Genre: Drama/Serial Killer
Premise: A small town serial killer accidentally becomes a hero when he saves the sheriff.
About: This script has not sold. I’m not even sure it’s gone out to anyone yet. The writer is new. I don’t know much more about it.
Writer: Dan Southard
Details: 105 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

This one came to me mysteriously and without much information. I can only say that the person who sent it to me had previously sent me one of my favorite scripts. So I knew at the very least it would be solid.

But before I get to the review, a little trip down memory lane first. Take note of today’s genre. Serial killer. Serial killer falls within the group of genres that you absolutely HAVE to do something different with if you want your spec to survive in the spec jungle. Seven was a great movie but it also seemed to collectively destroy every ounce of writer creativity when it came to serial killer flicks. You need to find another angle into your story if you’re going to write one of these.

One way to go about that is to tell the story through the serial killer’s eyes, as Company does here. Stan is a lonely farmer approaching middle age, just minding his own business and trying to farm his own land. He lost both of his parents awhile back and that’s made this lightning rod of social awkwardness even more socially awkward. You’d have a better chance striking up a conversation with a pot of coffee than you would old Stan.

Stan also has a secret. He’s a killer. His victims of choice are hookers, who he finds in the nearby city. He brings them home, entertains them for awhile, and then he kills them. As if that isn’t bad enough, he preps the bodies, clothes them, and keeps them around so they can keep him “company.” The conversations are noticeably one-sided, but you get the feeling that’s okay with Stan.

After awhile, Stan realizes that the half life for a decaying body isn’t very long and therefore enrolls in some taxidermy lessons. It’s there where he meets Sandra Laird, the daughter of the taxidermist who’s quite beautiful except for the fact that half her face is paralyzed. Hey, beggars can’t be choosers. At first Stan resists Sandra’s approaches, but after awhile they start spending time together.

In the meantime, there’s some really nasty bank robber tearing through the state, leaving a bit of a body count in his wake. Definitely not a guy you’d accept a Facebook friend request from. By chance, before raiding Stan’s town, he runs into Stan, and is kind of a dick to him. Bad move. Stan follows him into town, and when the guy gets the upper hand on the town sheriff and is preparing to kill him, Stan flies out of nowhere to take him out.

Yay!

Or wait. Yay?

Word spreads quickly of Stan’s heroics. But of course when you’ve got three dead hookers stashed in your basement, the last thing you want is attention. So Stan tries to downplay the whole ordeal, but soon he’s got the mayor himself at his doorstep asking if he’ll accept an award in front of the town. Combined with the escalating relationship with Sandra, the violently private Stan is going to have to make a big decision about whether he’s going to move on from the secret life he’s been living or go back to his very unique form of “company.”

I liked Company. I hope I don’t find myself in Stan’s company anytime soon, but I liked this script. Here’s the cool thing about it. Southard puts you in the company of a killer. That’s your protagonist. So from the very first page, you’re being challenged. We’ve been in this position before, most notably with Norman Bates, but Norman was at least charming. I’m not sure Stan would recognize charm if Robert Pattinson himself showed up at his door.

Still, Southard manages to pepper Stan with little sympathetic traits here and there. He’s all alone. He lost his parents. He’s been an outcast since he was a kid. So you’re being pulled both ways. You know you should hate the guy, but in the weirdest way, you’re sorta rooting for him.

A clever trick Southard uses to help you get over the fact that our hero is a killer is actually the opposite of what I recommend doing under normal circumstances. Normally, you’d want your audience to know as much as possible about the killer’s victims. The more we know about them, the more we’ll want them to be saved. But here, since the sympathy lies with the killer, Southard doesn’t let us know anything about the victims. This way, we’re not really torn up when Stan kills them.

But the script’s biggest strengths are obviously the two dilemmas it puts its main character in. First in Stan’s relationship with Sandra, and then when he saves the sheriff. I bring it up all the time, but irony is one of your best friends in a screenplay. It’s hard to wrap your head around a heroic serial killer. Those two things don’t go together. So you’re compelled to see where it goes. Likewise with Sandra. What happens when someone with three dead girlfriends gets a real one?

The drama then comes from these two entities pushing Stan further and further out of his comfort zone to a decision he doesn’t want to make. Our interest comes from knowing that sooner or later, those two worlds (his secret world and the real one) will have to collide. And because each world is so extreme, it’s going to be quite an explosion.

The script’s biggest weakness and the reason it’s only getting a worth the read though is its ending. That big explosion I was just talking about? The one that was driving my interest for a good 80 pages? It didn’t happen. In fact, I’m not sure what happened. Sometimes writers just try and get too clever and I think that’s what happened here because not only did the ending not live up to everything that came before it, but it wasn’t even clearly stated. That was frustrating.

Company also suffers the effects of having such an introverted protagonist. When your hero doesn’t talk much, the writer has to work overtime to come up with ANY sort of interesting dialogue when the hero’s involved. Predictably then, Stan’s one and two word responses get old fast, and the Sandra scenes sort of get stuck in limbo as a result. It’s tough because you have to stay true to the character but it is at the expense of the scenes. That’s why I always say, if you’re going to use an introverted hero, know what you’re getting into. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Norman Bates is so charming and talkative. They knew that his scenes would be a lot more interesting for it. Again, I’m not saying this was a script-killing decision. There was enough conflict here to overcome Stan’s quiet personality. It just made for some stale scenes is all.

However, there’s still enough good here to celebrate both the script and the arrival of Dan Southard. I see this making the lower half of this year’s Black List easy.

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

What I learned: When sizing up a romantic interest for your main character, always be realistic. Yes, in the world of movies, everyone looks like a male or female version of Zac Efron. But in reality, the chilling socially awkward ogre-looking guy probably isn’t going to end up with Megan Fox. Southard does a good job here of mixing Sandra’s beauty with a slight deformity, making it a lot more realistic that she would gravitate towards Stan. Your characters’ appearance, just like everything in a screenplay, needs to be in service to the story.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: When a male skeleton holding a gun is found inside the fossilized remains of a T-Rex, a young paleontologist must get to the bottom of how it happened.
HOW TO SUBMIT: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title).
Writer: Darren Howell
Details: 115 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Finally! We get some high concept action up in this joint!

Strap on your jetpacks tadpoles. This is about to get loopy.

Paleontologist or fossil-seeker (whatever you call them) Dr. Rosy Kean, has just made a major discovery. An entire T-Rex fossil buried in the ground. But that’s not all. This T-Rex has inside of its “stomach” a skeleton – a skeleton of a man. A skeleton of a man with a GUN. Uh-huh. Yeah. Things just got interesting.

So Rosy calls up her old flame – used to be FBI agent, now a security guard – Danny Wallace, to get a match on the gun. Danny looks up the serial number and guess what? It’s the same serial number as HIS CURRENT GUN. Naturally, Danny thinks this is all a joke and doesn’t really pay attention to it. Especially because there are other things going on in the world. Like in Iran where a 9.2 earthquake just rocked one of their nuclear facilities.

Anyway, Rosy gets a call from her old friend Cassandra Wallace, the richest woman in the world (who also happens to be Danny’s mother) who wants her to come back to the U.S. ASAP. She’s got something she wants to tell her.

Rosy does, but in the meantime, all over the world, there are these strange “gravity bumps” where everything jolts out of place. Certainly there’s gotta be something going on here. And Danny wants to get to the bottom of it. But when an oil tanker falls out of the sky into the middle of New York, that’s when it gets really bad. People need answers now.

Danny does some digging and eventually finds out that the government has some sort of secret new weapon they’re working on that creates controllable black holes. I mean, screw nuclear weapons. That’s old school. If you can control black holes, you could decimate anything. Then afterwards you just close them back up. The question is, where do these black holes end? Where are they sending this stuff back to?

Eventually Rosy, Danny, and Cassandra all meet up and – and this is where my understanding of what happens gets a little shaky – decide that Danny’s going to go back in time where these black holes are sending all this stuff to. He does (spoilers), which is where he meets his fate with the dinosaur. We then jump forward to 1960, where we find out the truth behind who Cassandra really is, and the mystery behind her tremendous wealth.

Whoa. First Man On Earth indeed.

Initial thoughts on this one? Intriguing. Exciting. But messy. I mean, this script explores a TON of ideas. But it makes a mistake a lot of writers make early on. Trying to throw everything and the kitchen sink into their story. A looming world war isn’t enough. It has to be a world war with wormholes and time travel and ships falling out of the sky. I actually liked some of this stuff because it was unique. But the truth is, there was too much going on.

I’m reminded of what happened with Good Will Hunting’s development. The original script for that had Will Hunting on the run with the government chasing him and a bunch of thriller craziness. But the producers told them, “Whoa, let’s slow this down. It looks like you have some better characters here than you’re giving yourself credit for.” Subsequent drafts concentrated more on the relationships between the characters and the movie went on to win a screenwriting Oscar.

I would suggest some of that here, but maybe not to the degree that they did it. I think the time travel stuff is intriguing and reveals an interesting final twist. But I’m not sure I like all the wormhole this and wormhole that and quantum physics breakdown and boats falling out of skies and Russia and China joining forces and U.S. secret weapons. That stuff is cool if you’re making a Roland Emmerich movie, but I think this has the potential to be more. The strange triangle relationship between Danny, Rosy, and Cassandra can be mined for more drama. Then build a simpler story around that. You don’t lose much because you still have your high concept (time travel). Yet now your story doesn’t seem like it’s cluttered or trying too hard. I mean, I’m still not sure why the hell we started this movie in Iran.

I’m also not sure the FBI angle works. I would stay consistent with the movie’s hook. Make Danny some kind of scientist, like Rosy.

This script had other issues as well. Sometimes we can be so focused on giving our characters problems and flaws, that we just throw something in there cause it checks the box. Danny hating his mother because she gives him “too much love” may be the dumbest reason for a relationship disconnect ever. Even if it were realistic, the fact that Danny’s droning on about how difficult it is to have someone love him so much is not only stupid, but it makes him look like a total asshole. I can somewhat understand why this was used after the twist was revealed, but it creates too much frustration for the reader in the 90-some pages leading up to the twist to justify its use.

I also thought the Mallinson storyline (Mallinson is a character who tries to take credit for the T-Rex discovery) was too on-the-nose, had no story value, and crumbled under the weight of how “cliché bad guy” Mallinson was. I couldn’t understand why we were spending so much time with him. Our villains needed to be direct adversaries of Rosy and Danny. Not 10,000 miles away.

Speaking of, the fact that the T-Rex discovery was off in a different place than was the rest of the story gave me the uncomfortablies. Almost like the writer wanted to get the dinosaur hook in, then get to the U.S. as soon as possible. If there’s any way to keep the story more centralized, I’d recommend that. For example, if Danny and Cassandra were flown over there as opposed to the other way around, and everything took place in a nearby foreign city, sort of like how the bulk of Raiders takes place in Cairo, I’d recommend that. I just don’t like jumping all over the world unless it’s absolutely necessary. And these characters didn’t absolutely need to be in the U.S. Especially if you get rid of all that FBI stuff.

Another big issue here is over-information. And this often happens when you’re throwing everything and the kitchen sink at your story. At a certain point, there’s just too much to explain. And that this script felt part Quantum Physics course was not a good omen for a story that already had to explain the connection between current black holes and the extinction of the dinosaurs, as well as why China and Russia were turning into one big super-country.

Here’s the thing. Sometimes we feel like we have to “prove” to the reader that we’ve researched this or know what we’re talking about, so we dedicate pages upon pages of characters spouting out boring exposition as to how the whole thing works. It’s good to do research, but always remember that you’re entertaining your audience first. Tell them what they need to know but nothing more – ESPECIALLY if you already have a ton of other crazy shit you have to explain.

I can’t give this script a “worth the read” because it’s too sloppy and there’s too much going on and I’m not sure all the parts fit together. But I will say this is a great concept to be working with for a spec script. It’s going to get the writer reads. And if Darren can find the story somewhere inside of all this madness, First Man On Earth has a chance of becoming something really good. I believe that.

Script link: First Man On Earth

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me (very close to worth the read)
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Beware of the residual effects of an exposition heavy movie. You become so satisfied with making everything make sense, that you don’t realize you’re having to jam character backstory in all the way down on page 84 (with Rosy). This is a direct result of not having anywhere to put this stuff earlier, where it should be. This is the same reason why we know nothing about any of the characters in Inception besides Cobb, and thus why they feel so empty. So much time needed to be spent on explaining the never-ending rules of dream-navigation that there wasn’t any time left for character development. Only give us the information/explanation we need and nothing more.

Come all, come one, to the second half of the Reader Favorites List, the best unmade scripts out there voted on by you. Last week we did 1-25. Today, we’re doing 26-50. Since I didn’t originally know I was going to publish this group, I erased the points, but I remember all of them being relatively close. Here they are!

#50 Brad Cutter Ruined My Life Again
Writer: Joe Nussbaum
Premise: A successful business man is forced to relive his miserable teenage years when the cool kid from his high school is hired at his company.
About: I’m not sure what’s happening with this project. I know that Joe recently directed the Disney film, “Prom,” so he’s certainly in a position to push projects forward. But it may no longer be a priority of his. I still think with an ending change this could be a classic.

#49 Flight
Writer: John Gatins
Premise: An alcoholic pilot becomes a reluctant hero when he saves a crippled plane from certain catastrophe.
About: Wow, you guys are just a bunch of depressing little emos aren’t you? I was kinda shocked to see this on so many lists. It never scored a top spot, but consistently fell into people’s 8 and 9 holes. I suppose if addiction is a problem in your life, this script will probably resonate with you.

#48 Shimmer Lake
Writer: Oren Uziel
Premise: The aftermath of a bank robbery told backwards.
About: One of the few backwards-told stories where the backwards-ness isn’t just a gimmick. It’s not quite Memento. It’s more of a comedy. But it keeps you guessing until the end. An Austin Screenplay Contest winner. And a reminder that specs that play with time often do well in the spec marketplace.

#47 Pandora 
Writer: Karl Gajdusek
Premise: The residents of a small Texas town are shocked when 7 local residents are killed in a bank robbery gone wrong. Although the culprits are immediately captured, they are kidnapped from the local jail and held for ransom –- the town now has to buy back their killers –- and this is when things really start to go awry.
About: I’ll be honest. I didn’t even know what this one was. Thank God when I checked the archives, I learned that I hadn’t read it, but rather Roger had.

#46 – Kashmir
Writer: D.B. Weiss
Premise: Three ex-mercenaries stumble upon information concerning the whereabouts of the world’s most wanted terrorist. They journey into Kashmir, the dangerous and disputed territory between two nuclear powers in order to claim the $50 million bounty on the terrorist’s head.
About: Here’s another one I still haven’t read. But I remember when it first came out as a spec. People were going nuts over it. I guess it’s another one of those titles I can’t get past. Like Sunflower or that other script I reviewed recently whose title is so forgettable I’m forgetting it right now. So this script is good then?

#45 – Maggie
Writer: John Scott 3
Premise: A high school girl has been contaminated with the zombie virus. However, in this treatment of the zombie dilemma, the change takes months to complete.
About: Ah yes, one of the more controversial scripts on the site this year. A zombie movie where the main character lays in a bed for the entire movie. Some thought it mundane. Others inspiring. It was definitely a different take on the zombie genre. And I’m still not sure if the thing ever sold (it originally sold and then the sale fell apart a few days later).

#44 – At The Mountains Of Madness
Writers: Guillermo Del Toro and Matthew Robbins
Premise: In the early 20th Century, a group of Arctic Explorers head off to Antarctica to look for a lost boat. What they find instead is too horrifying to grasp.
About: At The Mountains Of Madness may be looked at in future years as the project that changed the game. The script was really good. The film had Del Toro directing, James Cameron producing, and Tom Cruise starring, and still the studio got cold feet. You know it’s bad when Hollywood’s favorite source for mining movies – pre-existing material, isn’t good enough anymore. Then again, James Cameron did produce Sanctum, which runs neck and neck with “Skyline” as the worst screenplay of the year.

#43 – Winter’s Discontent
Writer: Paul Fruchbom
Premise: A sexually frustrated widower moves into a retirement community with one objective in mind: to get laid.
About: I love Dan Fogelman but Last Vegas doesn’t hold a candle to Winter’s Discontent, clearly the number one “old fogey” script floating around Hollywood at the moment. As far as I’ve heard, I don’t know if they have a single actor attached to this yet. I mean seriously, how many good projects are out there for 70 year olds? Whoever’s producing this needs to step on the gas.

#42 – The Mighty Flynn
Writer: Lorene Scafaria
Premise: After a cruel heartless efficiency expert gets fired, he meets a strange 16 year old girl who unexpectedly helps him turn his life around.
About: Yes, it’s the script I went ga-ga over and put in my own Top 10. How dare you bastards banish it to Number 42. We’s gonna have words I say. While Flynn has been blacklisted (in the bad way) ever since Up In The Air came out, I still contend it would be a better movie. The characters are more interesting and there’s a lot more heart. And opium.

#41 – Cylinder
Writer: Jared Romero
Premise: Seven teenagers head into the Louisiana forest to celebrate a birthday. But when one of them is accidentally killed, the rest must figure out what to do with the body before the night is up.
About: When Cylinder was first reviewed on Scriptshadow, it had yet to be purchased. It has since been bought. For those who don’t know the story behind this script, I first read it in a screenplay competition I held before Scriptshadow. I thought it was great and through a friend of a friend, I was able to get it to Diablo Cody’s agent, who ended up signing Jerod. Very cool. Let’s hope this goes on to be made soon.

#40 – Will
Writer: Demetri Martin
Premise: What if the world was a play and all of us were the characters?
About: This is one of the few scripts which although I didn’t connect with it on an emotional level, I still gave it an impressive due to its inventiveness. It was just weird and different and out there. This is a great script to study if you consider your voice strange and unique and want to make the Black List.

#39 – Untitled Michael Mann/John Logan Project
Writer: John Logan
Premise: A noir drama that takes place on the old MGM lot in the 1930s. A private detective often hired by the studios to clean up its star’s messes, is hired to investigate whether a starlet murdered her husband.
About: A detective story that takes place on the old Wizard Of Oz sets does sound pretty cool. THAT’S a story that could only be told in Hollywood. Comparisons to L.A. Confidential are also good news. But I think this one’s been around for awhile. So I’m wondering why it all of a sudden is so hot. Can somebody provide an answer? Still haven’t read it myself.

#38 – Medieval
Writers: Mike Finch and Alex Litvak
Premise: The Dirty Dozen in medieval times.
About: I found Medieval soulless, ridiculous, plotless, and pretty entertaining. This goes against everything I preach on the site – it’s empty storytelling at its best – but what saves it is that you can imagine the movie. You can see these different fighters facing off, like a giant 17th Century Mortal Kombat fiery furious Fight Club orgy. This will be fun. Assuming your brain no longer works. McG at the helm for the win.

#37 – Fahrenheit 451
Writer: Frank Darabont
Premise: In a dystopian future, firefighters start fires instead of put them out.
About: Ah yes, who can forget my rant against this script due to its inclusion of….ROBOT DOGS. Darabont’s an amazing writer but I’ve never seen a script set in the future feel so dated. There’s no internet in this world. There never HAS been an internet! I don’t know how we’re supposed to wrap our heads around that. It’s like pretending that nothing over the past 20 years happened. I don’t get the love for this.

#36 – Better Living Through Chemistry
Writers: David Posamentier & Geoff Moore
Premise: A pharmacist whose wife regularly questions his masculinity starts an affair with a tortured trophy wife, who encourages him to explore the “fruits” of his profession.
About: Of all the scripts trying to dethrone American Beauty as the de facto “secrets of suburbia” King, this one probably comes closest. It takes some wild chances what with turning its main character into a crazed self-medicating maniac, and has a hell of an ending. Still wondering what the hell Judi Dench is doing in it though. I guess Entourage has ensured that every movie will now be populated with a celebrity cameo.

#35 – Dead Loss
Writers: Josh Baizer and Marshall Johnson
Premise: A crew of crab fisherman rescue a drifting castaway with a mysterious cargo.
About: Every thriller these days seems to take place in some predictable or uninspired location. This one takes place on a crab-fishing boat. It’s tense. It’s raw. It’s got non-stop thrills. This is one of those rare spec scripts that is a movie from the very first page. It needs to be made pronto.

#34 – I Wanna ____ Your Sister 
Writer: Melissa Stack
Premise: When his sister joins him at the New York Stock Exchange as an intern, Drew thinks it’s going to be the best summer ever – until he realizes that every single guy at the company wants to _____ his sister.
About: You try to get away from the flashiest title ever to hit the spec market, but you can’t. I think this is on the list due to the sheer number of people who have read it due to its title. Word is that it’s now been re-set in college, which isn’t a terrible idea since it’s a more relatable situation. Whether the new writers executed that premise though is anyone’s guess.

#33 – Pawn Sacrifice
Writer: Steve Knight
Premise: The life story of chess legend Bobby Fischer leading up to his historic world championship match against Boris Spassky.
About: I’m shocked that so many people like this. There must be a lot of screenwriting chess fans out there. I still think our hero looks like a total whiney douchebag at the end of the story, refusing to play unless the rest of the game could be moved. So the lesson here is what? Win by whining? Someone help me out here.

#32 – Imagine
Writer: Dan Fogelman
Premise: A lost letter written to him by his idol, John Lennon, inspires an aging musician to change his life.
About: (Spoiler) Double cancer-itis is still my big beef with Imagine. But it still shows us what Fogelman does best – write comedies with heart. And not write comedies where the only laughs come from comedian-of-the-moments hamming it up for the camera. Whether that style will land with audiences is yet to be determined. Crazy Stupid Love did okay but not great in its opening weekend. But Imagine has a much better hook. So we’ll see how it goes.

#31 – Prisoners
Writer: Aaron Guzikowski
Premise: When his daughter and her friend are kidnapped and the police fail to solve the crime, a father takes matters into his own hands.
About: Million dollar spec baby. Prisoners is supposed to be the next Seven (even though the plot is totally different). But I’m still not sure what’s going on with the thing. There was that weird two week period where Whalberg was attached and then Bale was attached and then they were both attached, and then they both left and then some director came on, then they both came on again. Is this still moving forward? Can someone shed a little light on Prisoners? I vaguely remember Antoine Fuqua being involved?

#30 – Shrapnel
Writer: Evan Daugherty
Premise: Two war veterans play a deadly game of cat and mouse up in the mountain wilderness.
About: Lots of votes for this one. I had no idea it was so popular. My question is, is this the right Shrapnel? I coulda swore there was another project out there called Shrapnel that I haven’t read yet. If that’s the case, this entry may be Shrapnel Squared. A combined Shrapnel. A double dose of Shrapnelopia.

#29 – Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close
Writer: Eric Roth (based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer)
Premise: A young boy goes on a journey through New York City to find the truth about how his father, who disappeared in 9/11, died.
About: Of all the scripts on this list, I’m thinking this one has the best chance for Oscars. Man does it tug at the tear ducts. The only problem with it is that it’s too long in its current state. Roth loves writing long so if he can get to the story a little faster, this could be awesome.

#28 – Sunflower
Writer: Misha Green
Premise: Two women are held hostage in a prison-like farmhouse.
About: Since it landed on the Black List, a new script was commissioned with new writers but after developing it extensively, Friedkin, the director, decided to ditch it. So Sunflower is looking for a new field to grown it. Any takers?

#27 – My Mother’s Curse
Writer: Dan Fogelman
Premise: A struggling entrepreneur takes his mother on a cross-country roadtrip to reunite with an old flame.
About: You guys LOVED My Mother’s Curse. So much love for this one I’m shocked. I mean I thought it was a pretty decent road trip movie. Definitely different. But there must be a lot of mama’s boys out there cause this killed in the voting.

#26 – Home
Writer: Adam Alleca
Premise: A paranoid delusional man is left on house arrest out in the middle of the woods.
About: I’ve learned from sources VERY close to the project that Alleca turned in a new draft of this that’s supposed to be even better than the one we all read. Now whether that pushes the project on its way, I don’t know. But I still think this guy’s one of the more talented “unknown” writers out there. I’m betting he starts making a splash soon.

Thoughts?  Where’s Babe In The Woods?

Genre: Thriller/Comedy
Premise: A naïve freshman at Yale finds herself caught up in a drug deal gone bad.
About: Mike White (Orange County, Chuck and Buck, School Of Rock) is back in the saddle with this spec script. All I’ve been hearing lately is, “You gotta read Babe In The Woods. You gotta read Babe In The Woods.” To be honest, the title made it sound like a Limp Biskit video, so I was reluctant. But then I found out the hottest director in town, Ruben Fleischer, was directing it, so that was the tipping point for me. EDIT: I’ve since learned that this is the draft of the first script Mike White sold back in 1996.  Which means Ruben signed on to another current draft.  May help partly explain reactions. 
Writer: Mike White
Details: 112 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

When you’re thinking about what screenwriting “voice” means, there’s a good chance Mike White is one of the faces that pops into your head. Starting with Chuck and Buck, the guy created a unique blend of humor, darkness, and intelligence unlike any other writer out there. Even his lesser known efforts, like Orange County, are still interesting films.

But I haven’t seen much of Mike lately. I remember he was in line to direct that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (or whatever it was called) movie but pulled out due to creative differences. So it was fun to hear he had a new hot spec out there. So what’s it about?

18 year old April Granger is the definition of naïve. She lives in Nebraska. She was bred on corn. She’s got that small town beauty thing going for her. And everyone she’s ever met in her life has been earnest and honest. And she’d probably stay with those people if she weren’t so darn smart. But April’s been accepted into Yale. THE Yale. Not like the Yale Barn and Grill. So she says goodbye to Nebraska and her family and off she goes.

April’s roommate is Charlotte Hollingsworth, a debonair Real Housewife of New York in waiting. But in classic Mike White fashion, she’s far from cliché. Charlotte, while a total snobby bitch, also loves spy movies and her favorite person in history is a famous female spy. Anyway, she’s already determined that April isn’t worth her time.

Lucky then that April meets Jackie Belasco, a weird girl who’s much more accepting of April’s corn-bred upbringing. The two become besties and finally April feels like she fits in.

Therefore, when Thanksgiving comes around and April can’t afford to fly back home, Jackie invites her to her family’s house, in Jersey. April’s thrilled and immediately loves the camaraderie and closeness of Jackie’s family. Everyone seems so nice! Later that night, however, while out at a bar, Jackie’s cute brother asks April if she’d like to join him in the city. Go out on an impromptu date. She agrees, excited, and away they go.

Before they can officially hang out though, the brother just wants her to do one quick favor. Walk into a hotel, say she’s someone else, then wait for him up in a room. The naïve April says no problem, does as told, and waits for him. Except seconds after she gets there, a man enters her room with a bag and the brother is coming through the window and there’s a shooting and chaos and before you know it the wounded brother is asking April to take the bag and run.

She does, hurries out into the city, frantically calls Jackie, who asks her to please not go to the police or her brother will be in big trouble. April’s scared and confused but doesn’t want to mess things up for her friend, so she runs to Grand Central station, jumps on a train, and heads back to Yale. There, at a deserted campus, she meets up with her roommate, Charlotte, again, and the two realize April is carrying a bag full of money. When the bad guys trace April back to the campus, they come too, and Charlotte decides to help her roommate defeat them, as that’s exactly what her spy idol would do.

This was a great script to read after yesterday because both tread similar territory, yet Babe In The Woods was a thousand times more memorable. The tone here is less clinical and more….hmm, I’m not sure what word to use…”groovy” I guess. White has us laughing at our characters just as often as he has us terrified for them. It’s a unique combination for a thriller that I wasn’t used to.

He also takes his characters on quite a journey. Normally you’d set a story like this in one place (a la Kristy, on a campus). But we start in Nebraska, then go to Yale, then head to Jersey, then to New York, then back to Yale again. This can be dangerous in a bad writer’s hands as the story can quickly derail and feel unfocused. But White takes a page out of the Coens’ book and puts the focus on the bag of money, allowing him to take the story wherever he wants it to go (even if it’s kind of weird that we end up at the same place we started).

My favorite choice of White’s here was probably teaming up Charlotte and April. I love it when two “enemies” are later forced to work together. And it was great to see this girl who we’d previously hated turning into a cool chick. The reversal of expectations on both women (Charlotte and Jackie) was a neat trick. Again, nothing quite went how you thought it was going to go here.

White also does a wonderful job of building up April’s key personality trait – her naiveté. This story doesn’t work unless you believe April is naïve. So the first 30 pages are dedicated to showing us how much April trusts people and how she always sees the good in people.

The other cool thing White does is adds just enough humor so that you overlook some of the more preposterous plot points. I mean no girl would really set up a trade with a band of criminals at the top of the Empire State Building. And April using her gymnastics background to triple flip her way into a thug-takedown is beyond ridiculous. But White establishes early on that he’s winking at you. So you end up going with the moments.

That said, it wasn’t perfect. And if this is indeed a first draft, as it claims, that might be a reason why (though the setups and payoffs in this are numerous enough that I doubt it’s a true “first draft.”). I had a hard time believing that April wouldn’t do more to save herself at key moments during this story. When she’s lugging the bag around Grand Central Station with a crazy gunman chasing her for instance (a gunman who conveniently disappears whenever she tells someone about him), it was kind of like, “Enough already.” It’s time to take care of this.

And when she does finally find an officer, he becomes “movie officer,” the kind of policeman who conveniently has no intelligence or skill when asked for help. He takes one look back at where she said she saw the gunman, doesn’t see anyone, then shrugs his shoulders and says, “Sorry, can’t help.” I would think of all the people that policeman would be willing to help, number one on that list would be a beautiful 18 year old girl who claims that someone’s trying to kill her. Even with the comedy buffer, at some point characters in life and death situations need to act like real people. And at key moments during Babe In The Woods, they don’t. Whether audiences won’t care because of the purposeful absurdity of it all, we’ll have to see, but it would be nice if some of those leaps in logic were cleaned up.

Babe In The Woods was an awkward unexpected fun ride. Expect it to rank highly on the 2011 Black List.

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

What I learned: Sometimes the flow of the story doesn’t allow you to properly introduce a character when we first meet them. For example, if you want to convey on the page a fleeting first glance between your main character and someone else who becomes important later, it would probably be a bad idea to stop the story and explain in detail who that person is. It’ll interrupt the “fleeting glance” effect you’re going for. So instead, just say, “We’ll meet him/her later.” That’s how Jackie is introduced here. We don’t have time to get into her character yet, but since she’s important, Mike White writes, “We’ll meet her later.” This is a common practice many writers use.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A high school student is blackmailed into assassinating a senator on his first day of school.
About: This sold a couple of years back for low six figures. Jaswinski has a couple of other sales, including Kristy, a hot spec also from a couple of years ago about a girl being stalked on a college campus. It made the original Reader Top 25.
Writer: Anthony Jaswinski
Details: 103 pages – May 3, 2008 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I still have not read Kristy. All I know is a lot of people love it so I should probably get to it at some point. In a bit of a coincidence, if you do like that script, make sure to tune in tomorrow. I’m reviewing a hot screenplay that’s somewhat similar.

But today it’s all about the high school. I’m sure you remember what it felt like to walk through those enormous doors for the first time. Seeing enough kids to fill a small city. Believing that all of them were staring directly at YOU. Believing they could all read your mind. Knowing that you were SCARED SHITLESS. First days of school. Now there’s something I don’t miss.

But our protagonist in Advanced Placement is going to have a worse first day than all of our first days put together. 18 year old Seth Deacon is on something like his 3rd high school in two years. The guy’s one of those people who doesn’t look for trouble, but trouble always seems to find him. He’s got that rebel vibe that draws the attention of the jockalonians. But unlike most kids, Seth always fights back. Which has given him a long rap sheet.

The one constant in Seth’s life is his 10 year old sister, Tara. She’s the reason he smiles at the end of the day. Why he’s able to forget the two or three fights he got into at lunchtime. She’s the center of his world. And that will play a big part in today’s story, because things are about to get really bad for Seth and Tara.

On this day – his first day – Seth gets called into the principal’s office where he’s tasked to talk with a guidance counselor, the insanely hot Gail Fenn.

But something tells us pretty quickly – her choice of language maybe? – that this isn’t your average guidance counselor. Gail is one mean son of a bitch. And she lays it down for Seth. The senator is coming to speak at the school this afternoon, and Seth is going to kill him. If he doesn’t, they will murder his sister. It’s as simple as that. They’ll put the gun he’s supposed to use in a compartment in his locker. They’ll sit him down close to the stage. He’s to walk up, shoot him, and that’s it.

Man, this is so much worse than 3 O’Clock High. Naturally, Seth tries to escape between periods. But he quickly finds out that Gail has people working everywhere. He even tries to text for help but they’ve rigged his phone. They’ve been planning this for a long time. And the easy-to-blame Seth is the final piece of the puzzle.

Seth eventually finds some help in the alternative form of Chloe, another outsider. She doesn’t believe him at first, but comes around in the end. The question is, will they be able to escape not killing the senator AND save Seth’s sister? If so, it ain’t going to be easy.

Reading “Advanced Placement,” I thought to myself, “I can maybe see a high school demographic going for this.” They might be able to relate to these characters on some level. It’s an exciting enough situation that they themselves might wonder what they would do. And the script is competently written – no doubt. Jaswinski knows how to create suspense and keep his story moving, something a lot of amateurs have trouble with. But there was still something that bothered me about Advanced Placement.

Another writer noted to me Advanced Placement was the kind of script that was ruining the spec market. The market has become so dependent on fast easy reads, that nobody’s developing characters anymore. Nobody’s implementing themes anymore. Spec screenplays have become more of a race these days. Who can get to the finish line first? That’s why the only genres that seem to sell anymore are comedies and thrillers.

I don’t know if I would go that far. But I can definitely see his point. You can speed through Advanced Placement faster than an episode of Survivor. But when you’re finished, what is it you’ve read? There’s no bigger picture here. The characters don’t change. There’s no message. It feels empty. Look at Taxi Driver, which convers similar territory. You finish watching that film and a message has definitely washed over you. The idea that a city is falling apart. That we’re all becoming depraved angry dirty vicious animals. That the only way to change it is to take a stand.

And I realize this is more of a thriller than it is a character exploration, but Adavnced Placement could’ve really benefitted from stopping, slowing down, and examining its characters every once in awhile. The writer asking himself: “What is it I actually want to say here?”

I mean the story was fine. It wasn’t entirely believable. But enough of the holes were camouflaged that you bought into it for at least the amount of time it took to read. The concept was pretty good as well. While I’ve seen movies where normal people were forced to assassinate someone before, I’ve never seen one set in a high school.

But again, as I look back at this, I can’t remember any of the details. I don’t remember any particular scene standing out. The whole thing is a blur. And this goes back to what that writer brought up.

Is this what spec scripts have become? Where we celebrate something just because it has a solid hook, gets to the finish line quickly and doesn’t have any glaring holes? As much as I don’t want that to be the case, I can see why it’s come to this. There are so many bad screenplays out there that readers just don’t trust writers. If I read an amateur script, the first thing that pops into my head is, “This is probably going to be bad.” I don’t want to think that. I just do. Because nine out of ten times, that’s the case.

For that reason, readers want screenplays to read fast. That way, even if it’s bad, at least it’s over quickly.  The problem is that most of the time, it’s the slow scripts that are REALLY bad.  So readers tend to link those two things together. But really that badness is just beginners who don’t know what they’re doing. Beginners notoriously take forever to set up their stories and get things going. For that reason, when a screenwriter who DOES know what they’re doing comes along and tries something slow, he gets lumped in with the amateurs, because the reader just assumes it’s another beginner droning on. Even if the script does get better, the reader is already in “skim mode” and therefore not really paying attention.

So what’s the solution? I think it has to be compromise. I don’t like the system but as long as there are going to be thousands upon thousands of terrible screenplays, there are going to be impatient readers. So start your scripts off moving. Get our attention. And then, once you’ve gotten it, you’ve earned the right to slow down. To explore your characters a little. To explore your theme some. I would’ve liked to have seen that here with Advanced Placement. Have some quieter moments between Seth and Chloe and really gotten to know them. I was just watching Up the other day (a movie I used to dislike but have come around on), and that movie is marketed to the highest demographic of attention deficit disorder people in the world – children. And yet it slows down so many times to explore themes like friendship and mourning and moving on. I understand that Up isn’t a thriller but if your audience isn’t connecting with your characters on something more than a surface level, then that movie or screenplay you show them is going to disappear from their minds the second it’s over.

Advanced Placement is too breezy for its own good. It’s too fast. It’s too slick. I guess sometimes a script can move so fast that afterwards you’re not even sure if you read it.

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

What I learned: The lesson here is to try and say something with your script. Oftentimes when a story disappears from my mind the second I’m finished reading it, it’s because the writer wasn’t trying to say anything. Every once in awhile if you create great characters and an expertly plotted film, you can get away with pure entertainment. For example, I’m not sure Die Hard was trying to say anything about the world. But why not try to say something with your story just in case you haven’t created the next Die Hard? Go back to your top 10 favorite movies. What did you FEEL afterwards? Ask yourself why you felt that way. What themes were those movies hitting on? See if you can’t incorporate those themes into your own screenplays.