Genre: Drama
Premise: After a plane crash, a man who lost his wife and daughter in the accident hunts down the flight controller responsible.
About: This is a really hot spec that went out recently from the writer of “Enemy.” Fox was so impressed by it, they hired the writer, Javier Gullon, to adapt a recent novel they purchased, The Dark Side. That book is set in the future where the moon is used as a penal colony, and a detective is called in to investigate the murderous rampage of a robot. “478” quickly got Arnold Scwarzeneggger attached and Darren Aronofsky to come on as producer. The Aronofsky attachment is interesting as you may remember Aronofsky briefly being attached to “Moonfall” last year, a Black List script which was famously pitched as “Fargo on the moon” (it wasn’t that at all, by the way). Aronofsky being attached to a project (478) so closely linked to another “murder on the moon” project (The Dark Side) makes you wonder if Aronofsky is getting moon movie fever. Might we see an Aronofsky moon murder film yet?
Writer: Javier Gullon
Details: 95 pages – Nov. 2014 draft
In case you haven’t noticed, one of the themes I’ve been pushing lately is TRUTH. I read so many screenplays – particularly from amateurs – where the writer isn’t being truthful with his choices.
Even if it’s clear that people would NEVER do this sort of thing in real life, the writer figures that if it works for their story, they’re going to include it.
The poster child for false choices is, of course, when the babysitter hears a noise upstairs and goes to check it out. Yeah, it’s better, entertainment-wise, if the babysitter goes and checks out the noise. But if we know that would never happen in real life, we call bullshit. Which is why you rarely see this happen anymore unless there’s a truthful reason behind it (if the baby is upstairs and therefore it’s paramount to make sure he’s safe).
Even yesterday’s script, The Gift, violated this code. There’s no way Robyn, the wife, would’ve been so inviting to this creepy weirdo. It was clear that the man had a few screws loose and was potentially dangerous. Yet, because keeping him around was the more entertaining option, Edgerton opted to “cheat” the Robyn character and make her more accepting of Gordo than the real-life version of Robyn would have been.
However, today’s script taught me the flip side to the “truth” argument. What if you’re TOO truthful? What if you become so enslaved to the truth, you consistently pass over much more entertaining choices? That was my issue with 478. There’s no doubt the script portrays things the way they would REALLY happen. But that’s the problem. The way things really happen is often boring.
44 year-old Viktor is a construction contractor. After a particularly long day of work, he heads to the airport to pick up his wife and daughter, who are flying in from Russia to permanently live with him in America.
When he gets there, he’s ushered into a private room, where he’s told that two planes have collided, and that there are no survivors. And, oh yeah, one of those planes was carrying his wife and daughter.
The next few days are hell for Viktor, who ends up volunteering for clean-up at the crash site. Amazingly, he stumbles across his daughter’s pearl necklace, which becomes a media symbol for the tragic event.
After trying to get therapy and heal properly, Viktor can’t stop thinking about the man responsible for the crash, the traffic controller. So he goes on a road trip to find and kill him.
The second half of the script takes us back to the day of the crash, this time from the perspective of Paul, the flight controller. We observe a number of unavoidable mistakes in the room which would eventually cause the crash.
We then follow Paul back home, where his wife and son try to deal with the aftermath. They routinely wake up to people painting shit like “Murderer” on their front door.
Eventually, Paul’s wife thinks it best if her and their son move out. This sends Paul into a spiral where he changes his name and moves to another state to start over. But then, 478 days later, there’s a knock on his door. It’s Viktor. He wants to settle the score. And he’s not leaving until he does.
So the “truth” I was referring to earlier refers to the fact that this script is played as straight as it gets. There are no shocking twists (someone sabotaged Paul’s computer right before the crash!). It’s: Dude sort of fucked up. People died. No one’s happy about it.
I mean we know where this is all going by page 20. Viktor’s going to kill Paul. And I suppose there’s an element of suspense to that – we’re eager to see how that goes down. But not really, since we already know how it’ll end. You can tell this isn’t the kind of script where Viktor overcomes some flaw and realizes that killing Paul won’t fill the void in his heart. No. Viktor is miserable. He will be miserable for the rest of his life. And killing Paul will make that misery a teensy bit easier to manage.
While I’m not saying this needed some fancy twist, it definitely needed… something. Some sort of dramatic element to give some life to the story. It was so freaking straight-forward. There isn’t even a lesson to learn here. It’s not like Paul was drinking on the job that day (like the Denzel Washington film, “Flight”). Or was being negligent. He was just a little distracted due to his partner leaving the room. There’s nothing he could’ve done differently. And therefore, there’s nothing for him to come to terms with, to “learn” about himself.
Yesterday I remarked how The Gift used the plot point of the husband becoming a villain to fuel the second half of the screenplay. We didn’t get anything like that there. The people who are miserable on page 20 are the same people who are miserable on page 90. There’s nothing, like that film, that helps us see the story any differently.
We did switch perspectives to Paul, which was somewhat of a change. The problem was, Paul was no different than Viktor. They were both miserable guys whose lives were spiraling out of control due to depression.
So if there’s a lesson to be learned from 478 – it’s that “truth” is important up to a certain point. You still need to add drama to your story. You still need to entertain. And if that means adding an exciting plot choice that probably wouldn’t happen in real life, well, you have to consider it. Because, in the end, nobody’s going to give a shit about your story unless they’re being entertained by it.
You still want to be as truthful as possible. But I realize I’d rather be entertained by a lie than bored by the truth.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Real life is pretty boring. Therefore, if you try and follow it to the letter, your script’s probably going to be boring as well. Take some dramatic license, add a few fun plot points, and never forget to entertain us, even if you have to fudge reality a bit to do so.
