Genre: Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.
About: The original script title for Captain Phillips was “Maersk Alabama,” a title I’m not surprised they changed. As you read above, it’s based on a true story. Tom Hanks is starring in what surely the studio hopes will be an Oscar-nominated role. The script was written by Hollywood A-list screenwriter Billy Ray, who’s one of the ten guys in town who basically rewrites everything before it’s put in front of the lens. He makes ridiculous amounts of money for this. He’s probably best known for The Hunger Games. And he’s taking charge of the hopefully Brendan-Frasier-less Mummy Reboot. Paul Greengrass (most of the Bourne movies) is directing. The movie hits theaters October 11th.
Writer: Billy Ray (based on the book by Richard Philips)
Details: 120 pages – December 9, 2010 draft (first draft revised)

I’m going to put this politely. There’s something about Captain Phillips that feels kind of… boring. I remember when the whole Somali pirate thing swept the world and this particular story came out and I thought to myself, “They’re going to make a movie about this.” And then I thought, “But why?” I mean, there’s definitely a dramatic element to a crew being held hostage, but the concept is missing that “Gotta go out and see this in the theater now” element that a feature needs to make money.

The weird thing is that this is the reality in Hollywood. Studios are so desperate for product that if ANY major story hits the news, they HAVE to snatch it up and make a movie about it. Who cares if they can’t find a way to actually make it good. The fact that people have heard about it means much of the advertising for their film has already been done.

Take the Chilean miner ordeal. They’re making a movie about that. But why??? A group of 30 Chilean miners are trapped together in a small room. How do you make that interesting for 100 minutes? Especially when the miners are told right away that they’ll be fine! That they’re all going to be rescued! Where’s the suspense in that?? The only way that movie’s going to work is if they find a compelling storyline outside of the mine. And if they do that, what’s the point of having the mine anyway?

But back to Captain Phillips. I so want to be proven wrong here. But this movie looks like a slog. Miss SS said to me, “That looks like a movie you go to if you want to be depressed for the rest of your life,” and I’m not sure I’d disagree with her. But let me remind all you writers why readers desperately want your script to be good. Because it’s sooooooo much easier to read a good script than a bad one. Which is why I’m so hoping I’m wrong and this is good. Let’s check it out…

50 year old Richard Phillips is your typical family man…. who goes off for weeks at a time to sail across the Atlantic. The guy is a lot stubborn, and outside of his wife, people don’t like him for it. In fact, his crew for the Maersk Alabama, a cargo ship delivering food to Africa, thinks he’s annoying as hell.

Which is strange because the main reason he’s being so annoying is to prepare his ship for a possible pirate takeover. If they don’t have a procedure for this, they’re fucked. And with boats getting boarded every day (50 last week!), it’s probably a good idea to be prepared.

Anyway, as they approach their destination, what do you know, they get boarded by a group of pirates. There’s the youngest, Bilal, then Elmi, then Najee, and then the leader, Musi, a smart determined pirate who speaks English (you have to learn to speak English as a pirate because, “No ship speaks Somali”).

Musi wants one thing: money. And while the other boats have it, this boat is American. So he expects A LOT of money. Problem is, Phillips has locked most of his crew in a secret location somewhere on the ship. Musi wants the whole crew so a game of “Where’s the crew” begins, with Phillips slyly misleading Musi at every turn.

Eventually, Phillips convinces the pirates that if they leave his crew alone, they can have his lifeboat. They agree to this but want Phillips as well. They’re not leaving without their big payday. So the pirates and Phillips get into this little boat, and within hours, are greeted by a giant U.S. Navy ship. For some reason, this makes the pirates happy. They think their money is coming.

But they really have zero idea who they’re dealing with. The Navy tells them, there’s no way you’re getting back home, and proceed to trip Musi up with a multitude of negotiating tactics. The confusion ramps up their anger towards Phillips, who somehow stays calm throughout all this. Eventually, Musi surrenders, coming aboard the Navy ship, and his crew is sniped by some badass Navy snipers. Game over. Insert new coin.

So, did the script save this ship?

No.

You know what though? This started off good. I admire Billy Ray for finding some bit of life in this sinking vessel. The anticipation and suspense drawn out by the first 30 pages of these pirates coming (they even call the ship radio at one point and say, “We’re coming to get you,”) had me a lot more invested in this than I thought I’d be.

The combination of that and the anger you have towards these billion dollar companies run by men in posh suits sitting in the safety of their giant Manhattan offices for giving these boat employees ZERO defenses against these pirates (no guns, no weapons at all) gets you all charged up.

But then the pirates get on the ship and things start getting boring quickly. The problem is that Musi becomes obsessed with finding the crew and that becomes a 25 page chunk of the story. Here’s the problem with that though. Whenever you have a character going after something in a script, whether it be your hero or your villain, there must be stakes attached to it or the audience won’t care.

What are the stakes of Musi not finding the crew? What are the consequences? As far as I can tell, nothing. He already has the Captain. Doesn’t he have the big bargaining chip then? Yet page after page is dedicated to finding these other guys and I just couldn’t figure out why that was so important. That’s not to say there wasn’t a reason. It’s to say that we were never informed what it was! So we didn’t know why this was so important.

Another problem was that Captain Phillips appeared to be this grating guy that nobody liked. His son hates him. No one on his crew likes him. They actually constantly make fun of him behind his back. And because everyone thought he was a loser, I began to think he was a loser. I still wanted him to be saved. But the impression I got was that he was one of those annoying people in life that everyone just deals with. Not exactly Bruce Willis in Die Hard.

Then there’s the villain, Musi. Ray makes the choice to show his home life (he’s got a family too) just like Captain Phillips’s. We hear his sob story, that he used to be a fisherman before other countries overfished the Somali waters, leaving him with no way to make a living. He does this pirate thing to survive, for himself and his family.

In other words, the villain is gray. I go back and forth on this all the time. Should we get to know the circumstances behind why the villain’s life is so terrible? On the one hand, it fleshes out the character and makes him more real. On the other, we’re less interested in seeing him go down. I mean, do we cut back to Buffalo Bill’s childhood where his father used to beat him in Silence of the Lambs? No, because that would provide sympathy for the character and the writer doesn’t want you to like his villain. He’s the villain. He’s meant to be hated in that scenario. I guess I just had too much of a reason to sympathize with Musi and therefore wasn’t as in to him getting beaten. This made me even more blasé about the story.

Here’s the thing with Captain Phillips. It’s a well-executed script. I was telling Miss SS that the difference is so clear when I pick up a professional script, like this one, compared to the amateur scripts I read. Ray knows how to build suspenseful moments, how to keep the story moving, how to create memorable characters, and how to write in a concise and readable fashion.

But you can only do so much for an idea that was probably meant to stay in the headlines and never become a movie. This is straightforward “take us seriously” Hollywood entertainment here. You have a hero. You have bad guys. You have an international crisis with a lot of blurred lines. Ray somehow makes us want to get to the finish line, but once we catch our breath, we’re ready to forget this race and move on to the next one.

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

What I learned: I was in the bookstore the other day and picked up a book. On the back of it, a critic was quoted as saying, “This is the kind of book you want to read instead of the kind of book you feel like you should read.” That stuck with me. Because I look at a movie like Captain Phillips and I think, “That’s the kind of movie I feel like I should see.” It isn’t the kind of movie I want to see. Because the movie business is about entertainment, I believe that when you set out to write something, it should be the kind of movie that people will want to see. If you’re writing something that people “should see,” you’re probably writing something boring.

This is your chance to discuss the week’s amateur scripts, offered originally in the Scriptshadow newsletter. The primary goal for this discussion is to find out which script(s) is the best candidate for a future Amateur Friday review. The secondary goal is to keep things positive in the comments with constructive criticism.

Below are the scripts up for review, along with the download links. Want to receive the scripts early? Head over to the Contact page, e-mail us, and “Opt In” to the newsletter.

Happy reading!

TITLE: Abaddon
GENRE: Horror, sci-fi
LOGLINE: A team of marines and scientists board a spaceship, only to discover its crew have transformed into raging cannibals.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “After countless attempts to write a epic fiction (trying to run before learning to walk), I’ve learned about my strengths (plot-mapping, dialogue) and weaknesses (flowery language, vivid descriptions). So began my love of script writing. My first (polished) script, ‘Abaddon’ blends originality with familiarity. It contains the conventions of good horror, complete with twists, turns, and interesting/flawed characters trying to survive aboard a spaceship swarming with zombie-like savages. I appreciate any constructive criticism the SS community of passionate readers and writers can provide. Thank you.”

TITLE: DEADMEN
GENRE: Black Comedy Western/Thriller
LOGLINE: A beautiful woman persuades a washed up gunslinger in the West to commit suicide, and he does just that.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “I placed 2nd in this years Script Pipeline competition. This script has been developed since 2010, when the 1st draft was a semifinalist in the Austin Film Screenplay Competition.

What if Louie CK and Tarantino got together to do a Western…? That’s what Deadmen is.”

TITLE: SWAP
GENRE: Sci-Fi/Thriller.
LOGLINE: When a homicide detective learns that the murderer of a Senator was the victim of a high-tech setup, he then uncovers a conspiracy that makes him question everything he believes in, even himself.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “In 2003 I had a “concept” for a Sci-Fi movie but had never written a screenplay. My wife saw a news piece for a screenplay community on the Internet, where you could upload your work and get constructive reviews and help. I read the first ten pages of the “Terminator” to get an idea of formatting. Using Word templates and a few reference books, I knocked out the first draft of in a week. The formatting was terrible and the story was littered with mistakes. But I pushed on and learned/developed the craft though constructive feedback and hard work.

My ideas were always a little high concept (and budget) so I began to get interested in short scripts and independent film, to both learn and give me a chance at getting produced. 10 years later I’ve just started a draft of my 19th feature script and finished short script 120. So I guess it’s fair to say I’ve been bitten by the bug of screenwriting. I’ve had short films screened in Cannes, won and placed in contests (thrilled that Kenneth Branagh read and selected one of my scripts). But am I any closer to breaking into the business? Hell no! But I’m enjoying the journey and learning as I go.”

TITLE: STORM DRAGONS
GENRE: Epic Fantasy-Action/Adventure (in the vein of Game of Thrones, 300 and Gladiator)
LOGLINE: “In a mystical land where champions fight to the death to keep the peace, the revenge of a chosen warrior against the killer of his family risks starting the all out war he lives to prevent”
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “With the growing general audience interest in the fantasy genre, specifically in adult epic stories like Game of Thrones (including yourself, right?), and after making the finals in 10 different screenplay contests, I believe that my script is ready to face your wisdom and get the answer to its main quest: Could it become the Game of Thrones of the Big Screen?”

TITLE: Blood Mountain
GENRE: Horror/Dark Comedy
LOGLINE: A group of friends filming a homemade comic book movie seek revenge on the bloodthirsty band of European vampires who murdered one of their actors.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “My script has GSU, an inciting incident, and something that ups the stakes as the story moves along, just like the SS articles emphasize. But just because I have that checklist, it doesn’t mean a thing until it is scrutinized by the best amateur writing community on the web. I’ve read quite a few Amateur offerings screenplays the last few months, and I haven’t rushed this along before it’s ready, like some others I’ve read. This is no first draft. The only question is, and it’s the one question I can’t answer but hopefully Scriptshadow can, is it ready for the big time?”

Note: If you are a French screenwriter and want to prove that your script is so much better than the kind of films France is making, send it to me at carsonreeves3@gmail.com.  I’ll review whatever query best catches my interest.  Include the title, logline, and script attachment!

Genre: Dramedy (foreign)
Premise: (from IMDB) After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from the projects to be his caretaker.
About: The Intouchables became the highest grossing non-English-speaking movie in France’s history, taking in 166 million dollars. But what’s really surprising is how well it did internationally, taking in 281 million dollars, unheard of for a French film. The film won many awards, including the Cesar for co-lead Omar Cy. In short, it’s the best film to come out of France in years.  The film is available for free on Netflix streaming right now!
Writer: Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano
Details: 112 minutes

Bon Appetit!

Oui, you read that right. It’s FRENCH WEEK. I’ve been so inspired by the Musee D’Orsay, the Tour D’eiffel, the Metro, the patisseries, the boulangeries, the pan au chocolates, that I couldn’t NOT do a French week. I mean take a stroll through Montmartre (where Amelie was filmed) and tell me you wouldn’t trade your eldest son to live there for just one day.

Also, while in France, I learned a lot about the French movie industry and why they make such crappy movies. I’m going to save those discoveries for Thursday but let’s just say it’s a LOT easier now to understand why French movies are so terribaux.

Which makes the success of today’s movie all the more confusing. The Intouchables was that rare French film that got it right. Despite seemingly taking the same approach as most other French films (a fairly plot-less drama focusing on the lives of people with the occasional touch of comedy). For that reason, I had to look closer. What made this film break out of a formula that, according to most moviegoers, doesn’t work? Because I’ll be honest, I haven’t been the biggest French film fan. But this one was good. And I believe it comes down to the script (doesn’t it always!). It may behoove the French to take a better look at this script, then, to understand why The Intouchables found so much success.

For those who haven’t seen it, The Intouchables is about a very rich Frenchman, Philippe, who was paralyzed after a hang-gliding accident. Years later, he lives in his beautiful mansion, bound to a wheelchair as a paraplegic, millions of dollars in his bank account, yet not a single penny can give him what he wants most, to move again. To put it bluntly, Philippe’s life is at a standstill.

To make matters worse, everyone who does come in contact with Philippe (his business associates, his lawyer) treat him with pity. And there’s nothing Philippe hates more than pity. Enter Driss, a blunt African immigrant who’s applying for a job as Phillipe’s caretaker. The funny thing is, Driss doesn’t want the job. He just wants his application signed so he can claim that he APPLIED for the job, which will allow him to keep collecting welfare.

Of course, Driss’s casual reaction to Philippe’s disability is exactly what Philippe’s been looking for! So Driss quickly finds himself hired. The two become friends almost immediately, with Driss not afraid to make fun of Philippe’s shortcomings. Driss teaches Philippe to not be so uptight all the time and Philippe teaches Driss about art and culture.

Eventually, Driss learns that Philippe has been exchanging letters with a woman he’s never met. The two have formed a close relationship, but she doesn’t know about Philippe’s disability. Driss encourages Philippe to send her a picture, which Philippe does, though he secretly sends one of himself before the accident. Eventually, the moment comes where the woman wants to meet, and Philippe will have to decide whether to take what he learned from Driss and show up or throw a shot at happiness away.

At first, it’s hard to determine why this movie works. From a traditional standpoint, it’s kind of strange. In these stories where there’s a central coupling, there’s almost always a clear conflict between that couple. For example, when you have a love story, the conflict might come from the two butting heads (The Proposal). Or if it’s a buddy comedy, the two might hate each other (The Other Guys). Here, Philippe and Driss become best friends almost immediately.

There is Driss’s initial reluctance to take on the job, but it ends quickly, and a couple of scenes later, the two are laughing it up. It took me awhile to figure out why I was enjoying the movie still, despite the lack of conflict, and I realized it’s because we tend to enjoy watching friendships develop, especially friendships where the two parties would normally never interact with one another. I know it sounds silly, but darn it if it doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

But what sets this script apart from all those other French films is that it adds structure to its story. A plot thread emerges that gives the story focus. That thread is, of course, the woman Philippe writes letters to. Now that Philippe has a GOAL (the eventual meeting with this girl) and that goal has STAKES attached to it (he’s fallen in love with her, tied all his future hope to her), we have something to look forward to. If not for that, we would’ve been stuck watching a couple of guys laughing for two hours. That would’ve eventually gotten boring, no matter how much we liked the two of them.

I recently watched a French movie on Netflix, for example, called Russian Dolls, that was one of the worst movies I’ve seen all year. And, not surprisingly, it had all the French trappings embedded in its fiber. We watched multiple people simply “experiencing life” in France. There was no rhyme or reason to who we cut to or why. There was a main character, but it was never clear what he was doing. He may have been writing a book, but why and for what purpose, I don’t know. That film failed, in my opinion, because it didn’t have that structure, it didn’t have that overriding central plot thread that the audience looked forward to.

I come back to it again and again on the site, but that’s because it works. Give your character a GOAL and the reader starts caring. Even if you’re writing a drama centered around “characters experiencing life” that doesn’t involve the mafia, or bank robberies, or robots. Give you main character something he’s going after. It’ll pull what are otherwise a bunch of drifting characters into a plot orbit.

Part of the problem here – and this seems to be very much a French problem – is that the French writers and directors (who are often the same person, which is part of the problem) believe that if they just explore life’s randomness, that their movies will be entertaining because they’ll be “lifelike” and “real.” Nothing could be further from the truth. If we don’t feel like we’re pushing towards something, if we don’t believe that all of this has a purpose, we lose interest. If we wanted “real life” we wouldn’t be at the movies, would we? We can get real life from…err… REAL LIFE! Movies are “exceptional life.”

Another reason the script works is because there’s a fascinating irony at the heart of the main character. Here is a man who “has” everything (all this money!). And yet he can’t enjoy any of it. For whatever reason, audiences love watching that. This movie doesn’t work, for example, if Philippe is poor. It’s only because he’s rich that we’re captivated. This is why it’s important to really think about your main character before you write your script. Is there something fascinating about him/her? Are you getting everything you possibly can out of his character? If not, rethink the character.

The Intouchables proves that whatever kind of script you write, a summer blockbuster or a character-driven drama, at the heart of your story should be some sort of objective to tie all the loose strands together. A lot of these French films would be better served by following this simple advice!

[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth watching
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Add an Element of Danger – You can enrich your story by adding an element of danger to one of your characters, the possibility that they might do something or are capable of something bad. Here, Driss has a criminal record, which Philippe’s lawyer points out to him. This choice lines the story with an impending payoff of this danger, something that because we’re told to anticipate, we pay more attention. In other words, it’s yet another subtle trick to keep a reader focused.

What I learned 2: Beware the car crash backstory! – Beware giving any character who was in an accident in your script the “car crash backstory”. It’s the easiest and most obvious of all the accident backstories and therefore draws rolled eyes from experienced readers. Instead, go with an accident that more organically represents your character. Here, Philippe injured himself during a hang-gliding accident, very much a “rich man’s” leisurely activity. That’s the kind of backstory that feels organic and honest, so it’s no surprise that it adds even more to Philippe’s character.

Bonjour!  Pardon, mon ami.  Je m’appelle Carson!

That’s the extent of the French I know, despite spending 8 years of my life in various French classes (and  having two tutors).  How I passed any of those classes is a French miracle.  But that’s not stopping me from stumbling through Paris and pointing to various pastries and saying “Une of those.”  There’s a 60% chance I’ll be kicked out of here by Wednesday for my blatant Americanism.  By the way, prepare for a 2 hour wait in the customs line if you ever come here.  The line I was in was 500 deep and they had TWO customs agents.  TWO!!  They seem to have taken a cue from visiting the American post office.  We should get those groups together sometime.  So far I’ve been to Sacre Coeur, the Arc De Triumph, and some famous “steak frites” place that wasn’t half as good as a double double from In and Out.  But man, the pastries and bread here put America to shame.  If one of these guys was smart, they’d move to LA and make a killing. Then again, if I mange one more pain du chocolate, I might explode.

Anyway, because I’m not going to be posting this week, I’ve decided to make the Scriptshadow Secrets book half off.  So if you’ve been putting off reading it, go buy it now.  You’ll learn just as much from that book as probably half the posts I’ve posted here, since the tips are based on everything I’ve learned through all the scripts I’ve reviewed.  Plus it’s just an awesome book!  So start reading folks.  And I will see you all dans une semaine!

PICTURES FROM PARIS – UPDATED DAILY!

Some famous bridge with a lot of locks on it.

Which SS commenter does this most remind you of?

Proof that Michael Cera is a vampire and has been around for 400 years

Miss SS in front of Notre Dame!

Which commenter do you think THIS most resembles? (this should be easy)

Cows at Versailles!  We ate them afterwards.

A house on Marie Antoinette’s Estate. Kept looking for a bloody guillotine to no avail.

Versailles Gardens. The French know how to spend money.

Miss Scriptshadow at famous bookstore, Shakespeare & Company (featured in Before Sunset)

Had lunch with Isabelle Adjani, winner of 5 Cesars (France’s Oscar equivalent). She was very humble and sweet!

I tried to explain to these two that their puppet show didn’t have any goals, stakes, or urgency and I was promptly thrown out of Paris.

What I learned: Louvre in the rain results in a lot of character development.

Miss SS had reached the “Really, you’re still taking pictures of me?” phase of the vacation when I took this.

French Scriptshadow fan who showed us around.

This is a rare pigeon sighting. As you know, there is a scarcity of pigeons in Paris since they eat them all.

France did not only give us the Statue of Liberty.  They gave us indoor malls!  This is the first indoor mall ever!  (p.s. The accuracy of this statement is based on my own educated guess and therefore has an 80% probability of being wrong).

I was dared to walk up to one of these guys, lick them, and say, “That was finger licking good.” I did not accept that dare.

Last night at a restaurant I saw “baby pig” on the menu. I’m praying this is what they meant.

It took us 3 wrong Metro stops, 5 wrong-way walkings, 8 map screw-ups, and 2 arguments to find this freaking canal. But it was found!

I’m not sure what Parisians would do if they saw that the average Los Angeles street was 9 times wider than this.  They might stop eating baby pig.

Miss Scriptshadow is always up for an adventure. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen her since she went on this one.

I think Warner Brothers is crazy. I do. Because despite their best intentions and all of their efforts to do this Batman vs. Superman thing, there is no way it’s going to work. Just no way. That’s not to say it isn’t going to make money. Zack Snyder’s style results in some of the best trailers in the business. So it’s going to look cool. And of course we’re going to get that 150 million dollar marketing campaign that will subliminally convince us that we will die of Bird Flu if we don’t go see it. But the movie is going to be terrible. Why? Because there’s no way to make the Batman Vs. Superman script work. There isn’t a single variable in the make-up of this pairing that lends itself to a good story. Which leads to a much bigger problem for the franchises than just this film. If it’s as ridiculous as I’m assuming it will be, you end up killing the Golden Goose, just like Joel Schumacher did with the last Batman franchise. Both franchises, then, could be catastrophically injured.

I bring this up not from a place of hate. I’d love to see a great Batman vs. Superman movie. I bring it up from a place of knowing what makes a good story. In an imaginary world where Warner Brothers came to me with this idea and asked me to write it, I would say, “It can’t be done. There are too many things working against it.” I want to get to those things, but first, let’s recap how we got here.

Warner Brothers, who has much of the DC Universe under contract, has been watching the way Disney/Marvel’s been methodically parading out solo movies for their characters (Iron Man, Thor, Hulk) and making a lot of money off them. They said, “Hey, why can’t we do that? We have other superheroes besides Batman and Superman.” So they kept developing the Wonder Woman project. They gave us Ryan Reynolds as The Green Lantern. And the results of these experiments were… not good to say the least. It was then that Marvel took over the movie world with its orgasmic super-hero fest, The Avengers.  Warners had had enough. They wanted to do their version of The Avengers, Justice League, but, as we already established, didn’t have the characters. But gosh. That Avengers made so much money. We have to have an answer to it. Batman vs. Superman has been kicking around Hollywood forever, and this seemed like the perfect time to bust it out, so they pulled the trigger. Their argument was, “We got the two best superheroes around. We don’t need anybody else.” And hence we got Batman vs. Superman. With Ben Affleck to play Batman to boot (that casting choice is a whole other discussion).

Here’s the problem though. Famous Character X vs. Famous Character Y movies never work. In fact, they actually work against the franchises because all of them carry a whiff of desperation. As a studio, you bring these out when the characters are stale or dying. Freddy vs. Jason? Oh yeah, that was a good one. Alien vs. Predator. Does anyone even remember what that was about??  Why are we bringing together two franchises that are just fine?  Here are a few more thoughts I’d like to add.

It’s a gimmick, not a movie.

“Versus” movies are always gimmicks. Instead of being able to create a journey for the main character that will end up being our main plot (i.e. Lex Luthor holds America hostage and Superman must stop him), the whole script must be geared towards figuring out a way to get these two to fight. So you’re already starting from an artificial place. You’re trying to push something on the audience that isn’t natural and therefore will never feel natural, no matter how many writing tricks you use. I’m sure Goyer and Snyder will do their best, but I’m willing to bet my right hip that while you’re watching this film, you’re going to notice a ton of really ridiculous exposition that sets up why Superman and Batman will have to fight.

Tone mixing

The tone between the two universes is too different. Batman’s darker, more realistic. Superman has super powers and aliens. Superman’s also set in a more idealistic world, despite Zac Snyder’s best efforts to eliminate that idealism. In Superman, you still get cheesy lines you’d NEVER see in Batman like, “The world’s too big mom.” Or an overly-melodramatic death where someone’s father perishes in a Level 5 tornado. Combining super human heroes with mortal human heroes and keeping the tone universal is going to be a bitch to do right. I guess The Avengers somehow mixed a Norse God into their story, but I’m guessing Batman and Superman are always going to feel like they’re in different movies. The tonal bubble that surrounds each is too different.

Neither character can win –

This is probably the biggest challenge they have in the script. Neither character can defeat the other. Both are too big and too important to the studio to lose at the end of the movie and the fanbase for each is too passionate to take on when said favorite loses. That means we’re going to get the mother of all cop-outs where both characters battle each other with all their hearts, then come to a truce at the end. It will be monumentally unsatisfying. You know that great feeling you get when the hero defeats the bad guy at the end of the movie. Batman vs. Superman can’t have that, which is going to leave you feeling confused. “Wait, a tie? Well then what was the whole point of the movie?”

False Character Motivation

How do you motivate this fight? Like motivate an all-out “to-the-death” battle between Superman and Batman? There’s nothing you can do. Superman won’t want to kill Batman. And Batman doesn’t kill good guys who have made their mark by doing good and saving thousands of lives. Any motivation you give these two to fight each other is going to feel entirely fabricated.

It’s not a fair fight, so anything they do to make it fair will feel like cheating.

As a writer, the actual battle between these two is impossible to write. This comes down to geek obviousness.  There’s no way for a mortal man to defeat a superhuman. True, we have the whole kryptonite thing, but what’s Batman going to do? Lace himself with kryptonite? Would Nolan’s Batman ever do something like that? Of course not. It’s too silly, too bizarre, bringing us back to the tone issue. These two don’t work in the same universe. They operate in completely separate worlds. The writers (I’m assuming someone will come in to help after Goyer) will have to design all these artificial elements to even the fight out, and it’s going to make everything feel fake and manufactured. I could see this working in the broad universe of a cartoon. But live in a dark supposedly “realistic” world? It’s going to feel silly.

This leaves us with one obvious question: What WILL they end up doing? Well, I’m not in their heads, but the best way to approach this is to probably create some nasty villain that Batman and Superman are both going after. They may even have to team up since you want these characters around each other as much as possible. But they don’t see eye to eye and something goes wrong. Batman splits off and decides to do it his own way, and much like The Dark Knight, he goes too far. In fact, Batman’s been going too far in his street-cleaning crusade for awhile now. But local law enforcement can’t stop him, so they have to bring in Superman. There would also have to be some secondary plot where Bruce and Clark are interacting as normal people, possibly in a reporter-interview capacity so you can get a lot of dramatic irony in there via their interactions. But I contend it’s just going to be stupid and cheesy and forced when they fight. Why would these two fight each other than nerds wanting them too???

Whenever you stoop to a “fan-fiction” level with your story, you run the risk of killing it. Because you’re making the movie for the wrong reasons. You’re not trying to tell a good story. You’re trying to answer a geeky question. Who wins if Superman and Batman fight (we already answered this, of course: neither). Which is why these things need to be kept to dorm rooms at 2 a.m. after the final strand of weed has been toked. The idea “Batman Vs. Superman” sounds rad for two seconds, but when you really think about it, how they would actually make it happen, it falls apart immediately. The trailer for this will be great, but mark my words, there’s no way for this script to survive. Which is exactly why, despite them developing the idea for 20 years, no one’s cracked it yet. With that said, I leave it up to you guys to prove me wrong. How would you write Batman vs. Superman?  Is it, indeed, impossible?