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.

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?