Genre: Thriller/Supernatural
Premise: (from IMDB) After a series of paintings by an unknown artist are discovered, a supernatural force enacts revenge on those who have allowed their greed to get in the way of art.
About: From longtime screenwriter Dan Gilroy comes Velvet Buzzsaw, his third directing effort. The film brings back the team of Gilroy, Gylenhaal and Russo (Nightcrawler) and debuted Friday on Netflix.
Writer: Dan Gilroy
Details:113 minutes

First of all, let me say that I love this practice of movies debuting at major film festivals then appearing on Netflix or Amazon days later. I’ve always hated hearing about Sundance movies then having no idea when or where I’d be able to see them. I might have to wait 8 months before I hear about the film again. More movies should do it like this where you hear the buzz (heh heh) then get the movie immediately. Call that a millennial mindset if you will, but I was so happy to see this up on Netflix Friday.

Now the way I see Dan Gilroy is that he’s 1 for 2. Nightcrawler was as close as we’re ever going to get to a modern day version of Taxi Driver. I loved that script from the opening page. Which makes it all the more perplexing that Gilroy followed it up with Roman J. Israel, Esq. That script was the opposite of Nightcrawler. It was verbose, unfocused, and lacked structure. Should’ve changed the “Esq” to “Ick.” I actually felt bad giving it a negative review because I thought maybe it was a super early draft. But nope. That’s the draft Gilroy went with. It’s hard to make Denzel Washington look bad. But that script achieved it.

This makes Velvet Buzzsaw the tiebreaker. If this is good, Roman was a misstep. If it’s bad, Nightcrawler was an anomaly. Time to place it up on the wall and see what this piece is about.

Josephina is a British art agent in the burgeoning LA art scene. She often rubs elbows with Morf, a bisexual art critic who she once had a fling with. The two are friendly with art gallery owner Rhodora, who has become so jaded by art that nothing impresses her anymore. Actually, that could be applied to everyone here.

After a long day, Josephina returns to her apartment where she sees that her neighbor, an old man named Vetril Dease (does anyone have a normal name in this movie?), has died in the stairway. In the coincidence of all coincidences, it turns out Vetril was an artist. But not just any artist. He was extremely talented, painting dozens of dark haunting paintings. Josephina immediately claims the paintings and starts selling them.

Morf is so taken by Dease’s work that his former feelings for Josephina are reignited. But as the two enter into a relationship, strange things begin happening around Dease’s paintings. A lowly intern crashes his car while transporting the paintings. A fellow gallery owner is found hung by his scarf near another.

It appears that these paintings are coming to life and killing the greedy art leeches who covet them. When Morf becomes the latest to see the paintings move, it’s only a matter of time before he ends up like everyone else. Unless he can figure out why Dease’s spirit is doing this and put it to rest first.

Ooh, a lot to get to with this one.

Let’s break down the first 10 pages since that’s been the theme this month.

The great thing about starting your story in a captivating manner isn’t just that it hooks the reader. It’s that it hooks an audience. It’s a good thing for the movie. Amateur screenwriters on the brink of breaking in understand this (as do struggling professionals who’ve been forgotten). They toil over those first ten pages because they know if they hook you off the bat, there’s a good change you’re going to like their script.

In Nightcrawler, Gilroy starts his screenplay with Louis Bloom stealing something. He’s immediately confronted by a cop and has to talk his way out of it. Not only is something interesting happening in this opening, but Gilroy does an excellent job establishing who Louis Bloom is through the interaction. There’s a moment where Louis says, “Excuse me, but that gate was open, sir. I was under the opinion that it was a detour. What kind of uniform is that?” Just the fact that Bloom is turning the questioning around on the cop gives us a great feel for who this person is.

But something funny happens when a screenwriter becomes an established professional, when they get to that stage where their projects are greenlit without anyone having to read their script. They get lazy with their openings. They rationalize that they can take their time, sometimes defiantly so. This can result in 20 pages going by before anything interesting happens.

Velvet Buzzsaw falls into this category. Some guy played by Jake Gylenhaal stumbles into an art showing, yet we have no idea who he is or what he does. He seems slightly arrogant and bored, but that’s all we have to go on. We watch as he ricochets between people and displays, never sure why he’s here or what he’s doing. It’s the complete opposite of Nightcrawler, which started with something happening that clearly established our hero.

We then ping pong over to the street where some British woman gets dumped on the phone. Who is this woman? What does she do? Why do we care that she just got dumped if we don’t know these things? As these questions linger, she joins us in the art showing as we continue to bounce around without purpose. Even if you make the argument that Gilroy is eschewing a compelling opening in order to introduce the cast of characters, it doesn’t work because none of these characters are well established. We only know that they work in the art world. I actually had to go to Wikipedia after the movie to find out what Josephina’s job title was. That’s bad writing.

If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that when the first ten pages are sloppy, you’re going to get a sloppy movie. And that’s exactly what happens. This movie is all over the place. First of all, who’s our protagonist? I thought it was Morf since we meet him first. But eventually I realize it’s Dumped Girl. And I only came to that conclusion because she’s the one who found the dead artist. But if you would’ve asked me if she was the hero before that, I would’ve said no. Morf was. Confusing confusing confusing.

On top of that, there’s no clear genre here. This starts off as a goofy satire about the art scene. Then it becomes a thriller. And then, out of nowhere, it becomes an out and out horror film, where paintings come to life. WTF??? I guess you can throw single protagonists and genre out the window if you want. There are no rules. But don’t be surprised when people leave your movie feeling like they watched some quickly thrown together experimental student film.

I mean everything was messy here. Louis Bloom was so carefully constructed, you understood him intricately. He’s a sociopathic capitalist who will try to talk his way out of anything. In contrast, Morf is vague and random. It seems like the only reason he’s bisexual is because Gilroy didn’t know how to make him interesting and threw the bisexual tag on him in the hopes that it would somehow make him more complex.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that filmmakers are using Netflix as a way to explore their weirder more experimental ideas that nobody else would let them make. In theory, that sounds good. In practice, it means we get movies like the pointless Mute, the jumbled Hold The Dark, the boring Roma, and now Velvet Buzzsaw, a sloppily constructed mish-mash of ideas in search of a protagonist, a genre, and a plot.

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A lot of writers don’t realize how much effort screenwriters put into their dialogue. They assume the words just magically come out of the writer’s head. But how can a writer understand the way someone speaks in an industry they know nothing about? I wasn’t surprised at all, then, when I heard Gilroy’s answer to this question about how he wrote authentic “art world” dialogue. Here’s the question and answer, from a Vulture interview…

One of the elements of the film that I can imagine was fun, certainly in the writing process, was the “art-speak” — the very obtuse, heady way in which critics and gallerists and artists create meaning around their work. Did you work with anybody while writing those parts of the script, or did you just immerse yourself in that language and read a bunch of “Art in America?”

Yeah, I researched it for months, read articles, interviews; I brought in three technical advisers. And it is its own world, and it is its own sort of language. And I thought I had the language down at times, and then somebody who runs a gallery in L.A. would come in and say, “You should change that word to this, because that’s not a word we use.” And it is its own lexicon. There’s no question about it. But I like going into a world and learning the language of it.

Genre: Action Thriller Sci-Fi Romantic Comedy
Premise: Barret is a social media influencer, the worst guy ever, and the eventual President of the United States. Dixie is a badass freedom fighter, sent back from 2076 to kill him before he takes over the world and ruins the future. They fucking hate each other. Then they accidentally fall in love.
About: This script finished Top 10 in last year’s Black List, a surprising showing considering the main character isn’t a real person (biopic joke). Michael Daldron seems to thrive in the absurd. He was a writer on the bonkers Dan Harmon TV show, Rick and Morty.
Writer: Michael Waldron
Details: 104 pages

We’re going to keep the absurdity alive this week! Yesterday, we covered a character who fell in love with a toe. Today, we explore traveling back in time to wipe out social media influencers.

What’s a social media influencer? I only found out the other day after watching Netflix’s Fyre Festival doc, a task I initially resisted because the media’s become a scourge of evil intent on destroying people’s lives regardless of whether they deserve it or not. I figured they did the same thing to this Fyre Festival dude. But ohhhh no. This guy deserved to be taken down. The crap he pulled would’ve caused a coma patient to stand up and demand action. I loved it so much I re-activated my dead Hulu account so I could watch their competing Fyre Festival documentary, which turned out to be even better than Netflix’s.

Anyway, all this is to say that social media influencers (the people who made Fyre Festival a “thing”) are vapid black holes of emptiness, the bottom rung of entertainment. And the current generation is growing up on them, which means they’re going to be the primary source of entertainment at some point. Get your Logan Paul merch while you can still afford it!

20-something Dixie lives in the year 2076, a post-apocalyptic future that is the result of a stupid douchebag of a social media influencer, The Duke, becoming president and ruining everything. After searching far and wide, Dixie locates a time-traveling backpack, and after killing the future version of Duke, goes back to the year 2018 to kill the young version of Duke so that he can never become president in the first place.

Dixie arrives in 2018 and immediately attacks the young Duke (who’s simply named “Barret” here). But within seconds of the attack, a 16 year old Duke disciple, Miller, also from the future, appears in a jet pack and attacks Dixie. Dixie and Miller battle while the confused Barret watches on, tweeting and instagram storying his fans about the attack.

Barret hops in a car and drives off, but Dixie easily catches up to him. When she finally has a clear shot to take him out, she waivers. This Barret may be a nimrod, but he’s far from the megalomaniacal super-douche that runs the country in 2076. After he pleads for his life, Dixie compromises and gives him a last dinner, which they share at Chuck E. Cheese. Unfortunately, the more Dixie talks to Barret, the more she kinda likes him. And by the end of the meal, she decides to postpone the assassination for a little longer.

The next day, Dixie comes up with another plan. If Barret walks back his earlier posts about running for president, he’ll never become president, and the future will be saved without Dixie having to kill him. But this comes with a new problem. If he does this, Dixie will disappear, since the future will completely change and she’ll have never been born. Since the two are starting to like each other, they postpone this ‘not running for president’ post a little longer.

The next thing you know, the two are living together, Dixie is pregnant, and Barret spends his downtime traveling back in time to World War 2 trolling Nazis. When Barret learns that Dixie already killed the future him before she jumped back in time, the two get in a fight and Dixie takes her time-travel backpack, jumps back 65 million years, and starts training velociraptors to talk. I could go on but does it really matter at this point? More time travel. More fighting. The two live happily ever after. The End.

I used to get mad at these scripts – when the comedy is so absurd it takes precedence over plot and character. But now I realize different people think different stuff is funny and while I may not have liked it, younger audiences who don’t put a premium on logic and plot progression will probably enjoy it for the same reasons I didn’t.

I do think a world where Logan Paul is president is a funny setup. My issue is that these types of setups are great for a 22 minute episode of Rick and Morty, but become tiring stretched out to two hours. And you can see that play out as you’re reading the script. Once Dixie and Barret enter into a relationship (about 50 pages in), it’s clear the writer doesn’t know where to go. So he goes everywhere. I mean at one point we’re 65 million years in the past listening to a deep conversation between Dixie and velociraptor.

At times, Waldron’s script almost becomes the thing he’s making fun of. Here we are blasting narcissistic millennials obsessed with Instagram stories yet half the script is written in CAPS while being self-referential and breaking the fourth wall (for example, when a fight occurs, we’re told that it will get nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight). If that isn’t the screenplay equivalent of a douchey influencer posting an Instagram story, I don’t know what is.

I also think there’s a bigger discussion here about writing a script that’s trying to be fun and writing a script that IS fun. When you’re having fun, it comes off on the page. But when you’re TRYING to write that viral fourth-wall breaking screenplay, it can come off as try-hard and your script quickly goes from cool to lame. Deadpool constantly walks this line and one can make the argument the sequel crossed it. You could feel it desperately trying to make you laugh, instead of trusting its story so that the laughs came naturally.

The one thing I’ll give this script is that, just like yesterday’s screenplay, I didn’t know where it was going. I was dreading a 105 page wall-to-wall comedy action flick where Dixie tried to kill Barret the whole time. That’s what most writers would’ve done. One of the most boring things you can do is to hit the same beat over and over again in a screenplay. You have to come up with clever ways to spin the story in different directions so the plot stays fresh. And Waldron achieved that. I was surprised when these two got together. And I didn’t know where their relationship was going to go from there. I think it says a lot about how much readers value unexpected plotlines that both this and The Toe finished highly on the two big End of the Year lists.

In the end, however, this isn’t my thing. I can throw all the screenwriting gobbledygook at you I want to explain why I didn’t like it. The truth is that when we don’t like something, we can come up with a million reasons why. This script was too juvenile for me. But it’s probably just the right flavor of juvenile for someone else.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Remember that the more words and sentences you cap in a screenplay, the less impact those words have. They become just as normal as uncapped words. Understanding, then, that the point of capping something is to bring to attention to it, use it sparingly, so that you can actually draw attention to the action you want to draw attention to.

Genre: Dramedy
Premise: After receiving the news that her show is being canceled, a prickly female talk show host goes back into the writer’s room for the first time in years, where she finds inspiration from a young female comic who’s just joined the staff.
About: Sundance! Which means lots of movie sales. This film just debuted at the festival, fetching one of the biggest sales ever – Amazon bought it for $13 million dollars. I confess that I’ve never understood what these sale prices mean. The movie itself probably costs $13 million to make. So does that mean they’ve simply broken even? Cause I’m assuming once Amazon buys it, they take all the profits. Who knows. Anyway, the movie stars Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson. It will likely be marketed similarly to Amazon’s The Big Sick. The script originally appeared on the 2016 Black List.
Writer: Mindy Kaling
Details: 131 pages! Yikes!

The fact that I liked today’s script says a lot. Because I don’t like Mindy Kaling’s comedy. In fact, to demonstrate how little I like her comedy, I’ve been watching old Office reruns on Netflix and every time she comes on, I fast-forward, even though it takes more time to go through the process of fast-forwarding than had I just let her say her joke. It goes to show that if you write something good, you can overcome anyone’s bias. Cause my bias was strong on this one. Strong like bear.

Ice Queen British import Katherine Newbury is a staple of late night American talk shows. At one point, she was the best in the business. However, things have gone astray. Katherine is so on auto-pilot that she doesn’t even know the names of her writing staff. In fact, when she comes down to talk to the staff in one of the script’s early scenes, she asks where John is. “John died in 2012” someone informs her. Yeah, it’s that bad.

Meanwhile, 30-something Molly Chaterjee is attempting to move out of her boring chemical managerial job into comedy. It just so happens that Katherine is trying to spice up her all-male writing staff and so informs her producer to hire a woman. Molly lucks out in that she’s the first interview and gets hired basically because the producer is too lazy to interview anyone else.

As this is happening, Katherine gets word from corporate that this will be her last year on the show. Her ratings have been in decline for awhile now. But, more importantly, her heart hasn’t been in it. All of a sudden, Katherine realizes how much she needs this job and sets out on a course to win it back at all costs. She does this by doing unheard of things such as being present in the writer’s room. This is where she runs into Molly, who clearly has no business being here. She has no experience and no understanding of how even the most basic aspects of joke-writing work.

However, Katherine soon realizes that her all male staff is pitching the same jokes that they’ve always pitched, which are the same jokes that the all-male staffs from all the other late night shows pitch to their bosses. Molly, meanwhile, is encouraging Katherine to start talking about her personal life. When she talks about things she cares about, she shines. Katherine listens, gives the advice a shot, and, all of a sudden, her show becomes hot again.

Unfortunately, just when it seems like her career is saved, one of Katherine’s adversaries leaks something to the press that’s been rumored forever. Katherine has spent the last two decades sleeping around, cheating on her husband. Realizing she’s toast, Katherine prepares to hang it up. That is until Molly challenges Katherine to address the scandal in a monologue. If she’s open, honest, and finally lets her guard down, she just might be able to save her career, and the show.

I have a theory about this script. I think Katherine was originally a male character. It seems unlikely that you would conceive of an older female British talk show host in the U.S. We don’t have any precedent for that here. And this was obviously inspired by the David Letterman cheating scandal. So I believe the character was originally a man and, at some point, Kaling changed it to a woman.

I don’t know why she did this. But it was a critical change. It turned what would’ve been an okay story into something great. Just the scandal element alone is more complicated when the character is a woman as opposed to a man. It was such a successful choice, in fact, it should act as a reminder to writers to always challenge their original conceptions of a character. Not just whether they’re a man or a woman. It could be gay or straight. It could be aggressive or passive. It could be fun or serious. That one change could be the thing that ignites the character and turns them into something special. And there’s a reason for that. Our minds think logically. We set characters up the way they’ve always been set up. A late night male talk show host. Of course. That’s how they all are. It’s only when you go against the norm that the character becomes unique.

Moving on with the rest of the script, Kaling is attempting to do something tricky here, which is to craft a two-hander. There isn’t one protagonist in this movie. There are two. And despite how easy she makes it look, I warn writers to tread these waters carefully. Everything about the structure of your screenplay becomes more complicated when you go the two-headed protagonist route. For example, the inciting incident of this script happens on page 30. That’s when Katherine is told she’s losing the show. Why does it come on page 30 instead of page 15, where it traditionally shows up? Because Kaling has to set up two main characters instead of one. So it takes twice as long.

Now Kaling is a good enough writer where we don’t feel that extra time. But most amateur writers don’t yet have the skills to keep us invested for that long before a major plot point shows up. Kaling starts us with with a strong opening scene where an underdog female comic does standup for a tough crowd. The suspense and build-up to her routine was perfectly executed. We wanted to stick around to see how she was going to do. If you’re good at writing suspenseful scenes and setting up characters in compelling ways, then maybe you can pull this off. But I’d still recommend nailing a single-protagonist screenplay first. That’s hard enough.

This is a good one, guys. If you’re struggling with character, I would read this script pronto. It’s very character-driven. We’ve got characters with flaws (Katherine refuses to open up), with backstory (Molly comes from an unexpected background), and, most importantly, the characters are trying to figure themselves out. It’s not just about getting to the next plot point. It’s about battling inner obstacles that keep us from being what we want to be. When you explore humanity that honestly, your screenplay will rise above the typical fare that dominates this town. Very impressed with this.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Plot Points vs. Character Points. Screenwriters are often slaves to their plot. All they care about is getting to the next plot point. “I have to get to the part where they fire her! That’s what keeps the plot moving.” This is a good mentality to have. But don’t forget to add character points as well. A character point is something that happens to your character that isn’t necessarily tied to the plot, but it adds depth to both your character and the story. For example, after Katherine learns that she’s getting fired, she comes home to her elderly wheelchair-bound husband’s daughter, who demands that they get home care for him. It’s the last thing she wants to deal with right now but the fact that this “real life moment” is happening tricks us into believing this is a real person experiencing a real life. When you’re a slave to plot points and never introduce these character moments, your script feels thin and empty. I know this because I read those scripts all the time.

Genre: Biopic
Premise: The story of how oddball internet reporter Matt Drudge broke the Lewinsky Scandal and nearly took down a presidency, all from a desktop computer in his one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood.
About: Today’s script is the 4th most liked script of 2018. Cody Brotter is a Boston University graduate who’s written for TV, most notably on the show, Comedy Knockout. He also has a podcast, Hollywood Terriers, where he interviews fellow BU graduates in the entertainment industry.
Writer: Cody Brotter
Details: 118 pages

Matt Drudge

Today we have a totally original screenplay idea that was conceived 100% from someone’s imagination. Just kidding. We have another biopic from the Black List. Writers be working hard on ideas these days. There will come a time – it may be after the Apocalypse with only 20 people left on earth I’m sure – but there will come a time where writers once again attempt to create original stories. Until that time, it’s a biopic world. The rest of us are just living in it.

With that said, if you want to get on Franklin Leonard’s Biopic List, there are two things you can do to improve your chances. One is to find an underdog story. And two is to paint your hero as sympathetically as possible. “Drudge” does both. And once you get past the frustration you feel from having to read another biopic, you realize it does them quite well.

We’re introduced to Matt Drudge through his parents, both staunch liberals who are getting divorced after 15 years. The two are in court for a custody hearing. Except this isn’t your average custody hearing. Instead of the parents fighting FOR custody of their son, they’re fighting to get rid of him. The dad is too busy starting a new family to take him and the mom can’t keep up with Drudge getting in trouble. The judge stares on, flabbergasted. He’s never seen this before.

Cut to a decade later (the early 90s). Twenty-something Matt has moved to Hollywood with no money and managed to beg his way into a Gift Shop job at CBS Studios. When his father flies in for business (not for him), he’s so disgusted by his son’s life, he buys him a computer out of pity. This was right when AOL was sweeping the nation and everyone was talking about getting on this “world wide web” thing.

Little did Matt know, that computer was about to change his life. Through his job, Matt would hear CBS employees gossiping about box office results and who was getting fired, so he started a little newsletter (The Drudge Report), sending this information out to people. It wasn’t long before people began e-mailing HIM to get on the list.

A young conservative named Andrew Breitbart called Matt to meet, and was soon working for him, developing a web page version of the newsletter. The more politically-inclined Breitbart encouraged Matt to include more political news, and that’s where things got interesting. Back then, everyone was still operating by the journalistic rules that had been set up for over a century. You couldn’t just print something. You had to do your “due diligence.” Well, this wasn’t a publication. It was an internet site. So if Drudge got a hot scoop, he could just post it.

A group of young female conservative pundits (pundettes) in D.C. (Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, and KellyAnne [soon to be] Conway) recognized they could use this to their advantage. The three were trying to take down Bill Clinton through all of his philandering but the Clinton-loving liberal media were dragging their feet about posting these stories. So they asked Drudge to post them. And he did.

This began a two-front war. The first with the White House and the second with traditional media. You couldn’t just post a story like that, the news networks said. That was… that was… well, you just couldn’t! But Drudge did. And then, when the bombshell story of Monica Lewinsky hit the airwaves and the traditional media still wouldn’t report it (supposedly due to liberal bias), Drudge was all too happy to. And that’s how a little nobody reporter working out of a one bedroom apartment broke one of the biggest news stories in history.

Drudge is a good screenplay mainly because this is a good story. It’s a strange depiction of a person though. I can’t tell if Brotter loves or hates his main character. He starts off painting him with a sympathetic brush. Who’s not going to root for a guy who was abandoned by both of his parents? However, Brotter relentlessly makes fun of his hero’s thinning hair, repeatedly uses the word “creepy” to describe him, and relishes in his lack of friends.

I just don’t understand why you would write a story about somebody you detested. This is why I’m uninterested in seeing Vice. Both Adam McKay and Christian Bale call Dick Cheney the devil. Well if you can’t look at someone objectively, how are you going to portray them accurately?

And yet Drudge works. At least for me it did. Part of that is I went through something similar on a smaller scale. For example, I must’ve received hundreds of e-mails when I started Scriptshadow from people telling me “You can’t do this.” And when I asked them why, the answer was basically, “because it’s always been done this other way.” And I was like, “Well tough cookies. Things are changing.” There will always be resistance to change but, in the end, you can’t change progress.

I do think the script missed some opportunities though. I liked this idea of Drudge’s parents being liberals and Drudge running a conservative website to get back at them. But it’s only casually explored. If Drudge wasn’t actually conservative, but doing this solely to stick it to his father, that would’ve made his character a lot more complex. Maybe with a few more drafts Blotter can explore that angle more.

But by far, the biggest takeaway from this script is the importance of creating sympathy for your hero. You want to do that right away. The cheap way is to have your character give a homeless person a 20 dollar bill (or some do-gooder equivalent of that). Good screenwriters don’t go the cheap route, however. They work harder. Here we create sympathy for Drudge without even meeting him. We see his parents in court trying to pawn him off on each other. Right then, we feel sorry for this guy, and we haven’t even met him yet.

I will continue to rail against biopics. I’m so bored by the genre at this point. But the underdog nature, the high stakes, and the relentless pace of this script made it worth the read.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned 1: This was a great character description. You should aim for a character description as specific as this every time out: “Drudge has a twitchy demeanor and horrific posture. He talks with a weird sense of confidence despite a nasally voice and the occasional stutter.” I know exactly who this guy is after that description.

What I learned 2: The most clever thing Brotter did here was identify that there are major controversial players today (Laura Ingraham, KellyAnne Conway, and Ann Coulter, an Andrew Breitbart) who played a big part in a story that happened a long time ago. This makes an older story feel current. So if you’re going to write a biopic about someone in the last 30 years, it will have more punch if some of the players in that story are relevant today. For example, if you’re writing a biopic about Rudy Giuliani centering on 9/11 (oh God, I hope I’m not giving anyone ideas), you know you can include a young Trump in that story.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: In the far-off future, where the galaxy is protected by an equation that watches over them, an evil force arrives, putting the equation, and all who believe in it, in doubt.
About: The Hugo award-winning Foundation series was said to be one of the influences for George Lucas’s Star Wars, and you can see why almost immediately as its main villain, The Mule, is tall and hidden behind a suit and mask. A defining image even has The Mule choking someone, their feet dangling just off the ground (Foundation also has a “Galactic Empire”). Hollywood has been trying to figure out how to turn Foundation into a movie forever, and the property has endured many failed adaptations. This is one of those adaptations, written in 2004, by Jeff Vintar, for Fox. Vintar was hot at the time, having just written a movie (I, Robot) for the biggest movie star in the world (Will Smith). Unfortunately, Vintar does not have a credit since then. A reminder of just how brutal this town is!
Writer: Jeff Vintar (based on the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov)
Details: 110 pages

We’ve been talking about Hollywood’s recent obsession with short stories lately. Well guess what? Foundation started off as a series of short stories! I’m telling you, folks. You want to get Hollywood’s attention? Write a kickass short story. And if nothing comes of it but you still love your story, do what Asimov did – expand it into a novel.

I’ve actually tried to read Asimov’s Foundation series several times, only to fall into the Roma trap. I read for five minutes, get bored, try again the next day, read for 10 minutes, get bored, try again the next day. Ultimately it was the mythology that stopped me. It was goofy and weird and hard to get into. Before you throw your weirdo mythology at me, you have to rope me in with the characters. Star Wars doesn’t start with someone explaining the Force. The Matrix doesn’t start with someone explaining the Matrix. But Foundation starts with someone explaining Foundation, and it reads like the musings of the weird kid draped in black in the back of your class who eats his dandruff.

Doctor Hari Seldon is standing trial for spreading fear amongst the people. He has predicted, due to his expertise in “psycho-history” (what???), that within three centuries, the quadrillion human beings spread throughout the galaxy will all die. However, if humanity listens to Seldon’s equation, the galaxy will survive this implosion and rise again in 1000 years. The judges think this is whack, so they kill Seldon.

However, Seldon’s psycho-history equation is followed anyway, and 1000 years later, humanity is thriving, just like he predicted. This equation, guarded by an elite political force known as the Foundation, keeps writing the future, and telling the Foundation what to do so that peace and prosperity remain. Unfortunately, the Foundation becomes too dependent on the equation, and when a man named The Mule takes over an entire planet, they have no idea what to do.

Bayta, a spy working against the Foundation, is on that planet. After the Mule loses his main sidekick, a Gollum-like character named Magnifico, Bayta finds and befriends him. A Foundation officer named Pritcher is also on the planet, as he happens to be looking for Bayta so he can arrest her. But after the Mule takes over, the two are forced into a shaky alliance. The three of them fly off in Pritcher’s ship, and head to the Foundation headquarters on Terminus, where Seldon’s equation resides.

Once on Terminus, Bayta tries to tell the Foundation dummies that their equation doesn’t work, that The Mule is coming for them. But they don’t believe it. The equation hasn’t let them down in centuries. Why would it now? Needless to say, they eat their words. But not the way they expect to. A shocking arrival from someone other than the Mule informs them (spoiler!) that they are not being protected by the equation, but rather, the culmination of it, a sacrifice that will ensure peace and prosperity reign after they are destroyed.

Foundation is a script with a high burden of investment. You have to learn a complex mythology if there’s any chance of enjoying the story. This is the challenge any fantasy or sci-fi writer faces: Keeping things entertaining while explaining all the rules. Which is why you rarely see these scripts succeed as specs.

Nobody in Hollywood wants to learn a giant new mythology in a spec script. They’re only okay with it when it’s a book adaptation. This is why I nudge sci-fi and fantasy writers away from giant stories. If you love these genres, find a tighter more contained story to tell. Source Code over the next Star Wars. Bright over the next Lord of the Rings. There are a few instances of heavy mythology specs succeeding. Killing on Carnival Row comes to mind. But for every 1 that shines, 100,000 are rejected. So proceed with caution.

To Vintar’s credit, once he establishes the rules, the story moves well. I liked that mere seconds after setting up Bayta, her planet is attacked. It’s not easy to make these giant lumbering stories move quickly. In the book, I’m sure we’re cutting between several different planets, setting up numerous plotlines and characters before this happens. But Vintar understands that this isn’t a book. It’s a movie. And in a movie, the engine has to run at a higher RPM.

But where the script really excels is in the characters. Each character had more going on than what was on the surface. For example, Bayta was a loving honeymooner. Until we found out she was a spy trying to take down the Foundation. Pritcher was a businessman. Until we found out he was a spy trying to take down Bayta. The Mule also had secrets, as did Magnifico and Hari Seldon. What you saw wasn’t always what you got. And that kept things interesting.

In fact, it led to the best moment in the script (MAJOR SPOILER). When we find out Magnifico is The Mule. Now you’re probably wondering how someone who’s read everything could be duped by what, in retrospect, seems like something I should’ve figured out. Especially since Magnifico was acting so sketchy the whole movie. The truth is, Vintar cleverly introduces The Mule searching for the escaped Magnifico. So how could they possibly be the same person? If you’re ever going to pull a surprise character reveal, you have to set up a moment earlier in the script that ensures we’ll never make that connection. And that’s exactly what Vintar did with these two.

The only problem with Foundation is the lack of imagination regarding the future itself. 1000 years in the future and we’re all still biological beings with an 85 year lifespan? And pretty much every aspect of life is exactly the same as it is today, the only difference being we have more planets to live on? This is the problem with setting things too far in the future. While it’s easy to imagine what things will look like 100 years from now, it’s impossible to imagine what they’ll look like 500 years from now. So you should think long and hard about anything too far forward in time. Unless you’re talking about an apocalyptic scenario. Then you don’t have to worry about technology.

All things considered, Foundation is a fun script. Can it survive in the ultra-competitive feature market against titans like Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy? I don’t think so. But it could be a cool TV show, which I hear is where they’re planning to go with it. So that’s good.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Mythology before character equals gobbledy-gook – In screenwriting (I’m distinguishing between novels here), if you try and throw mythology at the audience too quickly, it will come off as gobbledy-gook and they will rebel. Imagine if you read my story, which started with a guy named WOZAR who lived in Rashclank, which is the moon-tree capital of NUNGO, the fifth biggest asteroid in the BLICK-7 BELT. Wozar is currently finishing up his degree in The Kl’ar’ens, an ancient belief system that allows people to transport to other parts of the universe through dream-dodging. Are you going to keep reading? Of course not. Instead, start by connecting the reader with your characters. Once we feel something for your characters, we’re more willing to invest in the eccentric parts of your universe.