Genre: Conspiracy Thriller
Premise: A SETI worker receives a mysterious signal from space that motivates a secret organization to try and kill him.
About: Media Rights Capital purchased this preemptively in May. Potter and Stravitz are big fans of the genre as they also wrote the script for the remake of “The Boys From Brazil” about the revival of the Third Reich.
Writer: Richard Potter & Matthew Stravitz

Signals has a solid, if not wholly original, premise for a thriller. Nick Freeman is an average 30-something who works at SETI (Search For Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). SETI, as many geeks know, analyzes signals from all over the universe, looking for patterns that may denote intelligent life. Most people see SETI as a joke. I mean, if an advanced civilization is out there, thousands or millions of years ahead of us technologically, are they really going to be transmitting in radio waves? That would be like us transmitting to other civilizations by clicking two rocks together.

But if anyone’s going to find life in the universe through SETI, it’s Nick. He’s a signal samurai who searches for meaning and patterns in signals, from music to speech to the everyday noises that the majority of us ignore. On what should’ve been just another routine day at work, Nick hears a signal that’s unlike any he’s heard before. He’s so overcome by its uniqueness that he copies it over to a jump drive. As the day winds to a close, he heads home, and that’s where, for lack of a better phrase, shit starts going crazy. When Nick stumbles into his apartment, he finds his landlord (who popped in to grab something and was mistaken for Nick) primed for a toe tag. A second later a SWAT TEAM screeches to a stop outside the complex. They don’t look too interested in due process. Poor Nick has no idea why these people are after him but he’s pretty sure that an open dialogue is out of the question. So Nick runs.

The thrillerness of the thriller ramps up and Nick zips around town like a chicken with its head cut off. Thinking that one of his coworkers might have some answers, he goes back to work only to find that his entire floor’s been leveled and everyone’s dead. Nick’s signal prowess apparently doesn’t extend into common sense since it takes him a good 20 pages to realize that maaaaybe the reason these people are trying to kill him is because of the signal he saved. With no one in the world left to turn to, he turns to the last person in the world who wants him, his ex-wife. Lindsey, a reporter, is all business and clearly has an issue with Nick’s slacker-like ways. Apparently the reason these two separated was because Nick never grew up (Hey, since when is looking for alien signals not a respectable job?). Unfortunately for Lindsey, she’s in this for the long run cause anybody Nick talks to dies a few hours later. You gotta give it to Nick. While everyone else talks about killing their ex-wife, Nick actually does something about it.

The two of them are off on a race through the city while whoever’s following them get closer and closer (though if I were the bad guys, I probably would’ve posted someone outside the ex-wife’s house the second Nick went rogue). At some point Nick figures out that they’re after the signal. Lindsey’s reporter instincts kick in as she realizes she might be sitting on the story of the century. Luckily, she happens to know a guy who knows a guy who’s a world class conspiracy theorist. So they speed off to his trailer out in the middle of nowhere and Crazy Dude tells them exactly what they’re dealing with. Or at least after we have the obligatory Illuminati reference. Apparently, the people who want Nick and his signal dead are known as “The Foundation”. Although not much is known about The Foundation, they apparently have ties to the “New World Order”, which is a supposedly behind-the-scenes worldwide organization of high-powered people preparing to create a single unifying government.

I think you already know what I’m going to say about Signals. It wasn’t bad so much as it was predictable. We just read Umbra and the two are similar in more ways than one. Of course here we have two people running from the bad guys, which at least allows us to explore a troubled relationship. Having someone to play off of as well as a relationship with an uncertain future gives Signals a complexity that its thriller cousin, Umbra, couldn’t match. Then again, part of the fun of Umbra was the fact that we were seeing a conspiracy through the eyes of a single man – making us feel that we ourselves were being chased. So which is better, it’s hard to say.

But who cares about that stuff, right? The piece de resistance is always the ending in these scripts. Where was the signal from? What did the signal say? In this respect, Signals gives us something we haven’t seen before. I wouldn’t say that I loved the ending, but the writers definitely put some effort into it. The New World Order is kind of the bastard child of conspiracy theories – the kind of thing you hear the Hickory Homeless Club babbling about on 4th street and Santa Monica. But Potter and Stravitz’s interpretation is actually kind of cool and at least gets you thinking.

Signals very well might be a serial conspiracy theorists dream. It mentions enough of the conspiracy catch phrases to give the doomsayer population their fix. I actually think the younger readers might have a blast with “Signals”. It’s got a nice edge to it and a few interesting tangents. But for someone who’s seen Three Days Of The Condor and all the conspiracy movies since, there’s not enough new stuff here for me to personally get excited.

Link: No link

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: In these films there needs to be a big twist around the mid-point of the story. Your protags have been running around for thirty minutes now, and if you don’t do something to change it up, or throw everyone (characters and audience) for a loop, you run the risk of your reader getting bored of the repetition. I don’t think Signals ever included that twist. Conspiracy thriller stories thrive on surprises, so make sure you have a big one near the middle.

Way back a few months ago, the spec script “Prisoners” by first-timer Aaron Guzikowski, made the Hollywood rounds and impressed a bunch of people. Wahlberg attached himself. Not long after that, Christian Bale came on as well. But before putting the script on the market, in order to sell it for the most amount of moola, they wanted to complete the trifecta and attach a director. Although they finally got Bryan Singer interested, for whatever reason, not everyone could agree on the direction of the project. So Bale and Whalberg deattached themselves and Prisoners went on the market sans any talent attached. It’s still unclear to me if Singer stayed attached or not. But anyway, the script finally sold to Alcon Thursday for an undisclosed amount of money that is thought to be north of a million dollars. Take a trip down Scriptshadow memory lane when the script first hit the street.

That’s up to you.

I think it’s time. I think we all agree it’s time. Inception needs to be reviewed on Scriptshadow. I know this script is out there because they’ve already started shooting it (under a different name). My April Fools Day joke was convincing enough that I’ve literally received a thousand requests for the script. Some liked my made-up version so much they’ve even encouraged me to write it (I did think it was pretty cool if I do say so myself). With the most highly anticipated movie debuting its footage today at ComicCon, it seems only natural we get a review of the most coveted script in town.

Now here’s my promise to you. You, person out there, who has the script. I will not post it. I promise you that. All I want to do is read and review it. So you can send it through your e-mail or an anonymous e-mail or whatever means necessary, if your’e scared. But just know that I’m not going to spread this out there. My inbox awaits you. Do the right thing. :)

No link.

Genre: Drama
Premise: We follow the lives of a handful of Brooklyn cops.
About: Michael Martin has a great story. The 28 year old Brooklyn native and former subway worker sold Brooklyn’s Finest for 200k. Here’s what Richard Gere had to say about the script: “I’ve been dealing with making movies for 30 years — more than 30 years, almost 35 years — and I’ve worked with a lot of writers who would try to come up with something like this and would fail. It’s got such a wonderful structure to it, besides the innate rhythm and nature of it. The structure was a really terrific movie structure. It’s basically three short stories, very tangentially connected, unexpectedly, contrapuntally working together.” John Langley, a producer on the movie said it was “the most realistic cop script that I’ve ever read.” Stars Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Don Cheadle, and Vincent D’onofrio. Hell, even Wesley Snipes makes his way back into respectable cinema here. Directed by Antoine Fuqua.
Writer: Michael C. Martin

People have asked how Brooklyn’s Finest secured such a great cast. Was it that good? Well, I mean, we all know how the system works. A big name commits to a film, be it an actor or a director, and everybody else comes swarming in screaming, “Me too! Me too!” as if they knew the script was great all along. But the reality is that most actors won’t put their ass on the line until someone else does first.

Why else would you sign up for a tough-to-sell indie film? Well obviously it helps that Antoine Fuqua’s last cop drama was the acclaimed “Training Day” (one of my favorite cop films) and landed Denzel with an Oscar. So once he gave the script his seal of approval, everybody else just thought, “Well then it must be great.” But who was that initial person who signed onto “Brooklyn’s Finest?” Who thought the script was good enough to be made into a film? Because here’s the thing. Brooklyn’s Finest has all sorts of problems.

“Finest” starts out with a big bang. Two friends are talking and a second later, one pulls a gun and shoots the other in the face. But much like the universe, a hell of a lot of time goes by before anything happens again. Sal is a Brooklyn cop with 9 kids and 2 more on the way. Every day is a struggle and he’s looking for a promotion so he can secure a deposit on a much needed larger house for his family. Tango is an undercover cop trying to bring down the Brooklyn drug trade, specifically the area known as the “Pink Houses,” a nasty group of housing projects in the heart of Brooklyn. Eddie Dugan is a 40-something Irish cop on the brink of retirement. He lives with a wife he doesn’t talk to and wakes up every morning planning to blow his brains out. For some reason, he can’t do it.

Suicide Eddie, who drinks like a fish and whose signature move is punching the clock at the end of the day, is pissed off that he has a new rookie partner. But Eddie’s kind of a joke around the precinct and if something shitty has to be put on someone, Eddie’s usually your guy. When a routine day with his new partner turns into some “save the world” shit as the rookie tries to arrest everyone in sight, Eddie storms back to his boss and demands someone else. So Eddie is given Hickey, a rook who’s a lot more like him. If they happen upon a rape outside their jurisdiction? Fuck it. It’s not their problem.

In the meantime Sal, the fucking Octomon disciple, becomes more and more tempted by the dark and easy path. Anything to get that deposit down on his new house. This becomes particularly important when he finds out that of his soon-to-be-born twins, they won’t have enough room to support both. For that reason he’ll have to make a “Sophie’s Choice” and send one of them to stay with his sister.

Gangsters Caz and Red have been running with Tango for four years now – Caz back in jail and Red out on the streets. These are the men he uses to get a beat on what’s going down in the drug world. Despite his allegiances, Tango can’t help but have developed friendships with the two, especially Caz, probably the most interesting character in the screenplay (played by Snipes). Caz just got out after an 8 year sentence in the slim-slam. He’s in that age-old predicament where he can’t make money legitimately because no one will hire him, so the only way to survive is going back to crime. Because of the three-strikes rule though, Caz could be a lifer just for sneezing in the wrong place. He’s torn about what to do. He wants to go legit but it’s so hard. In the meantime Tango’s handlers tell him they want to set Caz up because his release from jail is an embarrassment to the system. So Tango’s gotta make a decision between following orders or helping his friend. When he tells the bosses he won’t help them, they inform him they know he’s been stashing money from drug busts for the last four years. If Caz doesn’t go down, then Tango will.

My basic issue with Brooklyn’s Finest is that very little ever actually happens. After the exciting first scene, the next 30 pages are all character set-up. There’s no story weaved into it at all. It’s just scene after scene of the characters’ backstories or problems. And man, this script is abundant with one of the most basic screenwriting no-nos out there. Everybody sits around talking. We go from two people sitting around talking to another two people sitting around talking to three people sitting around talking. It’s like one giant poker game. Everyone just sits around and talks.

Eddie’s character is so damn depressing, he makes Mickey Rourke seem like Ryan Seacrest. And don’t get me started on Sal. We’re supposed to feel sympathy for this guy’s situation. But all I kept thinking was, “Dude, if you can barely support 2 kids, why the hell did you have 11??” I mean I can understand if you had 4. Maybe even 5. But 7?? 9??? You’d think at some point you’d be smart enough to say, “Hmm, maybe I can’t afford to have another kid.” So instead of sympathizing with him, I just thought he was an idiot.

Were there good things about Brooklyn’s Finest? Sure. Martin gets into the nitty gritty of police politics and brings to light a lot of the realities of being a cop in a system that doesn’t care about you (Even though a county cop’s job is a tenth as dangerous, their salary and benefits are twice as high as city cops). I also particularly liked the predicament Tango was in when he had to choose between his job and his friend. But these moments are a very small percentage of the total screenplay and for that reason, I was a very high percentage of bored.

Michael C. Martin is a great story and from that first picture, he looks like a really nice guy. But I couldn’t get into Brooklyn’s Finest.

Link: No link.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: “People sitting down and talking scenes” are the worst. Avoid them at all costs. No matter how good the dialogue is, it brings your story to a standstill. Try to have the conversations you need to have within the flow of the story. Be creative and stay kinetic. Keep your characters moving.

Early Edition – still editing.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: When Stan is given a one night “pass” from his fiance to have as much sex as he wants, all hell breaks loose.
About: Spec script that just sold Friday. Lionsgate picked it up. Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg (writers of Harold and Kumar 1, directors of Harold and Kumar 2) attached to direct.
Writer: Joshua Friedlander (draft dated July 6, 2009 – 115 pages)

What some of you might not know is that the spec market is disastrous right now. Absolutely nothing is selling. I think a month went by without a single spec sale. The studio coffers were closed. Laptops were shut down. Writers refused to subject their material to the harsh market. But then a script came along. A script by one Joshua Friedlander that gave writers across the globe hope again. And what was it that changed Hollywood’s mind? Why a script about a one-night stand of course. Makes sense when you think about it. The people in this town aren’t exactly relationship friendly. But was One Night Stan that good? Or did Hollywood just get bored and feel like they had to pull the trigger on something? There are only so many comic books you know. At some point you gotta buy original material.

Stan is a nice caring 20-something who’s lived a life full of long relationships. Yeah, he’s the friend in your group you call “Relationship Guy.” Stan loves being the relationship guy. The crazy confusing disease-ridden rock’em sock’em singles scene just doesn’t suit him. Stan is most happy when he’s sharing his life with a woman. And he’s about to marry the woman of his dreams, Julie. Julie is seemingly just like Stan – a responsible committed sweet person. They’re best friends with Russel and Marie, a former couple who still live together and Neal and Karin, a slightly older couple who own the video game company Stan works at. During a night of slightly excessive drinking, the dreaded “number” comes up. As in “the number of people you’ve slept with.” One by one people start revealing their numbers and when they get to Julie, we find out that she’s slept with over 30 guys. This is all sorts of news to Stan, who, no matter how hard he tries, can’t seem to get the number out of his head. Later on he presses her for details, and it only gets worse (or better – depending on your perspective).
[scrippet]
INT. STAN’S BMW – LATER

STAN
Before I answer, can we clear something up? I just wanna make sure that your number includes all your partners. That’s every guy. There’s not like an addendum to that list, of guys you just blew?

JULIE
No. Except with my first boyfriend, I’ve never been one to just fool around. I always go all the way. So that number is all the guys I’ve had intercourse with.

STAN
Okay.

JULIE
That number doesn’t include girls.

Stan looks like he might faint.

STAN
Here we go.

JULIE
Don’t freak out. I’ve only had one same sex experience.

STAN
You slept with one girl?

JULIE
It was one experience, but there were actually five of us that participated.

STAN
Five at once?!

JULIE
Yeah.

STAN
Five?! I’ve only been with four women! You’ve had sex with more women than I have!

JULIE
No. I’m included in the five. There were four others.

STAN
Oh, so you’ve had sex with as many women as I have! That makes me feel much better.

JULIE
It was all one night. A sorority thing. We were drunk, there were five of us that got together on a lark.

STAN
You had a lesbian orgy on a lark?
[/scrippet]

I don’t know why, but “girlfriends who just may be super-sluts” humor always makes me laugh. So I was onboard from the get-go. But “One Night Stan” still had to maneuver through some tricky waters as we have to buy into some iffy motivational logic. As Stan becomes increasingly self-conscious about his lack of sexual partners, Julie gets it in her head that he should sow his wild oats. So she offers him one night to go out and have as much sex as he can. Which technically wouldn’t be a “one night” stand. Because there are potentially multiple people involved in the night. That’s like a fraction-night stand isn’t it? Actually, that’s a good question. If you have sex with multiple people in one night, what “stand” is that? I’m confused. Anyway, Julie tells him to sleep with as many girls as he wants as long as it’s before sunrise tomorrow morning. Of course, as we men know, just because you’ve been given permission to have sex, doesn’t mean you’ll actually get any sex. Believe me, I wish I could use that line. “Hey, I’ve been given a free pass tonight. Will you have sex with me?” Please allow there to be a world where that works. Anyway, it’s in Stan’s desperate attempts to lay some pipe that the script takes off.

At first reluctant, his buddies convince him that this is the best thing that could ever happen to a man and if he doesn’t take advanage of it they’ll kill him. His very first opportunity is with a MILFish client of his video game company. Stan makes a tentative move on Milfy only to find out that this isn’t a MILF at all. It’s a TILF. As in “A transfender I’d like to fuck”. I don’t know how many of you have ever been out with a TILF before but it can be a bit of a shock to the system. Which Stan finds out firsthand as the TILF puts his hand on her penis. Ultimately Stan decides not to have sex with the Tilf. He then rushes back home to target the apartment complex slut. She agrees to have sex with him, but only if it can be a three-way…with another guy. Stan figures sex is sex and agrees, but when a third sword swashbuckles onto the ship, Stan figures enough is enough. Next is a trip to the local club with his buddies where they find the trashiest girl on the dance floor (a self-proclaimed nymphomaniac). She needs to have sex *all the time* so they go back to her trailer. Just as they’re about to have sex, Stan notices her two children staring up at them. He figures children watching mommy have sex isn’t cool and leaves. Next up is my favorite sequence of the script, “Book Club Girl”. His friends convince him that there are tons of sluts at the bookstore so he goes there only to stumble into a weird book club. He immediately begins chatting up a really cute girl. But the girl is acting strange and keeps asking him what his favorite book is. When she’s 100% clear that his favorite book is also her favorite book, she takes him home. It is there that Stan learns that the book was actually code for a particularly…specific sex act. If stuff like this really happens, you won’t catch me at Barnes and Noble anytime soon. When all hope is lost, what’s left to do? Hire a hooker of course. Needless to say, that doesn’t go according to plan either.

In the meantime, Julie starts having doubts about whether she did the right thing. This leads to a total meltdown where she questions whether she’s really over her one true love. So while Stan’s out there desperately trying to get laid, Julie pays a visit to her old boyfriend to get closure. As sunrise nears, both are in danger of cheating on the person they love, and this seemingly smart decision by Julie very well might end their relationship forever (she should’ve consulted me. Letting your boyfriend bang other women tends to have negative effects on a relationship).

Here’s my problem with One Night Stan. It’s really hard to buy into the premise. I talk about this in a review I did for another script called “Permission.” I simply don’t know anybody in my life who would allow someone they loved to have a one night stand with someone else. Do you? I understand this is a movie but there has to be some level of reality here, right? But what compounds the problem is that Stan doesn’t really want to cheat on Julie. So now you have a situation that’s hard to buy with a character that doesn’t want to do it. The motivation for him to cheat is…what? So I had a hard time getting over that setup.

But once you do get past it, One Night Stan is hilarious. Friedlander’s got the funny going on all cylinders here. I can’t tell you how many times I laughed. The whole Book Club sequence has “classic scene” written all over it. And the cool thing about “Stan” is that we haven’t seen any of these situations before. So many writers take a concept like this and basically recreate their favorite movie from top to bottom. All of the humor here felt fresh and original, which is I’m sure why “Stan” stood out from all the other contenders that crashed and burned in their attempts to land a sale this month.

Anyway, if they can somehow fix those two structural problems, I heartily endorse this jumping onto the big screen.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Break rules. Even the ones I tell you not to! You may have noticed that this script was 116 pages. That goes against a rule I just touted only days ago. That comedy specs should be under 110 pages. Just goes to show that I’m not always right (it’s rare – but it happens) and that every rule can be broken. I actually encourage breaking a couple of rules in each screenplay. Just don’t go breaking all of them. Pick and choose – and make sure there’s a reason behind your disobedient ways. Rule breaking tends to work a lot better when the writer knows why they’re breaking the rules.