying to do beginning with its concept. It’s a weird one. Bring in some over-the-hill American superhero to solve a Mexico-specific cartel problem?? It’s definitely not an idea that rolls off the proverbial high concept tongue. It takes a few run-throughs to make peace with it.

And there’s a ton going on here. It’s actually exploring some pretty deep ideas in regards to the troubles Mexico is facing. But, at times, it’s trying to tell that tale in a funny way. Captain Bald Eagle is supposed to be Bob Parr from The Incredibles, I think. A former great superhero who’s now over the hill and needs to find his chi again. But it was very poorly set up.

It wasn’t even clear, at the beginning, if John *was* a superhero or a guy wearing a suit pretending to be a superhero. And then when we do find out he’s a real superhero (he’s kind of a low-rent Captain America), we’re told that he only got half-a-dose of the super-serum. So he’s not a true superhero. And, also, I think his shield is the only thing that allows him to have his powers? It’s not well explained.

If I had to give the script a comp, I would say it’s similar to The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent with Nic Cage. An American “superhero” gets chummy with a cartel boss. But that script was written with a level of assuredness that this script is missing. So, even though Viva Mexico was competently written, it’s misguided from the get-go.

Okay, back to our metaphor. How does a college player become a top 100 ranked pro player? Well, it’s not one fix. They work on EVERYTHING. They might realize that they’re falling backwards whenever they hit their backhand, which takes 15mph off the stroke. So they get to work with their coach, who feeds them thousands of backhands where they now practice stepping into the backhand. After several months, their backhand is a completely different stroke.

They may be doing something technically wrong on their serve that’s leaving mph’s on the table. It could be that they’re not tossing the ball forward enough or maybe they’re making contact with their body falling instead of pushing upward. These slight tweaks might add as much as 20 mph. Their footwork may be a little slow so they spend 30 minutes after every hitting session doing footwork drills. This allows them, in matches, to get to balls earlier, which means they’re prepared sooner, which makes the shot easier.

In other words, you’re making all of these small improvements that, when added together, up your total game play. So that’s all you should be doing in screenwriting. Identify your weaknesses and try to improve them.

Do you have enough conflict in your scenes? If not, write 100 practice scenes where all you focus on is adding conflict. Are your characters interesting or boring? If they’re boring, study the 30 most interesting characters in movie history, write down what makes them interesting, and then start incorporating some of those traits into your own characters. Do you know how to construct your 50 page second act to move quickly? If not, study pacing (adding goals with some sort of urgency attached).

The closest thing to a “skip the line” strategy in screenwriting is finding that elusive awesome concept. But minus that, it’s just hard work. It’s making all these little improvements in your “game.” Eventually, those improvements add up to an overall improvement that puts you on the Black List.

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

What I learned: “Sorta” doesn’t work in movies. “Sorta” superhero. “Sorta” drug-addict. “Sorta” selfish. “Sorta” villain. I’m sure you guys can come up with a few exceptions, but movies, by and large, work best when your characters have definitive traits. He’s a superhero. He’s a hardcore drug addict. He’s cripplingly selfish. He’s a deadly villain. Not only did the “sorta” superhero thing here make Captain Bald Eagle wishy-washy and, therefore, less compelling. It also made him confusing. I was trying to figure out, through the first half of the script, why he hadn’t done anything super.