“Pop Quiz. You’re been told by two Hollywood stars exactly what they want to make next. You’re a screenwriter capable of writing an action thriller. What do you do? What. Do You. Do?”
Genre: Thriller
Premise: Confined to “the nest,” a Secret Service Sniper gets a strange call on the radio from a deranged mastermind who’s holding his family hostage in a box suite during America’s biggest game– The Super Bowl.
About: Despite the surface-level concept, this script finished very high on last year’s Black List, with 17 votes.
Writer: Aaron Benjamin
Details: 106 pages
We talk a lot about how to sell a script and get it made on this site.
The most consistent advice we give is: Write a great script.
And that’s true. If you write a great script, Hollywood is your oyster.
But what if you’re not a great writer and can’t write a great script? Well, in that case, you have to be more strategic.
A little-talked about way to sell a script and get a movie made is to GIVE A HOLLYWOOD PERSON THE EXACT SCRIPT THEY WANT.
You know that movie, No Hard Feelings, with Jennifer Lawrence? You know how that movie got made? The writer was friends with Jennifer and watched her fall down laughing when she read the real-life advertisement where parents were hiring someone to sleep with their virgin son.
That writer, Gene Stupnitsky, went home and, unbeknownst to Jennifer, wrote a script about that advertisement. And of course Lawrence agreed to star in the movie. She’d basically already told Gene that she loved the idea.
You see, the main reason why people in Hollywood are able to get movies made while you’re stuck in your apartment twiddling your thumbs to the beat of the latest Taylor Swift album, is that they HAVE INFORMATION.
They know what every bankable actor and director in Hollywood is looking for. So they can tailor the scripts they send to these people. Whereas, with you, you’re just shooting bullets in the dark. You may envision Tom Holland as the PERFECT star for your skydiving script. But you have no idea if Tom Holland likes skydiving. You’re literally throwing pages into the wind.
It’s so unfair. That they know what you don’t know. It gives them a gigantic advantage.
BUT! Every once in a while, Hollywood will tell you EXACTLY what it wants. And Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock just told y’all they want to work together again, particularly if they’re given a great Speed 3 script.
So there you have it! Go write Speed 3.
Today’s review is inspired by this Hollywood gift. Not because it could be Speed 3. But it’s very much in that 90s vein of fun thrillers with over-the-top villains. Let’s find out if the script is a Super Bowl winner… or a Super Bowl loooooooooser….
40-something Secret Service sniper, Jackson Hackett, is an American hero. He’s just shot a would-be assassin who tried to kill the president of the United States. And he’d be happy… if he didn’t just learn he’s got early-onset Parkinson’s!
One year later, Jackson has been hired for his farewell job – to occupy “The Nest” – a small room in the top level inside the Super Bowl stadium. He must shoot anyone who’s causing a deadly ruckus. What he’s about to find out is that HE will be the ruckus.
Oh, I forgot to tell you. Jackson’s ex-wife and deaf daughter are at the game. As is Jackson’s sniper partner and cousin, Bobby. But when Bobby heads off to the bathroom, he doesn’t come back. And that’s when Jackson gets a call on his headset from this dude named Gordon Webb.
Gordon has taken hostage one of the suites where he’s kidnapped Jackson’s ex-wife and kid. Gordon explains to Jackson that he’s working for him now. He’s going to be asked to kill someone and, if he doesn’t do it, he can say bye-bye to his immediate family.
Jackson tells his partner, Agent Kiera, what’s going on and the two begin a low-key investigation into who this Gordon Webb is and what he’s planning to do. After a while, we learn that Webb is here to kill a Saudi Prince. The Prince, who’s going to be down on the field during the halftime show, will be shot by Jackson in the most dramatic way possible so that the whole world can see it.
Jackson doesn’t want to kill anyone but Webb’s got him by the deflated balls. Not only has Bobby been killed by this point, but his partner, Kiera, is working with the baddies! The plan is that, after Jackson kills the Prince, he’ll be framed by the U.S. Intelligence to look like he did this on his own. Unless, that is, he can find a way to foil the plan!
Mine the things within your concept that can only happen in your movie. That’s what makes a script unique. That’s what makes a script clever. And that’s what Benjamin did here. He asked, “What’s the worst thing you can do to a sniper?” Well, something that would make his hands shake. So, Jackson is diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
That’s good, right? By creating an obstacle that directly disrupts our hero’s “power,” you’re doing something you can only do in your script.
HOWEVER.
You still have to assess the residual effects of each creative choice you make. Parkinson’s is a very traumatic sad disease. So, sure, you give your hero an obstacle unique to him, but you also place this sad umbrella over the story, since we know our hero can never recover from this.
As the screenwriter, you gotta ask, “Is that worth it?” Am I GETTING MORE from this creative choice than I’m LOSING from it? I think you’re losing more. And when you lose more than you gain, you have to abandon the choice.
Despite this misstep, I found the script to be better than I expected.
The moment I committed to the story – cause I was on the fence for a while – was when Webb told Jackson that Jackson would be killing people today. I’m a sucker for when good people are forced to do bad things. I just think it gets to the heart of compelling character conflict. Whenever the external action does not match the internal belief, you’re watching nuclear inner-conflict.
And it helped that Webb was a good villain. He wasn’t Dennis Hopper in Speed good. But I liked a lot of his dialogue. And he gets a lot of dialogue here.
Hey, isn’t there a screenwriting guy who can’t stop talking about the importance of dialogue-friendly characters in scripts? Who’s that guy again? OH YEAH IT’S ME! That’s what Benjamin did here. He created Webb, who can’t shut up. And, most of the time, we’re the beneficiaries of it.
The reason the script doesn’t finish higher than “worth the read” is because Webb’s plot wasn’t as interesting as it could’ve been. Who cares about some Saudi Prince? It felt like it came out of left field. We needed someone bigger in play here. Particularly because the opening scene in your script is the hero saving the president of the United States. A Saudi Prince is ten steps down from that in importance. You needed to come up with something bigger.
But look – this script is Randy Moss sprinting down the sidelines. It never stops to catch its breath. It’s very “spec-y” in that way and I found that energy to be enjoyable.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The big downside to writing a script that could only be used in one scenario (you’re writing Scream 3 solely for Keanu and Sandra) is that if either Keanu or Sandra says no, your script is worthless. You can’t do anything else with it. Well, there’s a way around that. You write a script that’s CLEARLY Speed 3, but you title it something else (“Fast Release”), and change the character names. That way, if the script catches fire, people will send it to Paramount and tell Sandra and Keanu that they have the perfect script for Speed 3. But if those two pass, you still have a spec that could be made into another movie. You win both ways!
