Genre: Thriller
Premise: By using the ten biblical plagues, a paramilitary group plans to attack ten major cities in the U.S.
About: Sold in 1996. 850 thousand against 1.5 million. Adjusted for inflation – 1.16 million against 2 million. Rosenberg is the writer of High Fidelity and Con Air.
Writer: Scott Rosenberg
Details: 120 pages (1996 spec sale draft)

This is a funny script. I don’t know if it’s necessarily funny on purpose, but it definitely made me laugh. Why? Well, it’s just so unabashedly NINETIES. I half-expected Eddie Vedder and/or the Counting Crows to jump out and start crooning about O.J. Simpson. There’s flannel on these pages. Keanu Reeves lives in these pages. But most of all, this script embodies the overly-ambitious throw everything and the kitchen sink on the page mentality of spec scripts at the time. It was kind of like the spec world’s sub-prime mortgage. Every writer was so reckless, trying to sell their script without regard for cost or value, that when Hollywood realized they couldn’t make these movies, the spec boom imploded. I mean, I’m no producer, but in my estimation, this script had to have been budgeted at at least 250 million. BACK IN 1996!

Rosenberg himself is an interesting writer. He wrote one of my favorite movies, Beautiful Girls, which captured what it’s like coming back home as a grown-up about as well as any movie I’ve ever seen. Then over a decade later he writes the exact same movie but for TV (October Road), and it’s about the worst representation of what it’s like to come home as a grown-up (the comedic sidekick actually refuses to leave his house because he’s traumatized by 9-11, like, ever).

But Rosenberg’s written some pretty cool flicks, like the incredibly cheesy but guilty pleasure that is Con Air. And of course he wrote everybody’s favorite record store movie, High Fidelity (although there’s some debate on whether he deserved that credit). I think, like a lot of writers out there, Rosenberg can either be so good you wonder how he could ever be bad, or so bad you wonder how he could’ve been so good.

Which brings us to The Ten, the kind of script that’s so unabashedly crafted to sell and NOTHING else, that it actually kills a writer every time you read it. Basically, what Rosenberg did was take two of the biggest movies from the 90s – Speed and Seven – and mashed them together. We get the way over the top villain from Speed (making him ten times more way over the top here), as well as Speed’s manic tone and energy, mixed with Seven’s mystery-driven structure of unique biblical-related deaths (albeit this time on a mass scale). Rosenberg even adds a little Lethal Weapon to boot, as we get the over-the-top (over-the-top is a BIG part of The Ten) wise-cracking partners who would rather be anywhere but with each other. I don’t know if it’s all shameless or genius. But damn if he didn’t sell the thing.

The not as well known as it should be “Beautiful Girls.”

Kyle Klesko is an FBI agent with a beautiful wife and son. He seems to have it all, though work plays a little more of a role in his life than family and his wife isn’t happy about it and—

BOOM! A plane blows up!!!

Don’t worry. Klesko wasn’t on it. But the plane’s parts come raining down on a farm. We get to see the smoldering passengers cry out for help as their burning bodies are melted into the plastic of their seats. Sweet! Soonafter, the FBI is sent a video message from a man named – no I’m not making this up – Williamton Economides. Williamton Economides is easily, by far, without question, the single most annoying over-the-top villain ever. He starts all his video demands by singing some bizarre song wistfully off-screen, then turning to the camera with a, “Oh, you started already,” face, and then giving his demands in a sing-songy half-rhyming nonsensical rant, before cutting out. If ever there was a model for “went too far,” Williamton Economides would be it.

Economides (I can’t even believe I’m writing that name) is the leader of a terrorist group called the People’s Platoon. Naturally, the FBI gets all pissed off that Economides and his Platoon Pals blew up a plane, so they go searching for his cult off in the desert, find about 30 of them blindly reciting his teachings, and throw them in the Federal version of the nuthouse. This angers the coo-coo for coco puffs Economides, so he naturally demands that they be released or else. Or else what? Or else he will attack every major city in the U.S!

True to his rhythmically annoying words, a few days later Washington DC turns into a bath tub of BLOOD! A lot of it! Oh no no no. I don’t mean like people start getting massacred. I mean blood appears everywhere. In its lakes, its showers, its water fountains. So much blood! Blood bath-o-rama. More blood than Carrie. Did I mention there was lots of blood? Then two hours later the blood disappears without a trace. Sneaky blood. Special blood that doesn’t stain. In a magically delicious surprise, nobody gets hurt.

Hmm, say our FBI agents. That’s strange. But not strange enough to do anything about it.

Bad move. A few days later Miami is hit. By frogs! Lots of frogs! This overabundance of frogs is more lethal than the laymen might assume as 22 people are massacred by the wild ribbit-fueled hopping. But just like the D.C. fiasco, the frogs disappear within a few hours. The FBI now decides this is serious (note: frogs = serious) and demand that Klesko enlist the help of a man named Eddie Gerrick. We can tell by Klesko’s reaction that this is not a good thing. Apparently there’s some deep history between the two. But Garrick is a specialist when it comes to Economides, and if they’re going to take him down, Garrick will be required.

Cusack and Black in High Fidelity

So Klesko shoots off and finds Garrick on the floor of some bar, shitfaced beyond your worst Vegas nightmare. Garrick is not happy to see Klesko, muttering something about how he’s a life-ruiner. There’s some backstory to this relationship but there’s no time to rehash it because Boston is experiencing a vermin meltdown. Cockroaches and rats are taking over the city. The cockroaches and rats are even better trained (or are learning from the blood and the frogs’ mistakes) as this time 54 people are erased from existence.

Garrick lets Klesko in on the fact that Economides is obviously summoning The Ten Plauges of Egypt. The Ten Plagues of What?? Well, apparently, back in the day, God punished the Pharoa for refusing Moses’ demands that all the Israliates be set free. Ah, now I see the connection. Economides is angry that *his* people aren’t being set free, so now he’s punishing the FBI!!!

That sound you hear is me sighing for two days straight.

Klesko and Garrick spend the rest of the script arguing and flying from city to city as the Ten Plagues unfold upon the country. I’m not going to pretend like there aren’t some fun sequences here (L.A. run amok with lions, tigers, cheetahs, pumas, and bears making meals out of any humans in sight), but if I could boil it down to one word…it’s just all so *silly*.

There’s no threat here. It all plays out like a giant live-action cartoon. The story doesn’t even make sense when you add it up. The FBI is holding Economides’ cult, who are obviously harmless. The only threat they pose to the public is annoying them to death. Yet for ¾ of the movie, the FBI refuses to release these 30 nimwits, preferring instead to allow Economides to conjure up biblical terrorism at the expense of the United States’ safety.

The conflict between Klesko and Garrick is likewise over-the-top. Garrick doesn’t just dislike Klesko. He HATES him with a burning passion. So all of their investigation is overshadowed by this ridiculous back and forth banter. I guess you’re wondering why they hate each other so much. **Half-hearted spoiler alert** Klesko stole Garrick’s girlfriend and married her. Garrick then went into Mickey Rourke mode. Unfortunately for Garrick, he didn’t have Darren Aronofsky to save him.

I’d continue on here, but then I’d be telling you things like Economides ups his demands, which include a grant for his own piece of land so he can start a new country, a 50 million dollar check, and a supermodel. That’s not me being sarcastic. That really happens.

I mean, here’s the thing. The 90s were the decade of the fun no-holds-barred over-the-top action film. We got Con Air, The Rock, and Face-Off, for God’s sake. So I mean, if we stay within that context, The Ten makes sense. But there’s a point where you’ve jumped the shark. And I can’t help but feel like this script was written over a shark tank, so that it could be suspended in one continuous jump.

If you like big and silly action movies light on logic, you might enjoy this. It’s also a script that fits perfectly inside the 90s time capsule. But for pure enjoyment, I’m afraid to say it doesn’t work.

Script link: The Ten (This script is meant for educational purposes only. If you are the writer or copyright holder of this script and would like it taken down, please e-mail me at Carsonreeves1@gmail.com and I will do so immediately)

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

What I learned: How dangerous influence can be. Remember the 90s when everyone was writing Speed and Seven specs? It was either super cheesy over the top action or gritty religious serial killer procedural. And not a single one of them was ever better than those two. That’s my big problem with being influenced by popular movies. That no matter what you do, you will never ever make a version of that movie that’s better than that movie. So why even try? Why not create something original that can stand on its own that everybody ELSE tries to copy? I want you to remember that when you’re sitting down to write your version of Avatar or Inglorious Basterds. Even if you do a bang-up job, it’ll still be seen as, “A not as good version of Avatar or Inglorious Basterds.” Is that really how you want your script to be remembered? If you’re going to be influenced by something, try to make that influence subtle. Write something that has shades of that film, but isn’t built from a template of it.

Now that may be why the *movie* never got made. But I can’t ignore the fact that the script DID get bought. For 850,000 dollars no less. So how good is that advice I just gave you? Hmm, good question. I think in this day and age, it’s good advice. But back then, it might not have been. The 90s spec market was like the 90s stock market. Drop 50 grand in a stock and 5 years later you’re buying a condo in San Francisco. So I definitely think spec-happy Hollywood played a part in this. Also, Rosenberg was a hot writer at the time. He had some major indie cred with his two recent films, Beautiful Girls and Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead. And so it made sense that his spec would have a lot of eyes on it. Finally, and probably most importantly, the script could be pitched as Speed meets Seven, less than two years after both of those movies were mega-hits. Now an interesting side note to that is, Speed and Seven weren’t just hits. They were both out-of-left-field hits. Nobody expected them to do as well as they did. I think this gave The Ten a hidden advantage in that it didn’t have to be as good as a normal spec since the implication was that Hollywood people didn’t understand why these types of scripts did well. In other words, if those two movies undeservedly became monster hits, why couldn’t this one? Anyway, if you put all those things together, you have the ingredients for a monster spec sale.

When you get into the all time top-selling scripts, there are some discrepancies as to the actual order. That’s because numbers have been distorted through the years and there are provisions attached to some of the numbers. For example, I guess Steinbeck’s Point Of View is the biggest sale of all time at 6.5 million, but something like two million of that was provisional, based on the script going into production, and three million of that included potential future deals? M. Night was paid in the vicinity of 7.5 million for The Village (yeah, I know) but a good portion of that was his directing fee. The number one top selling spec (not including inflation) of all time seems to be Deja Vu, which sold for 5 million dollars. Surprisingly, there are only about 30 scripts that have sold for 2 million dollars or more, and a lot of them have been turned into movies, leaving me with less choices than I’d like, and forcing me to dip into the scripts that “only” sold for like a million dollars. Pft.

Now we’ve reviewed big-selling specs before. We did a week last year where we reviewed the top selling specs of 2008. Here are those five reviews…

The Low Dweller
Pierre Pierre
The Long Run
Wedding Banned
Dan Minter: Badass For Hire

We’ve also reviewed million dollar seller The Cheese Stands Alone and 2 million dollar sale River Road (The Cross). I haven’t been able to get my hands on some older unproduced specs though, so if you have Bad Dog (3 mil), Alpha (1.5), The Worst Man (2.5), The Arrangement (2 mil), or Vito (2 mil), please e-mail them to me and maybe we can do a second week of this in the near future.

We’re going to start out with one of the monster spec sale’s little brothers. “Smoke and Mirrors” brought in the eensy teensy amount of just one million dollars, but for those who remember, this was a heavily coveted script whose bidding war made headlines. So scroll down and check out Roger’s review. It definitely kicks Big Money Week off with a bang.

Here’s Roger with the first review of Big Money Week! To say he gets things started is an understatement. I’m going to have to read this thing!

Genre: Historical Adventure
Premise: The reclusive “Father of Modern Magic”, Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, is called upon by the French government to debunk an Algerian sorcerer who is using his feats of magic to spearhead a civil war.
About: Penned back in ’94, this script was part of a fierce bidding war that involved Disney, Tri-Star and Steven Spielberg (people really really wanted this script). Andy Vajna’s Cinergi Pictures bought the script for $1 million dollars (1.45 million adjusted for inflation). Not only was Disney able to land Frank Marshall as director, but Sean Connery was attached to the lead role. Unfortunately, Sean Connery demanded rewrite after rewrite until Frank Marshall was pulled off the project by Paramount’s Sherry Lansing because he was under contract to direct Congo (why Lord, why?). Kevin Brodie (A Dog of Flanders) was attached to direct and the project lingered in development hell until January 2000, when Catherine Zeta-Jones’ production company, Zeta Films, acquired the rights to the script. Naturally, Michael Douglas was attached to the lead role, with Catherine starring opposite him as Robert-Houdin’s wife.
Writers: Lee and Janet Scott Batchler. The husband-and-wife team who worked on Batman Forever. Other projects include My Name is Modesty and Pompeii, an epic drama telling the famous story of the destruction of that city. They also wrote a project for Paramount called Alpha, a fast-paced adventure about a team of military working dogs and their trainers. Here we have “Smoke and Mirrors”, an Original Screenplay by Lee Batchler and Janet Scott Batchler.

What I learned: This script is suspenseful as hell. But why was it so suspenseful? Every time Robert-Houdin performed, someone’s life was on the line. That’s the simple genius behind the trick. Every task your protagonist has to perform should have high stakes. And as the protagonist completes each task and moves on to the next, crank up the stakes. The stakes in “Smoke and Mirrors” have a clear ascendant progression: (1) Darcy’s life, (2) Robert-Houdin’s life (3) and collectively, the lives of Robert-Houdin, Colette, Darcy and all of the Legionnaires. Here’s the other lesson: Every overarching thematic conflict in this script, Science vs. Magic, God vs. Allah, France vs. Kabyle, Civilized Man vs. the Savage, is boiled down to the two characters who come from each side. Robert-Houdin and the sorcerer, Zoras Al Khatim. Their intimate battle of wills puts two entire nations at stake. By making your characters symbols of bigger conflicts, you widen scope of your story. It’s how you can tell an epic story but at the same time make it personal and intimate. There are many other lessons and tricks to be learned in this script, you only have to look closer to discover them.

One of the changes I want to make this year is to add a theme week every month. For example, last year we had Horror Week, Biggest Sales of 2008 Week, Repped Week. I want to do that once a month this time around. So if you guys have any theme suggestions, feel free to offer them in the Comments Section. Next week we’re going to be tackling 5 scripts that sold for a lot of money. Since most of them are at least a few years old, script links should be available. But swoop in quick just in case. And if you don’t know when I post, get yourself onto my Twitter and Facebook feeds (upper right hand corner of page). :)

Genre: Alternative Comedy
Premise: When fourteen year old Joe Toy and his buddies tire of their parents overbearing ways, they decide to build their own house in the woods, away from the restraints of the lives they have come to know.
About: Toy’s House finished in the Top 15 of the 2009 Black List with 15 votes. Indie production company, Big Beach Productions (Sunshine Cleaning, Little Miss Sunshine, Away We Go) purchased the script. Chris Galletta has no previous film credits or sales. He did work as a staff member on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2005.
Writer: Chris Galletta
Details: 116 pages (9/9/09 draft)

Toy’s House poses the question, what if you actually followed through on your childhood fantasy of running away and living on your own? Ah, sounds like another recent film you say? Yes, the similarly themed “Where The Wild Things Are” explored the same idea. There’s one small difference between the two stories though. Toy’s House is actually good.

We all had those moments as teenagers where home felt more like a prison cell than a place of residence. There were all these, like, rules we had to abide by. Rooms had to be cleaned. Homework had to be done. If we went somewhere, we’d have to let our parents know when we’d be back n’ shit. But the thing that really troubled us was the simple fact that parents didn’t *get us.* They spoke an alien language. Talked about how everything we did now would affect our “future.” No offense but, who the hell cares about the future when you’re a kid?? All that matters is right now. And right now is a 24 hour cycle of stupidity. We can’t have fun. We can’t let loose. Why can’t there just be a place where these freedoms exist? All the time!

Joe Toy is a 14 year old Freshman who wants to *do* something about this problem. His dickhead divorced father is so out of touch with even the most basic parenting skills that whenever Joe starts beating him in Monopoly, his father actually cheats to win. Their icy relationship has deteriorated to the point where Joe calls the police simply if his dad’s being an asshole. Clearly, this situation can’t go on any longer.

Joe’s best buddy is the creature-of-habit Patrick, one of those kids cursed with really weird parents. I remember I had a friend like this and to this day I can’t believe my parents let me hang out at his house since everyone assumed, like they do here in Toy’s House, that his parents were serial child molesters. I survived that friendship unscathed but my poor friend, like Patrick, had to live with those weirdos for the rest of his childhood. Having weird parents really is a no-win situation. It’s not like one day they can magically become un-weird. And their weirdness definitely rubs off on you. It has to. You’re around them 24/7. Needless to say, Patrick’s social life is the high school equivalent of 2012.

So when Joe poses to Patrick the radical idea that they run away and build their own house, Patrick, at first hesitant to break from the norm, decides to stand by his best friend. They need to recruit one more member in their not-so-traveling pants gang so they choose Biaggio, an insanely bizarre kid who’s kind of like the Italian version of Pedro in Napolean Dynamite. If Pedro was 100 times more retarded that is.

Their secret society set, they sneak out into the desolate forest (which is actually just a tiny forest preserve a hundred feet from their suburb) and build a barely habitable shack/living quarters.

I was actually a little thrown by Toy’s structure, as when I read the premise, I assumed the building of the house was going to be the main focus of the plot. So when the house is finished early in the second act, I wondered, “Where does this story go now?” Luckily the story shifts nicely into Joe’s obsession with Kelly, his wise-cracking beautiful best friend who he’s secretly in love with (but is going out with some guy who looks like he’s 30).

Because Patrick was hesitant to commit himself to this idea in the first place, he’s none too pleased to find out that Joe’s real motivation for building the house has nothing to do with escaping society – but was merely a ploy to convince Kelly that he’s just as grown-up as her 800 year old boyfriend. It’s a wonderful turn of events then, when he finally brings Kelly by, and is so close to closing the deal, only to see his entire plan foiled at the last second by…well, let’s just say the last person you’d expect.

Things spin drastically out of control after that, and Joe becomes some sort of faux-mountain man, defiantly standing by his idea of roughing it and breaking off from society even though everything about the house is an epic failure. His and Patrick’s friendship deteriorates while the community searches for them. And Biaggio becomes so entrenched in nature he may never leave. It’s a nice take on why fantasies should probably remain fantasies and that while the grass may be greener on the other side of the hill, it’s still the same dirt underneath.

It’s no secret why I liked this script. It’s got Wes Anderson written all over it. Shades of Rushmore. Shades of Junior Executive. Shades of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Galletta’s got a gift for offbeat humor and an ear for quirky dialogue that’s actually funny (as opposed to certain writers whose quirky dialogue sounds like a desperate plea to be funny).

The weirdness of these characters is the real strength though. Watching Patrick’s clueless mom try to convince her son that the new “Bruce Die-Hard” movie is called “Festival” (she’s unknowingly referring to The Fifth Element) or watching Biaggio camouflage himself up against a tree for hours at a time, even though everybody can see him, just gives these characters a comedic edge you don’t find in a lot of these cookie-cutter comedies. There’s even some nice character work here, particularly in relation to Joe’s broken family and how that’s shaped his reckless approach to life. It’s all nicely done.

You know, I’ll be honest, I was really skeptical during the first 15 pages of this script, even going so far as to warn a couple of people to stay away from it. But it ended up being the funniest script I’ve read in months.

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

What I learned: You know I hate bringing up the “First Ten Pages” rule because I think it sends writers the wrong message. “Make the first ten pages of your script amazing so you reel in the reader!” Umm, okay, but hold on. Doesn’t that imply that once those ten pages are over, you can half-ass the rest of the script? Shouldn’t you strive to make *every* page amazing?

But Tree’s House reminded me why the rule is pertinent. I almost gave up on this script ten pages in. The first scene has Joe doodling in school. The second has him talking to a girl. The third has him dealing with his father at home. Nothing fun or exciting or unique or surprising is happening here. And the strength of the script – its offbeat humor – doesn’t come off right away. The ONLY reason I kept reading was because it was a Black List script, which gave me some indication that other industry people thought it was worthy of continuing. Now since you don’t yet have the luxury of having 15 other industry vets vouching for you when you send your script to someone (yet), you gotta do something that makes us take notice in those first ten pages. It doesn’t have to be a car blowing up. It doesn’t have to be a murder. But it should be something. If I were you, I’d pinpoint the one thing you do best as a writer, and try to write pages that highlight that strength. So if you’re great at dialogue, then the opening scenes should be dialogue. If you’re a great action writer, then the first scene should be action. If you’re a master of description (S. Craig Zahler for example), then build a scene around that. Whatever the case, particularly if your script is more character-based (aka slow), figure out a way to make those first 10 pages pop. Just don’t let off the gas when they’re over.