Genre: Adventure/Thriller
Premise: When a husband and wife research team travel to a remote African jungle to look for a real-life Yeti, the biggest problem turns out not to be the monster, but their mutual best friend scientist, who is secretly in love with the wife.
About: This script finished in the top 15 of last year’s Black List.
Writer: Paul Levitt
Details: 109 pages
Pattinson for Noah?
Today’s script is going to teach you something new.
Which is that some subject matters are not meant to be combined.
33 year old geeky scientist, Noah Garland, has been spending the better part of his career searching for something called “Aby” with his wife, Emery Luis-Garland. “Aby” is actually a Yeti. Yes, these two believe that Yetis are real and that if they can find it, it will give them new information about the human genome, which they can use to help humanity (or something – I was never clear on why they needed this thing – but it was basically the same plot as Jurassic World Rebirth).
They are joined by rockin’ badass Ryder Burk, who has a PHD in fucking. Well, not really. But based on the events in this film, for all intents and purposes, he kinda does really. The three of them have earned a grant from Proxima Industries, which allows them to descend deep into the Congo jungle, with a trio of locals helping them as guides, to find the Yeti.
As those first days go on, Noah notices that Emery (who’s been slapping him with the headache excuse whenever he wants to have sex) is cozying up to Ryder in ways that feel like they’re crossing a line. But it’s never bad enough to justify Noah freaking out. So he quietly tolerates it.
A few nights in, one of the guys, a young man, is mutilated by the Yeti. But the scientists aren’t sad. They’re stoked! They can use the guide’s body to study what this Yeti is. That pisses the other guides off but the scientists don’t care because they’re only funded for a few more days and need hard data before they go back.
Not long after that, Noah overhears a secret conversation between Ryder and Emery where they discuss whether they should tell Noah about their secret. Noah storms over to Emery’s laptop, logs into her e-mail, and looks through every e-mail between her and Ryder. And he finds out he was right! They’ve been in love with each other this whole time! So Noah then ties them up, douses them with some pheromone that Yeti’s like, and then leaves them so that it will come eat them. The end.
I’m going to start off with a pet peeve here. Because, whenever I see it, I know the writer is either a) a beginner, or b) someone who doesn’t read scripts. Look at these two names…
RYDER
EMERY
You are murdering a reader’s head if you use these two names for main characters in your story. They have THREE of the same letters in them – E, Y, and R – and they are the exact same length. What that means is that your reader is going to have to constantly double-check who’s speaking. Because as your eyes are moving down the page to read dialogue, those two names look exactly the same.
Advanced screenwriters don’t make this mistake. And it’s not as small of a deal as you might think. The big goal of screenwriting is to have the reader disappear into the story so deeply that they’re no longer aware that they’re even reading anymore. And if your reader is constantly having to stop to check who’s speaking, they can’t do this.
Check this out…
RYDER
JOSEFINA
Notice how different these two names are visually and, therefore, how much easier it is to tell them apart.
It’s stuff like this that’s really made me question who the Black List is rewarding.
Moving on…
Once you start getting into the advanced stages of screenwriting, your scripts start becoming less about the big marketable concept and more about the thing *you’re really trying to say.*
So, if you were one of these advanced screenwriters pitching your brand new giant tarantula heist script to a room full of fellow writers, you’d say, “But what my script is REALLY ABOUT is the destructive forces of capitalism.”
And writers LOVE talking about this shit because it makes them feel like REAL WRITERS. And I’m all for that. There’s definitely something to say about using marketable concepts to say something bigger about the world we exist in.
But there’s a caveat to that.
IT ACTUALLY NEEDS TO BE EXECUTED WELL.
Because if you’re trying to make some grand point about the world in your Hollywood film and it’s either sloppy or nonsensical or just plain bizarre, then all you’re really doing is ruining a fun premise. Because most movie goers who pay money to see a giant tarantula heist movie… WANT TO SEE GIANT TARANTULAS AND HEISTS.
The decision to make a Yeti movie ACTUALLY BE ABOUT a sexy love triangle is………
…… a choice.
It is definitely a choice. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I spent the majority of my read trying to figure out how this storyline and this concept had anything to do with each other. Cause I couldn’t figure it out.
The best I came up with was that this Yeti is the ultimate alpha male and Noah is the ultimate beta male. And Ryder was the ultimate human alpha male. And so Ryder is using this opportunity of hunting down the ultimate alpha male to show Noah that he’s not alpha enough for his wife.
I’m sorry but that connection isn’t very clever, nor is it very clear. Nor is it even logical.
Look, if you have a Yeti in your movie and the goal of your characters is to find that Yeti, and yet your movie always places the Yeti in the background… I don’t know many people who are going to watch that without wanting to kill you afterwards.
I mean, it’s not even the same genre.
You’re putting a dangerous thriller love triangle in your movie, the kind of setup that would’ve had Michael Douglas starring in it in 1994, and combining that with a pseudo sci-fi adventure story. Those two genres don’t gel together.
It’s not lost on me how much this was like Challengers. There’s even a ménage à trois in the climax (oops, spoiler). And, the truth is, I don’t think that movie worked for the same reason. Those two worlds never came together in a harmonious way.
If you forced me to throw some credit at the writer, I’d say that at least he’s written something that’s different. But as I say around here all the time: “Different” just gets you to the cool kids table. You still now have to be a cool kid. And this script was the painfully pale weirdo kid who snorted strawberry milk up his nose while humming Hanson’s “Mmmmbop.”
This script isn’t bad, by the way. It’s just like all the Black List scripts. It’s disappointing. It’s muddled. It’s confused. It’s a writer who’s still trying to find their way. We’re getting ideas scribbled on napkins here instead of fully fleshed-out final draft screenplays.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Don’t try and outthink the system. Deliver on the promise of your premise. The reason Project Hail Mary is a runaway hit is because it perfectly delivered on the promise of its premise. If your hook is scientists going into a jungle to find a Yeti, don’t give us Fatal Attraction.
