Genre: Crime – Contained Thriller
Premise: In downtown Los Angeles, a hospital for high-level criminals masquerades as an old hotel.
About: Hotel Artemis comes from writer Drew Pearce, who wrote Iron Man 3 and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Keep in mind that both of those films were directed by writers (Shane Black and Christopher McQuarrie respectively). So I’m thinking he was heavily rewritten, particularly by Black, which is a good thing, since Iron Man 3 is terrible. Hotel Artemis, which is in post-production stars some seasoned talent (Jodie Foster and Jeff Goldblum) as well as up-and-coming thespians (Sterling K. Brown, Jenny Slate, Dave Bautista). Pearce directed from his own script, which made the 2016 Black List. This is his first directing gig.
Writer: Drew Pearce
Details: 103 pages
The purpose of every script is to be turned into a movie. So the goal is always to find a way to get that done, which is difficult in a competitive market, where only 1 in some 20,000 scripts gets made (if you’re including all the newbie writers out there). So you have to have a plan. The most basic plan, and the one that’s been used the longest, is “Come up with a cool idea.” If your idea is cool enough, your project will find its way into production.
But that’s not the only way to get your script made. Another thing you have at your disposal is actors. If a good enough actor likes your script and wants to play a role, it gains traction and has a good chance of getting made. So if you’re smart, you’ll ask the question, ‘How can I create roles in my script that actors will want to play?’ The thing that’s always worked in the past is to write a male main character, between the ages of 30-45, so a movie star can play him. Movie stars get movies made.
But that’s not the only way. You can be cleverer. A juicy role for actors who don’t usually get offered flashy parts is another option. So a strategy might be to target that overlooked demo for your hero, your villain, or your main supporting role. Which brings us to Hotel Artemis. This is a dream role for a 50-65 year old actress. A role like this comes around once a year. And so Jodie Foster, who’s notoriously picky, signed on. And once you have that, there isn’t an actor in Hollywood who doesn’t want to play opposite a legend like Foster. Which means the cast rounds out quickly, the project gains steam, and the next thing you know, the movie’s getting made.
The point I’m making is your script is just as much a strategy as it is a story. I’m not saying you can’t write a great story and let the chips fall where they may. But it doesn’t hurt to have a more sophisticated plan. Everyone’s trying to game the system. So if you can figure out a way to get something made that someone else hasn’t thought of, you have a leg up.
Hotel Artemis slams into us with a man who’s been shot up. His name is Honolulu. Well, not really. All of the characters here have names representing the themed rooms they’re staying in. I should explain that as well. Hotel Artemis isn’t really a hotel. It’s a secret hospital inside of what looks like a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The reason it’s secret is because it only caters to criminals.
So Honolulu and his brother, Waikiki, are raced up into the a room by THE NURSE, the 64 year old woman who runs this place. The Nurse has been here for 30 years. Helping criminals is all she knows. And she’s better at it than anyone in town.
A normal night at Hotel Artemis is manageable. But tonight is different. There are major riots going on throughout the city. So everyone’s getting shot up.
Anyway, there are strict rules. You have to be a member to get in. And membership price is STEEP. So there aren’t any low-level gangbangers that get Artemis access. You’re not allowed to bring in weapons. And no cops. By the end of the night, all of these rules will be broken.
Waikiki waits impatiently as his banged-up brother plays hide and seek with a flatline. He bides his time by talking to Nice, a beautiful Russian assassin, who’s reeling after a failed kill. This was supposed to be the job that allowed her to spend the rest of her life in, ironically, Honolulu. Then there’s Acapulco, a first class businessman asshole who may have killed a woman tonight and is getting treated for the injuries he sustained from her fighting back.
As the riots get rowdier, two huge problems pop up. One, a woman from the Nurse’s past arrives shot up and borderline unconscious outside. The issue? She’s a cop. And then the original founder of the hotel, a dangerous Russian gangster, is arriving later, bringing an entire mob of Russian thugs with him.
When the riots result in the power being cut, The Nurse will be tested like never before, rushing back and forth between all of these high-level clients, trying to keep all of them happy so they keep coming back. But what she doesn’t know is that one of her clients is here under false-pretenses. And that they have a plan that could do Hotel Artemis in for good.
This is such a clever idea.
Usually, when I read contained thrillers, they’re a family or a group of people in a basement, with either monsters, zombies, nuclear fallout, or vampires outside. This redefines the genre. A contained thriller about a hospital? I’ve never seen that before. And this is what I always tell you guys. If you can come up with an original idea, then nearly every scene you write will feel original because its happening within an unfamiliar construct. The reason so many script reads are boring is because they set up a familiar scenario and then go through the same beats everyone else writes. Hotel Artemis wasn’t like that at all.
And it wasn’t just the concept that was great, it was the mythology, it was the characters, it was the hero, it was the plotting – the way all the storylines came together in the end. I love smart plotting. When a writer can keep the coals hot the whole walk through because they’re constantly infusing new plot points that are all interesting? That’s when a script is cooking, man.
For example, the arrival of the female cop. That’s one of the rules of the hotel. No cops. But this was a personal friend of the Nurse’s. She couldn’t turn her away. The reason all these criminals pay so much money for membership to this place is because they’re safe here. They don’t have to worry about the cops. So you have this whole section where our hero is sneaking the cop in, treating her, and trying to get her out without anyone noticing. It was great.
I also loved the fact that the founder – the Russian Gangster – showed up. But Pearce did something clever with this that I don’t think a lot of writers would’ve thought of. He has the Gangster’s son show up outside, call The Nurse, and say that his dad is going to be here in 50 minutes. What this does is it creates plot multi-threading. So we have the plot threads that are going on right in front of us, like The Nurse trying to put out fires. But in the back of our mind, we know that the Gangster is coming. So there’s this ongoing anticipation and worry that’s working on our nerves. That’s good writing.
Probably the best plot point (SPOILERS!) is when we find out that Nice didn’t fail at her early assassination attempt after all. Her mark is the Russian Gangster. So she’s waiting for him to come here so she can kill him. Clearly this script was really well thought-through.
And what brings it all together is the mythology. This isn’t John Wick mythology here, where they thought of a couple of neato ideas and scribbled them on a napkin. You can tell that Pearce sketched this whole hotel out. From the rooms, to the rules, to the history, to the secret tunnels that lead out to secret entrances… it all feels rich.
This is a risky cast. It’s a group that’s on the cusp of not being big enough. But there are enough new faces – Brown, Slate, Bautista – that maybe it triggers some buzz. It’s worth keeping an eye on.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Multi-threading plotlines. Have a lingering plot going on underneath whatever’s happening on the screen (the lingering wait for the Russian Gangster here). Think of it like audio or video editing, where you have multiple tracks. When you’re putting a song together, you don’t have just one track. You have the vocals. Underneath that an instrument. Underneath that the backup singers. That’s kind of how you want to imagine your script. It needs multiple tracks going on at the same time. If you want to see what happens if you DON’T multi-thread, go watch the “horror” movie “Open House” on Netflix. Everything you see on the screen is all that’s happening. There’s zero going on underneath the main thread. Note how bored you get during the film. The lack of multi-layered plot threads is a big reason why.
