Get ready for my Top 10 scripts of the year post on Thursday. Also, I somehow dug up yet another forgotten impressive script, which I’ll review Wednesday. Right now, it’s time to tackle the number 1 script on The Black List, College Republicans!
Genre: Political Drama/Biopic
Premise: Aspiring politician Karl Rove runs a dirty campaign for national College Republican Chairman under the guidance of Lee Atwater, his campaign manager.
About: Number 1 on the 2010 Black List. A couple of months ago, Shia LaBeouf was rumored to be up for one of the roles, though it’s unclear whether he was to play Rove or Atwater. Wes Jones, the writer, does not yet have any produced credits, but did associate produce the John Cusack film, Grace is Gone. For another take on the script, News In Film did a review a while back.
Writer: Wes Jones
Details: 122 pages – December 2009 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’ve said it before. I’m not a political geek. Most of my political experiences revolve around my mom sending me CNN articles which warn me that my taxes are about to go up unless I vote for certain people. My obsession with movies and screenplays just doesn’t give me enough time to worry about imaginary people shooting at Hilary Clinton or what that wacky Joe Biden is going to say next. And quite frankly, it doesn’t interest me anyway. So under normal circumstances, I would never read College Republicans. But finishing number 1 on the Black List changes that. It is no longer a matter of whether I want to or don’t want to read the script. It’s now a duty. A civic duty for America!
It’s August 1973 and a cocky young whippersnapper named Karl Rove decides to run for the chairman of the College Republicans (against the advice of his peers). I’d never heard of the College Republicans before but I guess they were (or are?) a pretty big deal.
After some discussion, it’s deemed that the key to winning this election is through the South. So on a plane Rove hops and upon getting to Atlanta, he meets his wily no-holds-barred campaign manager Lee Atwater, a pint-sized little bugger who’d sell out his own brother if he thought it would get him a couple of steps ahead in his career.
The straight-laced Rove despises Atwater immediately but the two have no choice but to work together. It’s been ordered by the higher-ups.
Rove’s competition is a man named Terry Dolan, a pompous chap who figures this will be a cakewalk over the relatively unknown Rove.
But Atwater is a fierce (and dirty) competitor (his motto is: “You just figure out whatever it is that gets people most riled up, and you hang it around the other guy’s neck.”) who immediately goes after Dolan’s girlfriend in order to find out his secrets. When he discovers that Dolan is secretly gay, he spreads the rumor through backchannels and within a week, Dolan’s reputation is ruined and he drops out of the race. Never mind the fact that Atwater was wrong and Dolan wasn’t gay. Whatever gets the job done.
As they hop from southern state to southern state, Rove has more and more scruples about Atwater’s tactics, but they seem to be working so he puts up with it.
Eventually a man named Robert Edgeworth emerges as their main competitor and is a force enough to effectively end any chances Rove has of winning the election. But in a last-ditch effort, Atwater orchestrates some nifty underhanded moves to get Rove back into the race and take the election down to the wire.
I’m usually the first person defending The Black List, but I’ve received numerous e-mails from suspicious readers about the inclusion of College Republicans as the number 1 choice.
Here’s their beef, and I have to admit, it has some merit. There’s nothing exceptional going on here. The script is well-written. The story is fine. But there’s nothing in CR to indicate it deserves exceptional status. Whether you liked The Muppet Man (last year’s winner) or not, you have to admit that the script was unique. Whether you liked The Beaver (2008’s winner) or not, you have to admit it was unique. Both were examples of writers trying something different, which is why they were awarded the top prize.
What’s unique about College Republicans? What is it you look at and say, “Whoa, that is above and beyond anything I’ve read this year?” What chances does it take? I couldn’t find anything. And I’m not picking on Jones here. He’s written a solid script. I’m just shocked that a straight-forward retelling of events about two people as random as Rove and Atwater captured the imagination of so many readers.
Okay Carson, stop your bitching. Can you talk a little bit about the writing already so we can actually learn something?
Sure. Why not.
There were definitely some good things in the writing here. We have a clear story goal – win the election. So the script is always focused. The stakes are also high. It’s made clear numerous times that losing this election could end their careers before they begin. So things felt like they mattered. Atwater is a great role for an actor. He plays by his own set of rules. He’s dirty, he’s a liar, he’s a rogue. This character is going to pop on screen. You also have some nice conflict going on between the leads. At times it actually plays out like a buddy cop movie — two guys with opposing views on life stuck together trying to achieve the same thing (if there’s an argument for College Republicans taking a chance – this would be the area it took a chance in). And to top it all off, you have a solid villain in Dolan.
Things went bad for me on a couple of fronts though. First, Rove is a boring character. He’s basically resigned to being stubborn and whining when he doesn’t get his way. And because Atwater’s personality is so outrageous, the longer the script goes on, the more Rove disappears. It’s like trying to get attention at a party when you showed up with Cosmo Kramer.
In addition to that, the script puts too much emphasis on everything surrounding the characters instead of the characters themselves. We get too many details about getting people to support them and how these elections work and what the stages are that lead to the final election and whose asses they have to kiss. All of it lends a degree of authenticity to the story, but it takes time away from and prevents us from getting to know these characters, especially Rove.
At least Atwater’s relationship with Kate and his love of playing guitar give his character some depth. But I was still never sure who Atwater was. When the lights went down. When all the people were gone. Who was he then? We got to see the performer. But we never got to see behind the mask. And Rove, I can’t tell you anything about him other than he wanted to win this election. He was so one-dimensional, he might as well have not even existed. It’s not easy to make these bull-headed conservative characters interesting, but I felt there should’ve been more aspects brought out about his personal life.
If I had to guess why this did so well, I’d venture to say Franklin (who orchestrates the Black List) hangs out with a lot of political-minded folks in the entertainment industry. This would explain why even though political movies never do well at the box office, two political scripts (Recount and Farragut North) also did well on the 2007 list – finishing 1 and 3 respectively. I mean if you’re a political geek, you’re going to go kookoo for Coco Puffs when a young Professor Clinton makes a cameo in College Republicans to bestow some wisdom on Rove (not surprisingly – he comes off as a God). But for me, this is just so far away from what I’m interested in, that I’m not even sure the best version of this script would’ve won me over.
What did you guys think of College Republicans?
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: To really make your resume moment work, introduce it inside some element of conflict. For those who’ve forgotten what a resume moment is, it’s when a character’s history is read out by one of the characters as a quick and dirty way to give us information about that character’s past. The most obvious use of this is via a job interview, where the interviewer reads from the hero’s resume, “It says here Mr. Clark that you owed one of the biggest plastics factories in the world before selling it to buy an island in the Pacific where you’ve lived for the last 15 years.” — Unfortunately your hero isn’t always in a job interview, so you have to look for other ways to pull this off. Having someone bring up the resume as an unwelcome surprise or against the hero’s wishes will put the audience’s focus on the hero’s disappointment rather than the information itself, allowing you to tell us a lot about a character without it seeming obvious. So in an early showdown between Rove and Dolan, Rove puffs his chest and says, “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” Dolan replies, “Hmmm. Karl C. Rove, born Christmas Day 1950. Olympus High School…etc., etc., etc.” We’re so wrapped up in the standoff between Rove and Dolan, it’s not obvious to us that a resume moment is happening.
First of all, I know this has already made its way through the screenwriting community, but I still thought I should post it. Some of the jokes here are misses but there are a couple of really good ones. My favorite by far is “Escalation.” Basically, if you’re sick of all these end-of-the-year screenwriting lists, you’ll want to check out “The Wish List.”
Also, if you’re like me, you’ve put off all your holiday shopping til the last minute. Well, it’s time to jack into that Amazon account and order some DVDs. Here are a bunch of staples as well as some deals!
THE TOWN
INGLORIOUS BASTERDS 
STAR TREK BOX SET 
JUDD APATOW ORGASM-FEST 
ROCKY – THE UNDISPUTED COLLECTION 
(blu-ray) 178.99 – I still think that final episode was the best ending to any series ever. 
(dvd) – $22.49 – For the one person who still doesn’t have this yet. By the way, when is this thing coming out on Blu-Ray again? Come on George!
THE WIZARD OF OZ (70TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) 
THE OTHER GUYS 
STONE 
(blu-ray) $16.99 – I have a love hate relationship with this film. It jumps in and out of my Yearly Top 10 on an hourly basis. 
! (blu-ray) $38.99 – And we finish off with a classic. Did you know Back To The Future is in my top 3…OF ALL TIME?! I love it so much that I watch the second two movies and convince myself that they’re actually good. 
Genre: Comedy
Premise: When the wealthy owner of a fast food chicken franchise learns that his bitchy wife wants a divorce and is therefore entitled to half his money, he decides to spend it all so that she doesn’t get a dime.
About: Here was Kevin’s e-mail to me: “The main reason I want you to read and review this script is because if I’m not having people read my shit then it is really just a bunch of data taking up prime storage space for my illegally downloaded music and naughty videos. Naughty is a funny word. The other reason I want you to review this script is that I really like this concept and I think others will like it as well. Divorce is an enormous elephant in our society that really has become as common as birth and death. I find it absolutely absurd that just about half of marriages end in divorce. Don’t you think I should be able to ask for the return of the Crate and Barrel punch bowl I gave as a wedding gift to my best friend’s wife before she decided to leave her husband and move in with the neighbor? Why should they get to keep all the gifts, they certainly didn’t earn it, bunch of thieves if you ask me, especially since getting married outside a Ramada can’t really be described as a “wedding affair”. Besides, who couldn’t use an extra punch bowl for Superbowl Sunday? On a side note, I’m not the product of a divorce and have been happily married for eight years, or is it nine? The point being is that I’m not a misogynist, I didn’t write this screenplay to get back at anyone, and I certainly don’t hate women, you can even ask my cunt wife about that. Half of Nothing is a just comedy about a depressing subject.” — 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.
Writer: Kevin Restler
Details: 103 pages
That e-mail really resonated with me. My best friend married this girl and I bought them a $400 dollar painting specifically because she liked it. 8 months later she’s banging some doofus at work, leaves my best friend, AND kept the painting. And I’ll tell you what. I was furious. It’s one thing to steal things from the husband you left cause you cheated on him. But to steal from his friend??? That’s just low. This goes to show you, sometimes a query is simply making a connection with the person you sent it to. Not to mention I laughed a few times during the letter, which at least assured me that Kevin was funny. The question was, would he be able to handle everything else that goes into a script? Well, let’s find out.
Harold Zebulon has managed to turn his chicken franchise, Zebulon’s Big Ass Chicken, into a cash…err…chicken. In fact, so successful is his franchise that Saturday 3 a.m. Venice/Overland Carson Reeves mainstay (Jack In The Box) wants to buy him out. Harold’s not only rolling in the dough. He’s smothered in it.
The only downside to Harold’s life – which he fails to see as a downside – is that he’s married to Vanessa, the single biggest bitch on the planet. Take every bitchy ‘most popular’ girl at every high school across America, combine them, multiply them by 52, and you get Vanessa’s left pinky. Spend three minutes with this witch and you’ll feel smaller than that ant you just stepped on.
When Vanessa gets an audition for Alec Baldwin’s new reality producing gig, “L.A. Bitches,” she fucks him the night after and feels empowered enough to leave her husband (plus the only role left on the show is the “bitch divorcee” – and you can’t play the bitch divorcee unless you’re, you know, divorced). So she lets Harold know that it is Ov-Ah and she’s going to be taking half of everything he’s got.
After being consoled by his longtime cook and best friend Quentin, Harold gets a wild idea. He’s got 10 million bucks, of which he’ll have to pay half to that succubus. But if he had nothing, then he wouldn’t have to give her a penny! So what if he spent it all!? Quentin tells him it’s a horrible idea but the image of Alec Baldwin’s fleshy sweaty hairy body diving into his wife’s mystery area is enough for him to commit to the act.
So he hires Josilyn, the philanthropic director of his last TV commercial, to document this wild experience, and starts off by giving his nanny and all of her friends a mall shopping spree, where they can buy every and anything they want. This is followed by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to his alma mater, USC, so he can be Tommy Trojan for a day. He gets his dream foursome together: Bill Murray, John Daley, Quentin and himself, to play a round of golf. And he pays a series of since grown-up childhood stars to make sex videos with him.
During this time, Josilyn becomes more and more upset that Harold is wasting his money, and tells him he should use it for more useful purposes, like actually helping people. After awhile he listens, and starts giving money to charities and churches and orphanages.
But just as he’s about to run out of money and complete his plan, Vanessa realizes that he’s actually worth more to her as a husband than an ex-husband, so she changes her mind and decides to STAY with Harold, which of course totally sucks because by this time, Harold has started to fall for Josilyn. Whatever will Harold do? Will he find a way to divorce Vanessa and be with Josilyn? Or is he stuck in this miserable matrimony forever?
Half of Nothing is an interesting screenplay. I definitely think there’s a movie here – a modern day nod to Brewster’s Millions
I have this theory that you want to make your bad guy bad, but you don’t want to make them so bad that they’re beyond the realm of believability. Once you do that, they’re no longer a real person – just a writer’s combination of the most evil things they can think of. People aren’t mean to be mean. People are mean because they have issues going on in their lives that bring out that anger. If we don’t see some of that, even in a comedy, it’s hard to believe that the character is real.
This also leads to the question, why would Harold be with Vanessa in the first place? I mean being with someone who’s bossy and selfish is one thing (Ed Helms in The Hangover). Being with the Evil Empire is another thing entirely. You have to explain why your supposedly smart savvy protagonist would choose to subject himself to a life of torture.
I’m also going to make my plea one more time to comedy writers. One out of every two comedies I read nowadays has a celebrity showing up in them. It’s just a way overused joke. And even if this weren’t a common trend, is it really a good idea? It seems like anybody can write, “Sam Jackson comes in and steals Joe’s coffee.” The joke is too easy – too obvious . I’m not saying nobody else will like it. The right celebrity in the right scene could be hilarious. I’m just warning you. I see it way too often.
I think the script also gets lost in places. For example, Half of Nothing is about a man willing to sacrifice all his wealth to spite his wife. Then halfway through the script, it becomes about giving to charity and helping people out. What does that have to do with the concept of getting back at your wife? It just feels like a random choice, which results in an unclear vision. This is a place where a solid theme might have helped, so you could make sure everything in the script revolved around that theme.
I thought Josilyn needed work too. I was just discussing this with someone during a script consultation. When you have a romantic subplot, you have to nail two things. First, you have to give us some backstory on the love interest (in this case Josilyn). We have to feel like she’s a real person. That she’s got her own unique life. The only thing we know about Josilyn is that she’s a director and likes to give to others.
Next, you gotta give your two leads “moments” with each other. Something unique and interesting that we see them share together. Make fun of Titanic all you want. But those characters had memorable moments at the front of the boat, drinking below deck, drawing naked pictures of each other, running through the boiler room, having sex in a Model T Ford. Those moments ensured that when you needed to believe they were in love later, you believed it. Cause you experienced all those moments with them.
Now I know Half of Nothing is a simple comedy. But you still need those moments, and you need that backstory for Josilyn. Otherwise the character feels thin and by association the love story feels thin.
Like I said, the idea here is a good one, but the execution isn’t there yet. When rewriting this, I’d start by not making Vanessa so cruel. I’d make her more conniving, a gold digger who married him with the express intent of divorcing him a year later for half his money. No emotions involved. It’s pure business to her. This is what ignites his ire and convinces him he needs to prevent her from getting a penny.
I’d also find a better way to bring Josilyn into the story. Looking for someone to document his antics is kinda thin. Maybe he hires a lawyer to make sure that everything he does cannot be recouped or reclaimed by Vanessa, and that lawyer is Josilyn. That would make more sense. Then, drop the whole Josilyn wants to help the world thing. It feels out of place and forced. Focus more on her displeasure with her own joy-sucking job – being a divorce lawyer (her job has made it so she doesn’t believe in love). Maybe Harold is able to open her up and she starts believing again. That’s off the top of my head but you get the idea.
Anyway, this wasn’t for me but I think it has potential!
Script link: Half of Nothing
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When you introduce a potential love interest, it’s a good idea to describe them as attractive, even if it’s just a quick adjective (pretty, cute, hot, sexy, beautiful, gorgeous, attractive). That simple description clues us in that we should be thinking of this person as a love interest. I know it sounds silly but I’ve found when you don’t do that (here, Josilyn is described only as “smart & L.A. savvy”), it can be hard for the reader to mentally move her over into “love interest” territory.
Genre: Multi-character Drama
Premise: A young Latino man with a gambling addiction starts receiving letters in the mail informing him that if certain people die, he’ll be awarded thousands of dollars.
About: Out of Breath won the 2008 Nicholl Fellowship. The writers, Kristensen and Marshall, co-wrote the script in a master’s class at Columbia. Prior to that program, Kristensen worked as a journalist, and Marshall worked in investment at Goldman Sachs. The two have since split to work on their own projects, but may still work together in the future. Recently, Kristensen, a huge comic book geek, penned his first graphic novel, “Todd, the Ugliest Kid on Earth,” which was illustrated by “Air
Writers: Ken Kristensen and Colin Marshall
Details: 105 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. 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).
Just the other day we were joking around about how the Nichol is obsessed with death. I had no idea what Out of Breath was when I first picked it up. But what do you know? It’s about death! And on top of that, it’s constructed in the incredibly tricky “mutli-character” format. But there are a couple of things that immediately gave me hope for this script. One, it’s got a nice little hook to it – the idea that the semi-main character keeps getting money when people die. I love when writers do this because it takes what looks like another misguided attempt at the next “Crash
And two, it adds humor. Whenever you’re writing about death, you want to undercut a lot of that drama with humor so your audience doesn’t get euthanized into the depression zone.
But what about the story and all the rest of the characters? How do they fare?
Well there are 8-10 central characters in Out of Breath. There’s Arnold, a funeral director who’s about to pass his business over to 20 year old Don. There’s Pedro, the gambling addict. There’s Lizzie, a pregnant nurse who sees Pedro in the emergency room night in and night out post bookie beatings. There’s Magic, an older gentleman whose wife, Stella, is being held together by hospital machines, days away from death. There’s Helen, an older woman who Magic falls for while his wife is dying. And then there’s Tucker and Ray, whose father, Marion, is also on life support. Lots of people are on life support here. Lots of dying!
But again, our main character is Pedro, who owes his bookie tons of dough. His addiction is so bad that whatever money does come in, he immediately heads over to the casinos and bets it, as opposed to paying off his bookie. So his bookie finally throws down the gauntlet. If Pedro doesn’t come up with the 15 grand, he’s going to end up in that big casino in the sky.
That’s when Pedro gets a strange letter in the mail. It’s a picture of an army officer and a note that says when this man dies, he gets $1000. A day later, he reads in the news that the man is dead, and what do you know, a thousand bucks shows up in the mail.
Of course Pedro is a total moron and instead of using that money to get out of debt, he simply goes back to the casino to bet it away.
Pedro then gets another letter in the mail. It’s another picture, this time of Stella. Magic’s wife. It says that when she dies, he gets $2000. Hey, how bout that? Can I get an upgrade? Well, Stella dies a day later and Pedro becomes $2000 richer.
Problem is, the thugs are square on his trail. And he has fewer and fewer places to hide. But the pictures keep coming, each one offering more money. And of course, because the squeeze is on, because Pedro starts depending on this money, he’s no longer interested in waiting. Why wait for someone to die when you can expedite the dying process yourself?
There are other storylines going on as well. For example, Magic and Helen are the main romantic storyline. We watch them fall in love, each dealing with the loss of their respective lifetime mates. And then there’s Tucker and Ray, who must run around town trying to find their dying father after he escapes from the hospital. Arnold and Bobby, the undertakers, occasionally pop in to deal with the increasing body count, but the story always comes back to Pedro and his mysterious money letters.
Out of Breath has a couple of really good things going for it. First is the aforementioned high concept low concept. If you have some character-based indie script you’re hawking, I want you to think ahead to that moment when you run into that “well-known” producer in the elevator. You mention you’re a writer and you have this script and he asks what it’s about (5 floors left – ticking time bomb!). You tell him, “Well it’s about these people intersecting into each other’s lives. And one of them has father issues, which he’s trying to overcome because his father is dying…” ERRRRRRRNT! The producer has already fallen asleep (or worse, mentally checked out even though he’s still nodding). But if you had some sort of hook, something to separate your character piece from all the others, imagine how much smoother that discussion would go. “What’s it about?” “It’s a multi-character piece that centers on a gambling addict who keeps getting letters in the mail offering him money if certain people die.” You see how that little hook makes your tiny character piece a thousand times more appealing? Never forget that at some point you’re going to want people to read your screenplay, so you better be confident that your idea can pass the elevator test.
Anyway, the second thing is the betting vice. I’ve talked about this before. Audiences are inherently drawn to train wrecks. It’s in our blood to want to see how far down the spiral can go. And the interesting thing about using gambling as the character’s vice is that it keeps things a little lighter and more bearable. When the character is an alcoholic or a drug-addict, it can be really depressing to watch them descend towards their imminent demise. But gambling doesn’t have that same effect. It’s a lighter vice and therefore easier to bear. And one scene that always works in screenplays is when the hero has all his money on one game and we show that game play out. Seriously, I’ve never seen it not work.
But I didn’t like the film in two capacities. First, I wasn’t digging Ray and Tucker as characters. When their father escapes onto the town and they have to go after him, the script slides into goofy territory. Not to mention we stay with them for way too long. The script works best when we’re with Pedro, whom we were seeing consistently throughout the first half of the script. But this “Dad escapes” segment dominates the entire second half of the second act, and we’re left checking our watch impatiently as we wait for Pedro to return.
And then, of course, there’s the payoff for the “death letters.” I’m not saying that the final reveal can’t work, but I don’t think it was properly set up, because there were way too many things you had to buy into, and you were being asked to buy into them all at once. If those things could’ve been set up progressively throughout the script, so we accepted most of them ahead of time, the big twist may have succeeded.
But this was still a fun and interesting screenplay. It’s a little lighter than the other multi-character piece I reviewed earlier in the week, and I think it’s better as well. Worth the read.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Whenever you write a multi-character piece, I’d advise you to give one of the characters more screenplay time than the others. I find that creating a semi-protagonist works well because the audience likes having that one person to anchor the story. Out of Breath works in large part because Pedro is a main character in a genre that’s technically supposed to make all its characters equals.
Genre: Comedy
Premise: A “For Dummies
About: Passion of The Ark sold for 1.5 million against 2.5 million back in 2004. When Universal wanted to explore a sequel for its Bruce Almighty 
Writers: Bob Florsheim and Josh Stohlberg
Details: 113 pages, April 12th, 2004 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).
There were a lot of problems with the conception of Evan Almighty
Liar Liar is about a lawyer who lies to get through both his job and his life. What’s the worst thing that could happen to a man who depends on lying? He can’t lie of course. Right there, you have a movie. Now look at Bruce Almighty. Bruce is a…weather reporter who, um, chokes under pressure… So what’s the worst thing that can happen to a weather reporter who chokes under pressure? Why, they become God! Err, wait, that’s not the worst thing that could happen to that person. That’s actually the best thing that could happen to that person. That’s the best thing that could happen to any person. Wait a minute, how is this a movie again?
You catch my drift. People came to see Liar Liar 2. Instead they got Jim Carrey doing desperate stand-up for 90 minutes. So to create a sequel to something that was a bad idea in the first place, base it on one of the secondary characters in the previous movie, and then ask us to buy that this previous character had somehow morphed into a senator…well, you see how this was a bad idea from the get-go.
But! What about the original spec screenplay? The one that sold purely on its merits alone – long before a creative exec named Dodge came around and said, “Why don’t we rewrite this into a sequel of that bad movie that everyone hated?” – You had to assume that that script was a lot better, right? That’s the beauty about the spec script. You get to write whatever you want and no studio people can screw it up cause they don’t own it yet. This is why I wanted to read The Passion Of The Ark.
Jeremy Lambert is a longtime author of the “Any Schmuck Can” book series. Jeremy’s written over a hundred books about how to build houses, how to use a computer, how to date girls, etc., etc. Jeremy’s teaching schmucks everywhere how to run (or is it “ruin”) their lives. Of course, Jeremy isn’t actually good at any of these things. He’s just good at writing about them.
The Seattle native is trying to keep his life as a single dad together as he parents his unpopular 11 year old daughter, Becca, who reads Emily Dickenson for fun. We’re not sure when, but Jeremy’s wife died a long time ago, and yet still, here he is, no new women, terrified to jump back into the dating pool.
Jeremy’s wacky partner in crime is his best friend Felix Del Gato, whose claim to fame is that he’s made it through 40 years of life named “Felix Del Gato.”
Eventually Jeremy runs into a weird woman who looks like Barbara Streisand. She tells him that she’s God and that he, like, has a duty to the world. The next thing Jeremy knows, he’s receiving blueprints in the mail for an Ark, and 3 million nails are being dumped onto his front lawn. And, oh yeah, did I mention it’s been raining in Seattle for four straight weeks?
Jeremy, convinced he has no other choice but to build the Ark, goes to his buddy Felix for help, who tells him he’s going to need 189 million dollars to construct the thing. So what happens? They win the lottery the next day – for 189 million dollars!
God drops by to tell him that building this Ark isn’t his only job. He’s also responsible for finding two of every animal on the planet. That includes…HUMANS! Ahh, finally, some sort of human-related element makes it into the plot. In order to “save” the human race, Jeremy must find a female mate to join him on his ark.
Well, let’s just get right to it, shall we? This wasn’t very good. I mean I understand why a producer or a studio would get excited over it. It’s definitely a movie. It’s a big high-concept idea. There’s a clear goal. You can imagine a lot of “movie moments.” But everything I just listed in those last three sentences is ALL you get with Passion of The Ark. There’s no heart here. No depth in the characters. No command in the execution. No details that show the writers really cared about their idea.
It starts at the top. The idea itself is too big. You see that right away when you begin to actually think about what’s going on. Jeremy is building a ship to save existence. Which means that everybody else is going to die. Friends, family, governments, everyone. Yet this is never addressed. Nobody ever calls to say goodbye to grandma. Jeremy never warns his country that they’re about to go underwater and die. It’s just ignored. And I know this is a fun comedy but you can’t simply ignore the ramifications of your concept. It doesn’t work like that.
Next, the entire script is run on Jay Leno humor. You know what I mean by Jay Leno humor? The safest possible humor you can think of. You know you’re running on Jay Leno humor if you’re using Britney Spears jokes, and low and behold, there are Britney Spears jokes in Passion of The Ark. I practically expected Jeremy to start doing headlines at one point. There wasn’t a single risky joke in the entire script. And giving this a PG rating is not an excuse. I see risky jokes in Disney 
And as predictable as the jokes are, the plot is even more predictable. You’re 6,000,000 miles ahead of the writer every step of the way with everything going exactly as planned.
There isn’t anything in the script to make our hero’s journey difficult! For example, he’s told that he needs 200 million dollars to build the ark. So what happens? God gives it to him in the form of winning the lottery! Doesn’t even have to lift a toe for it. It’s done for him. Wow, that certainly creates drama. The first complication in the entire script doesn’t happen until page 90, when the police and Jeremy’s annoying neighbor close down production on the ship. Page 90!
I’m still trying to figure out why Jeremy has to build the boat in the first place. There’s no convincing reason per se. He’s just doing it because God says he should. The stakes for this affair? If he doesn’t build it, everyone dies. If he does build it, everyone dies. Aren’t those the same?
And what does Jeremy’s job have to do with this story? He writes “For Dummies” books. How does that coincide with a man who has to build a boat? Wouldn’t it make more sense if he was a slacker? Someone who’s skirted responsibility his whole life? And now he’s responsible for building something that’s going to save humankind?
Even the animals felt like an afterthought. Like, “Oh yeah, we gotta get these animals in too.” No scenes showed how difficult it was getting the animals, of course. It was all done in the background, via phone calls and the internet. This goes back to my big problem with everything. The idea was bigger than the writers wanted to commit to. Finding two of every animal is not something you casually take care of in your spare time.
So then the question is, what *did* the writers do right? I mean this thing *did* sell for the going rate of a 2 bedroom lot on Venice Beach, didn’t it? I guess they got the structure right. Everything here is where it’s supposed to be (Blake Snyder to the rescue
However, in the end, this was such a generic execution of the premise that I can’t endorse it. Was hoping for something good because you want to point to a 2.5 million dollar sale and say to new writers, “That’s how you do it.” I can’t do that here.
[x] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: So why did this sell then? Well, I did a little research and found that Ark went out right on the heels of the shocking success of The Passion Of The Christ
