Genre: Action Comedy
Premise: Dave Lizewski is an unnoticed high school student and comic book fan who one day decides to become a super-hero, even though he has no powers, training or meaningful reason to do so. (from IMDB)
About: Kick-Ass is Matthew Vaughn’s third directing effort (behind Layer Cake and Stardust). What some people don’t know about Vaughn is that before he became a director, he was Guy Ritchie’s producer, producing such films as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and even the Madonna debacle, Swept Away. Kick-Ass stars Nicholas Cage and McLovin, as well as Chloe Moretz and Aaron Johnson.
Status of Draft: Development – 2nd Draft
Status of Project: Completed
Writers: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn (based on the Marvel/Icon comic mini-series from Mark Milllar and John Romita Jr.)
Details: 105 pages (Because this is a 2nd draft, many things may have changed in the final shooting script, although I will say that pretty much everything I saw in the trailer is in the script).
I dig anyone brave enough to shun convention. Matthew Vaughn, however confusing and divisive his choices may be, doesn’t really give a shit about posters and, quote unquote, marketability. He just goes out and makes movies he’d like to see. Hollywood can sort out the rest. I know there are people who absolutely despise Stardust, and I won’t argue that it’s a mixed bag, but hell if it isn’t divinely inspired in places. I loved Robert DiNero’s character, and the “dead-man” sword fight near the end attempts something so few writers ever even try, which is to take a well-known device and put a spin on it.
What’s interesting about Kickass is that it’s probably the most predictable of his ideas (even though it’s not technically his idea). The “normal guy becomes a super-hero” angle is about as popular a screenplay choice as American Idol is a TV show. We’ve seen it in the simultaneously overrated and underrated Unbreakable, the hideously bad Mystery Men, the most annoying actor in movies’ (Michael Rapaport) film, “Special,” and those are just the ones that made it into production. I see the idea in countless spec screenplays all the time (both sold and unsold). For all these attempts, however, nobody has cracked the formula. So I welcome people to keep trying. Until someone gets it right, the idea is fair game.
When I watched the trailer for Kick-Ass, I found myself saying, “This guy gets it.” The characters look inspired, the tone feels fresh, and the movie just looks downright fun. The only issue here is that we’re still talking about Matthew Vaughn. The man can have inspired moments of genius but follow them with head-scratching tangents that are about as organic to the story as that popcorn butter they serve in the theater. As a filmmaker, I trust this guy. But as a writer? I’m still not sure. Let’s find out if he and Goldman brought it.
Dave Lizewski is your average dork, dweeb, nerd. He isn’t noticed at school. And on the rare occasion that he is, it’s usually because he did something stupid. Dave gives you direct insight into his life via voice over, which runs pretty much throughout the entire script, and is overwhelmingly present here in the first act. I have no problem with voice over as a choice and it seems to fit the mood here so I went with it.
Kick-Ass’s first misstep is in its flimsy motivation for why its main character decides to become a superhero. Nothing really pushes Dave into becoming a super-hero other than he wakes up one day and wonders why normal people can’t be superheroes. With the tone of this script being so light, I suppose you could forgive this, but it would’ve been nice to see his choice stem from something more personal (or at least a personal experience).
So Dave stitches together a costume, grabs a couple of sticks, and goes out to fight crime as his brand new superhero alias: Kick-Ass. His first attempts don’t exactly land him in the super hero Hall of Fame though, as he’s beaten to within inches of his life. Back at the hospital, Vaughn comes through with his first bout of randomness, inserting a scene where Dave has daydreams about Chinese families telling him he’s going to be reincarnated, as well as the obligatory giant talking spider! I will give Vaughn this. The man’s unpredictable.
Meanwhile, we meet Damon Macready and his 11 year old daughter, Mindy (aka “Big Daddy” and “Hit Girl”). These two are *real* super-heroes. Or wait. They’re normal people pretending to be super-heroes but who are *really* good at it. I’m actually not sure what they are, since even though they’ve been around a lot longer than Kick-Ass has, nobody knows about them. Also in the mix is mega-rich crime boss Frank D’Amico and his son Chris D’Amico (played by McLovin). Frank is trying to keep his strangle-hold of the city’s drug trade in line while the isolated Chris is just trying to lead a somewhat normal existence.
When Dave’s follow-up attempts to fight crime start to (sorta) work, he becomes a Youtube sensation, which gets the attention of real-life crimefighters Big Daddy and Hit Girl, as well as Chris, who eventually wants a part of the action and invents his own superhero persona, “Red Mist.”
Much like the trailer, the tone here is light and easy, with plenty of jokes to keep you smiling the whole way through (particularly if you like masturbating. There is lots and LOTS of masturbating in Kick-Ass). Here’s the problem though. After finishing this script, I still didn’t know what it was about. There’s no clear-cut plot. There’s no real story here to speak of other than a bunch of semi-super-heroes attempting to fight crime. It’s as if that obsession with character was so great, that Vaughn forgot to give the characters anything to actually do. I mean if I was pressed for it, I’d probably say the plot was for the superheroes to disrupt Frank’s drug trafficking, but since this angle didn’t seem to have any obvious consequences (i.e. if they didn’t succeed, it’s not like anything that bad would happen), I wasn’t sure what the focus was supposed to be.
I’ll admit this is my problem with origin stories in general though and I understand the unique challenges in writing them. Usually the first act of a movie sets up the main problem. But comic book origin movies always end up getting fucked in this respect because they have to spend the first act introducing our character and how he becomes a superhero. This then forces you to set up your problem in the second act, and by that point the structure is already so fucked up that the entire rhythm of the story is thrown out of whack. Still, I would’ve liked for the threat to be made more clear in Kick-Ass.
As I mentioned before, the characters are, admittedly, hilarious and you can’t say “Red Mist” coupled with the thought of McLovin’s face without laughing (whoever did McLovin’s hair in this should get a make-up Oscar next year). But once we reached that third act I just wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be rooting for. “Drug people = bad” isn’t enough for me these days. If there were any major changes in the subsequent drafts, I’m hoping that these are the issues they addressed.
I’ll still go see this for the hilarious character work but if anything needed a kick in the ass here, it was the plot.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: You want there to be stakes in your finale. You want it to feel like if your characters don’t succeed, that the consequences will be devastating. If there’s nothing at stake in the final battle, why should we care about it? You can argue that just the fact that your hero’s life is at stake is enough, but you’d be wrong my compadre. Because stakes go both ways. What your hero *gains* from winning the battle is just as important as what he loses by losing the battle. So if he just gets to stay alive by winning, that won’t cut it. He has to foil something, save someone, disrupt or end something that would’ve otherwise ruined mankind. At the end of Star Wars, Luke doesn’t just survive the Empire, he destroys the damn Death Star! Since I was never clear what Kick Ass gained or lost from the final battle (which stemmed from an unclear plot), I wasn’t as involved as I wanted to be.
Zach Galifianakis and Paull Rudd will star in “Will,” the spec screenplay written by Demetri Martin which was sold a couple of years ago. Wanted to give both of these guys and Paramount kudos for taking a chance on something different. Longtime readers will remember I reviewed the script earlier in the year.
A quick surprise contest.
The first person who answers this special Scriptshadow trivia question – I will read your script and give you three pages of notes for free! As longstanding readers of the site know, I offer script notes for a fee. But I want to reward those same readers with a question that only they should know, as it goes back deep into the annals of Scriptshadow history.
Here is the question: When a film gets an official release, it is no longer eligible for the Scriptshadow Top 25, and must be taken off the list. What was the very first script that was taken off the Scriptshadow Top 25 list?
Leave your answer in the comments section along with your e-mail. The first person to get it right wins the prize. One pick per comment. Up to three tries per person (I’m watching IP addresses). If you can’t access the comments, try Firefox. If you still can’t access them, I’m sorry. E-mails will not be accepted.
UPDATE! IT TOOK A LITTLE LESS THAN 2 MINUTES BUT WE HAVE A WINNER – 1219 STUDIOS!!!
We all do it. Every time we see a movie like “Gamer” or “Inkheart” hit the cineplexes, we shake our heads, rolls our eyes, and say, “I know I could do better than that.” We imagine ourselves as studio bosses, greenlighting a dozen District 9s, Hurt Lockers, or Up In The Airs. We’d make quality films, films that actually had something to say dammit! I mean let’s be honest, the only reason Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe made any money is because they had 100 million dollar marketing campaigns. Right?
Hmmm. Not so fast. Think about it. Really think about it. If you had a job that paid you 5 million dollars a year and allowed you more power than almost anyone in town, would you really be gambling it away on trying to find the next “Good Will Hunting?” It’s easy to play armchair studio boss from the confines of your living room. But I’m not sure any one of us, if put in that position, wouldn’t be calling Michael Bay, promising him tens of millions of dollars, if he would just please commit to Transformers 3. It’s sad, but it’s true.
Well lucky for me, this article isn’t reality. It’s a pseudo-quasi reality where I’m opening my own studio and trying to come up with my first year’s slate. I’d imagine, since this is my first studio, that my investors wouldn’t be giving me a billion dollars. They’d probably give me around 150-200 million (yeah, totally). I’d use this money to make five movies in the roughly 20-50 million dollar range. With that money, these are the five scripts I’d immediately put into production.
DEAD LOSS by Josh Baizer and Marshall Johnson – Thriller
Premise: A crew of crab fisherman rescue a drifting castaway with a mysterious cargo.
Do you remember the cinematic atrocity that was The Perfect Storm? They got us to pay ten dollars to go see a 15 second sequence of an enormous computer generated wave that we had already seen in the previews! That was the only memorable part in the entire movie! Dead Loss is the movie The Perfect Storm should’ve been. It’s got a good story, deep characters, intriguing twists and turns, in addition to a subject matter we haven’t seen on the big screen before. True it’s set on water and water is always trouble for productions, but after seeing this Youtube video, I’ve realized that elaborate sets simply aren’t a problem anymore. Which means you’re basically spending all your money in one place, the boat. You could be flexible and keep it under 25 million with B-level stars, or make it in the 50 million dollar range with one A-lister. Also, as long as contained thrillers are done reasonably well, they’ll always make money.
SOURCE CODE by Ben Ripley – Sci-Fi Thriller
This may seem like an obvious choice but I actually went back and forth on it for awhile. Source Code, like Dead Loss, takes place in limited locations (2 to be exact) so it’d be super cheap to make. My big fear with Source Code stems from this same issue however. Is it big enough for the average sci-fi fan? I know the kind of people who went to see Moon will line up for Source Code, but does it jump into that larger sci-fi appeal that is District 9? In the end, I have to go with the old adage that story is king. When you look at a similar movie like Déjà Vu (I think the biggest spec sale ever, at around 4.5 million dollars), they tried to make this huge sci-fi action movie but it didn’t amount to anything because it never made any sense. Source Code’s story is so sound (the Ripley draft at least – which is what I’d go with) that word of mouth will carry this film. So I’m including it on my slate.
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE by Kathy McWorter – Romantic Comedy
Premise: A loveless man who believes he’s dying meets a woman who turns his life upside-down.
For those who don’t know, The Cheese Stands alone has become sort of this infamous screenplay in Hollywood, and for a lot of people, a cautionary tale. When the script sold for the most money a comedy spec had ever sold for back in 1991 (1 million bucks), studios began mumbling that they had gone too far, that they were swimming in excess. Unfortunately, as year by year went by and The Cheese Stands Alone wasn’t made, it provided enough ammo to turn that cheese into swiss, and now the script is used as an example why never to pay too much for a screenplay. But see here’s the thing, none of that matters anymore. And this script, which at the time was maybe a little bit cliché (reminiscent of movies like Moonstruck and Mystic Pizza) has entered an era where it would be completely original. As Hollywood complains about the dismal state of the romantic comedy, this script turns all of those horrid clichés on their head and feels, ironically, like a brand new voice. Not to mention, the dialogue here is better than 99.9% of the dialogue I read in any modern-day screenplay. But most of all, when I read this script, I just get this sense of fun. You can’t read it without smiling and you can just tell that that’s going to show up onscreen. It baffles me that no one’s even attempted to make this in the last five years.
SUNFLOWER by Misha Green – Thriller
Premise: Two women are held hostage in a prison-like farmhouse.
If you’re starting a studio, your best bet is horror and thrillers. Why? They provide the most bang for their buck. Cheap to make and don’t require huge stars to get their money back. Sunflower is another contained thriller (single location – cheap) that adds a twist. Instead of a single woman trying to escape a madman’s prison-like home, it’s two women. In other words, it’s a horror-thriller with a unique twist and a potentially sexy undercurrent. Hello? Two super-hot women clawing and scratching their way to freedom – only one survives? I’m in. This script would actually be so cheap to make (you could probably do it for 5-10 million) that I could use the extra cash to land a couple of A-listers in my other movie choices. So Sunflower is a definite go picture at Scriptshadow Studios.
THE DOGS OF BABEL by Jaime Linden – Drama
This would be my one big gamble but it’s a gamble I’m comfortable making because the script is freaking awesome. It’s just a great great story. From what I understand, the big problem with The Dogs Of Babel is that there’s no appeal for male actors to play the lead role. But I think this role is meatier than actors give it credit for. It’s very similar to the role Jodie Foster played in Contact, where she was going on this impossible journey, but refused to quit no matter how many obstacles were thrown in her path. Because she refuses to give up, she emerges as the protypical hero, the kind of person we all want to be (which she garnered an Oscar nomination for). That’s the same kind of reception a male actor would get from playing this role. But regardless of that (let’s just say we throw a B-Lister in the part), the female lead is a wonderful and challenging role for an actress. You’re basically playing a bi-polar dead person. That sounds to me like a role with all sorts of potential. Add into that the ten cajillion dog lovers in the U.S. and I just find it very hard that this movie wouldn’t find an audience. This is the kind of script that if done right, would be up there at Oscar time. I have no doubt about that.
SPECIAL MENTION – BRIGANDS OF RATTLEBORGE by Craig Zahler – Western
If any of these movies fell apart at the last second, I would put Brigands Of Rattleborge on my slate. Why? Because it has the potential to be the best Western of all time. I’m not saying it *would* be, but it has the potential to be. The reason this doesn’t get Top 5 mention is because…well let’s face it, it’s a Western. And how well do Western’s do in the marketplace? But the reason I know this would do well is because I don’t like Westerns. And I love this script. So I’m betting there’d be other people out there just like me, non-Western fans ready to crossover if you give them a reason to. And the reason here is simple: the character of Abraham. The mysterious tortured vengeful killer who has more ingenuity in his killing practices than Hannibal Lecter and Dexter combined. I still don’t know why they can’t target every serious A-list actor in town because I can’t imagine a single one of them reading this part would not want to do it. The big stumbling block here is obviously the director. It ain’t like 30 years ago when you had ten directors who were proven to be able to pull off a Western. Nowadays, you don’t know who’s Western-worthy, which results in the assumption that only the A-list directors can handle the challenge. And we all know how easy it is to get one of them to commit to a project. Because this would be the hardest project to set up of the six mentioned, I’d only do it if something else fell through. But hell if this wouldn’t be a cool movie.
Well, those are my picks. Would my studio crash and burn? Can you do better? If you were starting your own studio, which five scripts would you make first?
It’s time for Part 1 of our Tuesday Apocalypse Double-Header. That’s right, you get two apocalypse script reviews for the price of one! The first one I’m reviewing is called “Z for Zachariah.” Roger will review the second one, which should sound familiar to most, as it has a certain Oscar-winning movie star in the lead role.
Genre: Drama/Sci-Fi/Coming-of-Age
Premise: A sixteen-year-old survives in a remote area after a nuclear war. But soon, she receives a visitor.
About: Finished with 11 votes on the 2009 Black List, same as The Sitter and Betty’s Ready. Z for Zachariah is being produced by Iceland-based Zik-Zak Filmworks.
Writer: Nissar Modi (based on the novel by Robert C. O’Brien)
Details: 107 pages (3rd Draft – December 2008)
Well here’s something you don’t see every day. A female coming of age story taking place in the post-apocalyptic countryside! We’ve had 16 year old girls waking up from comas. We’ve had 13 year old girls traveling around looking to build their first itunes playlist. Now we have a 15 year old girl trying to discover herself sexually in the aftermath of a future world war. Hey, why not?
The good news is, you’ve never read anything quite like Z for Zacharia before. Well, unless you read the original book, printed back in 1973. But otherwise, this is a totally unique experience of a young girl trying to find herself under the worst of circumstances. It covers weighty topics such as loneliness and dependency, and does so behind a rare post-apocalyptic persona – the 15 year old girl.
Ann Burden is either lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it. She and her parents survived the nuclear war by being out in the middle of nowhere. But what world have they survived into? One in which every day is a struggle, one in which society and community are non-existent, one in which they’re all by themselves, with nothing to do but tend to a farm and make it through to the next day.
To make matters worse, Ann’s parents inexplicably ditch her like a pumpkin after Halloween. Outside of her sheep dog, Ann is completely alone, a pulpy mass in a dying container. She copes as best she can, but it’s a challenge no 12 year old should have to endure. The unique situation stunts her intellect and personality, as society’s abrupt halt has put a halt on her growth. Although she’s 15 in the story, she’s still that 12 year old girl the day the war hit.
One day, while scanning the barren wasteland outside her valley, Ann spots a man in a strange skin tight green suit. She observes him from afar, intrigued but skeptical, not daring to call out lest he’s dangerous. The man carries a Geiger counter, and is apparently using it to lead himself to clean air. He hits Ann’s valley and voila, the air is finally pure. He celebrates by whipping off his suit and breathing it all in, the culmination of a long perilous journey.
But the man makes the fatal mistake of bathing in a nearby poisoned stream, and Ann is forced to intervene, telling him to hurry out of the water before it’s too late. She takes him back to the house, where he quickly gets radiation poisoning, and she must slowly nurse him back to health. To Ann, this man is her salvation from loneliness, and she prays to God every night that he will not die, that she’ll have someone to share conversation with, a companion.
The man, who we find out is named Loomis, does survive. Turns out he was a scientist before the war, and was working on mass producing these green suits, as they would protect Americans from the post-radiation fallout of a nuclear war. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. But the suit, which ended up being the only one of its kind, is probably the reason why Loomis is the only person from the war who survived.
The script then shifts gears, turning into a complex and challenging story about a 30-something scientist and a 15 year old girl trying to survive together. There is clearly something off about Loomis, something about his stories that imply a secret past, and yet because he is handsome, older, and the only human contact Ann has had in years, she finds herself attracted to him, hoping that he might see her as more than a little girl.
But be careful what you wiiiiiiiish for. It doesn’t take long for Loomis to move in on Ann, pushing her into a sexual relationship that she both desires and fears. This results in a constantly changing dynamic and a fraying of the lines that throws everything into disarray. This is where the strength of the story lies. These two need each other. The winter is coming and if they don’t work together, the consequences will be dire. But the closer Ann gets to Loomis, the more she realizes he is not the man he pretends to be, and in actuality could be much more dangerous.
What works in Z for Zachariah is its unsettling tone. I noticed myself shifting uncomfortably during several segments in the script. The relationship between Loomis and Ann is both improper yet necessary. All the statutory rape stuff and shit about being a minor is kinda thrown out the window when you’re the last two people on earth. What’s so sinister about Z for Zacharia is that it never allows you to take a side. At one moment, you peg Loomis as a slimy devil, in the next, a lost soul looking for love. Ann has similar reactions. She’s both attracted to Loomis and terrified of him. As a result, we never know who to criminalize, who to victimize, and the script forces you to think across lines you’ve been taught not to cross. It’s challenging stuff.
Yet Z for Zacharia almost lost me early on, when describing Ann’s predicament. Apparently, once the bombs hit, Ann’s parents up and left her to go “look for survivors.” Pardon me for asking a stupid question: But in what ridiculously inane world do parents, who have just experienced the most traumatic unimaginable event in the world’s history, up and leave their 13 year old daughter to fend for herself??? I mean give me a break. If I’m part of the last family in the universe, I’m not going to turn to my kids and say, “Seeya! Good luck!” However since it’s a simple fix, I got over it.
The real problem with Z for Zachariah is its ending. And this goes back to what I was saying the other day about screenplays that are light on plot. When push comes to shove, if your characters aren’t driving towards some obvious plot-related goal, you’re not going to know what to do with the ending. And Z for Zachariah falls squarely in that pitfall. I’m not even going to get into it because its randomness requires more explanation than it’s worth. But the point is, it’s clear they didn’t know how to end the screenplay, and as a result we have a lot of running around and absolutely no direction.
Luckily, the relationship story here between Ann and Loomis is so strong, that that alone outweighs the script’s problems. And I don’t think the fixes are that complicated. This script is worth the read for its engaging and challenging story.
Script link: Can’t post this but it’s part of the Black List package.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I’m a big fan of goal-oriented writing, which is just a fancy way of giving your characters purpose. In most scripts, there will be an overarching goal, a clear destination for the main character, and that goal will be your script’s plot. In The Terminator, the goal is for the Terminator to kill Sara Conner. In Escape from New York, the goal is to escape…from New York! Z for Zachariah doesn’t take that approach. There is no overarching goal. It’s more a movie where the story emerges as the script goes on. If you do not have a clearly stated overarching goal for your protagonist, it is absolutely essential that you give your characters smaller “mini-goals” along the way. This is never going to be as powerful as having a clear plot, but it will keep your script focused. If you have no overarching goal, and no miniature goals, your story will just sit there, and quite frankly be a boring piece of shit (sorry, have to be harsh here). So let’s take Z for Zachariah as an example. The movie starts out with Ann discovering this strange man invading her land. Her goal? Find out who he is. Once she makes contact with him, he gets sick. Her new goal? To keep him from dying. Once he’s healthy, the goal actually becomes two-fold. One, to get him to see her as a woman. And two, to get the farm up and running again. As you can see, these “mini-goals” keep the story focused, continue to give our characters purpose. So if you’re writing a character-driven film that’s light on plot, the mini-goal approach is your best friend. Use it dammit!
