Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A calloused medical actuary is sent to evaluate an exciting new procedure that could cure human disease forever.
About: This script has not yet sold but finished number 7 on this year’s Hit List, one below The Water Man, and one above Pale Blue Dot. The writer, Takashi Doscher, is actually a documentary filmmaker who specializes in sports documentaries. His film, A Fighting Chance, about a wrestler without any arms or legs, sold to ESPN’s prestigious 30 for 30 series. He’s repped by spec sale king Mike Esola, who recently moved from WME over to UTA.
Writer: Takashi Doscher
Details: 103 pages
I’m still trying to recover after yesterday. “Libertine Fever” is a real thing, according to the national survey of screenplay diseases. It occurs after a particularly bad script, sending the reader into a spiraling depression that starts with ordering two Dominos pizzas at 12:49 a.m., and ends with waking up in a pile of Nutter Butter crumbs (and strangely, no packaging in sight). I will neither confirm nor deny that any of this happened to me. But I will say that I’ve added a new day of therapy to my week, putting the total at 4 (my therapist is off Thursdays).
You’d think I wouldn’t be able to make it though another Hit List script after the Libertine debacle, but this next script has been getting some solid marks from Scriptshadow readers, and high-concept sci-fi sounded like the perfect answer to whatever the hell genre I endured yesterday.
Dylan Simms is an actuary. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, cause I don’t either. From what I could tell, Dylan works for a giant medical company that invests in a lot of projects. When we first meet him, he’s telling two scientists (who are also a couple) that their infertility project has been nixed. The two are devastated, and plead for more time, but the calloused Dylan tells them not to let the door hit them on the way out.
Telling people he doesn’t care about unborn babies seems to be Dylan’s thing. When his girlfriend, Nicole, informs him later that she’s pregnant, he tells her that she needs to get an abortion STAT. Nicole breaks up with him on the spot, to which Dylan barely reacts.
Later, Dylan’s boss sends him to a top-secret project the company is working on to determine if it’ll fly legally. Imagine Dylan’s surprise when he finds out the project is shrinking people down and placing them inside of bodies so that they can fix fractures, cure diseases, and live forever! Dylan is even shrunk down and thrown inside of someone’s body to get an up-close look at the technology.
However, when the vessel they’re in is attacked by a group of T-cells, Dylan is thrust out of the ship in just a protective suit. Everyone else dies. Dylan eventually makes audio contact with mission leader Rebecca Curry, who’s back in the lab, and she navigates him through the insane geography of the human body in an attempt to save him.
Along the way, we learn that the woman whose body we’re in has Lupas, which is causing all cells everywhere to attack everything, especially foreign bodies like Dylan. As Dylan eventually navigates himself to the center of the body, he sees that the woman is pregnant. Looking at this giant unborn child flips a switch in Dylan, and now he’ll do anything to get out and save the child he told Nicole to get rid of.
A lot of writers ask me, “What’s the point of writing a spec that would cost a studio 150 million dollars when there’s a 99% chance they’re going to spend that money on already established IP?” The point is that writing one of these specs proves to the studios that you can do it. Which means you might get hired to write one of those 150 million dollar IP properties. So sure, you may not get your script purchased. But does it matter when you cash that first half-a-million dollar assignment check six months later?
Now you may be one of those writers who’s actually gone the 150 million dollar idea route and gotten nowhere. You then deluge all the internet screenwriting message boards with your tale: “I tried the huge spec route,” you say, “and I didn’t get a single bite. Studios aren’t interested in these scripts!!!”
Let’s be clear about something. Every strategy you engage in is predicated on you actually writing a good script. If you write a big popcorn flick and it sucks, that doesn’t mean your strategy was a bad one. It means you have to work on your writing. Of course, it’s very hard to judge your writing, since every writer is hopeful and taste is subjective.
I can’t help you with that without reading your screenplay. But what I can help you with in regards to popcorn flicks, is understanding what Hollywood responds to. New writers believe that writing these script is all about the action. It’s all about the set pieces and the creativity of the world. And that’s part of it. But that pales in comparison to what Hollywood is really looking for – which is to see if you can find an emotional center to a giant story.
Take the movie San Andreas. It’s a big goofy summer action film. The definition of a popcorn flick. What is it about? An earthquake, right. No, it’s not about an earthquake. It’s about a father trying to save his daughter and bring his family back together. I can hear you cynics saying, “but that was so cheeeeesy.” Okay, call it whatever you want. But Hollywood wants you to move the audience emotionally. Which means your action script needs an emotional core.
That’s what Doscher does here. He creates this character who doesn’t want children, who always puts work and himself above others, and uses this journey to help him see the other side of coin. This isn’t so much about a man travelling through a body as it is about a man coming to terms with who he’s become and whether he wants to keep being that person for the rest of his life.
Did it work? Ehhhh, that’s debatable. An argument can be made that it was too on-the-nose. And yeah, I felt Doscher went over the top at times (Dylan’s battle against the T-Cells that attack the baby’s placenta was a bit much – how come the T-cells waited 24 months, until the exact moment when Dylan entered the uterus, to attack the baby?). But the point is, he committed to exploring the emotional side of the movie and that’s what Hollywood wants!
ANYBODY can write a big action set piece. They’re all the same. Car chase this, building falls down that, gun gun gun, bang bang bang, robots. But it takes a real writer to move people (or at least attempt to), and that’s how you stand out in this genre.
Despite this endorsement on the script’s approach, The Life Inside ultimately fell short for me. Like I said, it was too on-the-nose. And it didn’t surprise me enough. I felt there was more of an opportunity with the mystery of whose body we were in (it ended up being someone random). Also, there’s this whole second older submarine Dylan swims to that’s military in nature. It seemed like we were going to get some cool twist. But it never happened. It was just another shrunk submarine.
Which sucks. Because I thought the angle here was spot on. With a little more practice at subtlety, I think Doscher could be a writer to watch out for.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I’m thinking we need to update this exchange in movies: “Mr. Smith.” “Please, call me Harry.” “Harry, I was wondering…” It may be the most overused exchange in all of writing. Impomptu Scriptshadow writing challenge: Give us a NEW variation (or entirely new exchange) of the “Call me [Name]” exchange.
