A rare spec script that makes it to the big screen!
Genre: Courtroom Thriller
Premise: When a man is brought onto the jury of a slam-dunk murder case where he realizes he is the murderer, he must decide whether to save himself by convicting an innocent man or to sway the jury to let the falsely accused defendant go free.
About: This is the big Clint Eastwood project coming out soon. It stars Nicholas Hoult as the titular character. The script was written all the way back in 2008. Talk about inspiration to keep hopes alive on old scripts you’ve written! Although I won’t know for sure until I see the movie, it’s likely that Eastwood used that 2008 draft, as he’s known for sticking with the first drafts of scripts. He likes the rawness of them and feels that they’re more truthful (the same reason why he goes with a lot of first takes as well).
Writer: Jonathan Abrams
Details: 104 pages
I will always ride or die with a spec script that makes it to the big screen. It’s rare. So it’s worthy of celebrating when it happens.
Why is it rare? Because you have to understand how Hollywood works. Hollywood has always been a risk-averse business but they’ve never been more risk-averse than right now. Therefore, the only time they feel comfortable with a project is when it’s been proven. Proof equates to PEOPLE SPENDING MONEY ON IT. That’s why yesterday’s Horrorstor got optioned. Because people had purchased the book.
A script? A naked script is the biggest gamble in the business. It hasn’t been proven on any level. Which is why the only time Hollywood takes interest in one of these stacks of paper is when someone successful says *I* like this script.
That’s not to say a script won’t sell. Case in point, this script caught Clint Eastwood’s interest and, hence, the studio said, “We’re in.” So you have to get your scripts in front of enough of these greenlightable people until one of them says yes. What’s the best way to get scripts in front of these people? Agents. They have relationships with all the talent and can therefore get scripts to them. How do you get a script in front of agents? The best way is through managers. Managers are more writer friendly and therefore easier to get scripts to. They have relationships with all the agents and will send your script to their favorites when they think it’s time. How do you get managers to read your scripts? Cold e-mail them. If you’re resourceful, it’s not hard to get most of their e-mails online. But you better come to them with a logline that has a hook. Or else it’s very likely that won’t bother requesting your script. These guys need to pay the bills. They’re not millionaires so it’s in their best interest to find the kind of concepts that sell. Keep that in mind the next time you’re thinking about sending your meditative road trip journey through Wyoming written in iambic pentameter.
Okay, with that out of the way, let’s talk about today’s script.
Justin Kemp, a normal 30-something dude with a wife and kid, has just been called in for Jury Duty. He’s not exactly thrilled about it but believes that it’s a civic duty and, therefore, when he shows up, he doesn’t try any of the sly tricks to get out of the gig. As a result, he’s chosen as one of the twelve jurors.
The case, it turns out, is about a guy, James Michael Sythe, who it is assumed murdered his girlfriend. The prosecution argues that Sythe, a former gang member with a temper, was so angry after his rich girlfriend broke up with him, that he bashed her over the head with a paper weight, took her body to a nearby road on a high cliff, and tossed it over.
But it’s when the lawyer mentions the date and the place that the incident happened that stops Justin cold. It was on November 6th of last year on a specific road. We get a quick flashback of Justin on that very road on that date last year. It was dark, storming. He was in his Land Rover. And he hit something. He screeches to a stop. Looks back. Doesn’t see anything. Or doesn’t want to. He then speeds off. This whole time, he told himself he hit a deer. But it turns out, he hit and killed a person.
Justin is, justifiably, rattled. But once he recovers, he has a life-altering decision to make. Does he send a man to prison who he knows didn’t commit the murder? And if not, how does he convince the other jury members, all of whom are 1000% sure this man did it, not to convict him, without drawing suspicion towards himself?
Justin decides he’s going to do the right thing and convince everyone that the defendant is innocent. But that strategy gets him in trouble almost immediately. The one jury member who wasn’t convinced the guy killed the girlfriend, a cop, privately starts looking into the case. He checks with his old friend, the coroner on the case, and finds out that the injury that killed her was more consistent with a car hitting her than a paperweight. Uh-oh.
Due to a mistake by that jury member, the prosecutor gets wind of this theory and starts looking into all of the cars that came in for auto work that time last year. After narrowing the field, she finds that there are a handful of cars that could’ve done it. And isn’t she surprised when one of them turns out to be Justin’s wife! Justin has no choice but to now let his wife in on the truth. But it may not matter. The walls keep closing in on Justin as they get closer and closer to a decision.
Today’s script comes from the school of “Find a new spin on your favorite movie.”
Or, it could even come from the school of, “Find a new spin on a famous movie that hasn’t had a new spin in a while.”
What’s that movie we’re talking about today? 12 Angry Men.
I’m actually surprised more scripts aren’t inspired by this premise due to it being tailor-made for tension, suspense, and fun revelations.
But, like I always say, every idea comes with its own set of challenges. Even the best ones. And this one comes with a couple.
For starters, don’t write one of these movies unless you are a) a lawyer or b) have an insane, obsessive, appetite for these legal stories. You cannot write one of these if you only have the idea but no knowledge of how legality in a courtroom works. I can promise you – PROMISE YOU – that your script will not be received well. You won’t be able to capture the authenticity and detail of a real court case.
Another thing about these court scripts is that THEY MUST BE CLEVER.
Court scenarios are built for surprises and revelations. One of the reasons the court movie fell out of favor was because TV could accomplish the same thing. Thousands of court shows were then produced and all of them were trying to out-clever each other with their plot developments. Therefore, if you’re writing a courtroom movie? You have to come up with a top top TOP level of cleverosity to justify it.
So, let’s talk about how Abrams did.
Did he pull this off?
I would say that he did a decent job. I definitely wanted to know what happened next and, one could argue, that’s all a script needs to be successful – the desire for the reader to turn the pages.
But I think he kind of wimped out when setting up the main character.
Justin didn’t know that he murdered someone until he got into the courtroom. While this allows the main character to be likable, which is, I’m sure, what motivated that choice, it steers the script away from the far more interesting version of Justin, whereby he killed someone, knew it, and is steering the jury towards a guilty verdict.
Believe me, I know that the darker version of Justin is a harder path to go down. Because in every step of the script’s development, you’re going to get pushback. People are going to tell you, “The main character isn’t likable. Nobody wants to root for a murderer. Making your main character a bad person is script suicide.” I get it!
But there’s no question whatsoever that Justin being the inadvertent murderer and trying to get this guy convicted is the more interesting storyline. And it’s doable! You can do things like make the defendant a really bad person outside of not murdering the woman, so we still root against him. And there are always things you can do to make your main character more likable. There are plenty of famous murderers we have rooted for throughout our moviegoing history. Heck, we all once rooted for a cannibal!!!
Despite this more friendly interpretation of the setup, the script is still pretty good. Abrams does a good job with the prosecutor, Faith, closing in on Justin, so it isn’t just the jury decision we’re looking forward to. We’re looking forward to whether Faith is going to expose him.
Definitely a fun spec script that’s worth checking out.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This is a great example of the power of choosing timeless concepts. When you choose a concept like Horrorstor, your script is dependent on how long Ikea stays within popular culture. But if you choose a concept about a courtroom murder case, you could have 10-20 years of that script being a viable potential purchase. This script was written 16 years ago but because of the timeless concept, it was still buyable after all that time.
