Genre: Horror
Premise: (from IMDB) A family is forced to live in silence while hiding from creatures that hunt by sound.
About: A Quiet Place has finished the weekend with a box office bang, pulling in 50 million dollars. That’s double what the original box office tracking numbers were saying it would pull. The film was sold as a spec (yay!) and rewritten by John Krasinski, who also took over the directing reins. I’m telling you guys, if you want to fast-trak your way up the Hollywood ladder, a clever horror script is the quickest way to do it.
Writers: Bryan Woods & Scott Beck (rewritten by John Krasinski)
Details: 90 minutes

This movie made me angry.

At the halfway point of A Quiet Place, I thought I was witnessing a classic, the kind of horror movie that was so good, it would be discussed 30 years from now. I’m talking Exorcist level. I’m talking Halloween. I’m talking Rosemary’s Baby.

But as A Quiet Place settles into its second half, its hopes for classic status become as quiet as the farm its characters live on. How did something so great go so wrong? Good old sloppy screenwriting, folks.

A Quiet Place follows a family of four (well, a family of 5 actually – I’ll get to that) living on a farm in a post-apocalyptic world that’s been ravaged by vicious alien monsters. These monsters can’t see you. But they can hear you. In fact, they can hear noises so faint, that if you speak above a whisper, they will arrive within seconds and tear you to pieces. So word to the wise: Shut up.

The family – dad, mom, teenaged daughter, and 11 year old son – live a completely silent existence. They communicate through a butchered version of sign language. For the most part, they spend their days prepping for the baby. That’s right, the mother is pregnant. And when she finally goes into labor, all hell breaks loose, which leads to a chain of events that draws all the nearby monsters to the farm, signing the family’s death warrant.

Okay, first let’s talk about the good. The best change Krasinski made to this script was the opening. The scene shows FIVE family members (a 4 year old boy included) in the nearby abandoned town, scavenging for stuff they need. The 4 year old sneaks out a toy shuttle that makes sounds. Halfway home, he unknowingly turns it on. It starts beeping wildly. And within seconds a monster scoops him up and shreds him to pieces.

This scene is great for a couple of reasons. First, it establishes the RULES. When the family silently invades the town, the focus is on how everything they do revolves around staying quiet. So right from the start, we know NOISE = BAD. More importantly, the STAKES are established when the son is killed. We now know how dangerous this world is. I mean, if cute 4 year old boys aren’t safe, who is?

The second big change Krasinski made was to the mother’s labor scene. The scene was already great in the script. But he decided to milk it for everything it was worth. And I encourage writers everywhere to do the same. If you have a kick-ass scene, milk every drop out of it. If I remember correctly, in the script, the scene is focused solely on the mom having the baby. In this version, the dad is trying to get to her to help. He also has to coordinate with his son to launch some pre-planned noisy fireworks to distract the monsters. Krasinski turns the scene into a giant production and it was great.

Also, something I didn’t pay attention to in the script but which was so effective in the movie was just how scary this setup is. This might be the scariest situation of any horror film ever. Because in any other horror film, you can hide. You can’t hide in this movie. You are never safe. No matter where you go. Realizing that freaked me the hell out for this family and it gave every scene a level of tension that I haven’t felt in a movie since I was a kid and I actually believed in monsters.

There were other things I liked too. I liked that when the younger son died, it wasn’t just a cheap gut punch to the audience. It became part of the story. This is something newer writers don’t get. They’ll kill a kid in a scene like this then it’s never mentioned again. When you include something this affecting, it has to become part of your story’s reality. And we see that in A Quiet Place. The daughter feels like she’s responsible for the death (she handed her brother the shuttle). There’s a scene where the mother sits in the boy’s old bedroom and just cries. The son’s loss is felt on every page.

Okay, Carson, so you like all these things. What were you crying about at the beginning of the review then?

Glad you asked.

After the labor scene, two things happen in A Quiet Place. The writer gets lazy. And the writer starts cheating.

Now some of these problems were apparent in the pre-Krasinski draft. But it was his job to fix them.

The biggest cheat of all is the baby. Baby’s cry. They cry a lot. And instead of coming up with a clever way to address this, they cheated. After being born, the baby doesn’t cry for hours! And when he does cry, it’s conveniently VERY QUIET. As in, the sound editor turned the crying volume down.

Look, you’re the one who established that anything above a whisper gets you killed. You can’t change the rules when it comes to crying. You cheated. Point blank, you cheated. And it sucks because the baby’s birth establishes the whole second half of the story. So you’ve set a precedent for Half 2 that cheating is okay. Luckily for the film, it’d built up so much good will, that we were willing to overlook it. Unfortunately, A Quiet Place kept pressing its luck.

After the dad gets the mom and the baby and runs back to the main barn, they go down some stairs, slide a twin mattress over a hole, and all of a sudden, for the first time in the film… THEY CAN TALK NORMALLY??? “It works,” the dad says. You mean this whole time all you needed was a mattress??? These two years since the arrival of these aliens, and the solution was the discount section at Bed, Bath, and Beyond??

Grrr… now I was angry.

But things got sloppier. After the labor, the kids get split up from their parents. Now in the original script, the girl gets lost. I think she was running away or something. I loved that because how do you find someone in a world where you can’t yell out for them?

That was changed here. The kids weren’t lost. They were up on top of the mill at the north end of the farm. They knew exactly where they were. They could get home whenever they wanted. They just had to wait out the night and not make any noise. Instead, it’s decided that the dad “must save them.” Why? I’ll tell you why. Because in the original script, it was written that the dad had to save the daughter, and Krasinski kept that beat, but without the motivation. The hero had to save the day so the hero could save the day.

By this point, I’m checking out. It’s getting too sloppy.

And then there’s the whole: daughter turns her hearing aid up to send a high-pitched signal into the monster’s ears, which helps the family defeat them. This wasn’t the worst part of the movie. But it didn’t make sense. You’re telling me that a 13 year old girl figures out that high-pitched noises affect sound-sensitive aliens but none of the smartest scientists in the world thought of that? I suppose there’s a certain amount of “just go with it” that needs to happen at this point but that’s the thing. The script had gotten so sloppy that you’re only bringing more attention to that sloppiness with yet another lazy development.

What does all this mean?

What it means is that I don’t know how to rate this movie. It’s such a unique film-going experience. I mean the sound design alone is worth seeing the movie for. And the first half of the movie is so good. But I subscribe to the theory that it’s what you leave the audience with that counts most. And I left feeling like a huge opportunity had been missed.

I guess I’ll still recommend it. There’s a chance I’m being too harsh (the audience I was with really liked it – some were even clapping at the end). Just go see the thing and tell me if I’m being an overly analytical horror scrooge.

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

What I learned: I made a joke the other day that “A Quiet Place” was like “It Comes At Night” but with a plot. The thing is, I wasn’t joking. The difference between these two concepts is the difference between a script that a studio gets behind and one that has to scrap together funding from 10 different places and pray it gets purchased by an indie studio after a film festival. In one, you have a clever concept you can market (the “stay quiet” angle), as well as monsters. Monsters are HUGE when it comes to movie marketing. In the other, you have no monsters – just people talking in rooms and being scared. And while it’ll win Movie of the Year in your Film School Class (“Don’t you get it! The whole point is that nothing comes, man!”), it won’t win anything from the people who count most – the ones who spend money to see your movie. Those people aren’t interested in discussing films. They’re interested in being entertained. Never forget the difference.

What I learned 2: You have to follow the rules of the universe you’ve set up. You just have to. If you go against them, all trust in the storytelling is lost.

The weekend is here and I’m celebrating it by… shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… going to see A Quiet Place. Gonna see how it holds up to the script, which I loved. This film is like They Come At Night… but with a plot! I heard some crazy things happened during the making of this movie, including director Krasinski changing the entire look of the alien with less than a month til locking film.

Good for him. The film looks great. But now let’s switch to future films. As in YOUR future films. One of the reasons A Quiet Place rocketed up the Hollywood ladder and got into Krasinski’s hands in the first place was because it had a clever premise. Are there any premises today that fit that bill? That’s up to you to decide. The rules to Amateur Offerings are simple. Read as much as you can from each script and vote for your favorite in the comments section. The winner gets a review on the site next Friday.

If you believe you have a screenplay that will light the world on fire, submit it for a future Amateur Offerings! Send me a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and why you think people should read it (your chance to pitch your story). All submissions should be sent to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com.

Title: 1500°F
Genre: Survival Drama
Logline: An estranged father takes his two children for a weekend retreat in the wilderness only to find their excursion turning into a frantic struggle for reconciliation and survival as the local area is consumed by a massive wildfire.
Why You Should Read: Well considering the horrendous fires that ripped through California recently, I thought I’d shoot you over my new micro-script, 1500°F. Word is that the Ventura Thomas fire was burning an acre a minute! To give you some perspective, the entirety of NYC’s Central Park would be consumed in fifteen minutes. This script moves just as fast. And more importantly gives the characters just as much focus as the spectacle. A film that inspired me was Norway’s official submission for the 88th Academy Awards, The Wave.

Title: Labyrinth 2: The Goblin Queen
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Logline: When the Goblin King abducts a nine-year-old troublemaker, her teenage brother is given 13 hours to find her or else both will be trapped forever inside an otherworldly labyrinth.
WhyShouldAnyoneReadIt: I know, I know. But hear me out. This is not a piece of fan-fiction and I’m not obsessed with the original movie (flawed but enjoyable as it may be). I’m just a writer who saw the potential it had and that’s what pushed me to write this. I knew I had to fix the tone, define the world’s mythology, remove the musical aspect, keep the beloved puppetry magic and continue the narrative from the first movie. And this challenge proved to be quite rewarding for me. Let’s hope anybody out there feels the same way as I do. Doesn’t anyone miss a good old-fashioned adventure? I know what you’re gonna say next, so just in case, here are my replies:

“This will never be made” – Never say never. We’re artists and we’re better than that word.

“David Bowie is dead” – Sadly, that is true. But Tilda Swinton isn’t.

“Nobody cares about Labyrinth” – I’d disagree. When it came out, it was a financial disappointment, but over the years, it has become a beloved cult-movie.

“This is not the kind of thing for Amateur Offerings” – Wasn’t there a Star Wars Episode IX script in the mix not too long ago?

Title: The Call of Cthulhu
Genre: Mystery/Drama
Logline: When a Boston archaeologist is appointed executor of his late uncle’s estate, he begins an investigation into a collection of strange manuscripts and weird art indicating Cthulhu, a mystical deity worshipped by an apocalyptic cult, has returned from the dead.
Why You Should Read: They say that Lovecraft is impossible to adapt. I went back and again read Del Toro’s version of his Lovecraft passion project, Mountains of Madness. There were many flaws in his attempt to adapt Lovecraft. I won’t list them all but his biggest flaw was that he picked the wrong Lovecraft to be tentpoled and brought into the mainstream. It’s a hard sell to the studio for a lot of reasons, but I believe by exploring the Cthulhu story-world first, it would then allow him to piggy-back its success to make his dream project. There is untapped potential into what I call a Lovecraft Cinematic Universe, but introducing him into the mainstream as a franchise takes a certain strategy. That strategy must begin with his watershed, quintessential story, the one that lays out the Lovecraft world that we are essentially selling to the public, the one that an entire franchise can be built off of–The Call of Cthulhu.

This is a true adaptation of the source material, which is in the public domain. Lovecraft already does all the work for us with his great stories, he just needs someone to be able to tell them through a visual medium by beefing up his protags and their journey. I believe I have done that with not only this story, but a few others as well. This script explores very real and important aspects of modern man. It asks questions about perception, reality, truth, value and many other cornerstone concepts that philosophers ponder.

I approached The Call of Cthulhu for what it truly is– an epic adventure disguised as a detective story. A Fincher-esque low-lit investigative thriller punctuated with shocking moments, some strong violence and of course, madness. In the end, that’s all it really is. And it definitely won’t need Del Toro’s Hard R rating or $150 million dollar budget.

Title: Stamps
Genre: Comedic Action
Logline: When his surprisingly valuable stamp collection is stolen, an autistic young man uses his unique abilities in a relentless, indefatigable pursuit to retrieve his stamps before morning, before they are stuffed into Fedex envelopes and shipped to private collectors around the world.
Why You Should Read: Reading this script is not going to change your life. It will not give you some esoteric insight into the godhead, improve your vocabulary, grammar or syntax, motivate you to get into politics or heal that grisly rash. You won’t read lines like “The lavender tinged tendrils streamed from the effervescence dawn into the still room like bells in search of angels.” not because I don’t mix my metaphors (I do), but because that shit’s for pussies. It is not the next Star Wars or Chinatown; it is more Adventures in Babysitting than it is Rainman, and it’s not even close. It was designed and written with one goal in mind: To make you LAUGH out LOUD. My promise to you, young reader-san, comes with this guarantee: Three solid lols or your download free.

Title: Greenhorn
Genre: Horror
Logline: A PTSD-afflicted Marine must fight for his own survival when he finds himself held captive in the Alaskan wilds by a family with a horrifying secret.
Why You Should Read: This script has done well in some notable contests and I’d like to see how it fares in the AOW battlezone. Clocking in at a lean and mean ninety pages, Greenhorn is crammed with GSU, moves at a swift pace and has the kind of deeply flawed hero an audience wants to root for. Thanks in advance for the reads.

While watching the press tour for this weekend’s A Silent Place, I noticed that one of the scenes they’re highlighting is (spoiler) when Emily Blunt’s character is forced to have a baby in dead silence. It’s that movie’s “That Scene,” the scene that everybody will be talking about after the movie. The concept of having a “That Scene” is more important than screenwriters realize. One great scene can be the difference between people talking about your movie afterwards or not. And if they’re not talking about it, they aren’t encouraging anybody else to see it. I’m not saying you can have a terrible script with one great scene and you’re saved. But I will say that an average script with a great scene in it could tip the scales and get you a sale. That’s because when a producer reads one great scene and imagines how awesome that scene would be in a theater? They’re willing to work on the rest of the script’s problems JUST SO they can get that scene in a movie.

The late Blake Snyder famously chronicled how That Scene got him the biggest break of his life – selling a script that nabbed the biggest movie star in the world at the time, Sylvester Stallone. The script, “Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot,” is about a tough cop who’s frail mother comes to stay with him. Snyder tells the story of how the producer thought the script was okay. But when he read the scene where the mom is at the wheel during a car chase and won’t go over 20 miles per hour, he knew he had a movie. It was Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot’s That Scene.

Now when I talk about That Scene, I don’t mean your big payoff scene. The big payoff scene is the scene where everything that’s been set up beforehand climaxes in one giant super-scene. A good example of this is the “It’s not your fault” scene in Good Will Hunting. In that movie, Will Hunting’s inner battle is built around repressing the memories of his abusive father. That’s what Sean (Robin Williams) is trying to get to the heart of in their therapy sessions. When Sean tells Will that his dad abusing him isn’t his fault, Will finally breaks down. “It’s not your fault,” Sean keeps repeating, with Will finally letting it all out. “It’s not your fault.” It’s a great scene, but it’s not That Scene. That Scene in Good Will Hunting is the showdown with the preppy Harvard prick at the bar which culminates in, “How do ya like them apples?”

So how do write one of these scenes? I’ve been thinking about this a lot. “A Quiet Place” is a good place to start, since it has the clearest path towards finding its That Scene. So the first thing you want to do is you want to ask, “What can I do with my concept that NO OTHER MOVIE CAN DO?” The reason you want to ask this question is because you’ll be more likely to find an original scene. A Quiet Place has such a specific concept (if the family makes a noise, the monsters can locate and kill them) that finding an original scene to take place inside that concept isn’t as difficult as if you were writing, say, The Post.

The other question you want to ask when trying to write a great scene is, “What’s the worst thing I can do to my character here?” If you can combine those two things in a clever way, you can come with a That Scene. So with A Quiet Place, you’d ask, what’s the worst thing I can do to a character in a situation where they can’t make a sound? And the answer to that question would be… duh duh duhhhh, force them to give birth! Of course, that idea is great in hindsight but probably tougher to come up with in the writing stage. What if, for example, in an early draft, the mother wasn’t pregnant? It’d be hard to think of having a baby. You’d need to come up with the pregnancy idea first before that idea came to you. This is why writing is hard. Sometimes the answers are two ideas away instead of one. And you can’t always see two steps ahead.

But then we move over to “How Do You Like Them Apples” and the same rules don’t quite apply. With that said, the first rule is still in play. What’s a scene that we could ONLY write into this movie? We’ve got a tough-as-nails genius janitor. What if he had a run-in with a bully Harvard student at a bar? A student who tries to display how much smarter he is than this townie, but the townie schools him? That fits the bill as a scene that’s specific to this concept. So it works! It also shows us that we don’t always have to apply the “what’s the worst thing I can do to my character” rule to still get “That Scene.”

Another way to create That Scene is by setting it up. But a “That Scene” needs a bit more firepower, so one setup won’t do it. You’ll need multiple setups and a payoff that’s humongous! The best recent example of this occurs in Spider-Man: Homecoming, when Peter Parker shows up to pick up his prom date, only to find out that her father is… the Vulture. You can see that this also applies the “What’s the worst thing I can do to my hero” rule. What’s the worst thing you can do to someone picking up their first love? Make their father your super-hero nemesis! It’s also pretty specific to the concept. You can only do something like this in a super-hero film.

Sicario is another reminder, however, that simply asking what you can do with your concept that nobody else can do can lead to a That Scene. The scene that still stands out to me when I read that script was the border shootout. Think about it. You’re writing a movie about Mexican drug cartels bleeding over the border into the U.S. In retrospect, it seems obvious that you’d want a scene to occur right at the border. Screenwriter Sheridan then asks, “What’s the worst thing I can do to these characters?” Have them get stuck in that border traffic buildup, and surround them on all sides with Cartel members who want to kill them. I’d never read a scene like that before.

Maybe the best version of giving us a scene that ONLY that concept could provide was the opening scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. We see our archeologist hero do what he does best – secure treasure in a booby-trapped cave. What’s cool about this scene is that it’s one continuous series of “What’s the worst thing I can do to my hero?” moments. Every step of the way, something is trying to stop him from succeeding. Which is what makes the scene so exciting. The totality of Indy overcoming all these obstacles secures it in the That Scene pantheon.

To finish off, let’s look at the biggest That Scene of them all: the shower scene in Psycho. Here’s why I – at least partly – think that this scene is still talked about 60 years later. It takes the “What’s the worst thing I can do to my hero” rule further than it’s ever been taken before. They literally KILL the hero. The shock of that, combined with how brutal the murder itself is, is what made the shower scene a THAT SCENE.

So, to summarize, to find That Scene, you want to use one or both of these rules. 1) Give us a scene that could only happen inside your specific concept. 2) Ask, “What’s the worst thing I could do to my character at this moment?” Finally, you have to be creative. Sometimes the answer is right in front of you. But other times it’s two ideas ahead, like in A Quiet Place. So play around with some ideas, write a scene a few different ways, to find that magical moment that creates That Scene. Oh, and there’s no reason why you can’t have multiple That Scenes in your script. My favorite movie from last year, Good Time, has half-a-dozen That Scenes. But let’s start with one. Whatever script you’re working on now, spend a day trying to come up with a That Scene for it. Good luck!

Feel free to share your favorite That Scenes in the comments, along with why you think they became so iconic.

Genre: Drama
Premise: (from Black List) A passenger and her cab driver reminisce about their relationships on the way from the airport to her apartment in New York.
About: Today’s screenplay finished NUMBER THREE OVERALL on last year’s Black List. The writer, while a newbie to the screenwriting world, does have two stage plays under her belt. That’s not surprising, since this script feels very much like a play and very much “New York.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Daddio also started as a play and Hall decided to transform it into a screenplay mid-draft. The script already has its female star in Daisy Ridley, who you all know as Rey in the new Star Wars movies.
Writer: Christy Hall
Details: 114 pages

Everyone who’s read this script and reported back to me has been underwhelmed. And I think I know why. There is NOTHING like this script anywhere. The whole story takes place in a cab, focusing on a conversation between an attractive female passenger and an attractive male cab driver, yet it’s NOT a romantic comedy. (spoiler) In fact, there’s no romance whatsoever. Nobody gets together with each other in the end. It’s just two people talking.

It’s for that reason that I found this script fascinating. I’ve never read anything like it. A single location male-female two-hander without romance that’s a drama?? You know what’s funny? This is exactly how the original Pretty Woman script started out. As a drama about a businessman who hires a prostitute for a week. It was the studio who decided to turn it into a romantic comedy. Could the same thing happen here?

Girlie (whose age is never mentioned but she’s around 30) has just landed back in New York City. She’s got a tough New York exterior with a distant hint of Southern hospitality. And right now she needs to catch a cab into the city.

Her cab driver, Clark, is a man’s man. In his 40s, he’s got a tough blue collar handsomeness about him. And you can tell he’s one of those cab drivers who likes to talk. For the first ten minutes, however, he’s stuck glimpsing at a distracted Girlie in the mirror, looking for any opportunity to open up the Conversation Shop.

Girlie, meanwhile, keeps glancing at a text conversation. Someone named “L” misses her. Can’t wait to see her. It’s hard to read how Girlie feels about this. She texts him back, but each text is neutral, the kind you can’t quite read. After awhile, she sours on the activity and Clark strikes, asking her what her deal is.

Girlie needs the distraction, and finds Clark funny. He’s one of those guys that when he starts talking, he doesn’t shut up. And the music of his endless monologues seems to calm Girlie. As Clark notices Girlie occasionally going back to that text conversation, he makes the correct assumption that the man texting Girlie is married.

What follows is a surprisingly honest discussion about how Girlie got into this relationship, and how all of her life choices up to this point probably led her here. Clark gets into the action too, admitting to a life that’s been less than fruitful – I mean, he’s driving a cab in his 40s for God’s sake. But he seems happy enough now. And part of him wants Girlie to be happy too at the end of this ride. Can it happen? Probably not. But he’s going to give it his best shot.

So a lot of you have told me that this script was lame, that it’s just two people talking. But as someone who reads more amateur scripts than anyone, I’m here to tell you that you could learn a thing or two from the dialogue in Daddio.

The first thing I noticed about the dialogue was how natural it was. Usually, in screenwriting, when scenes are 2-3 pages long, the dialogue needs to be laser focused. You have to get out any necessary exposition. Each character has to get to the point quickly so the scene doesn’t lag. It’s why so many screenplay conversations feel unnatural.

But Daddio is one long scene. This allows Hall to let the characters riff for longer than characters would normally do so, which, in turn, makes them sound more like real people. Because that’s how it is in real life. If you meet with someone at a coffee shop, you can chat each other up and the next thing you know, 30 minutes has gone by. Daddio found a conceptual loophole that allows it to get that same realism.

There’s some other things going on with the dialogue as well. The two characters have completely different speech patterns. Clark rambles on endlessly. Girlie chooses her words carefully. One of the best ways to write good dialogue is to create contrast in speech patterns between characters.

In addition to this, Clark swears a lot. Girlie never swears. Clark descends into slang a lot. Girlie speaks in proper English all the time. All of these things bring life to the interactions. To convey just how important this is, I was watching that Adam Devine Netflix Comedy that ripped off the Groundhog Day premise. In that movie, him and the girl sound like the exact same people. Their jokes are similar. Their speech patterns are similar. It makes their interactions less interesting.

On the structural end, whether Hall planned this or not, the film has a perfect ticking time bomb – the end of the ride. We know things are coming to an end when he drops her off. And even though there’s no true goal to the story (other than Clark trying to get Girlie to see that she shouldn’t be with this man), there’s a pervasive anxiety underneath the ride since we know it’s going to end soon. In other words, this movie doesn’t work if it’s set in a static location. The car ride is everything.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Daddio is a spec-friendly idea. It’s two characters, a car, and a destination. These are very easy to read scripts. Just like Beast (which I reviewed in the Newsletter). Just like this weekend’s The Quiet Place. Simple stories that don’t require a reader to keep notes. While I’ll still say to write the best idea you got, it improves your chances of getting more reads if the script is easy to read. Which Daddio is.

Finally, I applaud the writer for giving me an unexpected reading experience. Once I realized that I had no idea where this was going, I gained a lot of respect for the writer and allowed myself to be taken away. For example, our texter, “L,” is introduced as this scumbag who only cares about fucking Girlie. Naturally, then, Clark is going to be the good guy, right? The romantic? The guy Girlie SHOULD be with? NOPE! As the story progresses, it turns out Clark is even worse than the guy she’s texting! And that’s the rest of the script, too. Pretty much all the major beats you expect from a setup like this? The script goes in another direction.

And that leads me to my final FINAL thought. While I DID like the unexpected journey, I didn’t like where the journey ended. It made me feel like… not that I wasted 2 hours… but that more of a climax was needed. There’s a desire from some writers to stay as true to life as possible. And this is VERY true to life. But you gotta make us feel like we came all this way for something. And if that means tweaking the ending so it’s a little more “Hollywood,” I think you’ve got to do it. You never want anybody leaving the theater going, “That’s it?” And I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen here.

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

What I learned: Beware the lure of “indie street cred” choices. These are choices that get you credit with industry folks. But that leave real moviegoers confused and frustrated. That frustration means bad word-of-mouth and a quick box office death. (spoiler) I’m not saying that Clark and Girlie had to end up together here. But the ending needed to be a lot bigger. For example, I thought Girlie was going to be dropped off at L’s house and we were going to have a 3-way final talk between these characters. Instead, Girlie is dropped off at her own house. And that’s it. That’s it??

How does “Action” rank?

Are you trying to sell a script? Do you want to make the Black List? Then today’s article is for you! I’ll be going through each and every major genre and break down how likely it is to sell a script or make the Black List in that genre. This is not meant as an end-all be-all determination for what you should write. There is no 100% sure-fire formula for writing a script. But you do want to load the odds up in your favor. All genres will be rated on a scale of 1-10 in the two categories, 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. Spec sales are hard to come by so don’t expect any 9s or 10s in that category. But you can still sell a spec in the right genre. Let’s take a look…

Genre: Super-Hero
Script Sale: 1 out of 10
Black List: 1 out of 10
Comps: Black Panther, The Dark Knight, Avengers: Infinity War
Breakdown: There’s no point writing in this genre unless you’re adapting from something else that was successful in another medium. I suppose if you did an action-comedy type thing with it, like Will Smith’s “Hancock,” that could work. But generally speaking, the super-hero genre is strictly an IP zone. Screenwriters should steer clear of it at all costs.

Genre: Contained Thriller (Horror)
Script Sale: 8 out of 10
Black List: 5 out of 10
Comps: 10 Cloverfield Lane, Get Out, Saw
Breakdown: Welcome, my friends, to the most lucrative genre for spec screenwriters and filmmakers. Contained horror is cheap to produce. Horror audiences don’t require much from the genre other than to be scared. You’re not going to get a million dollar paycheck writing in this genre. But your chances of selling one of these is better than in any other genre on this list.

Genre: Contained Thriller (Sci-Fi)
Script Sale: 7 out of 10
Black List: 3 out of 10
Comps: Alien, Ex-Machina, Primer
Breakdown: These movies don’t do as well at the box office as horror, which is why their numbers are lower. They’re also more expensive to make than contained horror. Your best bet is probably to mix the two, like they did with the original Alien.

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Script Sale: 3 out of 10
Black List: 4 out of 10
Comps: How to be Single, Love Simon
Breakdown: This is how bad the romantic comedy has gotten. One of the biggest romantic comedies of 2016, “Why Him,” didn’t even focus on the romantic relationship. It focused on the hero and the romantic interest’s father. With that said, I think I saw a romantic comedy on last year’s Black List for the first time in a long time (Daddio?). So maybe there’s hope. Here’s my take on the romantic comedy. Someone needs to do with the rom-com what Christopher Nolan did with the super-hero movie when he made The Dark Knight. Cut out all this goofy wish- fulfillment nonsense and make it more realistic.

Genre: Action-Comedy
Script Sale: 7 out of 10
Black List: 2 out of 10
Comps: The Spy Who Dumped Me, Central Intelligence
Breakdown: I consider the Action-Comedy to be a hidden gem for spec sales. Hollywood has always loved making these movies. Unlike the straight comedy, which has fallen in recent years because it doesn’t travel well, any sort of action plays well to international audiences. So Hollywood has shifted their priorities over to this genre from the comedy, despite the fact that they cost more to make.

Genre: Western
Script Sale: 5 out of 10
Black List: 7 out of 10
Comps: Bone Tomahawk, Hostiles, The Homesman
Breakdown: This is a tricky genre. At first glance, it seems antiquated. Yet they continue to make 3-4 Westerns a year. I think the reason for this is that directors love to shoot them and actors love to be in them. There’s something inexorably cool about playing a gunslinger or getting that classic wide shot of the old country. You just can’t go crazy when you write these. Nobody’s making big budget Westerns anymore. The ideal setup would be something like “High Noon” where everything is localized (aka “cheap”).

Genre: Period (War)
Script Sale: 6 out of 10
Black List: 7 out of 10
Comps: Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk, Hacksaw Ridge
Breakdown: When I say “Period War,” I mean any war dating back 2000 years. From the 300 Spartans to the Iraq War. War always sells. There’s something visceral about it that speaks to audiences on multiple levels. But these days, your war film MUST BE BASED ON A TRUE STORY. Otherwise don’t bother. The only reason this gets a 6 on the “sale” rating instead of a “7” is because these movies are expensive to make. So studios have to think a little harder before pulling the trigger.

Genre: Zombie
Script Sale: 5 out of 10
Black List: 3 out of 10
Comps: Train to Busan, Maggie, 28 Days Later
Breakdown: Five years ago, the zombie genre would’ve been a good 2-3 points higher. But the genre is currently in an ice age. Luckily, ice ages only last five years in Hollywood, which means it’s only a matter of time before the zombie pic comes back to life! You like that? “Back to life?” Ah, I kill myself. Then I re-animate myself. Just remember to always ALWAYS try to reinvent this genre. If your zombie script is anything like what I’ve seen in the past, I’m throwing it in the trash. And so is every other reader in Hollywood.

Genre: Romance
Script Sale: 3 out of 10
Black List: 5 out of 10
Comps: Call Me By Your Name, The Notebook, Dear John
Breakdown: This is the least glorious of the genres. Nobody remembers who wrote or directed these movies. But there’s definitely a market for them. Unfortunately, for right now, that market is dominated by Nicholas Sparks, and, to a lesser extent, John Green. It’s not a spec-friendly genre, which means you should probably steer clear of it. Self-publish a novel instead.

Genre: Comedy
Script Sale: 5 out of 10
Black List: 3 out of 10
Comps: Father Figures, Daddy’s Home, Bad Moms
Breakdown: Like I said above, if you’re going to write a comedy, I’d suggest writing an action-comedy. But you can still sell a straight comedy. Right now, the trend for a sale has three branches. 1) Make it female-centric. 2) Go with an age old situation that has built-in conflict (a step-father being forced to co-parent with the real father). Or 3) Pick whatever the latest trendy tech thing is and write about that (those two Uber comedy spec sales from a couple of years ago are an example). The nice thing about this genre is that the big name comedy actors have cut their fees, so comedies can be made for cheap. That means there are still sales to be had!

Genre: Biopic
Script Sale: 8 out of 10
Black List: 10 out of 10
Comps: The Founder, Catch Me If You Can, The Imitation Game
Breakdown: This genre is right up there with Contained Horror as the most lucrative on the list. The reason being that this is the last outlet where movie stars can still be movie stars, as opposed to cogs in a machine. Also, as long as you can spell, your biopic will make The Black List.

Genre: Period
Script Sale: 1 out of 10
Black List: 5 out of 10
Comps: The Other Boleyn Girl, Victoria and Abdul, Love in the Time of Cholera, Tulip Fever, The Danish Girl
Breakdown: If you’re writing a period piece that isn’t associated with war, do so at your own risk. These movies make less than no money. Even the ones that get a boost from Oscar noms rarely do well. On the plus side, these movies do okay in the UK, on the Black List, and in the Nicholl Competition. So if you love these stories, there are outlets for you. But these are some of the toughest pitches in the business. You’ll get 1/1000 of the read requests than had you written a contained horror film. If I was a producer and someone pitched me a story set in the 17th century where an artist and his lover invested in the tulip business, I might just shoot myself right there.

Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy
Script Sale: 0 out of 10
Black List: 1 out of 10
Comps: Star Wars, Jupiter Ascending, Avatar
Breakdown: This genre is a death-trap. It’s the most expensive genre to produce. The sprawling nature of these stories and their enormous character counts are the exact opposite of what screenplays do well. Don’t bother defending why the sci-fi fantasy script you’re working on is different. This is the one genre I can say, without knowing anything about your script, that if you’re working on one, STOP. You’re wasting your time.

Genre: Horror
Script Sale: 7 out of 10
Black List: 4 out of 10
Comps: It, The Conjuring
Breakdown: With the emergence of “It,” the straight horror film (not contained) is harder to gauge. Hollywood hates spending money on horror since the formula has proven for so long that you don’t need to. But 700 million worldwide is a quick way to change opinions. We also have to remember that these bigger budget horror flicks are based on IP. With that said, I think a good horror script, regardless of whether it’s contained or not, can sell. I also think big-budget horror is about to blow up. So better get on the trend early than late.

Genre: Action
Script Sale: 7 out of 10
Black List: 6 out of 10
Comps: John Wick, The Fast and the Furious, The Bourne Identity, Taken, Die Hard
Breakdown: Straight action plays EVERYWHERE. Everywhere, guys. Nobody needs subtitles for it. So studios are desperate to find that next great action property. They usually get it from books (fifth-tier versions of James Bond). But this is one of the few genres still open for spec screenwriters to create something on their own. They’re expensive to produce, so a sale isn’t guaranteed. But I don’t see this genre dying out… well… ever.

Genre: Drama
Script Sale: 3 out of 10
Black List: 7 out of 10
Comps: Three Billboards, Suburbicon, Room
Breakdown: This is a unique category because on the surface, you don’t want to mess with it. The genre requires more skill to pull off than any other genre. You have to rely strictly on great storytelling and strong character development, which most writers don’t master for a decade or more. A bad drama script is a script reader’s nightmare. Wrought with melodrama and cliched story beats, it’s the reading equivalent of Hell. With that said, these movies win studios Oscars. So studios are always going to be intrigued by them. It’s for this reason that if you write a drama, your aim should be to make The Black List and get the film made as opposed to secure that big flashy script sale.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Script Sale: 5 out of 10
Black List: 3 out of 10
Comps: The Matrix, Source Code, The Martian, Inception, Ready Player One
Breakdown: Straight sci-fi is fun but it’s such an expensive genre and it’s competing directly with such a juggernaut of a genre (Super-Hero) that it’s hard to get a studio to bite on non-IP material. The Black List doesn’t really like them either. If you like sci-fi, I’d write something in the time-travel or “time-travel adjacent” genre (like Source Code), where you can create a big premise for a smaller price tag.

Genre: Faith-Based
Script Sale: 6.5 out of 10
Black List: Negative 8 out of 10
Comps: Heaven is For Real, The Shack, I Can Only Imagine
Breakdown: I don’t know much about this genre. But I do know the faith-based market is coming of age. And if you’re a screenwriter looking to make a living, there’s no reason you shouldn’t take advantage of that. It seems like a lot of these movies are based on books, but as long as you convey a positive message in your script about doing the right thing, and wrap it inside a good idea, there’s no reason to think you can’t sell your screenplay. Also, if a writer can figure out how to subvert the overtly melodramatic tendencies of these scripts so that they can cross over, they’ll become extremely wealthy. Unfortunately, the Black List’s “No Conservatives Allowed” policy means you’ll have to wave goodbye to any Black List aspirations.

Genre: Fantasy
Script Sale: 1 out of 10
Black List: 5 out of 10
Comps: The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The BFG
Breakdown: The only reason this genre isn’t at zero is that it’s a little more accessible than sci-fi fantasy. Still, this genre is built exclusively off of IP, usually books. I occasionally see fantasy scripts hit the Black List (A Monster Calls) but if you have a great fantasy idea, it’s highly advisable that you write a novel instead of a screenplay.

Genre: Action-Adventure
Script Sale: 4.5 out of 10
Black List: 2 out of 10
Comps: Indiana Jones, Jurassic World, Pirates of the Caribbean
Breakdown: This is a weird genre because it SHOULD be a great outlet for spec screenwriters. It seems to be open for new ideas. And the family-friendly aspect of the genre means that they’ll play to anybody. That’s the main reason a movie as average as Jurassic World can make 1.6 billion dollars. I suppose that when movies in a genre start making that much money, studios are more likely to look for previous success in other mediums than buy a spec. Still, something tells me that a writer who comes up with the next Indiana Jones could quickly find themselves on the front page of the trades.

Genre: Dark Comedy
Script Sale: 2 out of 10
Black List: 8 out of 10
Comps: Ingrid Goes West, Me Earl and The Dying Girl, Little Miss Sunshine, Fargo
Breakdown: There’s a lot of crossover with Drama here. Dark Comedy is a really tough genre to master. But, when done well, it could put you in the Oscar race. So it can’t be dismissed completely. With that said, these movies rarely make money. Even the good ones. There’s one every five years that becomes a mega-hit but other than that, there are hundreds of dark comedies that are never seen or heard from again. The good news is, the Black List looooooves dark comedies. It’s probably their favorite genre behind biopics. And if your script makes the list, there’s a 50/50 chance it’ll get made into a movie.

Genre: Straight Thriller
Script Sale: 6 out of 10
Black List: 3 out of 10
Comps: Gone Girl, Buried, The Girl on the Train, The Circle, The Gift
Breakdown: There’s some natural crossover between Thrillers and Action-Thrillers. So to distinguish the two, I see straight Thrillers as more real-world based and suspense-driven. In the past we may have called them Hithcockian Thrillers. These movies aren’t as lucrative as horror, but there’s a market for them for sure. If you’re going to write a thriller, try to have a really clever concept and one great twist. Those two things make these reads a lot more memorable, which increases the chance of a sale exponentially.

Genre: Family
Script Sale: 5 out of 10
Black List: 1 out of 10
Comps: Night at the Museum, Goosebumps, The Goonies
Breakdown: The reason this gets a slight nod on the script sale chart over the more mature Action-Adventure is because I know that Hollywood has been spending 25 years now looking for the next Goonies. Which means they’re willing to buy good family scripts. And let’s not forget that Night at the Museum was a spec sale as well. And that spawned a huge franchise.

Genre: Musicals
Script Sale: 2 out of 10
Black List: 6 out of 10
Comps: La La Land, The Greatest Showman, A Star is Born
Breakdown: The simple fact is that these movies tend to be either director driven (La La Land) or studio driven (The Greatest Showman). They rarely, if ever, are driven by a screenwriter. And the reason for that is simple: it’s hard to imagine songs on a page. With that said, the few times I’ve seen this work are when a writer tries something really zany. Like a zombie musical. Or a post-apocalyptic musical. So it can be done. It’s just rare.

There you have it. Now get to arguing in the comments!

Carson does feature screenplay consultations, TV Pilot Consultations, and logline consultations. Logline consultations go for $25 a piece or 5 for $75. You get a 1-10 rating, a 200-word evaluation, and a rewrite of the logline. I highly recommend not writing a script unless it gets a 7 or above. All logline consultations come with an 8 hour turnaround. If you’re interested in any sort of consultation package, e-mail Carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: CONSULTATION. Don’t start writing a script or sending a script out blind. Let Scriptshadow help you get it in shape first!