Is today’s script “The Player” for Gen Z?
Genre: Thriller
Premise: After passing on a hot new screenplay, a studio executive finds himself trapped as the protagonist inside the film and must regain control before the credits roll.
About: This script finished NUMBER 3 on the most recent Black List.
Writer: Jordan Rosenbloom
Details: 111 pages
Cooper needs a snazzy fun script after the dudtopolis that was Maestro.
“Bad Boy” has set a high bar for the 2023 Black List. I’m doubtful that any script can top it. Oh, and if you’re wondering why I’m jumping from the number 1 script to the number 3 script today, it’s because I’ve already reviewed script number 2! It’s called Stakehorse and you can check out my review here.
As for “Spoiler,” I knew nothing about it going in. Yes, I do those Black List logline breakdowns in my annual Black List Logline Assessment post. But I’ve forgotten almost every script since then. That’s the way I like it. I enjoy going into a script as blind as a bat. It gives me the best chance of being surprised.
Sam Feldstein is a 40-something executive at Silverhead Studios. Sam is about to be named the new head of that studio. At least, that was the plan BEFORE his latest movie, “Captain Queer,” plunged to a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes the morning after the Thursday evening showings. It’s looking like the 200 million dollar movie is going to suffer an Aquaman 2-like weekend.
Sam tries to ignore this while taking a breakfast meeting with the hottest writer in town, “The Kid.” The 20-something “Kid” is all the rage and boy is he eating up the attention. Which, of course, makes Sam’s breakfast with him insufferable. Less than five minutes into The Kid’s pitch for his next movie, Sam tells him to F-off. He’s too douchey for Sam to handle. As far as he’s concerned, Silverhead will never work with this guy.
But before Sam leaves, The Kid makes him take his latest screenplay, and informs him that he WILL read it. Sam throws it back at him and heads to work. Once there, we get bits and pieces about this Captain Queer movie, which stars a young actor named Rocky Jones, who the married Sam had a secret affair with during production. Now, he wants nothing to do with Rocky. ESPECIALLY with the movie underperforming.
When Sam finally makes it to his office, he’s shocked to find that The Kid’s script is waiting for him. Annoyed, he rears back to toss it in the garbage, but out of curiosity, reads the first few pages. And the first few pages include Sam as a character. In fact, the first ten pages are the exact same meeting, word for word, that he had with The Kid earlier.
Convinced this is a sick joke, Sam asks his assistant if she’s seen anything suspicious, only to be told that he doesn’t look okay. When Sam delves further into the script, he’s horrified to see that EVERYTHING that has happened so far in his day IS IN THIS SCRIPT. Determined to find out what’s going on, he barrels into the city to search for The Kid.
When he finally finds him, The Kid comes clean. Sam is not a real person. “What did you do before breakfast today?” The Kid asks him. Sam racks his brain. He can’t remember. “That’s because you didn’t exist before that breakfast. I created you.” Horrified, Sam’s brain starts spinning. That can’t possibly be true. But the further into the day he gets, and the more of the script he reads, he comes to the realization that he is, indeed, a figment of The Kid’s imagination. Which means that when this movie is over, Sam is over. Can Sam find a way out? Or is this the one Hollywood problem he won’t be able to solve?
These scripts always work best on readers who’ve never read them before – these meta “what’s real, what isn’t” living-in-a-movie-or-a-video-game-or-a-book screenplays. But I’ve read a lot of them. So my bar is higher than most. Taking everything into consideration, I thought Rosenbloom’s take was pretty good. But it’s clear that the writer isn’t aiming for “pretty good.” He’s aiming for great.
Here’s the catch with these scripts – once we get used to the gimmick, the script has to deliver on a plot and character level, aka, the same level any other script has to deliver on. Without being able to lean on the wacky meta x-factor to carry the reader’s interest, can the script still be entertaining?
I’ll say this: Rosenbloom gives it his best shot. He is trying to say something here, both with the character of Sam (a man who’s abandoned his family for his work) and with life itself (ya blink and it’s over). I’m just not sure it was presented in a way that changed the game for me. It walked right up to the line of profound but then stepped back and retreated. Yeah, when the movie cuts to black, his life is over… okay. But I’m still sitting there saying, “So what?” Who is Sam? He’s a workaholic borderline a-hole executive. There’s nothing likable about him. I don’t care if he dies.
That’s not to say there weren’t things to enjoy. I liked how the script lures you into a sense of normalcy with its real-time first act, only to then shock the heck out of you later on, when the story starts jump-cutting. When we go that breakfast meeting, drive to the studio, head into work, it’s all happening in real time. Therefore, when the CUTS start happening, they hit us hard. Sam is in his office one second and then – BAM – he’s at a party. For a movie, this is normal. But imagine being a person in a movie and jumping from scene to scene with nothing in between. It’d be terrifying. And that’s exactly what it is for Sam.
I also loved that opening scene. All it is is a ten page breakfast scene. But the dialogue is strong and Rosenbloom does a good job building the tension. It starts off so casual but then the importance of what’s happening becomes more and more evident and The Kid becomes this, almost, ethereal figure, as he imposes upon Sam to read his script at all costs. By the end of that scene, I wanted to keep reading.
Sam’s backstory also had some nice moments that intersected nicely with the plot. You had this movie that was tanking on its opening weekend. We then reveal that Sam was sleeping with the star. The star, who’s mentally unwell, is stalking Sam, begging to be in his next movie. He then kills himself which, ironically, pumps up interest in the movie. So now Captain Queer is going to be a hit. That kind of plotting isn’t easy to pull off in such a tight space but I thought Rosenbloom did it well.
I was also impressed by how Rosenbloom rode this line between criticizing and championing the industry. “Captain Queer” is obviously a dig at Hollywood’s obsession with wokeness. Yet Rosenbloom plays it straight (no pun intended). He never makes a big deal out of the ridiculousness of the film’s subject matter.
They say to never write a script about the industry. I have an addendum to that. Never write a script about the industry UNLESS YOU’RE IN THE INDUSTRY. Because if you’re in the industry, you can inject the requisite specificity required to sell this world. I don’t know anything about Jordan Rosenbloom but I’d be surprised if he didn’t work in the industry in some capacity. There’s enough specificity here that I believed in his world.
I still think if you’re going to dip your toes into the fourth-wall-breaking meta movie-verse, your entry point should be “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.” That’s the best I’ve seen tackle this subject matter. But I’ve never seen anyone master it. It’s insanely hard. Still, Spoiler does a decent job.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: It’s easy for these meta concepts to go off the rails. So I always recommend containing the story in as many other ways as possible. That way, even though you have this meta-weirdness going on, it’s still easy for the reader to keep up with the plot. That’s exactly what Rosenbloom does here by restricting this timeline to a single day (with a minor caveat at the end). By keeping everything in the here and now, it makes the weirdness easier to navigate.
