Genre: Thriller
Premise: After a murderer escapes prison, the sister of the man he was convicted of killing puts a 10 million dollar bounty on his head.
About: This script sold a couple of years ago after it got Will Smith attached. Writer Sascha Penn has been slowly moving up the ranks in Hollywood. He’s written a couple of TV shows, most notably, “The Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives,” and I’ve spotted a few feature specs by him before. But this is obviously his big breakthrough, getting Will Smith attached. Smith is looking for that starring vehicle that’s going to put him back on top. And taking a “Fugitive” type roll might be just the trick to do it.
Writer: Sascha Penn
Details: 110 pages – undated
We just talked about this yesterday. There are certain premises that sound great on paper, but once you start writing them, they’re a lot more complicated than you thought. It’s like ordering spaghetti. You know it’ll taste good. But then you get the plate and the next 45 minutes are a war between you, the noodles, the fork, and your dexterity level. It sucks because you’ve finally come up with that head-turning six-figure idea. Only to realize you’ve been dropped into a literary minefield.
Bounty is a near-perfect logline. However, its cracks start to show less than 20 pages in. Once the premise is established, the questions begin. Like if a woman offers 10 million dollars to whoever kills a man, how would that person ever actually receive that money? Publicly offering money for a murder is illegal. And indeed, when the sister character offers it, she immediately goes to jail.
So let’s say you still kill the guy. Where do you bring him to get the money? I’m pretty sure those “cash for paychecks” places don’t accept corpses. But let’s say you somehow avoid this issue. How does this money get transferred into your account without the police tracking it? I mean, you’re a public figure now, easy to keep tabs on. And receiving money for a murder is illegal right?
It’s too bad that Bounty faces all these questions, because it really is a fun concept.
We meet our hero, Abel Ford, in prison. He’s been here for 10 years for the murder of a big shot one-percenter. The thing is, Ford didn’t kill him. Well, according to Ford at least. He’s so determined to prove his innocence that he’s been planning a prison break for the last few years so he can find the real killer and live happily ever after with his girlfriend and (now) 10 year-old son.
Ford does escape, but it doesn’t go as planned. The man he was convicted of killing has a weirdo sister named Vivian Standish who announces on national television that she’ll give 10 million dollars to anyone who brings Ford in dead or alive.
Imagine if 10,000 Dog the Bounty Hunters all descended upon Massachusetts looking to claim the payday of a lifetime. That’s exactly what happens, making Ford’s plan to find the real killer a teeeeeensy bit tougher.
Ford finds the one man he can trust, his half brother, and the two start driving around the city, asking sketchy criminals what they know about that infamous murder Ford supposedly committed. Bit by bit, a different picture emerges and Ford is able to piece together the truth. But will he be able to sell it to the media before he gets a bullet in his head?
As I’ve made clear, “Bounty” is a brilliantly conceived idea. Not just because of the idea itself, but because it embodies everything a saleable spec is supposed to be. It’s got a nifty high-concept premise. It starts fast and never lets up. And it features a 30s-40s male protagonist, which, because of the large marketable talent pool that exists in that acting demographic, makes it the quickest way to get a movie made. This harkens back to the formula that made specs so big in the 90s.
Also, thrillers are the easiest screenplays to write. The structure is built into the premise (a main character with a strong goal that he must achieve quickly) which allows most of the movie to write itself. If I were an aspiring screenwriter just starting out, this is the genre I’d write in. It’s by far the easiest to pick up.
There are couple of other teachable moments here as well. Penn realizes that a man on the run without an emotional connection is boring. We won’t care. That’s one reason The Fugitive did so well. We felt the love Richard Kimble had for his dead wife. So Penn wisely writes in a scene after the prison break where Ford goes to his old girlfriend, who he has a 10 year old son with, to show us what he’s fighting for.
I call these EMOTIONAL STAKES. There has to be something emotional on the line for your hero.
Penn also makes this bigger than your run-of-the-mill thriller by exploring an issue – gun violence in America. This movie is about a country riddled with a gun problem that’s only getting worse. At one point late in the story, multiple misidentified Abel Fords are getting shot. Everyone has gone gun crazy! If you can come up with a great premise that ALSO hits on a controversial social issue? You’re gonna have a lot of people asking to read your screenplay.
The problem with Bounty is it never overcomes the suspension of disbelief required to buy into the story. I kept asking questions that the script couldn’t answer. Namely: How would anybody be able to collect this money? Everything Vivian was doing was illegal.
Penn tries his best to distract us from this reality. For example, he focuses on how the bounty doesn’t just cover death. They can also bring Abel in alive as well. However, the draw here is the kill. That’s why this premise is so exciting. If it was just, “Bring him in alive and you get 10 million,” the logline doesn’t work. So it’s kind of a cheat.
Also, Penn tries to convince us that anyone who kills Abel is going to get off scott-free because no jury in America will convict him. I’m not so sure about that. The bounty hunters wouldn’t be killing some evil menace to society serial killer. They’re killing a dude who shot a rich guy. I’m thinking there are plenty of juries who’d have no problem convicting a greedy bounty hunter over that.
Finally, I thought Penn missed some opportunities. The promise of the premise here is bounty hunters coming after Abel! So I wanted to see various weird bad-ass bounty hunter personalities. Imagine how much fun you could have with that? Real life versions of Boba Fett using unique skill-sets to hunt down Ford. But the treatment of the bounty hunters is more scattershot, told more through Ford’s perspective than their own. So we never get to establish any of these potential actor-bait roles (think about it – this could be the modern day Con Air, with all these big actors coming in to play weird cool bounty hunters).
I’m torn because I love this idea and I think the script sets up a great story. It doesn’t deliver though.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Send your character into the belly of the beast, the place they least want to go. A great way to ENSURE a good scene is to ask yourself, “Where does my character least want to go?” And then send them there. Early in the script, Ford needs to get information from a criminal to further his investigation. Guess where that criminal is? Prison. THE PRISON HE JUST BROKE OUT OF. So Ford has to go right back to the prison he just broke out of (in disguise, of course), to chat with the man who can help him out. These scenes work almost every time.
What I learned 2: If you find yourself trying to distract your reader from large plot holes in your script, you know you’re in trouble. Instead of creating distractions, go back and fill in the hole.
