Man, I don’t think I’ve read a single one of these. If you have any of them, please send them my way! Oh yeah, The Brit List is a list of the best unproduced screenplays from British writers. (edit: Okay, got’em. Now, if you’ve read any of these and have an opinion, please drop a comment or e-mail me. I want to know which ones are worth reading).
11 VOTES
SEX EDUCATION by Jonathan Stern and Jamie Minoprio (Casarotto)
Producers: Ruby Films/BBC Films
8 VOTES
CHEERLEADERS by Ben Schiffer (ITG)
Producers: Cloud Eight Films
7 VOTES
HONOUR by Shan Khan (The Agency)
Producers: Dan Films/Parti Productions
SHADOW DANCER by Tom Bradby (Lucas Alexander Whitley (law) Agency)
Producers: Unanimous Pictures/Element Pictures/Wildbunch Production
SONG FOR MARION by Paul Andrew Williams (United Agents)
Producers: Steel Mill Productions
WELCOME TO THE PUNCH by Eran Creevy (ITG)
Producers: Between the Eyes
6 VOTES
BREATHE (aka BACK 2 JACK) by Claire Wilson (Casarotto)
Producers: Element Pictures
ENGAGED by James Condon (unrepresented)
Producers: Silvertown Films
THE ANIMATORS by Clive Dawson (ITG)
Producers: Qwerty Films
5 VOTES
A LONG WAY DOWN BY Jack Thorne (Casarotto)
Producers: Finola Dwyer Productions/Wildgaze Films
GRANNY MADE ME AN ANARCHIST by Ronan Bennett (Tavistock Wood) and Duncan Campbell (United Agents)
Producers: Origin Pictures/Easter Partisan/Film 4
4 VOTES
30 EGGS by Eoin O’Connor (Berlin Associates)
Producers: Treasure Entertainment
BLACKROCK (aka BAD DAY IN BLACKROCK) by Malcolm Campbell (Curtis Brown)
Producers: Element Pictures
FINISHING SCHOOL by Daisy Donovan (ITG)
Producers: Origin Pictures
LAST WILL by Geoff Thompson (Debi Allen Associates)
Producers: Steel Mill Productions
LETTERS FROM AMERICA by Gaia and Hania Elkington (United Agents)
LOVEFEST by Michael Cowen (United Agents)
Producers: Cloud Eight Films/Pathé
THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE by Andrew Bovell (HLA)
Producers: Forward Films
VALERIO by Kelly Marcel (Casarotto)
Producers: 4DH Films
3 VOTES
3 MINUTE HEROES by Paven Virk (Alan Brodie Representation)
Producers: Mike Elliot
A LITTLE CHAOS by Alison Deegan (The Agency)
Producers: Potboiler
BROKEN by Mark O’Rowe (Curtis Brown)
Producers: Cuba Pictures
DEVOTCHKA by Gary Young (Sara Putt Associates) and Geoff Bussetil (ITG)
Producers: Peapie Films
ELFIE HOPKINS AND THE GAMMONS by Riyad Barmania (Alan Brodie Representation) and Ryan Andrews (ITG)
Producers: Size 9
FUMBLING by Stephen Prentice (The Rod Hall Agency)
Producers: DJ Films
GIRL’S NIGHT OUT by Trevor De Silva (The Rod Hall Agency)
Producers: Ecosse Films
JAMAICA INN by Patrick Harbinson (ITG) and Michael Thomas (Casarotto)
Producers: Hilary Heath/BBC Films
KARENFAN by Geoff Bussetil (ITG)
Producers: Peapie Films
MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH by Philip Gawthorne (Curtis Brown)
ON CHESIL BEACH by Ian McEwan (The Agency)
Producers: Neal Street
PASSPORTS by Paloma Baeza (The Agency)
Producers: Focus Films
SUITE FRANCAISE by Saul Dibb (Casarotto)
Producers: Qwerty Films/TF1
THE LOVERS by Bridget O’Connor (Michelle Kass Associates)
Producers: Thomas Thomas Films
THIS LITTLE PIGGY by Corinna Faith (Curtis Brown)
Producers: Warp Films
WILLIAM AND HAROLD by John Hodge (United Agents)
Producers: Cloud Eight Films/Pathé
Anytime we can work Ryan Seacrest into a Scriptshadow review is a great day, right? I’m being facetious btw. But hey, it just proves that any little nook you can carve yourself in this business is a potential stepping stone to bigger things. Welcome back from what I hope was a wonderful weekend. Got a mixed bag for you this week. I review one of the most well-known unproduced screenplays in history. What I have to say about it might surprise you. I also take on a forgotten comedy script from 2007 that they should put into production tomorrow. I review a hot indie project that recently came together which turned out to be awesome. I also got a finalist from a recent screenplay competition. Definitley some readable scripts this week. And on top of all that, Roger’s here to review another 2007 script with a great title, Kamikaze Love.
“. They were also the writers on the 2007 Fox comedy/reality pilot, “Anchorwoman”. 
“. It’s an Elmore Leonard plot strained through the filter of a narrative junky and cinephile, and thus its wrapping consists of Spaghetti Western Mexican stand-offs, a Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos comic given as a keepsake, lines of dialogue (Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper are monologue-slayers in this movie) that sparkle in the mind like diamonds, and squibby Peckinpah 
deaths that would even make John Woo 
proud. All wrapped around a gooey true love conquers all center. Sure, it can be considered a male geek wish fulfillment fantasy and it’s more about the buddy aspect of a relationship, but hey, I still find it romantic. I still find it hopeful. I still find it relevant. 
“, but that’s not a movie (yet). Then this 2007 Black List script came along, and it wasn’t until the halfway mark that I realized “True Romance” finally had a worthy successor in Chad Damiani and J.P. Lavin’s “Kamikaze Love”. Genre: Period/Western/Civil War
Premise: A woman loses her children to a tribe of Indians and lives every day only to see them again.
About: Back in 2003, Fox offered Stowe $3 million, and later $5 million, for her script, with Ridley Scott poised to direct and Russell Crowe to star. She turned down what was among the highest sums offered a first-time scribe because there was no promise she would be anything more than screenwriter. — The movie will star Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, and Hollywood hotshot Robert Pattinson.
Writer Madeleine Stowe
When I heard that Unbound Captives was a “period piece”, I got excited. I feel like we haven’t had a good period piece in a long time. Braveheart, Titanic, and then…well, I can’t really think of any (suggestions in the comments section please – and no, I don’t count Galdiator as a good period piece). So when I opened it up and realized the period was……… mid-1800s America and it was about Indians, I was really bummed. For me personally, that just isn’t an interesting time in American history. BUT I will say that the one movie I *did* like with Indians was a little movie called Last Of The Mohicans helmed by Director/God Michael Mann, and starring noneother than…you guessed it, Madeleine Stowe, the writer/director of Unbound Captives. For that reason, I was willing to give Captives the benefit of the doubt.
As I trudged through the opening pages, I was starting to feel a lot less benefit and a lot more doubt. Unbound Captives felt a bit like pulling teeth at times. Although there are some exciting moments, films where a bunch of Indians and Americans are shooting at each other seem to blend into a mishmash of cliches for me. It all feels a bit too generic. Now whether this has to do with my predisposition to disliking these kinds of movies or the script itself, I couldn’t really tell you. All I can say is it’s never good when you’re rereading every sentence twice because your mind keeps drifting.
Tom, 30s, is a language-translator between the Indians and the white man. He seems lost, a little bit out there, a man unsure of his place in the world. He travels with Neighbors, a U.S.-Indian ambassador. The two are obviously close friends. They are currently trying to warn a large tribe of Indians that an attack on them by the white man is coming. No sooner is this warning heeded than an assassination attempt on the Indians erupts. Confusion everywhere. No one knows that the white assassin isn’t affiliated with the white ambassadors, causing the Indians to immediately attack every white man in sight.
Though many die, Tom and Neighbors make it out okay, only to come home where Neighbors is quickly murdered the next day (for his affiliation with the Indian people). Tom, who we already know has issues, takes this as a sign to go on a spiritual journey.
This allows us to shift our focus to May, a happy loving mother of two, a boy and a girl. Things aren’t gonna be happy for long though because an Indian tribe raids May’s village, killing all in sight, and taking with them her two children. We find out later that this raid was the direct result of Tom telling the Indians that the white man was coming. The Indians decided to move first. Oops.
As if that weren’t enough, May’s husband ends up the only man killed on some unrelated soldier brigade. Talk about a bad day! As a result, May, just like Tom, pulls away from the world and goes on her own spiritual journey. She spends all her days thinking about her son and daughter. And though a little hope dies each night, she never runs out. She will find her children.
Enter Tommy boy, back from his soul-searching trip and just as bummed about the world as May is. So it’s no wonder they fall in love and get married. But as old secrets creep up, it isn’t long before May finds out that Tom was indirectly responsible for the slaughter of her village and kidnapping of her children. Tom, feeling the heat of the world’s biggest guilt-trip, takes it upon himself to find them, or die trying.
And there you have it my friends. That’s pretty much the plot of Unbound Captives. I have to say that this is a tough one to call. Reading it, I could almost feel the colors. Sense the light. I could hear the sounds. I could smell the air. It’s very cinematically written. But I think it’s cinematically written to a fault, because the key element driving the story – May seeing her children again – drifts in and out as being an active element. Sometimes they’re looking for the children. Other times they’re not. And it’s in those times where they’re not that Unbound Captives just sits there, unsure of what to do with itself.
Occasionally though, even in those slower moments, there is magic. There’s a heartbreaking scene, for example, when May is in her cabin during a cold winter, 7 years removed from the kidnapping, and all she can think about is if her kids are warm or not, wherever they are. It hits you hard. And we can really sense this woman’s pain. And then there are other times, spanning pages and pages, where it feels like absolutely nothing is happening. Yet I understand that there’s a rhythm to this kind of film that requires patience so who knows? Maybe it will all work out in the end. But for me, scriptwise, it was a little too slow and I wasn’t as engaged as I wanted to be. Here’s to hoping the film overcomes that. :)
script link: Unbound Captives
[ ] trash
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I think Unbound Captives reminded me that it’s okay to slow down sometimes and let your character experience a moment. There’s so much pressure to keep things moving in a screenplay (I’ve said this before), we forget that some of the best moments happen when your characters are doing just the opposite. There’s a moment where Tom walks up the hill late at night to simply stare at the stars. This reminded me of the scene in Star Wars where Luke walks up the sand dune to take in the dual-sunset. It’s one of the most powerful moments in the film and it’s something we see less and less of these days.
Genre: Comedy
Premise: A wanton English Lord hires a “hermit” to live in his garden (as was the trend in 18th Century England). An alien from another planet stumbles into this scenario, who the drunk Englishmen consider to be French.
About: On the final Friday of every month, I review a script from the readers of the site. October’s script was pushed back a week, which is why we’re doing an Amateur Review today. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send your script in PDF form, your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted.
Writer: Stan Evans
Details: 99 pages
As is the tradition on Amateur Fridays, let me explain why I chose this script. First off, I admit I’m paying more attention to scripts that have placed in contests. It’s not a prerequisite by any means. But it just lets me know that there’s some semblance of skill in there – a helpful filter I can fall back on when treading through hundreds of entries. I believe this script was a finalist in the Final Draft Contest.
In addition to that, the premise just sounded bizarre (in a good way). And when the writer wrote, “I guarantee you’ve never read anything like this before,” that definitely piqued my curiosity, because a lot of what I read is similar to everything else that I read so I’m always looking for something that’s different (assuming it’s within my taste range – a Russian fantasy musical about a Mexican dodo bird might be different, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like it). And I’m not going to lie – seeing the 99 pages helped. I knew this would be a quick read. So, did it live up to my tempered expectations?
It’s 1761, long before this annoying little country called “America” sprang up, when Lords ruled the roost, and in particular, this roost. Lord Jonathan Ockley of England, a handsome arrogant type, is drinking and partying with the upper crust when he’s told of a new craze sweeping the land – the 1761 equivalent to Justin Beiber if you will – where English Lords are taking on Hermits to live in their caves.
The hermit’s job is simple. Wear rags, bathe in mud, emit a constant flow of incoherent ramblings. And when you have guests over, you take them over to your cave to show them your hermit, which, it is thought, will impress them.
So off Lord Ockley goes to find a hermit. Now in the meantime, an alien named Meenu who’s surveying our planet in order to make a decision on whether his alien race should come and destroy it, accidentally crash lands behind a tree on Lord Ockley’s estate.
What he observes is Lord Ockley bringing back a large simple giant of a man named Percy, who is of course Ockley’s new hermit. Percy is sort of a dumber version of Frankenstein who believes that ripping people’s heads off is “fun time.”
Now the reason Ockley is going through all this trouble is that he’s fallen for a lady, Lady Rose Bodley to be precise, and Lady Rose will be attending a soiree he’s putting together in a few days. He figures if he has the newest latest trend, a real life hermit, that she might be impressed with him and lay in his bed.
Well as you can probably imagine, Lady Bodley (like most women I know) isn’t too impressed with Lord Ockley keeping a slave in his back yard, so she orders him to start treating it like a real person or she’ll never talk to him again. Ockley obliges and invites the dangerous scary Percy to live inside his house.
Around this time, Meenu the Alien reveals himself, leading to a whole new set of problems for Ockley. Eventually, however, he invites Meenu to live inside his quarters as well. Then, for reasons I can’t explain, Ockley goes in search of *another* hermit, who moves into his cave, but when that goes badly, this second hermit moves into the house as well.
Eventually everyone learns that Meenu’s race is going to come here and destroy all of them so if they don’t do something to convince him otherwise, they’ll all be dead.
First I have to give credit where credit is due. Stan was right. I’ve never read anything like this before. But I think Lord Ockley And The Alien suffers from a lot of the same problems yesterday’s script did, Teddy. There’s just not much going on in the story. There’s no ultimate goal, nothing driving the story forward, and as a result, I lost interest.
This is the thing with these kinda “out there” ideas. The “out there-ness” buys you a little extra time. As I was reading this, the weirdness of it all (there’s an alien and a hermit living out in the same yard!) kept me intrigued longer than I would have been otherwise. But once that shock-factor dies down, the story itself is kind of mundane. I mean this is basically a film where a bunch of people hang around an estate and talk a lot. There isn’t enough action going on.
When I’ve lost interest in a script, the question I always ask is, “Why?” Why is this story not working for me? I answer it by asking another question: “What’s driving the story right now?” Lord Ockley starts off well. What’s driving the story is Ockley’s desire to get his hermit so he can impress Lady Bodley. But once Lady Bodley’s initial visit is over, there are no more goals that our characters want to achieve. If they’re not going after anything, we’re not wondering if they’re going to achieve anything. And if we’re not wondering or caring what will happen with our characters, there’s no real story.
Now my guess is, the relationship between Ockley and Lady Bodley is supposed to be driving the story. This can work in certain situations. If the audience wants a couple to get together enough, then they’ll be interested in the story until that question (will they get together?) is answered. But the reason that doesn’t happen here is because Ockley’s kind of a huge asshole, which I’m not saying is a terrible thing. It leads to a lot of funny moments. But it kills our desire to see him and Lady Bodley together. We don’t really care if he succeeds or not because, quite frankly, we know he doesn’t deserve her.
The story tries to find purpose again through the character of Meenu, but he has some problems as well. First of all, after crash-landing in the opening, Meenu disappears for 45 pages. At one point I said, “What’s the point of even having an alien in your script if you’re not going to use him?” (Yes I occasionally talk to myself when reading a script) When Meenu finally does find his way into the mix, he’s not particularly interesting. He’s just this normal level-headed alien dude. So later on, when the script tries to make something out of the impending doom that Meenu poses, it doesn’t resonate, because a) the character disappeared for half the screenplay and b) when he appeared, he was too tame. I mean if you’re going to have an alien in your comedy, at the very least he should have some personality, right?
I do think there’s some potential in this script. Once the second hermit moved into the house and you had Percy, Meenu, the second hermit, Lord Ockley, and Lady Bodley, I thought, “This could be a great ‘most dysfunctional family in the world’ script” if you came up with the right premise. For example, what if the King of England was coming to Lord Ockley’s for the weekend to potentially award him the title of Duke? Now this crazy fucked up situation he’s in serves a story purpose – to upset the main character’s pursuit of becoming royalty. As it stood, like I mentioned before, it just felt like a bunch of people in a contained area talking to each other, with minor squabbles popping up to affect the status quo.
So I’d read this again after a rewrite, but in its current form, there are too many problems.
Script link: Lord Ockley and The Alien
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When you give your characters goals, it leads to action (In order for one to achieve a goal, one must act). Without goals, the chance for action drops considerably, and when your characters aren’t acting on anything, the only thing left for them is to do is talk. This is how you get screenplays with characters standing around doing nothing but talking. Take my suggestion above, for example. What if the King was visiting for the weekend and, assuming everything goes well, he’s going to award Lord Ockley the title of Duke. Now, the characters are constantly in a state of action, because they’re all working towards pleasing the King until he bestows that title. More action. Less talking. This is what I wanted to see fixed in Lord Ockley And The Alien.
Genre: Comedy
Premise: 30 years after Mark’s stuffed teddy bear comes to life, the two now live in Boston, where they smoke as much dope and play as many video games as is humanly, and teddy-bearingly, possible. But will Mark’s girlfriend finally put her foot down and make Mark give up the bear?
About: Seth MacFarlane is the creator of Family Guy
Writer: Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild.
Details: 99 pages – undated; but I think it’s an older 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).
All right, so I guess if I’m going to talk about Seth MacFarlane’s script, “Teddy,” I should let you know how I feel about his sense of humor first. Eight or so years ago, I was channel surfing and landed on some strange new cartoon I had never heard of called “Family Guy.” The scene was in a courtroom and our characters were about to be sentenced to jail when, out of nowhere, for no reason whatsoever, the Kool-Aid man barged through a wall and screamed, “Oh Yeahhhhhh!” Gauging the temperature in the room and realizing people weren’t into it, he tiptoed back out and left. It was so random, so weird, so out-of-left-field, that I laughed for two minutes straight.
Holy shit! I thought. I have a new favorite show!
So in the coming weeks, I made it a priority to watch Family Guy. But as I sat there during the first full episode, I didn’t laugh. That’s okay, every show has off days. So I went back the next week…and didn’t laugh. Following week, no laughing. I NEVER LAUGHED AGAIN at anything I saw in Family Guy. So I gave up on it.
Now that’s not to say it’s not funny. Never heard of a billion comedy franchise that didn’t keep millions of people in stitches, but Family Guy has a very specific kind of humor that people either love or they hate (most of the humor is based on non sequiturs like The Kool-Aid man – but if it’s all non sequiturs, then they’re not really non sequiturs anymore – are they?). The big difference between Family Guy and a lot of other shows is that it doesn’t care about story, plot or character, or at least it didn’t when I watched it. And the formula that’s left is pretty basic….
Make laugh = good.
Not make laugh = bad.
All other stuff = doesn’t matter.
Well, that approach is on full display here in Teddy, so I’m guessing there’s going to be a very “Family Guy” like divided reaction to it. How divided? Well, Fred Savage and Peter Falk appear in the first 10 minutes of Teddy then disappear for the last 90. Welcome to the insane freaking mind of Seth MacFarlane.
Mark Bennett is a Boston kid who had a hell of an interesting childhood. After getting a stuffed bear for Christmas, Mark turns to the bear and asks him to promise that he’ll never ever leave him and that they’ll be best friends forever. His bear (Ted) turns to him and says, “Okay.” Mark’s fucking teddy bear talks!
Now I have to give it to these guys. Whenever this happens in movies, the kid will bring the bear to his parents or friends and say, “Look, it talks,” and of course the stuffed animal just sits there not saying anything. But MacFarlane and crew go the other direction. They ask, “Well what if during that moment, the animal *did* talk?”
That’s right. This is no secret that the two are keeping from the world. Ted talks to mom and dad. Ted talks to neighbors and friends. In fact, news stations worldwide tell the story of the magical teddy bear who came to life. Scientists can’t explain it so eventually everyone just accepts it. There’s a kid in Boston with a magical teddy bear.
Cut to 30 years later and both Mark and Ted are grown up. Mark’s got a lame job as an assistant assistant manager at a car rental place. Ted, on the other hand, just cruises around town with his Southie accent, shooting the shit with the locals like it’s completely normal.
When Mark gets off of work, it’s back to the apartment to hang out with, smoke pot with, and play Xbox with Ted. Here they are, in their 30s, and just like that magical promise, are still the best of friends!
But Mark’s girlfriend, Lori, is starting to get dubious of this relationship and thinks it’s time for Mark to grow up. Yet you’re not gonna grow up if you keep hanging around your childhood teddy bear. Now for those of you who think this might be some deep introspective commentary on life via the porthole of a make-believe animal, i.e. something like The Beaver, think again.
There is no complexity in Teddy. There is no subtlety. There is no story or character development. It’s just (caveman voice): “Try make audience laugh now.”
Now there is a brief attempt at a story, I believe. Lori gives Mark an ultimatum to either give up the teddy bear or lose her, but in one of the quickest non-committals to a storyline I’ve ever seen, Mark’s back playing with Ted one scene after Lori’s ultimatum and she’s completely fine with it. Like I said, there’s no story here. And I don’t think MacFarlane cares that there’s no story here. His goal is to seek out the funniest situations possible and that’s it.
But if you’ve read Scriptshadow for even one day, you know I don’t go for this. I don’t just place story above comedy, I place it *way* above comedy. If we’re not engaged in a story, we’re missing half your laughs because we’re not invested in the characters enough to care about anything they say, much less anything they joke about.
This is the big difference between sitcoms and films, is that you can get away with a lot of that when your medium is only 22 minutes long. Around the time the audience realizes there’s nothing going on in the story, the story’s over. But if you’re writing for anything that goes past 22 minutes, you need a story to keep the audience involved. Having said that, I still think the best sitcom episodes are ones that incorporate a story. One of the most famous sitcom episodes of all time, Seinfeld’s “The Contest,” 
But back to Teddy. I think this could’ve benefited from a whole lot more conflict. I was talking to a Scriptshadow reader who expressed frustration over the fact that nothing happens here. And indeed, it’s a very narrow plot that lacks any substantial conflict at all.
When people say there’s not a lot happening in your story, what they mean a lot of the time (but not all the time) is that there isn’t enoiugh conflict. There isn’t anything getting in our hero’s way. There isn’t any particular danger. The stakes are low. The relationships don’t have enough opposition in them. All of that is on display here in Teddy. Just like I mentioned above, Lori threatens Teddy, but then a scene later we realize her threat doesn’t mean anything because she doesn’t follow through with it. As a result, all conflict and suspense disappear.
Even later on in the script, when the character’s world is most thrown into disarray (Mark loses Lori), it doesn’t feel honest. I see this in a lot of scripts that don’t put an emphasis on story. They drift through the first two acts and then at the end it’s: “Oh shit, it’s almost the end! We have to do something!” So then all this haphazard forced conflict is thrown at the characters at once and it never feels right because it hasn’t been properly set up.
One thing I’ll say in MacFarlane’s defense is that the concept here is really good. I can see the poster, I can see the trailer, I can see Mark Wahlberg in this role (especially after The Other Guys
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Even guys like MacFarlane, who have a couple hundred million in the bank, have trouble making the leap into features. So what they do is pitch an idea that’s similar enough to their work that the studio people understand it. MacFarlane has a hit show where babies and animals talk. So when he pitches a feature about a guy and a talking teddy bear, it’s not a stretch to imagine it working. Do you think MacFarlane could’ve had the same success pitching a Roland Emmerich-like “2012
