Search Results for: amateur
I really really really really really hope Detective Pikachu bombs this weekend. The last thing I need is for that film to become a franchise and have to endure Pikachu promotional tours on a yearly basis. I would rather watch the Sonic the Hedgehog movie than I would Detetive Pikachu. With the current Sonic face. Not even the new one they’re creating. Sadly, there are no other major releases this weekend, in the theater or on streaming. I may be forced to watch the A Quiet Place clone, “Silence.” Shudder.
Luckily, you guys have options. Five, in fact. If you haven’t played Amateur Showdown before, it’s a cut throat single weekend screenplay tournament where the players have been vetted from a pile of hundreds of entries to be featured here, for your entertainment. It’s up to you to read as much of each script as you can, then vote for your favorite in the comments section. Whoever receives the most votes gets a review next Friday. If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in a future Amateur Showdown, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.
Good luck!
Title: Sinking
Genre: Contained Thriller
Logline: When a lonely woman finds herself in the middle of the ocean on a sinking boat with a timid geek she just met, she must employ all her resourcefulness to keep it afloat and solve the mystery of how they got there.
Why You Should Read: The more scripts I read the more I find myself recommending a simple and focused story. With that in mind I began with a simple “what if” scenario – what if you woke up and found yourself on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean, and the only person there with you was no help at all? Hopefully the questions of why this is happening and how/if they will survive will engage the audience and keep them hooked until the end. If not, please let me know where you checked out. Many thanks in advance to anyone who opens the script.
Title: Willowwood
Genre: TV Pilot – Comedy
Logline: When two chronic underachievers discover their reality is a mediocre teenage sitcom, they hatch a plan to inject some much needed conflict into the lives of the show’s main characters in order to save the show (and thus their reality) from cancellation.
Why you should read: Back when I was a kid, I used to love wholesome teenage sitcoms like Boy Meets World and Degrassi that portrayed a relatable high school experience while tackling the big issues that teens face: having sex, doing drugs, drinking booze, dodging STDs, etc. The only thing I thought was peculiar was how all of these hot topic issues seemed to happen to the same four or five kids. This script aims to give a voice to the other fifteen kids in the classroom that never had any lines or drama and were figuratively (and quite literally) living in the background. This script has placed in and won a few contests, with most feedback complimenting the premise and its potential for plenty of longevity and meta-humor about sitcoms and other teen shows… but now I think it need some feedback on its execution from the fans of Carson before its next round contest entries.
Title: Heck
Genre: Feature Adaptation based on The Iliad
Logline: In Prohibition-era Kentucky, a moonshiner’s plan to save the family farm goes awry when his brother steals a prized dog from a local mobster.
Why You Should Read: Heck is an inventive retelling of Homer’s Trojan War epic. Instead of Trojans vs. the Greeks, my story takes place in 1920s Kentucky, pitting a family of moonshiners against a local crime boss and his Prohibition Agent brother. Part O Brother Where Art Thou and part Lawless, it’s an epic tale of bootlegging, boxing, and of course, a giant Trojan horse.
Title: Kill Grandma
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Logline: While visiting her abusive grandmother in a mysterious nursing home, a young woman with a severe phobia of geriatrics must face her fear and commit gratuitous violence on the elderly who plan to steal her youth.
Why You Should Read: Who am I? I’m a writer named Patrick Poff who specializes in writing movies that will never be made. And I think you should review this script because … it’s called KILL GRANDMA. Thank you for your consideration. (e-mail subject line points out that this is the number 1 rated Horror-Comedy on the Black List website)
Title: LIPSTICK HITLIST
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Logline: A fragile cop gets caught in deadly game of chess with a psychotic witch who has the power to persuade others to kill for her.
Why You Should Read: 10 Cloverfield Lane. That’s why. I have watched that movie a lot. I LOVE how my take on John Goodman’s character was bedded in, then ripped up and overturned. TWICE. Until I just didn’t know what to make of him and was right there in the bunker with Michelle. I wanted to write a character like that. And mess with the reader/audience that way. —
I am also obsessed with Silence Of The Lambs and the weirdly cosy relationship between Hannibal and Clarice. So I thought flipping the sexes of those two characters would be a cool way into a post #metoo storyline. — It’s a story that ponders the idea that men might be a bit nicer to women if there was a chance of violent retaliation. — A cold-blooded female killer, who slowly gains your sympathy, then screws with you for being so gullible, then draws you back, deeper, and dares you to stand with her again. I want the reader to be pumping the air, shouting, “Yeah, go for it, kill him, stab him, HURT him” by the end.
Genre: Period Drama/Supernatural
Premise: During World War II, a family imprisoned in a Japanese-American internment camp must prevent a violent ghost from worsening relations between their fellow internees and the camp’s administration
Why You Should Read: In The Sun Ghost, I’ve tried to use the tools of fantasy and horror to explore issues of loyalty, intergenerational trauma, and Asian-American identity in an under-depicted World War II setting. While I hope horror aficionados will appreciate the twists put on familiar monster rules and fans of Del Toro’s dark fairy tales will find something to enjoy, I also think that general audiences will find it sadly relevant to current events. Based on its performance in contests and the Black List website, I want to believe the script has potential. I’m looking for sharp eyes and sharp minds to help me take it to the next level.
Writer: Arun Croll
Details: 117 pages
As some of you know, I started reading this script last Thursday, got about 30 pages in, and decided I wasn’t giving it my full attention. Now if I’d sensed that the writer hadn’t given the script their all, I might’ve kept going. But Arun clearly put his blood, sweat, and tears into this. What I read was deeply researched, heavily detailed, and professionally presented. So I saved it for this week, when I’d have more time.
While I enjoyed what I’d read, one thing was nagging me. This is essentially a dual-concept script (one story is about trying to survive in a Japanese-American Relocation Center, the other about a shadow ghost) and I wasn’t convinced that these two worlds could co-exist. But I hadn’t made up my mind yet. I was ready to be persuaded. Would Arun succeed in doing this? Let’s find out.
The year is 1944. We’re in a Japanese-American relocation center. 29 year-old Kosuke Nagata, a dutiful worker who jumps whenever the Americans say “jump,” is married to Sarah, a young beauty who sells self-made sake and sleeps with other men. Sarah thinks her husband is weak and doesn’t respect him.
Kosuke’s 31 year-old sister, Akane, works at the center’s newspaper, and is always trying to get her boss to print riskier articles, things that question the practices of the Americans. Well she’s going to get her story all right. When Sarah’s drunk father tries to escape, an officer threatens and then starts shooting at him. As this is happening, a mysterious force grabs him from behind and chokes him. The officer barely survives, and when he turns around, there’s no one there.
It turns out Kosuke has a secret. A warrior ghost named “Ume” follows him around, and does the bidding of Kosuke’s heart. If someone starts messing with Kosuke or someone Kosuke loves, the ghost will attack that person. This doesn’t bode well for Sarah’s lovers. Indeed, her friends with benefits pal, Ikko, is murdered by Ume. Of course, as both the American and Japanese communities look into the officer attack and Ikko’s murder, no one thinks to include, “Ghost Shadow Man” as a suspect.
Finally, Kosuke comes clean, telling his American boss and his wife that he has a killer ghost who shadows him around. They don’t believe him, so Kosuke takes care of the problem on his own, decapitating Ume out in the fields. Unfortunately, Ume reemerges, this time attaching himself to Kosuke’s 6-year old daughter, Mimi. When the American captain finds evidence that Ume exists, he becomes obsessed with delivering Mimi to doctors and having her studied as a potential weapon. It will be up to Kosuke to make sure that doesn’t happen.
My brother was having trouble deciding on a new car to buy and I mentioned to him, “Why not go with a Mazda 3?” He gave me a stern look, as if I had just made the world’s dumbest suggestion. “You don’t like the Mazda 3?” I asked, a little scared. “I don’t like cars that can’t decide what they are. Is it a sedan or a sports car? Pick a lane.” This is the same way I feel about almost-horror films, movies where horror is present, but isn’t the main storyline. Or maybe it is but the rest of the story is different enough that you’re never sure what you’re supposed to be focused on.
You’ve got two unique elements here. One is the mythology of the relocation center. The other is this cool ghost creature. It’s not that there isn’t some crossover between the two. I’m just not sure there’s enough to garner a cohesive experience. You could’ve easily built a drama around the relocation center and had a good movie. So then you have to ask, why bring in the other element?
That’s a question I was still asking an hour after I finished the script. What was the point of this ghost storyline? When it comes to Kosuke, he seems to be a wimp. He does what the “man” tells him to do. Ume, meanwhile, doesn’t take crap from anyone. When he gets mad at somebody, he goes after them. The problem is that this contrast didn’t play out in any thematically coherent way. I didn’t get the sense that Ume represented Kosuke’s alter ego, in which case you could’ve made this a character study. His targets weren’t methodically thought out. They happened whenever Kosuke was nearby a situation that went bad. What’s the message there?
And I definitely didn’t understand the bigger thematic picture. I have no idea what this movie is trying to say about relocation centers in World War 2 other than, “They’re sort of bad.” And that’s another thing. The “bad guys,” aka, the American soldiers, were never that bad. The majority of them didn’t like that they were imprisoning the Japanese. So you didn’t have any clear targets to take down. This contributed to the randomness of the narrative. I don’t know what this is saying about Kosuke. I don’t know what this is saying about the camps. And then once the daughter gets the ghost, all bets were off. I had no idea how I was supposed to interpret that.
To be honest, I don’t even know if I should be trying to make sense of this. But whenever you build a story around something as serious as World War 2, you usually want a strong theme to shine through. It does’t have to be complex. I remember the Academy Award winning “Life is Beautiful.” That movie was very simple. It was about protecting your child from the horrors of war at all costs. I don’t know if Arun is trying to be too clever here or too subtle, but maybe if he shared the theme in the comments, I could better explain how to get there with the story.
Then again, these scripts are always the most troublesome to me – the ones where you’ve got two big ideas competing for the same story real estate. And by that I mean, each idea could carry its own movie. You could make a movie about Japanese-American camps without ghosts. And you could make a movie about this ghost without the camp. I actually think the ghost is really cool. He’s this ancient warrior who latches onto people and attacks those who hurt them. I could see that taking place in a small town. I don’t know why we need this big complex canvas for it.
But I’m sure Arun would argue that then the idea isn’t big enough. And maybe he’s right. I don’t know. All I know is that when I finished this script, I was confused. I was confused what the story was ultimately about. I was confused what I was supposed to feel afterwards. And I was confused what the message was. I suspect it’s a “two competing stories” problem but maybe I just don’t like this type of movie. I wasn’t a fan of that similar del Toro film, “The Devil’s Backbone,” either. I thought it had the same problems. What did you guys think?
Script link: The Sun Ghost
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Theme becomes more important the more dramatic your story is. Nobody walks out of John Wick raving about the message. But for something like “The Imitation Game,” they want to leave feeling a little wiser about the world. A clear theme will achieve that.
It is the calm before the storm. I’m talking about how there’s only one week before the release of The Karate Kid, Season 2! I hope you’re ready for a crane kick to the face!! KA-CHAAAH!!! Oh, and there’s that little Marvel movie coming out as well. Here’s something I’ve always wondered. Do the actors in those big movies get paid for promotional tours? They have to go on a million shows, do a million interviews, and travel all over the world, right? In some cases, the promotion is harder than the acting. So wouldn’t they want to get paid? I have a feeling Scott knows the answer to this.
Amateur Showdown is a cut throat single weekend screenplay tournament where the players have already had to rise out of a pile of hundreds of entries just to be featured. Now that they’re here, it’s up to you to read as much of each script as you can, then vote for your favorite in the comments section. Whoever receives the most votes gets a review next Friday. If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in a future Amateur Showdown, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.
Title: Dead Mileage
Genre: Crime/Drama
Logline: Following his recruitment to drive for a dark web rideshare service, an ex-con runs afoul of his new employer when he interferes in a passenger’s business.
Why You Should Read: I recently had what I like to think of as an awakening… Just how much life is a rat race grew in obviousness in the last six months thanks to certain changes with the “company” I work for and the political/social climate we currently operate in. — This awakening of sorts bled into what was supposed to be my John Wick Uber service movie. And that’s where the idea started… The spike of interest in the Wick universe and the fact that no one had successfully cracked the rideshare-movie code as of yet. — Needless to say, this is no longer a “John Wick movie” as it would seem no better than an over-developed singular element in a greater universe (a la “ANNABELLE” to “THE CONJURING”). Modern day Los Angeles feels like the more appropriate venue to hold a story like this, providing a backdrop in which to explore the various archetypes that make up the city as well as the human machinery that keeps it running. — In terms of the rideshare-movie, “DEAD MILEAGE” takes the concept underground to break away from the mold of the taxi film which haunts this potential subgenre. With the recent “Stuber” trailer dropping, I hope that an explosion of rideshare movies may be creeping up on the horizon. — Ultimately, I hope you find “DEAD MILEAGE” tests the clichés of the taxi and getaway driver movie, especially when it comes to the invincibility that’s recently spiked in such films (see “BABY DRIVER” and “DRIVE”). I mean, who is a worse driver than the guy with an Uber logo stuck to his back window? — I appreciate all notes, good and bad and everything in-between. Thank you for giving “DEAD MILEAGE” the time of day.
Title: The Velveteen Rabbit Redux
Genre: Family adventure/ fantasy/ live action
Logline: THE VELVETEEN RABBIT REDUX: In 1940’s New York City, a friendless boy struggles to find the solid gold rabbit his aunt left him — with the promise that he can make it real — while trying to stay a step ahead of a tyrannical curiosity shop owner, who aims to steal it for himself and lock it in a case forever.
Why You Should Read: Your recent article on making characters “pop” by letting them be fun had me thinking about my script, The Velveteen Rabbit Redux. Normally, a fun, over-the-top villain would be a bad choice. Over-the-top implies a cartoony, unbelievable character. But for me, by keeping the kids sincere and the world grounded, the added element of a comically absurd villain seemed to work quite well. The villain was still impossible to overcome while also adding buoyancy and fun to the pages. I think I succeeded… Regardless, all thoughts and comments appreciated.
Title: The Sun Ghost
Genre: Period drama, Supernatural
Logline: During World War II, a family imprisoned in a Japanese-American internment camp must prevent a violent ghost from worsening relations between their fellow internees and the camp’s administration.
Why You Should Read: In The Sun Ghost, I’ve tried to use the tools of fantasy and horror to explore issues of loyalty, intergenerational trauma, and Asian-American identity in an under-depicted World War II setting. While I hope horror aficionados will appreciate the twists put on familiar monster rules and fans of Del Toro’s dark fairy tales will find something to enjoy, I also think that general audiences will find it sadly relevant to current events. Based on its performance in contests and the Black List website, I want to believe the script has potential. I’m looking for sharp eyes and sharp minds to help me take it to the next level.
Title: Bridesmen
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Logline: An ex-party girl settles down with a straight-laced doctor only to find out at their engagement party that she’s slept with all of his future groomsmen.
Why You Should Read: This idea came to me while I was trying to come up with a horror film and my roommate happened to be watching The Bachelor. I love romantic comedies but never considered writing one myself. Given the resurgence of the genre, I was hoping to get any help I can in making this something special.
Title: VULTURINE
Genre: Contained Horror
Logline: In 1986, a straight-laced air marshal’s plan to smuggle his demon possessed daughter on a commercial flight from Chicago to Montreal is complicated by the late addition of three passengers: an unscrupulous fellow marshal and a pair of veteran exorcists…
Why You Should Read: Because this is the ONLY place you’re going to get your ‘failed lavatory exorcism’ itch scratched.
Genre: Family/Fantasy
Premise: An eccentric old clown tries to cheer up a disabled boy by telling the story of his magical adventures on a lifelong quest to win the heart of a beautiful mime.
Why You Should Read: A massive THANK YOU to the commenters of Scriptshadow who read my first draft of this script and offered their valued thoughts and notes on it, and a special shout-out to Carson for his excellent notes and advice. All helped to propel this script to the next level. Booboo The Clown is an original, entertaining, and visually-appealing family-friendly movie. This one has it all. It has a larger than life lead character – a classic underdog – and a novel supporting cast with genuine arcs that actors will queue up to play. It has adventure. It has adversity. It has smiles, laughs and tears. It has scenes you have never seen before. And, most importantly, it has a fucking heart. I have poured my heart into this script and now I’d love to read your thoughts. I send it out as words amidst the wolves. Be ravenous.
Writer: Brian McHale-Boyle
Details: 118 pages
Real talk.
Friday is the final day of the week. Like everybody else, I can’t wait to put aside the computer and enjoy the weekend. For that reason, Amateur Friday reviews often feel like a wall, a final obstacle I must climb in order to get to the promised land. If this is to change, if I’m going to look forward to Amateur Friday as opposed to fear it, I need better scripts. I need stuff where the writer’s trying to blow me away. Not stuff that’s pleasant. The worst thing a screenplay can be is pleasant.
Now I’ve already read BooBoo once. I gave Brian notes on it many moons ago. The fact that he’s still working on it tells me he’s very passionate about the story. Passion can work for you or against you. It can be the fire that stokes a once-in-a-lifetime visionary piece of fiction. Or it can blind you to fact that readers aren’t experiencing the story the way you believe you’re presenting it. Let’s find out how this new draft fared.
Booboo is 70 year old clown who’s still hustling. He’s out there doing the kids birthday party circuit, no hair-smelling involved. It is through one of these parties that he meets Myron, a 9 year old boy in a wheelchair. Myron has a dastardly absentee father as well as a non-judgmental mother who welcomes Booboo into her son’s life with open arms.
As their unlikely friendship begins, Booboo tells the story of how, as a kid, he was an orphan, until he was recruited into a magical clown school on a far away island. There he learned the art of clown and also fell in love with an aspiring mime, Marianne. Marianne is so devoted to the art of miming that she refuses to talk. Ever.
Many years later, after graduating from clown school, Booboo decides to look for Marianne. First he goes to San Francisco, then to Vegas. There, he runs into Ginger, a friend from clown school who’s now a dancer. After saving Ginger from an ugly pimp-like situation, Booboo heads to New York, where he magically runs into Marianne miming in Central Park! He tells her he loves her. She says nothing back cause she’s a mime. And then they enter into a relationship. Unfortunately, Marianne eventually leaves Booboo to be with another former student from their school.
We cut back to present day, where Booboo finally takes Myron to a hospital. It is there where we learn that the reason Booboo is still hustling is that he takes care of Marianne! She’s dying in a hospice care center. He’s spent the last few years paying her medical bills because that jerky guy who stole her from him ditched her. The dedicated Booboo sits there until her dying breath.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read this but I remember enough that I’m surprised how similar it is to the previous draft. I thought that more would’ve changed over the years. I have to give it to Brian, though. He swung for the fences here. This is the clown version of Big Fish meets Forrest Gump. So if you liked those movies, there’s a good chance you’ll like this. But the script is burdened with a deep fatal flaw.
The biggest problem here is that the plot revolves around a love story where we never experience the two characters falling in love. Because Marianne can’t speak, there are no extended interactions between the two. We just talked yesterday about the importance of using dialogue to get inside a character’s head. The ONE scene I used as an example in that article told me more about those two characters than I know about Marianne after an entire script.
And there’s no plot here to alleviate that. Usually, love stories are ancillary to the main plot. Titanic for example. The plot is finding the diamond on a doomed ship. The love story happens along the way. But here, the movie is the love story. And how can we be involved in a love story if a) we never hear one of the characters in that relationship speak, and b) if we don’t know why they love each other. As far as I can tell, Booboo loves Marianne because she’s beautiful. That’s a pretty shallow reason to love someone. And I don’t think there’s any moment in this script where Marianne shows love to Booboo.
The most successful movie that’s ever been made where the plot solely revolves around “Will they get together or not?” is When Harry Met Sally. And one of the reasons we kept watching and kept caring whether they got together or not is because they had these amazing memorable hilarious conversations. They’d go back and forth with each other on the most mundane of topics. Now imagine that movie where Harry talks and Sally never says a thing. We wouldn’t care whether they ended up together because you erased any opportunity to explore chemistry between the two. I’m pretty sure I brought this up in my notes so I’m disappointed that it wasn’t addressed.
Brian may have fallen victim to something all of us writers fall victim to. Which is that we become so in love with an idea that we refuse to budge from it regardless of how damaging it is to our story. In this case, Brian has romanticized the mime stuff (a clown falling in love with a mime has a nice ring to it) to the point where he doesn’t realize how it’s affecting the story. Sure, the big death bed moment where she finally talks is powerful. But is it worth 99% of your love story not working?
This is such a huge issue, I don’t even think it’s worth it to examine the rest of the script. Because without a solution to this problem, nothing else matters. And look, I feel terrible saying this because I know how crazy attached Brian is to this script. But it doesn’t do me or him any good to sugarcoat this issue. That’s how writers go insane – trying to make something work that can’t.
I will say this. Silent characters work better on screen because we can see them. And if you cast the part right and the acting is stellar and the wardrobe is perfect, yeah, we can fall in love simply by seeing Marianne, just like Booboo did. I’ve never watched The Artist (a silent film) but I think that’s a love story, right? And people enjoyed that. But that’s the thing. This isn’t a movie. It’s a spec script. A spec script has to convince through the page, not through the screen. So even if you could make that argument, it doesn’t matter.
This is why I always tell writers to stay away from mute characters in major roles. They are the most unmemorable characters I read by far. I made this case with Duncan Jones “Mute.” I said that script was a disaster for the same reason. We didn’t care about the mute hero because we didn’t know him. So that’s my issue. I don’t know if Brian’s going to listen to me. I hope he does. Because I think he’s a good writer. I think if he moved on to other scripts with this knowledge, he could write something great. But Booboo would need a major rewrite to even SEE if it would work with that note adjustment. And there’s no guarantee it will. So let’s see what else you got. Worst case scenario, you become a huge screenwriting star off another script and you pull Booboo out as you next project.
Screenplay Link: Booboo The Clown
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the primary ingredients in making a love story work is convincing us that the characters are in love. That typically occurs through shared experiences, conversations, memorable events, and a clear connection between the two. And it has to come from BOTH SIDES. Not just one. There wasn’t nearly enough of this in Booboo to convince me that these two were meant for each other.
It’s a slow weekend at the cinema which means I’ll have to watch something Netflix snuck onto its service while no one was looking (their preferred method of advertising). Who wants to start a website with me called “Media Aggregator” where we distill the 8 million TV and movie options down to a select few you should be watching? We’ll make billions. BILLIONS I SAY!
In the meantime, here are some screenplays to read.
Amateur Showdown is a mini-screenplay tournament where you read as much of each script as you can, then vote for your favorite in the comments section. Whoever receives the most votes gets a review next Friday. If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in a future Amateur Showdown, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.
Title: Bank, Die, Repeat
Genre: Time Loop Heist
Logline: A washed-up realtor gets caught in a time loop when she tries to rob a bank. Forced to relive the heist again and again, she’s soon convinced that whatever’s in the safe is more valuable than money, it’s the key to turning her life around.
Why You Should Read: This script started life as a three word phrase – ‘time loop heist’. It ended as a dark comedy I’d pitch as ‘Jerry Lundegaard stuck inside Danny Ocean’s Groundhog Day.’ Only Jerry is now a woman named Tess. — I’ve bludgeoned the protagonist with the despondency stick. Her love life, her family life, her working life – she’s losing control of it all. If you’re interested in how (or indeed, if) she can pull it all back together again and find redemption, then give the script a go. I’d appreciate your candid thoughts.
Title: Second Earth
Genre: TV Pilot – Science Fiction
Logline: Searching for a sense of purpose, an anxiety-ridden Earth orphan arrives on the prison moon Chronos as a new guard recruit… only to stumble upon a conspiracy for the near one million prisoners to stage a mass breakout and take the moon for themselves.
Why You Should Read: In the 1920s, Henry Ford established an industrial town deep in the jungle of Northern Brazil, hoping to make his own utopia called “Fordlandia”. Now imagine instead of a small town in Brazil… he did so with the moon. The series takes place in an alternate timeline where our moon, named Chronos, is habitable and is colonized by a billionaire philanthropist in the 1960s. Our story begins in 2082 as we see the moon now sustained by serving as basically a privatized prison for the United States and the colonies of Chronos wrought with civil tension between the descendants of the first Chronos colonies (called Natives) and Earthling immigrants. We will discover the story of the failure of this would-be utopia as we are embroiled in a conspiracy plot with a scale and character count rivaling that of Game of Thrones. Think A Tale of Two Cities in space.
Title: BOOBOO THE CLOWN
Genre: Family/Fantasy/Adventure
Logline: An eccentric old clown tries to cheer up a disabled boy by telling the story of his magical adventures on a lifelong quest to win the heart of a beautiful mime.
Why You Should Read: A massive THANK YOU to the commenters of Scriptshadow who read my first draft of this script and offered their valued thoughts and notes on it, and a special shout-out to Carson for his excellent notes and advice. All helped to propel this script to the next level. Booboo The Clown is an original, entertaining, and visually-appealing family-friendly movie. This one has it all. It has a larger than life lead character – a classic underdog – and a novel supporting cast with genuine arcs that actors will queue up to play. It has adventure. It has adversity. It has smiles, laughs and tears. It has scenes you have never seen before. And, most importantly, it has a fucking heart. I have poured my heart into this script and now I’d love to read your thoughts. I send it out as words amidst the wolves. Be ravenous.
Title: Fear Box
Genre: Horror
Logline: A traumatized single mother must protect her anxiety-ridden teen daughter when their darkest fears are brought to life by a haunted worry box.
Why You Should Read: It’s 2019 and it feels like anxiety is at an all time high! The goal was to write a fun horror script that deals with anxiety in a genuine way. The worry box is a real tool used to treat childhood and teen anxiety. I sent an early draft to the Bloodlist site for coverage and the feedback was positive. I’m hoping for some constructive criticism and the answer to the ultimate question before I spend tons more time working on this – is this concept/story something you would go see?
Title: D.I.R.E.
Genre: Science Fiction / Drama
Logline: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner set 50 years in the future. A young man takes his Artificial Intelligence fiancé back to his small mountain hometown to meet his techno-phobic family.
Why You Should Read: I’ve been reading and following Scriptshadow for the last 7/8 years. Needless to say I’m a big fan of the site and all of you guys. I’ve just been lurking in the shadows (evil laugh). I live in Los Angeles, and have been a working writer for the last decade or so… but primarily in late night TV. I haven’t been able to crack the ever elusive feature world yet. This script is my first feature where all of my feedback has been super positive. And not the fake “I’m your friend” positive… as a writer you know the difference. Anyway. I’m extremely serious about the craft, and have put a ton of work into this one. If you like SciFi dramatic mysteries… this is for you… if you hate robots then beep boop beep boop… it’s probably not your cup of ET.
