Genre: Action
Premise: A convict and a construction crew inadvertently spark a gun battle when they rescue a woman on the run from her violent husband and his dangerous associates. Trapped on a mile-long bridge and cut off from the outside world, they have to band together to survive a 5 hour siege.
About: Usually, every Friday, I review an amateur script from you, a Scriptshadow reader. But today, I’m going to change it up a little. Today is a “Repped Week,” where I’ll be reviewing a script from a pair of repped writers who have not yet made a sale. The change-up is meant to help writers understand the level of quality it takes to secure representation. If you are a repped or unrepped writer, feel free to submit your script for Amateur/Repped Friday by sending it (in PDF form) to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Please include your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script. Also keep in mind that your script will be posted. The Bridge made this year’s “Hit List” of best spec screenplays, and its writers are managed by Jewerl Keats Ross and represented by APA.
Writers: Dominic Morgan & Matt Cameron Harvey
Details: 100 pages – Dec. 2010 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).
The Bridge is one of those titles that you can’t say without using Trailer Man Voice, harkening back to the days where everything was “Die Hard On A
This isn’t the first “Die Hard On A Bridge” premise though. There’s been a few of them over the years, including “Suspension,” a near million dollar sale from Joss Whedon back in the late 90s. So how does The Bridge stack up? Does it get you from one side to the other? Or does it collapse midway through?
Destin Ryder (whose name pretty much guaranteed he’d be in an action movie one day) has earned the coveted right of work leave, a way out of the 24 hour prison cycle that’s dominated his life. Once a very bad man, Dustin’s made some big changes in his life, and he’s ready to leave the thug life behind.
The job he’ll be working is construction on a mile long cantilever-truss bridge spanning the Mississippi River. His new co-workers are noticeably wary of him, beginning with the heart and soul of the construction crew, fellow alpha male Steve Knapps. Knapps considers this crew to be his family, and Destin is the drunk uncle who’s flown in to fuck up Thanksgiving.
Before these silverback gorillas can tango, however, a speeding car driven by the pretty but dangerous Marlie Steward swerves out of control, causing a huge multi-car pile-up spanning both lanes. McDonald’s trucks, 18 wheelers. This shit makes those crashes on Chips look like fender-benders.
They save Marlie, but soon learn she was being chased. And not just by anyone. By The Dixie Gang. A nasty glut of organized rednecks with blood on the brain. Marlie has something they want, and because these construction workers are witnesses, the Dixies are going to mow them down like crab grass on a Sunday.
Destin realizes he has no choice but to draw on his mysterious past and organize this hodge-podge group into a military unit if they’re going to survive. He quickly puts together make-shift weapons like Molotov cocktails, using them to keep the Dixies at Bay, who are closing in from both sides of the bridge.
This all-night battle gets more complicated as time goes on. The big boss of the Dixies rolls in to organize the assault. They realize the cops in the area have all been bought off. Half the men don’t trust Destin. Redneck snipers start taking them out from the adjacent forest. Can the group hold out til morning when the prison SWAT team comes looking for Destin? They sure hope so cause holding out is the only way they can survive. On….(Movie Trailer Voice) The Briddddgggee.
The Bridge takes a simple premise and adds just enough complexity to it to make it worth your while. I liked it quite a bit. It definitely suffers from some of the clichés impossible to avoid in the straight-action genre, but overall there were just enough tweaks to keep you entertained.
The first thing that gave me confidence in the script was how the writers set up the bridge. One of the complaints a couple of weeks ago in the amateur script “Wrong Number,” was that we were just thrust into the story before getting a feel for the geography and the situation. If we’re not introduced to the uniqueness of the space our movie takes place in, our mind’s forced to substitute a generic version of it. And if your reader is imagining a generic space throughout the story, there’s a good chance they’re going to think the entire movie is generic by association.
Here we get a detailed layout of the bridge as well as a description of what the workers are doing. We see them lift the steel girders off the back of the truck then send them up to the “skywalkers” on the top of the bridge. It does take a page or two of crucial “first ten pages” real estate to lay this stuff out, but because this bridge is where we’re going to be spending the next 100 pages of our movie, it’s something you have to do if you want your story to be taken seriously.
As far as screenwriting basics, The Bridge does a solid job. We keep a 40 yard dash pace here. 100 pages. Perfect for an action spec. Paragraphs are nary more than 2 lines long. We have our ticking time bomb (hold them off til 6 a.m. when the SWAT team shows up). The stakes are high for both sides. In fact, one of the things I really liked about The Bridge was that it made the stakes high for BOTH parties. (Spoiler). We find out that if the Dixies don’t get these diamonds, they can’t pay off the cops. They can’t pay off the judges. Their whole operation comes to a halt unless they can secure these diamonds. So you really feel the urgency of their pursuit.
I thought Destin was a solid protagonist. There were lots of things to like about him. First, you have the anti-hero thing going for him. A hero who’s dangerous and who has problems is always more interesting than a hero who’s perfect. You have the built-in mystery behind his past, so we’re eager to find out what’s going on with this guy. Although they could’ve done more with it, I liked how Destin was fucked either way. If he didn’t do anything, the Dixies would move in and slaughter them all. But if he fought back, he was going to jail for the rest of his life. And I loved how clever he was. Whenever you can make your hero outsmart your villain in some way, your audience is going to fall in love with him. When Destin holds those diamonds over the bridge in the trade-off, knowing they’d otherwise shoot him dead and take the loot, then grabs Walt Jr. afterwards, taking him hostage and ensuring them a shot at survival, I was onboard with whatever this guy did.
On the downside – like I already mentioned – no matter how you look at it, there’s always a feeling of “been there, done that” that plagues The Bridge. It’s an action movie on a bridge. There are only so many new angles you can introduce.
Also, there were a couple of plot things that bothered me. First, after the big multi-car pile-up, the police and ambulances and firetrucks come to take all of the wounded/dead away. By my estimation, in a pile-up of this magnitude, this is going to take something like 3 days of non-stop work to clean up. Instead, for some reason, the cops and everyone else just leave this huge unattended pileup on the bridge, which, conveniently, is when our bad guys decide to strike. It’s almost as if the Script Coincidence Gods showed up to clear out all the plot inconveniences so that the story could begin.
Also, I didn’t completely understand why the Dixies had to kill the construction crew in the first place. The reason given is that the construction crew saw who they were, and could therefore identify them. But if the Dixies own all the police and judges, why are they worried if some construction dudes know they were chasing a crazy chick who stole some diamonds from them? And if “being discovered” is really their fear, aren’t they worried that the tens of thousands of bullets and the organized attack left at the scene might point towards the most well-known gang in the area?
Still, I love movies where an underdog group has to take on a much stronger enemy. And I love when the conflict inside the group is just as dangerous as the conflict outside the group. The Grey. Pitch Black
Script link: The Bridge
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Been seeing writers screw this up lately and The Bridge handled it well so I thought I’d bring it up. The size of your action paragraphs should be in accordance with the pace of your story. If your characters are sitting down in a bar after a long day, the length of the paragraphs can be 3-4 lines long. But if you’re in the heat of an action scene, keep your paragraphs razor-thin, two lines at most. Read The Bridge to see how they do this.
Genre: Sci-Fi/Comedy
Premise: An eccentric inventor invents a crude time travel device which allows him to send messages back to his earlier self. Although his intentions are initially noble, he soon begins to use the device for his own selfish needs.
About: Many of you might recognize this script from the first (or was it second) season of Project Greenlight
Writer: Rick Carr
Details: 112 pages (maybe?)
There are times in the script reading process where you come across scripts that defy explanation. Not necessarily bad scripts. Just scripts that have you squinting your eyes, shaking your head, and unable to ditch the frozen “what the f*ck” expression plastered to your face. I want you to imagine the screenplay for Primer
OH WAIT! I forgot to add one important detail. Imagine if this script were written by someone who had no idea how to write a movie.
Hanz Gubenstein is the epitome of the anti-structure. For those of you who have championed the downfall of the foundation-based screenplay, of the screenwriting gurus and the 3 day expos… For those who believe that a story is simply inherent, that you need only follow your passionate fingertips to a 100 page conclusion, well guess what, Hanz Gubenstein is your script.
To get you into the mindset of how freaky out-there this thing is, Hanz Gubenstein is not a main character in the movie. Nope. This is not that kind of film – where you place the character who’s in the middle of your title into the heart of your story. No no no. Not doing that here. Too obvious. This story belongs to Dr. Jeffrey Jeffries, who we’re told is the 4th inventor of time travel. Hanz Gubenstein was actually the first. And there were two other guys as well. Not that they play any part in the story. Why would they?
So our crazy inventor Jeffries invents a crude time machine, whereby you can send messages back to yourself from the future in order to give yourself guidance about said future. For example, you might send a message that says, “Hey, don’t go out with that girl you met today. She’s actually a man.”
Jeffries enlists his humble apprentice, Sid Hackenpfuss, to help him test the machine, and before you know it they’re receiving messages from their future selves. At first the messages are innocent and playful, but after awhile, the two start wondering how they can take advantage of this technology. If they won the lottery for instance, they could give the money back to charities and save the world. The two quasi-idiots decide that this is the best course of action so they send themselves back that day’s winning lottery numbers.
Previous Jeffries and Sid then win the lotto, but for some reason decide to have fun with the money instead of donate it to save others. I think you know where this is going. The next thing you know they’re playing other state lotteries and winning those as well. When that isn’t enough, they begin playing the stock market, sending themselves back tons of market data they then use to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
Eventually a federal agent named Agent Aghnet suspects that the two are up to something and starts following them. Jeffries becomes deathly concerned by the fact that the two aren’t receiving any messages past two days from now, which he assumes means that in two days, something terrible is going to happen to them. His “obvious” solution (of course) is to start doing the exact opposite of whatever he thinks he should do, so as to trick fate and avoid doom.
Doomsday arrives however, and Jeffries is killed by Aghnet just before he’s able to send a message back warning himself of Aghnet’s plan. But when Aghnet sees the message onscreen, he presses it out of curiosity (he still doesn’t know it’s a time machine) inadvertently warning Previous Jeffries of his death, and by association altering the time continuum. However, in the end, this only gets Jeffries, Sid, and Aghnet stuck in a never-ending time loop whereby Jeffries keeps trying to prevent his death and Aghnet keeps trying to ensure it.
And uhhh…that’s pretty much Hanz Gubenstein for you.
So last week I was listening to Creative Screenwriting’s podcast with Ben Affleck and he was asked about this screenplay. Affleck’s response was a strange one. In a very non-committal way he offered, “Oh yeah…(nervous laugh)…well, I guess nothing ever came of that.” Now even though Affleck didn’t actually say anything, his tone inferred everything I suspected. You read Hanz Gubenstein and you think, “There’s something here.” I mean there’s some really funky comedy revolving around the ridiculous characters and the insane amount of time folding back onto itself over and over again. The problem is, it’s so scattered, so all over the place, that the thought of trying to mold it into something comprehensible is too daunting. It’s like being given the pieces to the Golden Gate Bridge without a blueprint and told, “Now go figure this out.” Where the hell do you start?
Still, this is a great script to study for beginning screenwriters because it epitomizes what happens when there’s no structure at play – when you’re just following your whims and writing each scene as it comes to you. For example, there’s a twenty page scene in the first act – I kid you not – where Jeffries and Sid are in a room talking about time travel. They’re in a small room TALKING ABOUT TIME TRAVEL. For 20 minutes!!!
Within those 20 pages there is a 4 page long drawn out joke where Sid keeps trying to defer time travel credit to other people besides himself. A FOUR PAGE LONG JOKE!
Obviously, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. But all you need to do is look at some other successful screenplays to see where this one missteps. Take Hanz Gubenstein’s older more established rich uncle, Back To The Future, for instance. Look at how visual the scenes of Doc explaining time travel are. We have the Delorean. We have nuclear fuel. We have the flux capacitor. We have Einstein being used for a demonstration. We have invisible fire tracks shooting through our heroes’ legs. Now I want you to imagine all of those things disappearing and instead, Marty and Doc in a small room discussing it. That’s Hanz Gubenstein.
Repetition has been a big buzzword in my recent posts and the R-word rears its ugly head here as well. Not only are we stuck in a small room for 60% of the screenplay, but there’s no real evolution to the story. The two just keep trying to win the lottery over and over again! Eventually Aghnet shows up and throws a little wrench into the story but even *his* involvement becomes trivial and repetitive after awhile.
The truth is, ignoring good storytelling mechanics WILL hurt your story unless you know what you’re doing. For example, what the hell is Jeffries’ motivation for wanting all this money?? The only reason he seems to want it is to make more money. Yet we never know what he plans to use this money for. In fact, everything we’ve been told about Jeffries has indicated he *doesn’t* want money. So why is this story revolving around someone who’s desperately trying to make as much money as possible, even though they don’t want or plan to use it??
I could go on. There’s enough randomness here to start an entire new blog on, but using that alone to assess Hanz Gubenstein probably wouldn’t be fair. Ben Affleck’s optioning of the material reinforces a long standing truth in the industry – that a unique voice will get noticed. It may not lead you from rags to riches, but it will help you stand out and get your shot. HOWEVER, it’s also a well-known truth that you need the chops to back that voice up. You need the voice AND the craft. You can’t have one without the other. And unfortunately for Jake, he hit with a script that showed unique talent, but with no ability to hone it.
Hanz Gubenstein just about made my head explode. And it does so many things wrong I can’t possibly recommend it. But I will say that it’s an interesting read, and that you probably haven’t read anything like it before. Check it out if you’re so inclined.
Script link: Does Anybody Here Remember When Hanz Gubenstein Invented Time Travel? (note: Scrib’d is a funky site that makes it hard to read this script. Good luck.)
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: While just “letting the story take you where it wants to go” is a fun way to write a first draft, that draft will never be anywhere close to a finished product. At some point you’re going to have to sit down and do the real work – mapping out the structure, creating the story beats that keep the plot moving, building the character arcs – all those things that take the genius you discovered in your idea, and craft it into a fully fleshed-out story. Hanz Gubenstein has no structure, and that’s ultimately what dooms it.
Genre: Noir/Fantasy/Serial Killer
Premise: A recently retired police captain, Hook, is called back in to action when a boy goes missing under mysterious circumstances. He enlists the help of a woman named Wendy who, since her own kidnapping as a child, has been diagnosed as clinically insane.
About: Ben Magid is a writer who’s been earning plenty of street cred recently, working on a number of assignments and selling a couple of scripts, including his most recent sale, sci-fi spec Invasion, which sold to Summit for mid six figures. Pan is the screenplay that got him through the Hollywood door, selling to New Line back in 2006 (and also making that year’s Black List). The script has recently found new life as the director of the (I’m told) amazing animated sequence in Deathly Hallows Part 1, Ben Hibon, has signed on to direct. Now I’m assuming this thing has gone through the rewrite blender dozens of times since 2006, but this is the original 2006 draft that got Ben noticed.
Writer: Ben Magid
Details: 117 pages – 6/24/06 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).
A couple of weeks ago, you may have heard me declare this statement: “If you want to make a lot of money, reimagine the serial killer genre.” (or something to that effect). Well look no further than Pan, a serial killer script based on…Peter Pan?? Where the good guy is Captain Hook?? I’m not sure you can get anymore original than that. What kind of screwed up individual thinks this shit up? Ben Magid.
Pan opens with an 11 year old boy getting yelled at by his mom for being afraid of the dark. During his mother’s rant, the boy notices that her shadow isn’t mimicking her actions. In fact it’s…signaling him. Little Michael is scared as boysenberry pie, but when his mom finally leaves, there’s nothing he can do about it. The shadow whisks him away…never to be heard from again.
When standard police work doesn’t turn up any leads, Commander Smee seeks out the recently retired James Hook, who was known for his uncanny – some would say otherworldly – ability to solve child abduction cases. But Hook is one emotional motherfucker. And committing to a case means reliving every case he’s ever been a part of. So it takes a lot of convincing before Hook’s finally in.
But when Hook is in, he’s *all* in. Unfortunately, one missing boy case quickly becomes two, and Hook realizes that they’ll need to move fast before others are taken. He finds out that there is one child who supposedly escaped this maniac 15 years ago. The problem is, she believes that her abductor took her to a mythical place called “Neverland” and held her captive there for years. The woman’s name? Wendy.
So off to the insane asylum Hook goes to see if the now-grown-up Wendy can help. After a little negotiation, the on-staff doctor allows her to leave with him. The clock continues to tick though, as yet another boy is kidnapped. Eventually Wendy herself gets taken, and Hook must find her in time to save her, as well as figure out the mystery of who this kidnapper is.
First thing I thought of when I picked this up is that Pan is the perfect “get noticed” script. Even the most cynical commenter (of which there are a few on this site – ahem) has to admit that the idea is clever and original, a mash-up of such intriguing proportions it would rise to the top of any logline slush pile.
But as we all know, concept and execution are two different things. And while I’m sure Magid is a better writer five years later, Pan falls into the kind of screenwriting traps that Peter Pan himself might set if he concentrated his efforts on story sabotage.
First, the script is bleak to a fault. There’s not a ray of sunshine in any of the 117 pages of Pan, and after awhile it starts to wear on you. If you don’t give your audience a moment to laugh or breathe or smile, you can wear them into the ground. Overuse of any emotion eventually desensitizes the audience to that emotion. Indeed it all became too much in Pan, and I eventually stopped feeling anything.
Next issue – and this is real huge in any serial killer/detective/mystery script – repetition. Pan is too repetitive. Go to the scene of the crime, interview witness, discover a new clue, another kidnapping, go to the scene of the crime, interview witness, discover a new clue, another kidnapping. If you get too caught up in that rhythm – which is really easy to do – the reader gets way ahead of you and the script just gets boring. And I’m afraid that’s what happens here. We continue on that loop of a standard investigation, with the added bonus of discovering the Peter Pan references, which is fun, but by no means able to carry an entire story.
Look at a movie like Silence Of The Lambs and what they do to break up the monotony. We actually have three storylines we’re following. We have the regular investigation. We have the Hannibal Lecter storyline. And we have the Buffalo Bill stuff at his home. So there’s a lot of things in that movie to keep the plot fresh. That doesn’t happen in Pan, and our interest wanes as a result.
Another problem I had was that Hook wasn’t a very interesting character, and this is another easy trap to fall into when you’re writing a serial killer film. Because the tone is so dark, you make your lead investigator dark and assume that’s enough. Here, Hook yells at other fathers when they neglect their sons, he stares off into the night with the thoughts of a million missing children on his mind, he takes out all his anger at the local gun range. The inner battle with himself is technically there, but it’s so overdone and so general, that it doesn’t resonate with us.
In Silence Of The Lambs
And I’m not pretending this stuff is easy. As someone pointed out in the Chinatown comments, this type of story isn’t constructed in a way to get you close to the characters. But some complexity, some inner demons or conflict have to be there that you can identify with so that at the very least, you find yourself understanding or sympathizing with the character.
That said, Pan is a visual project with the kind of unique twist that’s always going to get directors and actors excited. It always comes back to the hook (no pun intended). A unique hook keeps you in the game, which is why five years after being purchased, Pan is still on track to be made into a film. If they solve the script’s repetitiveness and make the lead character more dynamic, this flick could end up becoming pretty cool. But this draft? This draft wasn’t ready.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Wash rinse repeat. Wash rinse repeat. Does your script fall into that “wash rinse repeat” pattern? If so, look to mix things up. Add a subplot if you have to (the Hannibal interviews in Lambs). Change up the dynamic of the relationship (in When Harry Met Sally, instead of having Harry in the power position, put Sally is in the power position). Focus some scenes on the other characters (show Hanz and Franz cutting up the phone wires in Die Hard
Genre: Sci-Fi/Comedy
Premise: One of the top villains in the world is pushed out of the villain coalition when it’s suspected that he has too much compassion for others and might actually be – gasp – good.
About: Villain is one of the first two Amazon Screenwriting Contest $20,000 winners. The writer, Richard Stern, tried to push the script on Hollywood a couple of years ago and while he got a lot of reads around town, nothing came of it. There is apparently a lot of controversy surrounding this script in that it resembles some recent Hollywood release. I believe Megamind 
Writer: Richard Stern
Details: 112 pages – 8th 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).
The most e-mailed question I’ve received over the last couple of months has been, “Carson, what do you think of the Amazon Script Contest?” And my answer has always been…I don’t know. I knew I couldn’t give an opinion until reading that long list of rules on the site. And because the last thing I want to do is carve out an entire afternoon to read some rules, I’m still pretty ignorant about the whole thing.
I’ll admit that what I’ve heard isn’t good though. Something about anybody can change your script whenever they want to (sabotage anyone?). Something about they hold the rights to your script for a year. And I’ve even been told there’s a site dedicated solely to pointing out how bad most of the scripts are.
But if you’re going to tear the contest apart, you have to give it its due as well. The one thing Amazon does that none of these other contests do is it allows the readers to see what beat them. That’s a huge deal since it helps writers learn about their competition and the craft.
Of course all I care about for today’s purposes is if the script is any good. I don’t care if the fucking thing comes from Hickory Sam’s Smokestack Screenplay Contest where each script is battered and skewered on a frying pan before Cleevus the One-Eyed script reader reads it. If it’s a good script, it’s a good script.
So what’s the deal with Villain? Is it a good script?
Impossibly Handsome super-agent Drake Develin is finally proposing to divinely beautiful super-agent Alicia Cox. “Marry me,” he says. And she says yes. But before they can start making flower arrangements, a GIANT ROBOT crashes into their room, grabs Develin and SQUEEZES HIM TO DEATH. Agent Drake Develin is now Agent Drake Dead…lin.
Cut to Professor Mortimer Savage, criminal mastermind super-villain and the apparent orchestrator of this death. Together with his cloned robot-bodyguard-butler, Hugo, Savage is on top of the world. That is, until Savage realizes that by killing his arch-nemesis, he has no one to compete against anymore.
This hurls Savage into a mid-life crisis, punctuated by the Villain Coalition dropping him from the club for not being evil enough. He’s replaced by some new copycat robot-builder named Jackal, and before Savage knows it, he’s unofficially a “good guy,” teaming up with Develin’s old partner, Agent Fox, battling Savage’s network of evil villains.
Of course (spoiler), Savage eventually finds out that The Jackal is really – wait for it – Develin! Which means Develin is now a bad guy and Savage is now a…good guy. I think. Whatever the case, Savage will have to get in touch with his inner hero to finally take down Develin/Jackal and save the world! Or an island. Or something.
Okay, a couple of observations right off the bat. This is so not my thing. To be honest, this script was dead before it even reached my hands, because goofy super-hero humor is my reading kryptonite. I can’t appreciate it on any level. Maybe that’s why I have no idea if this is a Megamind clone or not, because I’ve never been interested in seeing that movie either.
Something else I realized right off the bat was that this wasn’t a good script for Amazon to pick as its winner. The problem is, Villain is one of those scripts that’s very easy to make fun of. The humor is so silly and the plot so ridiculous, that even though that tone is intentional, it creates a fertile ground for angry writers to tear it apart. Onscreen, a robot crashing through a hotel chasing our hero might be pretty awesome. On the page it’s, “This?? THIS BEAT MY SCRIPT?? THIS FUCKING STUPID SHIT!?!” One thing I’ve learned from reading scripts is that there’s no easier genre to tear apart than goofy comedy. In fact, there was a script that sold a couple of years ago for a million bucks with a very similar tone to Villain (Iron Jack – you can read the review here). I’d imagine that script would’ve received the exact same reaction had it won the Amazon competition.
But I *can* see why this won. Having run a couple of contests myself and talking to other contest runners, I know that out of every 1000 entries you get, you’re looking at about 10 decent scripts. And that’s just decent. While those scripts have some impressive component (great premise, great dialogue, unique approach) which helps them stand out, they’re usually plagued by sloppy uneven execution. It’s so rare that you find a contest script that’s consistent all the way through. And say what you will of Villain, but the script is consistent (yes, I’m not unaware of the obvious joke here).
As far as the screenplay itself, you can pick out a number of things that the writer did well. First of all, you have a high concept hook. A villain mastermind who’s hiding a big secret – that he’s good. That one decision puts you ahead of 70% of the competition, who don’t have any hook at all. You have some cleverness here (things like the bad guy ends up being the good guy and the good guy ends up being the bad guy). The dialogue is by no means exceptional, but it’s funny and clever most of the way through. The three act structure is executed to a “T.” The story moves at a very brisk pace. There’s barely if any fat here – a result of creating multiple ticking clocks throughout the script. And it’s a really easy read. I mean this script reads faster than a Japanese bullet train, a testament to the writer understanding the writer-reader relationship.
So whether you think this script is stupid or not, professional readers can easily identify that Stern understands how to tell a story in screenplay form and as much as I hate to say it, 80-90% of writers who enter a competition don’t know how to do that yet. Which is why this script rose above the rest fairly easily.
Now of course none of this matters to me, because I detest the subject matter. There were a lot of angry posters Saturday when I brought up the awesomeness of the Dead Island trailer – pissed that we were getting, yet again, another zombie flick clogging up our multiplexes. Well imagine that feeling times a hundred and you now know how I feel about super hero flicks, real ones or parodies. To me, this script is no different than The Incredibles
And of course, as we discussed in the Chinatown review, I can’t give something a high grade if it does nothing for me emotionally. So despite the technical achievements of Villain and despite me understanding why it won, it was definitely not for me.
Script link: Villain
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I have no idea why Villain didn’t find a home when it went out a couple of years ago, but one of my guesses is that it would be insanely expensive. You have giant robots chasing people through hotels. You have battles taking place on volcanic islands. It seemed like every other scene was a 30 million dollar set-piece. While I used to subscribe to the theory of “write what you want and let the producers figure out the budget,” I think in these times more than any, producers are counting money when they read your scripts. They’re thinking “How am I going to sell a 200 million dollar non-pre-existing property to a studio?” They know they can’t so they move on to the next script. So while I’m not going to lay down any hard and fast rules, writing a 250 million dollar film probably isn’t in your best interest.
