Yesterday things got ugly. But you know what the great thing about this industry is? When you pay for a movie and it sucks, you’ve earned the right to complain about it. But today, we’re going to journey to the happier side of Hollywoodland as we celebrate the films that achieved the rare feat of doing more right than wrong. And since these lists are always asterisk-ridden, I should preface this with mine. I haven’t seen The Hateful Eight (going to see it in 70mm when I get a shot). I haven’t seen Spotlight (bored to tears by the script). And I haven’t yet seen Sicario or Joy (both of which I’m dying to see). There’s a chance one or two of these would’ve made the list had I seen them. With that in mind, let’s begin!

10) The Revenant – I will never see this movie again. Actually, I don’t even know if I can call this a movie. Over time, audiences have become hip to the plot beats that dictate a story. When the score dips and the close-up comes, and the plot machinations start getting spouted – we’re very hip to how all that works. And in a way, it’s comforting, that we’re being led along so politely. But there is no moment like that in The Revenant. Every remnant of plot is stripped away to give us the impression that we’re really out here in the middle of nowhere with these men. Conversations are left dangling, characters break into random thoughts, a fucking bear could attack you at any moment. This movie is anti-structure, and it works because Innaritu is such an amazing visionary. My only complaint is that it’s too brutal, too real at times. And after awhile you start to wonder if the experience is worth it. But there’s no doubt that you’ll never forget this film as long as you live. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime movie.

9) Beasts of No Nation – “Beasts” gets my vote for “biggest surprise” of the year. I expected to be bored out of my mind with this one. It looked way more like a history lesson than a piece of entertainment. For those of you who’ve assumed the same, I challenge you to watch the first ten minutes of the film. It’s a wholly original and beautiful little sequence where a group of poor kids use a stripped-down television to put on made-up shows in an attempt to “fool” the local militia into buying the TV. I’ve never fallen in love with characters faster. Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, said of “Beasts,” “This wasn’t a film that was audience tested.” And you can feel that. This is a movie where they trusted the writer and director. It gives you hope that outlets like Netflix will change the way movies are made, maybe ushering in a new killer director class who rebel against Hollywood oversight.

8) Inside Out – Pixar continues to achieve this amazing feat. They manage to build their story around heart, yet never devolve into the cheesy over-the-top after school special version of heart that is so commonly seen from everyone else. And the way they do this is by balancing the heart with darkness. You see it in Toy Story 3 (the toys are being left behind forever). You see it in Up (the first ten minutes sets up a man losing the love of his life) and you see it here in Inside Out… pretty much everywhere. Having to say goodbye to your childhood, to your imaginary friend forever? A young girl battling a mix of anger and depression. Tally that on to the most original Pixar premise to date, and there’s no question why this has become one of the best movies of the year.

7) It Follows – It Follows was this year’s number one victim of post-celebratory internet backlash. I do think It Follows starts to fall apart a bit once you begin dissecting its screenplay. Regardless of that, this is a “Best Movies of the Year” list. Not a “Best Screenplays of the Year” list. And there’s no question that director David Robert Mitchell is a true auteur. His haunting 360 degree snail’s pace pans were the perfect call for a film where anybody could’ve been the next follower. Not to mention, Mitchell could introduce a character using only music and imagery and have you feel like you’d known them your whole life. I read scripts every week that can’t establish a clear character after giving them a six page monologue. This guy is doing it with a girl wearing a cast in a backyard swimming pool. It Follows is a messy film, but it’s messy in all the right ways. A lot like The Revenant, there are no overt plot beats being dictated to the audience. Everything’s seamless and natural. And that’s what makes this film feel unlike anything else you’ve seen in 2015.

6) Steve Jobs – Boy do I get some extreme reactions on this one. One person will tell me they absolutely loved Steve Jobs. The next is threatening to find every print of the movie and dump them in the nearest volcano. Here’s the reality of the situation. Steve Jobs is a very screenwriterly-like script. It’s overtly structured. It’s dialogue heavy. The visuals of this world are non-existent so that all the focus can be on the characters. And that artificiality turned a lot of people off. But to me, I thought Michael Fassbender’s performance was amazing. He really brought Jobs to life. And I love how Sorkin found a way to infuse a personal slant to it all, with Steve’s imperfect relationship with his daughter. I thought that was genius and the key to the movie working. But this will always be one of those movies that Hollywood people go see and the average Joe is confounded by. Which I totally understand. But since I’m in the former category, I loved it.

5) The Martian – Ridley Scott, you’re my hero. This movie was both a cinematic and screenwriting feat. There were so many interesting challenges with the script (how do you keep things urgent with a 4 year timeline?) and Drew Goddard conquered them all. I also loved the rags-to-riches story of the writer, Andy Weir, who wrote the original novel and released it for free! Only to have it gain recognition on quality alone before becoming a national bestseller. How could you not root for this film to do well? The only issue I have with The Martian is one that’s come with time. Matt Damon’s performance wasn’t that memorable. I mean when you compare him to Tom Hanks in Cast Away, it’s like a minnow swimming in the shadow of a shark. And that minnow just got speared by a bearded bad-ass Tom Hanks. But he does a good enough job to sell what needs to be sold, and other than a certain awakening that involves a certain force, this is the must-see “event” movie of the year.

4) The Force Awakens – What??? Carson, you’re not making The Force Awakens number 1? I thought you looooovvvved it. Calm down, calm down. I still love this movie. But I’m not saying it doesn’t have flaws. It’s clear to anyone who watches the movie that the screenplay was written too fast, and we see the results of that. Han Solo’s been looking for his ship for 12 years and just happens to bump into it the second our characters fly it off their planet? And since when does Han Freaking Solo lose the Millennium Falcon?? But even with its flaws, The Force Awakens is, without question, the most enjoyable movie of the year. It’s just so darn fun! Let me give you an idea of how big of an impact this film has had on people. I’m a closet sports geek and I spend a little too much time listening to sports talk radio podcasts. In every one of these podcasts I’ve listened to, these big macho sports dudes have dedicated segments to reviewing Star Wars. Which have nothing to do with sports at all! And they all loved it! In a world with hundreds of channels and thousands of TV shows and billions of websites, there’s no such thing anymore as a movie that captures the entire nation’s attention. And yet The Force Awakens did it. Praise J.J.

3) Fury Road – If Force Awkaens was non-stop joy, Fury Road was non-stop awe. Who even attempts to make a film with a 100 minute car chase that contains 100 cars? George Miller, have you gone insane? Have you been around too many pigs and penguins? To me, Fury Road is the best action movie ever. Usually you can point to one cool original action sequence in a movie. Here, there are a dozen. The amount of creativity and imagination and originality and pushing the limit that went into this film is just staggering. My only issue with it is the lack of chemistry between Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron. There was something missing between those two that stripped the movie of that “personal” connection that a film like Steve Jobs was able to find. That kept this from being the number 1 film of the year.

2) Wild Tales – This was the most delightful surprise of the year. It’s so rare for me to go into a movie not knowing anything, even what language it’s in, and that movie turn out to be great. What’s so surprising about this film, which is actually a series of short films, is that each story is so good. Usually with these things, someone has a good idea for a short, and then they try to come up with several other ideas to stretch the thing out to feature-length. I dare you to watch this film and not fall in love with every single short. The first one, which occurs on an airplane where something very strange starts happening to all the passengers, is so weird and so wild, you immediately know you’re about to experience something different. And then you get the road rage short, and the poison short. It’s so good, guys. I’m wanting to talk about this but not spoil it in the process so I’ll just say, go rent this movie. It’s not just a great film, but a great study in how to use suspense and mystery in your screenplays.

1) Room – There was no question after I came out of Room that it would be my favorite film of the year. I have not seen better acting… maybe ever. There is something so real, so honest about this movie, that it isn’t a movie. It’s reality. It’s us in this room with this mother and child. The clincher for me (spoilers) was the moment the child who has never been to the outside world, must escape into the outside world and get help to save himself and his mom. Everything about it, from the decision the mom makes to potentially sacrifice her son – the only thing in this world she loves – to have a chance at escaping. To trying to explain to a 6 year old child who’s never been outdoors before what he will need to do once he’s outdoors in order to save them. To the child only knowing this little room and therefore not even wanting to escape. To the clumsy nerve-wracking edge-of-your-seat escape itself. I mean that escape is better than any action scene I saw in Mission Impossible, Furious 7, James Bond, or Star Wars. It was so raw and so infused with love and depth and complexity, it was everything that movies are supposed to make you feel. If Brie Larson doesn’t win the Oscar for her performance her, fuck movies. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the kid is in the running for an Oscar as well.

Either Tomorrow or Thursday – My Favorite Amateur Scripts of the Year!

What you see above? That is all I want for Christmas. I’m serious. If you want to thank me for any help on the screenwriting front, bless me with that sugar parade. That is all the thanks I need. I just want to mash that thing in my face. Like rub the chocolate all over my forehead and then stuff it in my mouth. Then wrap the second cup up and hide it like a squirrel for later. Wait until the family is asleep and then sneak in another face-mashing session. Okay, now this is just getting weird. But the 2 pound reeses is not weird. It is wonderful. And I wish a merry Christmas to whomever eats one. Or two. Or three.

Title: Weep, Crave, Loathe
Genre: Comedy
Logline: Three socially impaired women, who think they have superpowers during PMS, believe they must find the remedy to menopause or risk losing their powers forever.
Why You Should Read: This is my attempt at a superhero script where there are no actual superpowers. It’s just three women who make some questionable choices because of issues with self-perception. It’s meant to be farcical fun so the humor tends towards sophomoric and crude. Curious what you think.
Thanks ahead of time if you take a look.

Title: Throw Away Love
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A disillusioned trophy wife has an affair with a photographer, unaware that he’s a serial killer.
Why You Should Read: I refined the logline in the comments section during the Thanksgiving Holiday. I got great feedback and now I’m hoping to get some more great feedback on the rest of the script. This script takes inspiration from films like “Body Heat”, “Unfaithful”, “Blood Simple”, and “Fatal Attraction”. I decided to write a Thriller because it’s a sell-able genre. “Throw Away Love” is the first script I’ve written since discovering Scriptshadow. From the initial idea, all the way to this current draft, I’ve made a concentrated effort to incorporate many of the tips from this site. I’m really excited to see how I’ve grown as a writer since discovering this site and its community.

Title: Recon
Genre: Action/Sci-fi
Logline: An Alien invasion seen through the eyes and the perspective of an Alien soldier. [Cloverfield meets Independence Day]
Why You Should Read: Well, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d spend the majority of the day splurging on a bunch’a nonsense that I’ve always dreamed of having… and then come home and type “FADE IN”. So yes, my name is Landon Collins and I’m an aspiring scribe [“Hiiii, Landon”]. Twice placed in the Nicholl Fellowships including 2015 as a Quarterfinalist. “RECON” is not my Nicholl script, but instead, it’s my latest script that’s been toiling in the back of my mind for about 5 years, and I just now gathered the testicular fortitude to hash it out this year. Not since my first couple of scripts a decade ago have I had as much fun writing and I hope you have at least half as much fun reading it.

Title: For Your Eyes Only
Genre: Espionage thriller
Logline: James Bond undertakes an unofficial mission of revenge in the first true adaptation of Ian Fleming’s story since it entered the public domain
Why You Should Read: I’m sending this script in response to your recent post (Increase Your Chances of Selling a Screenplay 100-fold). The public domain is fascinating, if tricky, place to play, with opportunities and potholes in equal measure. I’m hoping to get through without breaking an axel. In short: on January 1, 2015, Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels entered the public domain in Canada (and in numerous other territories worldwide, including the mega-market of China). I saw an opportunity, and wrote a feature screenplay based on Fleming’s short story For Your Eyes Only. The script presents a fully realized James Bond (no, it’s not another origin story, because who needs that?) at a crucial turning point in his life and follows him through an adventure that sets up a proposed four-film series — along with a potential spin-off series and cross-media tie-in content, both adapted and original. So yes, I’m thinking big here. — I think this could be an interesting case-in-point for your argument (or a cautionary tale, depending on how things work out). I had to contend with exactly what you describe in your article: how to tell a familiar story in a fresh way; how to breath new life into a character everyone knows; how to simultaneously meet and thwart expectations. Even if it never gets produced, this was one of the most educational screenplays I’ve ever written. (I have six produce features under my belt thus far, all very indie; this, if it got made, would be a whole new phase of my career.) — I’m pretty happy with the script now, but I don’t bruise easily, so I’m open for some honest criticism. (Btw, my choice for Bond: Cillian Murphy.)

Carson, you made a mistake.

You passed over this script for the 250. I understand these things happen, but lemme help correct that and show you my chops.

I’m a Chicago man like yourself and you picked my twin brother’s script for the 250 and amateur offerings and now he has a big head and is giving me shit. Among brothers, this cannot stand.

Here’s my submission:

Title: Team Deathmatch
Genre: Comedy
Logline: When a crusty workaholic gets canned for an office meltdown, he must work together with his burnout son to win a million dollar video game competition and save their house from foreclosure.
Why You Should Read:

Because I wanna make you feel good.

Yeah…

That’s right.

But sadly, I can’t touch you. So let my script touch you… in the best way possible… and make you feel good.

E-sports (video games in non-douchey terms) is an untapped subculture ripe for parody. And these people go to the movies for R-rated comedies. Nice.

On top of that… day jobs can suck. So who can’t get behind a protagonist leaving his/her work-a-day life for a shot rarified glory, financial security, and more time with his/her family? That’s what this story is about.

But don’t all movies remotely tied to video games end up as catastrophic failures? Well… yeah. But this ain’t them. NOBODY has approached the video game subculture from this angle. Games, particularly ‘e-sports’, are GROWING in popularity. They aren’t going away and somebody’s gonna get it right. Eventually. Maybe now?

So spend some time with me, yeah? I’ll make it worth your while.

Can the latest James Bond script win over a skeptical reviewer? Or will it be a spectretacular disaster?

Genre: Action
Premise: Bond goes off on a personal mission to find an elusive character known as The Pale King, only to stumble upon a secret organization known as “Spectre.”
About: What a strange place the Bond franchise finds itself in. It is healthier than Uber’s stock price, making billions of dollars every time it hits the streets, yet the debate over whether its current star, Daniel Craig, is a worthy James Bond or not seems as heated as ever. And let’s not forget that Craig regularly takes pot-shots at the franchise, the only films, mind you, that anyone seems to care about him in. Despite this, less than a month ago, he stated he’d rather kill himself than do another Bond film (although some people have implied this is a negotiating tactic). Then there’s this strange underground movement to make the next James Bond black. If he’s black, great, if he’s not, great too. I don’t know why we HAVE to have a black James Bond though. Why can’t he be Native American? Point being, there’s always so much drama over this character. It’s bizarre. Spectre is written by John Logan, who burst onto the scene in 1999 with his spec script, Any Given Sunday. It’s been rewritten by longtime Bond collaborators Neal Purvis & Robert Wade. And when I say “longtime,” I mean “longtime.” These guys go all the way back to Tomorrow Never Dies, which I’m pretty sure starred Roger Moore. Spectre comes out in early Novemeber!
Writers: John Logan (revised by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade)
Details: October 17, 2014 – 129 pages – shooting script

I usually start a Bond review with my typical Bond spiel, about how I don’t quite get the franchise, about how I loved the opening sequences as a kid, about how I always got a kick out of the villains, but other than that, the movies always seemed like an excuse for set pieces, extravagant locations, and giant spectacle to me. And while I suppose you can make that argument for any Hollywood movie, the reason Bond bothers me so much is because it’s always had the potential to be so much more. And yet it seems content with being just enough.

It appears they’ve tried to repair this in the Daniel Craig years, yet I’m not sure they have. The character is more debonair. The mood is weightier. The cinematography is slicker. But the scripts still feel like a patchwork of transitions to get us from one extravagant locale to the next. I wish they would approach Bond from a “story-first” perspective so we could get something that we’d enjoy in multiple viewings, and not just on the buzz-heavy opening weekend. I’m not holding my breath, seeing as they’re going with the same old writers again. But a man can dream, can’t he?

Spectre starts out in Mexico during the “Day of the Dead,” which as you’ve likely seen in the promotional material is that thing where everybody dresses up like a spooky skeleton, including, in this case, James Bond himself.

Bond is going after some guy that “M” (killed in the last film) told Bond he must kill via a post-mortem video message. Even in death, M’s still giving orders. So after knocking down a few martinis, as well as a few buildings (no seriously, Bond knocks down a few buildings), Bond kills this guy, and subsequently learns about an elusive figure known as, “The Pale King.”

Back at home base, Bond’s agency, MI-6, is combining with agency, MI-5, and the new dual-agency director, “C,” wants to make MI-11 surveillance-postiive. He’s got cameras in every nook and cranny of the building. His mantra is, “What does anybody have to hide?” Uhh, it’s an agency of SPIES! So I’m thinking, a lot.

Bond doesn’t like C, C doesn’t like D, and EFGHILMNOP. Bond’s got his own alphabet to worry about anyway. He heads to Rome to find out more about this Pale King fellow, and runs into the Mexico Guy’s wife that he killed. He quickly beds her (no seriously, he uses the line, “I killed your husband,” and three minutes later they’re making out. I wish I was James Bond. Sigh.), and learns that the key to finding The Pale King is talking to Bond’s old nemesis, Mr. White. Mr. White. Pale King. No wonder they don’t want a black James Bond!

In classic Bond fashion, it starts to become unclear what’s going on after page 70. Bond, for whatever reason, ditches his pursuit of The Pale King and instead heads off to find Mr. White’s hot daughter, Madeline (hanging out in the beautiful snow-tipped alps of Austria, of course). Madeline, who has a really bad daddy complex, starts taking out (and making out) her frustrations on Bond.

The two go on a quest to find something Mr. White was hiding. I don’t know why everybody in this world feels the need to give Bond a mysterious adventure to go on instead of just, you know, TELLING HIM WHAT TO GET. So instead of saying, “Here’s what you need,” they say, “Locate L’American. It is there where you will find your answers.”

Uhhh, okay. But wouldn’t it just be easier if you told me the answer in the first place?

Meanwhile, back at MI-11, C has used his new surveillance technology to snoop on Bond’s rogue mission. He wants to stop him, but instead gets distracted by his current obsession, a super-agency that links up the 9 biggest agencies in the world. If these then join MI-11, we’d have MI-20. And that’s an equation I don’t even think Will Hunting could solve. How do you like them apples? There’s something about using this new cross-agency-surveillance to defeat terrorism, but as you might guess, it’s the agency itself that becomes the terrorist. Or maybe not. Or maybe.

Okay so now that we’ve established how I think all James Bond movies are the same, let’s talk about the one thing that makes them different. Because the truth is, the makers of this franchise know they’re giving you the same meal over and over again. So they need one fresh ingredient, one unique attribute that allows them to say, “Something here is not like the others.”

Any ideas on what that might be?

It’s theme. Each James Bond film comes with a new theme to explore. And the trick they use to find their theme is simple. It’s one you can use yourself for your own screenplays. Identify a current issue in the world. That’s right. The Bond writers find the most pressing issue we’re dealing with every three years and build their movie around that.

So what’s this movie’s theme? It’s surveillance. We are all being watched. Everyone. And we know we’re being watched. James Bond is trying to appeal to as big of an audience as possible, so they choose as big and current of a theme as possible.

Now you may be saying, “Hey, that doesn’t sound so hard. I can do that.” But before you head over to Final Draft, I want to teach you a lesson about integrating theme, and it’s a lesson I’ve learned only recently. Ready? Grand generalizations about whatever theme you’re pushing are worthless. If James Bond drives past a random protest where people are saying, “We don’t like being watched!” it doesn’t push the theme of surveillance in a way that affects the audience.

The only way a theme resonates is if you incorporate it into the plot in a way that directly affects the main character. Then, and only then, do we feel your theme. Spectre does this numerous times but the most obvious example is that MI-6 (Bond’s agency) is combining with MI-5, and the new combined agency director, “C,” incorporates surveillance into the fabric of the agency. Bond can barely walk anywhere in the agency, do anything, talk to anyone, without a camera staring at him. So he is being DIRECTLY AFFECTED by the theme. That’s how you pull theme off, folks.

As for the rest of the script, I can’t say I loved it. The Bond scripts always seem to have this dry rhythm to them that follows the same pattern. Bond is told of a person or thing, so he must go to another country to find said person or thing. He goes there and finds the person or thing, only to be told that he actually needs to find something else in another country. So he goes to this other country where he finds his “something else” only to be told that there is someone who can answer his questions in another country. So he goes to this other country to find this person…etc…etc.

There isn’t a whole lot of skill in that other than coming up with cool-sounding names for what Bond must find (The Pale King, Mr. White, L’American, Spectre). You may as well call these things “A, B, C, and D” though. That’s how basic this practice is. It’s this very transparency that keeps me from warming up to these films.

I suppose it can be argued that the typical audience member is too caught up in the fun locations and set pieces to notice or care about this. Joe Moviegoer has a much higher tolerance for artificiality than Jack Hollywood. I get that. But after seeing the awesome “Martian,” and watching how they mixed that story up and kept you guessing, it reminded me of what’s possible. This mechanically written script reminded me of what happens when you follow the most basic boring plotting practice available to screenwriters:

Hero finds A, is told he must find B
Hero finds B, is told he must find C
Hero finds C, is told he must find D
Hero finds D, is told he must find E.

I really struggle with why people love these films so much. They seem so boring and obvious to me. Is it the wish-fulfillment factor? That Bond is like a God and we all want to be like him? I can’t even get on board with that, as I find him kind of cheesy. In an industry where we have multiple action-franchises doing the global fox-trot (Fast and Furious, Mission Impossible, Bourne), are even the locales that much of a drawing point anymore? What separates this franchise? What makes it unique anymore? Help me out here!

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

What I learned: There are two ways to introduce theme into your story – direct and indirect. Indirect would be something that occurs in the background and doesn’t affect your hero. So if my theme was about how one-percenters ruled the world and the rest of the 99 percent were fucked, an indirect treatment of that theme may be to show a line of random poor people around the block at the local unemployment office. This conveys my theme, but it does so indirectly, as I the audience member don’t know any of these people. A direct treatment of that same theme would be to have my main character be one of the people in line. You are now expressing your theme DIRECTLY through your main character, who we can see is poor and needs assistance. Put a premium on direct theme. That’s where it will resonate the most.

Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Horror-Thriller
Premise (from writer): A career con-man with a terminal illness gets a last chance at survival and redemption when the CIA tap him to help locate an old associate thought to be the source of a zombie pandemic.
Why You Should Read (from writer): As for me, I’m a Chicago-based amateur screenwriter focused on features and pilots and like everybody, looking for representation. I’m also looking to learn and improve as much as I can with each script. “Born to Die,” is a horror crime-thriller in the vein of “28 Days Later” meets “Zero Dark Thirty.” (i.e. Zero Dark Zombie) The zombie genre is well-trodden territory but what my story aims to do is focus on character, spine-tingling thrills, and thoughtful twists to create a unique take on why audiences find these films terrifying and compelling. It blends the horror and crime-thriller genre with the goal of creating an intelligent, thrilling, and terrifying script with a unique voice.
Writer: Kyle Piereth
Details: 98 pages

Aaron Paul needs a franchise. Why not this one??

On a day when we find out we have Dyson Sphere building galactic neighbors, it’s hard to concentrate on screenwriting.

And no, I’m not being cheeky. People are more distracted than ever these days. They’re one Twitter link away from reading the next hot story, the next “liked” selfie. So what are you bringing to the table to make sure they stay focused on your script?

Surely, if you’ve chosen to answer that question with “A zombie flick,” you’ve come up with a mind-blowing twist on the genre, right? Or a premise so clever and ironic that people can’t ignore it?

You remember a few years back when that amazing Dead Island trailer went viral? Do you know why it went viral? Sure, the backwards gimmick was cool. But a big part of its success was the irony in the premise. The story took place in paradise. That the most disgusting vile creatures imaginable would invade the safest most beautiful place on earth is deliciously ironic. That trailer doesn’t play the same if it takes place in an industrial shipping yard.

Or World War Z. It offered us an angle into the zombie quandary that we hadn’t seen before. They turned the zombie genre into a globe-trotting action film, almost like if James Bond did a zombie movie.

I think that Born to Die WANTS to be different. And that was Kyle’s intention. But I’m not sure his take is as different as he thinks it is. What did you think?

Frank Nyland is weeks, maybe even days, away from dying of cancer. And what sucks is it’s going to happen in a prison cell. Poor Frank is a thief, a con-man, and they finally caught him with his hands in the cookie jar.

What’s interesting is what turned up in that cookie jar. I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t cookies. Apparently, Frank was brokering a hundred million dollar deal with the biggest doctor on the planet, an underground legend named Henrik Salonen, who is the only man capable of performing the surgery that can save Frank’s life.

But Frank had to get some blood on his hands to make this happen, and that’s how the CIA caught him. Speaking of the CIA, a spunky young CIA case officer named Taylor Pike comes to Frank’s cell to get the 4-1-1 on his failed operation, in part because the CIA is after Salonen as well, albeit for different reasons entirely.

Salonen has just released a contagion into a bunch of cities and it’s turning everyone into freaking zombies! And, oh yeah, as fate would have it, the contagion has reached Frank’s prison, turning guards and inmates alike into arm-waving zombified psychopaths. As if normal zombies weren’t bad enough. Now we have to deal with the psychopath version!

Taylor and Frank are able to escape, only for Taylor to realize she’s been bitten. It now becomes a race to find the elusive Salonen so he can save both of them before time runs out. But when they do reach Salonen, they realize he works for a man who’s much worse than he is, a man that has terrifying plans for the world.

First off, I want to give props to Kyle for some of the most enjoyable character names I’ve read all year. Henrik Salonen. Corsan Pious. Emil Gorya. If screenplays had budgets, 75% of Kyle’s budget would’ve gone to his character names.

I wish I could say I was as excited about the story. There’s clearly SOMETHING here. However, it’s one of those scripts that reads like it’s driving through a haze. I sort of knew what was going on. But I also had a bunch of questions while I was reading. And I couldn’t tell if these questions were by design, or if they existed due to sloppy writing.

For example, I watched inmates get bitten and turn into zombies within three seconds. Yet a key storyline is Taylor getting bitten and us spending the next 48 hours trying to get to Salonen so he could save her. How is it other people turn in three seconds but she turns in two days?

I hate when writers fudge the rules, especially in the zombie genre, where the rules have been clearly established over time. It’s fine if you want to change things up, like they do in, say, 28 Days Later, but you have to make those changes CLEAR. If you try to slip one by us and hope we don’t notice, we’re going to get pissed. And the issue with this violation is that it didn’t just affect one scene. It affected the ENTIRE MOVIE. It didn’t matter if it was page 30 or page 80, I was still asking, “Wait, why hasn’t she turned into a zombie yet?”

Then there was Frank’s criminal background. Not only was I reluctant to accept that a con-man was the best choice for a zombie film protagonist (where’s the irony? The cleverness? It seemed so random, like the profession was picked out of a hat), but I also had trouble understanding what led to Frank being arrested.

In my best estimation, he’d stolen from/conned some people out of 100 million dollars and was in the process of brokering a deal (through intermediaries?) to use that 100 million to have this amazing doctor, Henrik Salonen, save his life. That deal went south after he decided to kill one of his own (a character confusingly named “Wednesday”), possibly because that contact was screwing him over.

But how or why this led Henrik to release a zombie virus onto the world is beyond me. Was that a coincidence? Was it bad timing that Frank was trying to get his terminal cancer fixed on the day his doctor decided to release the very first zombie virus onto the planet? Or were these things connected somehow? The fact that I could never determine that was frustrating.

I’m going to go back to something I talked about in my review of The Martian. You want to use CLEAN LINES when you’re plotting your story. Matt Damon needed to survive until he could be rescued. I understood that. It was CLEAN. Here, Frank is trying to reach Henrik Salonen so he’ll save him, which was a clean line. But then the questions came. How is this man, a reclusive weirdo, the only one who can cure his cancer? And why is he trying to destroy the world? And who’s Wednesday? And who are these mercenaries? And whose boat are we trying to steal? It seemed like with every scene, the answers to these questions became less clear, not more.

I can’t enjoy a story if I’m only clear on what’s going on 60-70% of the time. That other 30% is the haze I was referring to earlier. I SORT OF understood what was happening, but not enough to appreciate the nuanced mystery Kyle had promised in his WYSR.

All of these things are why the script didn’t work for me. We weren’t approaching the zombie genre from a fresh enough angle. We were placed in zombie locations that were far too familiar (a prison). The main character’s profession felt too random. And the plot lines got murkier as the script went on.

If Kyle wants to write a zombie film, especially in this ultra-competitive, everyone-and-their-sister-has-a-zombie-script market, he needs to come up with something truly different and then go from there. And be clearer about plot points. I understand that there are some mystery components to the story, but the irony is, the mysteries need to be clear. If I don’t know why we need to kill Wednesday, then I can’t participate in the suspense and excitement involved when Frank tries to kill him. Ditto the mercenaries. Ditto half-a-dozen things that had to do with Salonen.

Screenplay link: Born to Die

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

What I learned: Plot point clarity. Your plot points are the “clarity checkpoints” of your screenplay – they are the plot developments that scream out at your audience: “THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENING!” Remember when Luke, Obi-Wan, and Han showed up to Alderran only to find it blown to pieces and a giant space station in its place? The three of them speak very clearly on what they believe has happened. It’s a “CLEAN LINE” plot point. If the writer isn’t able to convey his plot points in a clear manner, the reader will start to enter a haze. And while one mistake still allows us to see through the haze, two or three could turn that haze into a fog. And that’s when the reader stops caring about your story. The stuff with Wednesday (give him another name!) and the mercenaries and the reasons behind the terrorist attacks weren’t laid out clearly enough for me, which is ultimately why I tuned out.

Last week I went all doom and gloom on you guys, giving you the ten specs-turned-movies that have placed us smack dab in the middle of a spec sale wasteland.

And I get it. Buying specs is a speculative business. A spec hasn’t proven itself to be successful in any other medium. So it makes sense, then, that picking a winner would be tough.

But as I’ve always maintained, the movie business is cyclical. Tastes change. Strategies change. There was a time in town when if you weren’t making a Western, there was something wrong with you. Try to push a Western through the system now and see what happens.

So the spec will have its day in the sun again. We just need a few spec hits to bolster the confidence of the execs making the decisions. And it will be up to you guys to provide those ideas. And to get you motivated, I’m giving you ten spec screenplays hitting theaters over the next couple of years that could change our fortunes.

A few of these movies will have to WAY over-perform and they’ll have to do so in close proximity to one another (Hollywood tends not to change unless it’s shocked into doing so). But if you show them that there’s money they’re leaving on the table? You’re damn skippy they’ll start buying specs again.

So with that in mind, here are those ten scripts, ranked in importance from lowest to highest. May every one of them make the box office their bitch!

10) The Last Witch Hunter (not reviewed)
Writer: Cory Goodman
Logline: (from IMDB) – The last witch hunter is all that stands between humanity and the combined forces of the most horrifying witches in history.
The Skinny: Getting a handle on this film is a little like trying to stab a peanut with a fork. No matter how many times you try spearing the thing, it keeps slipping away. It looks like they’re hoping for an Underworld like franchise here, but the Lionsgate angle has me worried. In the past, they’ve buried their genre ideas under a lot of murky CGI and dark shadows (i.e. Priest). The trailers for Witch Hunter look pretty good though. I’m hoping Lionsgate is taking some of that Hunger Games money and investing it back in their product. We shall see.

9) Burnt
Writer: Steven Knight
Logline: A selfish workaholic chef tries to get back into the restaurant game after a much publicized meltdown years ago.
The Skinny: For those who have been following Scriptshadow from the beginning, you know this project as, “Untitled Chef Project.” It’s a great freaking script but has had a lot of directors and actors attached to it before finally grabbing Bradley Cooper and getting a green light. This would seemingly be a good thing, as Cooper is one of the top 5 biggest actors working today. But what made this script so good was how dark the main character was. I like Cooper but I’m not yet convinced he can go to those places. My fear is that they play this more like a traditional romantic comedy, and that would be death for the project. You have to stay true to what made the material stand out in the first place.

8) In the Deep (reviewed in the Scriptshadow newsletter – sign up!)
Writer: Tony Jaswinski
Logline: When a young woman goes surfing by herself in a remote location, she finds herself being stalked by a shark.
The Skinny: This is one of the higher profile spec sales of the last couple of years. And since people freaking love sharks, this movie will definitely find an audience. The question is, how big will that audience be? This isn’t a sprawling story involving an entire town, a la Jaws, but rather one day with one woman who spends large swaths of time clutching a buoy. It’s decidedly more contained. Then again, a little movie called Gravity was about a single woman stuck alone in space.

7) Holland, Michigan
Writer: Andrew Sodroski
Logline: A Midwestern wife/schoolteacher begins to suspect that her husband’s cheating on her, so enlists the help of a fellow teacher she’s developed feelings for to catch him in the act. What she finds instead will change her life forever.
The Skinny: Audiences seem to love serial killers, despite how disturbing the thought of that is. In this top-ranked Black List script, Bryan Cranston plays our husband. Now before you roll your eyes and think this is yet another “Look at me, I can play a convincing serial killer” actor vanity project, know that this is one of the more original screenplays I’ve read. It’s dictated by mood and unpredictability and a story that constantly keeps you guessing. The wild card here is director Errol Morris, who’s found fame mainly through documentaries. But if he can bring the cinematic vision he brought to his breakout doc, The Thin Blue Line, there’s a very good chance this movie could be awesome.

6) American Ultra
Writer: Max Landis
Logline: A psychologically damaged slacker living in a small town with his girlfriend, soon finds that the CIA is trying to kill him for reasons unknown.
The Skinny: Say what you will about the Maxter and his narcissistic online rants, but the guy’s sold a ton of scripts. And he has a talent for finding marketable pockets in the Hollywood system that haven’t been exploited yet. This take on a Jason Bourne like story where the main character is a stoner is a fresh perspective that we haven’t seen yet. True, I didn’t love the script, but a big reason for that is I’m not into pot humor. And my friends who ARE into pot humor are telling me this looks hilarious. If Jesse Eisenberg can bring what he brought to Zombieland, American Ultra could be the sleeper hit the spec market needs. And that’ll keep the Landis Experiment going!

5) Sicario
Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Logline: A female FBI agent is dragged into an undercover operation to take down one of the biggest drug tunnels in Mexico.
The Skinny: A lot of people are calling Denis Villeneuve the closest thing we’ll get to the next David Fincher. And you can already feel that. When Denis attaches himself to a project, everybody notices. This is great news for us spec screenwriters. Because even though I really liked Sicario, a part of me said, this could just be another run-of-the-mill border drama. Then I saw the trailer for the film and said, “Holy Shit.” This is a contender. Which is probably why they’re opening the movie this fall, right in that sweet spot where the Academy starts paying attention.

4) Bob the Musical
Writer: Multiple
Logline: When a buttoned-up company man is involved in an accident, the world around him becomes one giant musical number.
The Skinny: This project has been around for so long, I don’t even know who first wrote it. But it recently signed Tom Cruise up for the lead, which means we’re finally going to see the film. I may not have loved Rogue Nation, but like Will Smith and Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise (All You Need is Kill, Oblivion) is one of the few actors willing to take risks on non-IP material. As tough as this will be to pull off, it’s the kind of idea that if the elements do come together, it will be, as Lester Burnham says, SPECTACULAR. And when something this funky does well, it opens the floodgates for the industry to take lots of chances.

3) Collateral Beauty (reviewed in Scriptshadow newsletter – sign up!)
Writer: Allan Loeb
Logline: When a stubborn boss refuses to sell his company and make everyone in it millionaires, his employees devise a cruel plan to remove him from his position.
The Skinny: This was the highest profile sale of the year by far, selling for north of 2 million dollars, I believe. The script is very different, very unlike anything else out there. So it’ll come into the market with a zesty freshness the audience isn’t expecting. Will Smith has recently joined the project and the director of Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, will direct. This is one of those scripts that’s so unique that it’s either going to connect and become a sensation, or be so weird, it’ll turn everyone off and become the unofficial sequel to Seven Pounds. Let’s hope the former happens.

2) Section 6 (not reviewed)
Writer: Aaron Berg
Logline: The origin story of the British Agency, MI:6.
The Skinny: Universal bought this script for 7 figures, making its unknown writer a star. The project hit a legal snafu when MGM sued for infringement on its Bond franchise. But when the prospect of defining for all future interested parties the specifics of what did and did not constitute “James Bond,” they dropped that case quick. This project has two of the hottest young properties in the business on board, future star Jack O’Connell (Unbroken) and everybody-wants-him-due-to-his-massive-geek-cred director Joe Cornish (Attack the Block). If done right, this could feel like an old school James Bond film. Universal has the magic touch at the moment, so there’s reason to believe!

1) Passengers
Writer: Jon Spaihts
Logline: A spacecraft transporting thousands of people to a distant planet has a malfunction in one of its sleep chambers. As a result, a single passenger is awakened 90 years before anyone else. Faced with the prospect of growing old and dying alone, he wakes up a second passenger who he’s fallen in love with.
The Skinny: This spec, which was written almost 8 years ago now, is the project that made Jon Spaihts the go-to sci-fi writer in town. Your sci-fi project wasn’t legit unless you’d hired this guy. The script has just been impossible to make because it costs so much for a sci-fi movie that doesn’t have all the things in it that sci-fi audiences crave in order to put down their 12 bucks (aliens, space battles, adventure). This is a love story set in space. That made it unique as a spec but a nightmare as a studio project. For that reason, it literally needed the two hottest male and female movie stars in the world (Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence) to finally get a green light. The Imitation Game’s Morten Tyldum will bring the vision this film needs to navigate its complex themes of love, time, and loneliness, and hopefully, it all comes together. This really is the movie that needs to hit big to give the spec market life. Outside of maybe Killing on Carnival Row, there isn’t a spec out there that readers haven’t wanted to see turned into a film. It’s time to find out if that desire was warranted.