A while back, I wrote an article about surprise box office hits and what we as screenwriters can learn from them. I love trying to figure out why some movies succeed and others fail, and especially how those successes and failures relate to screenwriting, so I thought it would be fun to tackle a new batch of films and see if we couldn’t gleam a few lessons from them. Now I’ll reiterate the obvious. Directing and marketing and star power are huge factors in why movies do well at the box office. But it all starts with the screenplay. Every trailer, every poster, every marketing campaign, every great acting performance – all of those things stem from the screenplay. It’s with that spirit that I bring you my second installment of five surprise hits and what we can learn from them as screenwriters.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK
Rough Projected Gross: 45-50 mil
Actual Gross: 95 mil
Written by: Aaron Sorkin

What We Can Learn: I’ll give you the first trick to getting your movie to overperform. Cast Jesse Eisenberg. No really. If you remember, he was in one of the films from the last list (Zombieland). But seriously, the success of The Social Network was one of the bigger surprises of 2010. I remember leading up to the film’s release a lot of nervous people close to the project wondering how a dark look at a shiny new Internet tool was going to play to the masses. Who the hell in Omaha Nebraska wants to watch a 20-year-old kid become a billionaire and whine about it? Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. But that’s the thing. That’s the exact reason why people showed up.

Irony.

Don’t believe me? I want you to go to any piece of marketing material you can find for The Social Network. Find me one shot or one video clip of the main character, Mark Zuckerberg, smiling. You can’t can you? That’s because there isn’t one. The Social Network is about a young man who made 50 billion dollars and is unhappy. That doesn’t make sense. Rich people are supposed to have it all. The cars, the houses, the vacations. So when we see the richest 20 something in the world looking miserable, there’s a mystery there that we want answered. And let’s not forget that this is a man who created a network of 500 million “friends,” who’s himself friendless. So we have two high level uses of irony in play here, and in both cases, they’re used to create a compelling dynamic main character. That’s important to remember. You come to The Social Network to see the person, not to be wowed by the plot. The Social Network, as a film, actually has a funky narrative structure. It’s not always easy to follow and it doesn’t reward you in the same way a traditionally structured movie would. But you watch because the main character is so interesting. So before you go out and you write your next screenplay, try to come up with the most intriguing main character you can. Whether you use irony or not is up to you but you better find a way to make him as interesting as possible.

BRIDESMAIDS
Rough Projected Gross: 45-55 million
Actual Gross: 167 million
Writers: Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig

What We Can Learn: Talk about a movie that came out of nowhere. I still remember when Deadline Hollywood was reporting that this thing would make 13 bucks on opening weekend. The argument was that nobody wanted to leave the safety of their homes to watch women burp and fart. They were wrong. Audiences were begging this movie to give them as many noises from as many orifices as possible. The thing is, this film just as easily could have disappeared into one of those orifices. I mean it had no real stars. It didn’t even have a hook. At least with The Hangover, there was a neat concept driving the story. This is just a bunch of bridesmaids, which last time I checked you could find every other hour on E!. So why did it work? I think I know. And it shouldn’t be that shocking. It’s the characters. But unlike The Social Network, where it was more about creating one giant captivating character, the feat in Bridesmaids was how much effort they put into all the characters. Normally, in these types of movies, the main character is pretty well defined. That’s what the screenwriting books drum into your head. Make sure your main character rocks. But most books stop there. When it comes to the secondary characters, they could care less. But what I’ve found is that you can usually separate the wheat from the chaffe by how much effort a writer puts into their secondary characters. That’s where the real work comes in. It’s so easy to just give a secondary character a minor quirk and then move on. It’s hard to sit down and spend just as much time trying to figure them out as you would a protagonist. However, by doing that extra work, your script always shines brighter. That’s what Bridesmaids got right. Every character here was extensively thought through. Kristin Wigg’s character was the unlucky in love girl who always found herself with the wrong man. Maya Rudolph’s character was the stoic steady-as-a-rock best friend. Rose Byrne’s character was the bitter sad stepmom trying to hide behind a false smile. Melissa McCarthy’s character was the crazy happy go lucky overly optimistic even when she has no reason to be character. I read tons of comedies where the drop-off after the main character is so steep, it’s as if the writer just gave up in hopes that some hilarious comedian would be cast and make the role funny. But as you know, there’s nothing uglier than a comedian in a thinly written role trying to do a song and a dance to make up for how undefined the character is. If you don’t believe me, go watch Night At The Roxbury.

THE KING’S SPEECH
Rough Projected Gross: 25-45 million
Actual Gross: 135 million
Writer: David Seidler

What We Can Learn: Raise your hand if you predicted before The King’s Speech came out that the movie would gross over 100 million dollars. Anyone? Anyone? To be honest, I’m surprised that all of these movies did so well. But a stuffy British costume drama rocking the box office was particularly surprising. People say the adult drama is dead, but you wouldn’t know it if you counted the box office receipts from 2010. So then what is it that made this film such a surprise success? Well, I’ve talked about it before. The King’s Speech utilizes two of the most time-tested and well-worn story devices out there. The first is the underdog. Stories always work when they have a good underdog in the lead role. You can sell an underdog story to anybody – doesn’t matter if they’re 7 or 77, especially if it’s true. Seeing and enjoying people overcome adversity is in our moviegoing DNA. The other device is the crazy mentor. I use the word “crazy” loosely, but people are just really familiar with that kind of character and love seeing them operate. But I think The King’s Speech took it one step further and added – yes, there’s that word again – irony. In this case, the situation allowed a nobody to stand up and demand things from the King of England. There’s just something funny and ironic about a peasant ordering around a King. Anyway, the combination of these two well tested tools are what made a stuffy period piece one of the sexier box office hits of the year. Yes I just used the word “sexy” in conjunction with The King’s Speech.

BLACK SWAN
Rough Projected Gross: 20-30 million
Actual Gross: 110 million
Writer: Mark Heyman

What We Can Learn: This is a great movie to study for today’s purposes because every movie Darren Aronofsky had made up until this point had been a box office dud. His biggest film, The Wrestler, made only $26 million. So there was really no reason to believe Black Swan would do any better. In fact, with our subject matter dressed snugly in a leotard, it can be argued that this movie would’ve been lucky to hit the $10 million mark. So then what was the difference? Why did this one succeed when all the others failed? You’re lucky you tuned in into Scriptshadow today because I’m going to tell you. Whereas before, Aronofsky chose stories with broad unclear narratives (Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, even The Wrestler had a bumpy throughline), Black Swan had one of the cleanest narratives of the year. The main character has the crystal clear goal of maintaining the lead actress role in her play until opening-night. Nipping at her scuffed heels is her evil understudy. How do you get cleaner than “Get to the end of the maze before the villain defeats you.” That doesn’t mean there weren’t complex aspects to the story. We still got some trippy dream sequences and plenty of hallucinations. However, the objective was never in question. The stakes were never in question. We understood every story point clearly. And that’s something Aronofsky didn’t do in the past. So I think this is a great lesson. Remember that when you’re writing independent fare, you’re fighting an uphill appeal battle. It’s in your interest to make elements of your story clean and easy to understand. If you can nudge your narrative closer to a popular genre, like Aronofsky did here by making Black Swan a thriller, you can stay true to your indie roots yet still draw in a big audience. Oh, and it also doesn’t hurt to add a sex scene between your two lead female characters.

INCEPTION
Rough Projected Gross: 90-120 million
Actual Gross: 292 million
Writer: Christopher Nolan

What We Can Learn: I remember reading an article about this last month. In it, a reporter noted that Inception was a box office shock of epic proportions. Warner Bros. had made the movie to keep Christopher Nolan happy between Batman films. They had no idea it would become as big as it did. So the writer of the article was interested in how the success of the film was going to change the moviegoing landscape. What was Hollywood going to do about this? The answer? Nothing. They just watched a sleeper film become a $300 million behemoth and had no idea what to do with it. Now I’ve made my feelings clear about this film. I think it’s really flawed. Regardless of that, I believe the box office for Inception is trying to tell Hollywood something. People want more challenging big budget fare. This may sound contradictory to what I just said about Black Swan. But actually I think the statement is complementary. Independent films need more audience friendly storylines. Big-budget films need more challenging storylines. Hollywood is confused by this because it thinks audiences only want one or the other. I believe audiences are getting sick of the comic book movies and the mash up movies and the movies based on rides and the movies based on toys. They go to these films and feel empty afterwards. At least when you left Inception, you thought about something. You talked about it with your friends. And those are the kinds of conversations that get people back into the theater a second and third time. I think Hollywood is really missing out on the bigger picture here. The thing that the Internet has done is it’s allowed conversations about movies to be had by millions. But Hollywood keeps giving these people movies that aren’t worth talking about. Now I know that Disney VP just came out with a statement proclaiming that story doesn’t matter when you’re making a tentpole flick, and pointed to the terribly written billion-dollar earner Alice In Wonderland as an example. I think there will always be a market for high concept well marketed family fare. But I also think that there’s an appetite from the more serious moviegoers for big budget tentpole films that also make you think. The thing is, those movies aren’t being written. And the truth is there just isn’t a lot of material out there that teaches writers how to successfully write these kinds of movies. You have to balance the challenging aspects of your screenplay with the high concept marketability of a big-budget picture. If you get too esoteric or “out there” than the movie no longer becomes thoughtful. It just becomes confusing. Using our previous director as an example, Aronofsky wanted to make The Fountain for 100 million bucks. There’s a good chance the box office for that film would’ve topped out at $10 million. So really, it’s up to you guys to figure this out. It’s up to you guys to come up with these concepts that balance the two extremes. As always, it begins with the screenwriter. So get the fuck off Scriptshadow and start writing.

Genre: Sci-Fi Adventure
Premise: The last human on earth, a young girl, is protected by an army of robots against an even bigger army of zombies.
About: Zombies vs. Robots (Inherit the Earth) is yet another graphic novel that has been translated into a screenplay. The geek-tastic set up feels like a kissing cousin to All You Need Is Kill, a graphic novel about a young man forced to take on an alien army over and over again. While both scripts seem to be catered to the tween crowd, both also have soft chewy emotional cores, especially Inherit the Earth. The writer, Petty, has made his name mostly in the videogame world, working on such titles as Batman Begins and Splinter Cell.
Writer: JT Petty (based on the graphic novel by Chris Ryall & Ashley Wood)
Details: 115 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I don’t know if Inherit the Earth will ever get made. It’s such a bizarre idea I’m not sure your average audience member can wrap their head around it. I mean let’s be honest. It has robots. And zombies. And time travel. This goes beyond Blake Snyder’s double mumbo-jumbo into triple mumbo-jumbo. Does the third mumbo-jumbo cancel out the second mumbo-jumbo? I sure hope so, because if people can accept this, they’re going to find one of the more heartfelt science-fiction movies ever made.

Inherit the Earth is about a crazy scientist named Dr. Satterfield who’s consumed with building a time machine. He’s helped around his lab mostly by robots – I’m presuming this is sometime in the future – most notably his young-looking robot assistant, William.

Satterfield goes a little nuts, insisting that he try his time machine himself, even though it hasn’t been tested properly. Before his assistants can stop him, he leaps through, only to come back 3 seconds later as a raging flesh eating zombie. He starts munching on everyone who subsequently start munching on everyone else, and before you know it, the entire world is one big zombie party.

Cut to seven years later where the last human alive – a young girl named Lucy – is being holed up in the US government’s indestructible Cheyenne Mountain base. Lucy is the last hope for humankind, so the entire mountain is fortified by hundreds if not thousands of military robots.

Now up until this point, keeping the zombies at bay has been easy. As we all know, the only thing slower than a zombie is a Walmart customer. But what these robots don’t know is that the zombies have evolved and there are now “smart” zombies. So when a huge army of zombies strategically breaks through the barrier, the robots are unprepared. Chaos ensues and the biggest robot-zombie massacre ever goes down. When Lucy’s nurse bot is destroyed (the only robot programmed to provide humanlike emotional support for Lucy), that old assistant from Satterfield’s original outbreak, William, is assigned to replace her.

William’s terrified of being thrown into the role as he’s never been programmed to provide emotion. But zombies are everywhere, killing everyone, and there isn’t a lot of time to argue. So he and a really hot gun toting mega-babe robot named Rose escape with Lucy out into the desert.

With the zombies in hot pursuit, and with no more huge mountain barricades to protect her, it’s looking like the end of the human race is near. However, the group gets an idea. The Satterfield of the past will be arriving in the present within a few days. If they can get to his lab and kill him before he has time to get back to the past, they can prevent the zombie outbreak from ever happening and save the world. Since robots are not allowed to kill humans, Lucy will have to be the one to kill Satterfield.

I’ve said this before. If you’re going to give us a sci-fi movie or a fantasy movie or an adventure movie, you better find a way to connect with us on an emotional level as well as give us the action and the trailer moments and the special effects that we crave. Throwing zombies and robots up on screen is going to be fun for about 5 minutes. But if you want us to stay interested for the other hour and 55 minutes, you have to create an unresolved relationship in the movie that we care about and want to see resolved.

That relationship here is the relationship between William and Lucy. What this script does a really good job of, is conveying the loneliness of Lucy’s plight. She’s the last human on earth and she’s just a little girl. She’s surrounded by nuts and bolts and ones and zeros. Nobody knows what it’s really like to be in her position. And that alienation eats at her every day. The robots have actually had to program themselves to provide an artificial version of emotional support in order to mirror the kind of support a child needs.

When the robot responsible for this dies, that task is left to William, who’s just an assistant robot meant for simple duties. What makes it even worse is that Lucy hates him. Whenever she’s upset or confused or sad or lonely, she looks to him for support, and he has nothing to offer her. So in a way, it’s like a typical troubled parent-daughter relationship where two people are just not able to find any common ground.

While all the running from zombies stuff is fun, the real story – the thing that we really want to see resolved – is whether William can finally learn to make an emotional connection with this girl. Likewise, we want Lucy to see how hard William is trying. We want her to see that even though he’s not capable of love, he’ll do anything to save her.

This is what screenwriting is about. It’s not about all of the whizbang special effects gadgetry. Once you map that stuff out – once you have your plot structured – you better have a relationship at the core of your second act that needs deep exploration and that an audience is going to be interested in. The further apart you put the two people in that relationship – Lucy hates William and William is light years away from being emotionally available to Lucy – the more compelling that story is going to be. If you don’t have this, you get Transformers – movies with fake relationships and thin unresolved surface level issues that leave you feeling empty and detached from the two-hour experience minutes after they’re over. Now a studio executive may point out: yeah, but Transformers made $1 billion. Well my reply is: yeah, but you could’ve made 2 billion.

The great thing about Inherit the Earth is that it gets the plot stuff right too. We have a clear goal here: get to and kill Satterfield. We have urgency: Satterfield will arrive in a couple of days so they have to move it. We have more urgency: Thousands of zombies are chasing them (always try to add more urgency!). We have high stakes: literally the fate of the world is at stake. We have unexpected twists and turns: the strange cult that they run into. Everything is in place here for a great story.

What I also liked was that Inherit the Earth didn’t always take the safe route. I think whenever you’re writing a screenplay, it’s your job to explore avenues you’re a little afraid of. You have to take some chances and maybe go into a few places you wouldn’t normally go in. These decisions are the decisions that end up making your screenplay different from every other screenplay out there. So when our characters run into a cult, and we get into the scene where we find out what’s really going on with these people, and what they’re really planning to do with Lucy, it’s horrifying. And it’s not somewhere I expected this screenplay to go. But that’s why I liked the decision so much. It took a chance.

Maybe my only complaint with “Earth” is that the ending gets a little messy and in doing so misses an opportunity to truly pay off the emotional set up between William and Lucy. It’s hard to explain but the final scene is like a category five tornado, and because of all the wind and the noise and the chaos, we’re unable to experience the perfect closure we need between William and Lucy. It’s not a huge deal and I think it only needs some tweaking, but it’s a good reminder that clarity is important every step of the way. You can’t fake your way through anything. You have to make sure that every single word is carefully constructed to convey what you need to convey, especially in the end, when all the threads are finally paying off. However, the reason it didn’t bother me was because the final image was so perfect and so haunting. It totally made up for it.

I just really liked this and I hope the studio takes a chance on it. I have no idea if an American audience would be able to buy into the premise. But if they can, they certainly have the screenplay in place to make it work.

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

What I learned: Beware of predictability and safety when you’re writing. They are your enemies. If your script is always predictable and always safe, then there’s a good chance what you’re writing isn’t very interesting. The Shawshank Redemption has our lead character getting raped repeatedly. Back to the Future has a son who has to make out with his own mom. Even a movie like Up kills off one of the most delightful characters you’ve ever met within the first 10 pages. Here in Inherit the Earth, the whole cult sequence is unsettling and unexpected, a dark place a lot of writers would have been too afraid to tackle. But for me, that’s the sequence that legitimized the story. It showed just how dark and terrible a place the world had become, and that made the need to save it all the stronger. So always check yourself. Make sure you’re not the predictable safe writer.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A young man begins to suspect that his bosses are monsters – real monsters.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title).
Writer: Richmond Weems
Details: 94 pages

I had some major déjà vu going on when I picked this. I don’t know if there was a spec a few years ago similar to this, or if I read an earlier draft of the screenplay. But there is definitely something familiar about this concept.

As for the concept in question, it’s pretty good. While Lady Jane may disagree with me, the second you add monsters to your story, you get your screenplay a lot closer to high concept land. And I love the idea of a group of employees finding out that their bosses are secretly monsters. The question is – as it always is – did the writer execute?

Half of my notes on this one were destroyed in the great Chicago Fire so you’ll have to excuse me if I get some of the details wrong. Thirtysomething Zach Taylor works at a company doing a vague job with not a whole lot of upside. In fact, Zach, along with the rest of his employees, are all just mindlessly sleepwalking through their careers.

That is until one of their coworkers, John Miller, doesn’t show up for work the next day. The company has a long-standing practice of firing its employees who then disappear off the face of the earth. But these guys knew John Miller so they’re curious why he didn’t say anything to them.

The event results in Zach being a little more perceptive, and he quickly starts noticing a lot of strange things going on at the workplace. For example, the cleaning lady will be standing there one moment and then be gone the next. Instead of assuming she’s just a really fast cleaner, Zach thinks something fishy is going on. This is followed up by an urgent phone call from someone in the building screaming for help. And that’s when Zach really knows something’s up.

But it isn’t until Zach starts paying really close attention to his three bosses that he becomes convinced that they’re actually monsters. The problem is, the second he’s onto them, they’re on to him. And when they realize that Zach could potentially expose their long-running plan of gobbling up their downsized minions, they set up a big party at the end of the week for which Zach is certain will be the death of himself and all of his fellow employees.

So how was Inhuman Resources?

I got one word for you.

Plastics.

Actually, I take that back. I have another word for you.

Subplots.

This screenplay needed more subplots! It also needed fleshing out in almost every area. The idea is executed in the most minimal way, so it doesn’t feel so much like a movie as it does a short extended out to 100 minutes. Let’s start with the location. I may be mistaken because it’s been a few days since I read this, but I don’t remember a single scene that took place outside of the building. If you’re making a contained thriller that happens over the course of a few hours, then keeping everything in one place is fine. But if you’re telling a more traditional story, you need to get outside of that workplace and into the rest of the world so you can give your story some actual texture. With us seeing these people’s lives only within the walls of this company, it was like only seeing one fourth of who they were.

But back to subplots. What should the subplots be in a movie like this? I don’t know but I’ll teach you a trick to help you find them. It’s a simple trick. I call it “pretend that you don’t have a concept.” Pretend like the screenwriting gods came down from above and said to you “I can give this screenplay to the biggest producer in town. The only catch is that you can’t include the monster stuff.” What would you then do to make your screenplay interesting? Well, the only thing you really have at your disposal are your characters and your plot. So one thing you might do is create a love story between two of the people who work at the company. You might create a rivalry with one of the coworkers. You might create a work storyline where there’s some deadline they have to make. Those are very simple options and you would definitely want to dig deeper, but do you see how once you can no longer lean on your concept, you’re forced to actually come up with a story? And by doing so, without you even knowing it, you’ve created subplots.

Next up is a huge pet peeve of mine and something I’ve brought up many times before but in this instance it’s almost inexcusable. You need to know what your character’s job is. Why? Because people spend one third of their lives performing a job. It is one of the biggest insights into who a person is. If I introduced you to Joe and said he was a butcher, you’d get a pretty good idea of who he was, right? Now let’s say I introduced you to Stacy, and told you she was a divorce lawyer. Again, you’d have a pretty good idea of who Stacy was just by her job. Now I’m not saying you can’t play against those stereotypes and change things around once you get into the story, but you have to start somewhere – and knowing what your character does for a living is immensely helpful in figuring out who they are. If you don’t know what your character is doing for nine hours of every day, then you don’t know your character.

Now in this instance it’s even more of a problem, because the entire movie takes place at the character’s place of work. I suppose there is an off chance that keeping the workplace ambiguous is a part of the plan but I doubt it. But even if that was the case, I think it’s a bad idea. If you don’t know what these people do, then you don’t know what tasks to give them, what projects they need to work on, what their routine would be like. I mean think about it, if they work at a comic book company, it’s going to be a lot different than if they work at the IRS. Every single detail of their day is probably going to be different. But since this hasn’t been figured out, the characters are forced to do generic tasks (or in most cases no tasks), which contributes to the overall generic feel of the screenplay.

Plus, when you have a fun idea like this, it should be fun to come up with the company, because you can play off the monster angle. Maybe, for example, they’re a closet manufacturing company (monsters like to hide in closets). That’s pretty lame, but you get the idea. Now that you have a real company that does real things, you can start coming up with real tasks for your characters. Maybe they’re designing a closet for the richest man in town. Or maybe they’re designing closets for a new school (which the monsters picked specifically because it offered a lot of eatable children). Now you can get your characters out of the building and into the real world doing things. The point is, now you can flesh out your story.

Inhuman resources is an example of a script where the writer has thought of their concept and nothing else. Every single element in the screenplay needs to be fleshed out. I like the idea for the movie. It definitely has potential. But this thing won’t shine until it gets a giant makeover.

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

What I learned: A couple of lessons here. Never tell anyone that the script you’re giving them is your first script. Richmond was able to get away with it in this case but that’s mainly because I had a déjà vu moment when I read the concept. But most agents/producers/managers know that it usually takes about six scripts before writers really start to understand the craft. So usually, when a writer points out that this is their first script, I close that e-mail faster than George Lopez’s late-night show. You may be proud that you’ve completed your first script – and you should be – but if you want your script to be read, it’s best to keep that information to yourself. Another lesson to learn here– and I’m just bringing this up because the first lesson reminded me of it: Do not inundate your industry contacts with seven or eight different script loglines from your script archives in addition to the script you’re sending them. I don’t claim to know the exact psychology behind this, but whenever a writer does it, it gives off a desperate vibe. But the bigger issue is that readers will probably start wondering, if this person has all these old screenplays that no one liked before, what’s to say this one is any better? When talking about your screenplays, you should probably only mention the screenplay you just finished (that got you the meeting), the screenplay you’re working on, maybe the last screenplay you wrote, and then possibly some future ideas for screenplays. You can even cheat and give them “ideas you’re thinking about writing” that you’ve actually already written. Then, if they like them, you can “write them” really quickly and send them off to them. Now, not only have you given them a screenplay that you know they’ll be interested in, but they think you wrote it in a month, which is always good.  Hey, agents lie all the time. Why can’t we?

Genre: Thriller
Premise: As a pianist readies to play his concert, he is told that if he misses a single note, he will be killed.
About: Chazelle optioned a script last year titled “The Claim.” He went out wide with this spec in June but it didn’t sell (for those counting, roughly 25% of specs that have OFFICIALLY gone out this year have sold). Still, a longtime Scriptshadow reader highly recommended it to me so I thought I’d give it a shot. It’s always interesting to take a look at the professional stuff that *doesn’t* sell, so you can try and determine why.
Writer: Damian Chazelle
Details: 119 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

When I see ‘thriller’ and I see 120 pages, I don’t immediately think, “Good.” I think “Uh-oh, what’s going on here?” Thrillers are supposed to be taut. They’re supposed to move fast. So why would you create a thriller with all those extra pages? It makes me skeptical. It makes me suspicious. So I went into this one with my guard up.

27-year-old Tom Selznick is flying into Chicago. He’s not doing too well because Tom is a terrified flyer. At least that’s what we think at first. It turns out, however, that Tom is more terrified of what happens after the flight, not during.

Putting together the pieces, we learn that Tom is a pianist. But not just any pianist. One of the top pianists in the entire world. And tonight he’s going to give a concert that will define him for the rest of his life. You see five years ago Tom was at the top of his game. Nobody could touch him. But Tom had a big weakness. Stage fright. At any moment, he could crumble like an old Chips Ahoy cookie. Eventually he couldn’t take the pressure anymore, so he retired and planned on never performing again. But recently, his teacher and mentor died, forcing him out of retirement to give one last concert.

So Tom sets up with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and prepares to perform. Naturally, he’s terrified out of his mind. His girlfriend, Emma, is in the audience, cheering him on. The word around town is not so much, will Tom be great? But will he screw up?

Well Tom’s about to realize that stage fright is the last thing he’ll need to worry about. As he’s getting ready, somebody whispers into his headset, “Play one wrong note and you die.” At first, Tom thinks this is a joke. But our mysterious hidden killer offers a few visual cues which make it clear that this is anything but a joke.

With no time to figure out what the hell is going on, Tom must begin the concert. To make matters worse, our mysterious killer in the shadows is threatening to kill Emma if Tom tries anything funny. So not only must Tom play a piece that’s already impossible and not miss a single note, he must save his girlfriend.

Also of note, is that Tom is playing on his mentor’s old piano. And his mentor was like a billionaire or something. I don’t think I need to put two and two together for you. Clearly, there’s likely something very important inside that piano that our mysterious killer wants.

Okay.

I want to make clear that I have nothing against the writer here. But Grand Piano didn’t work for me on pretty much any level. And it all came back to the concept. If your concept is flawed, it doesn’t matter what you write afterwards, because the audience already doesn’t believe in your story. The concept here is preposterous. I don’t know any other way to put it. We are to believe (spoilers) that, first of all, a man would lock his money inside of a grand piano, then set up a complicated locking system in which the only way to get the money would be to play the most impossible to play piano piece in the world.

That alone is difficult to buy. But then we’re also to believe, that in order to steal this money, a man would hide in the shadows of a concert and hold the piano player at gunpoint, telling him if he messes up he will be killed.

So let me get this straight. In order to coerce someone who’s notorious for screwing up under pressure into playing the perfect piece, you tell him that if he screws up, he’ll die? I don’t know how that makes sense.

I mean, wouldn’t the far easier method be to get the piano alone, break it open, and steal the makeshift safe that’s inside? Then you could have a month, two months, six months, however long you wanted, to break the thing open. If you have the resources to break in to an auditorium and set up a gun in a hiding place, I’m sure getting the piano alone wouldn’t be too difficult.

The thing is, even if you buy into this, the events that follow become even more absurd. At one point, the red targeting laser from the killer’s gun is plastered on Tom’s forehead. Nobody seems to notice. At another point, Tom is playing with his right hand while texting on his phone with his left hand. Not only does the audience not seem to notice this, but the person who is obsessively watching his every move doesn’t seem to see it either. Finally, during the entire concert, Tom is talking back and forth with the killer into his headset microphone, and nobody in the audience seems to notice. I don’t see how these logic problems can just be swept under the rug and treated as if they’re not happening. There’s no way any of this goes unnoticed.

When you write a story, there are going to be leaps of logic, sure, but if those leaps are too big and too numerous, it becomes impossible to believe in the story. It seems like every choice here is a choice that would never happen in the real world. And I couldn’t ignore that.

I don’t think the characters were well thought through either. For example, if Tom is known for his extreme choking, how is he the most famous pianist in the world? It seems like the writer is trying to have it both ways. He needs the pianist to be great so that the concert can be big, but he also needs him to be a bumbling moron to add tension to his goal. I just don’t know how you can be one of the top three pianists in the world and also be blatantly incapable.

The friend characters were also a problem. They weren’t even Tom’s friends. They were Emma’s friends. So when Tom sends out a text to these non-friends for help, we feel like we’re jumping into another story. We don’t even know these guys. They don’t even know our hero. So we have no feelings towards them one way or another as they sort of try to save Tom.

Topping this all off, I’m going to jump back to my first concern, the length of the screenplay itself. No thriller. None. Should be 120 pages. Of all the genres you can write, the one that you cannot come up with a legitimate excuse for needing 120 pages to tell is the thriller. A thriller is supposed to thrill. It needs to move. If it’s a sentence over 105 pages, you’re probably doing something wrong. Either you’re including scenes you don’t need to include, or you’re repeating beats that don’t need to be repeated. The only reason for a thriller to be a bit on the meaty side is if you’re adding character development. And there isn’t any character development here in Grand Piano.

I’m probably beating up Grand Piano too much. The thing is, I can see why an agent or manager in theory would go out with this script. It does have something happening. There is a story here. It’s intense. This isn’t some self-indulgent semi-autobiographical piece about a twentysomething trying to figure out his life. At least there’s a story.

But I just don’t think the concept, in its current form, is believable enough for people to suspend their disbelief. Maybe if you create a more traditional story throughout the first two thirds of the screenplay and then make the concert, which we’ve been leading up to, the climax, there might be something there. But you have to totally rethink this idea that a man has to play a perfect concert in order to unlock a secret piano safe. I just don’t see how that works.

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

What I learned: It’s very important you put yourself in your villain’s shoes and ask the question, “If I was this person, would this be my plan?” Ask yourself if the plan makes sense. Ask yourself if there are better options. If there are better options, then why would you use this option? If you don’t have a good enough reason for using the least efficient option, then you probably need to rework your story. Because you can bet that the reader and the audience are going to be asking that same question. “Why wouldn’t he just do this instead?” The closer your plan mirrors reality, the more likely it is that the audience will buy into it.

Genre: Drama/Serial Killer
Premise: A small town serial killer accidentally becomes a hero when he saves the sheriff.
About: This script has not sold. I’m not even sure it’s gone out to anyone yet. The writer is new. I don’t know much more about it.
Writer: Dan Southard
Details: 105 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

This one came to me mysteriously and without much information. I can only say that the person who sent it to me had previously sent me one of my favorite scripts. So I knew at the very least it would be solid.

But before I get to the review, a little trip down memory lane first. Take note of today’s genre. Serial killer. Serial killer falls within the group of genres that you absolutely HAVE to do something different with if you want your spec to survive in the spec jungle. Seven was a great movie but it also seemed to collectively destroy every ounce of writer creativity when it came to serial killer flicks. You need to find another angle into your story if you’re going to write one of these.

One way to go about that is to tell the story through the serial killer’s eyes, as Company does here. Stan is a lonely farmer approaching middle age, just minding his own business and trying to farm his own land. He lost both of his parents awhile back and that’s made this lightning rod of social awkwardness even more socially awkward. You’d have a better chance striking up a conversation with a pot of coffee than you would old Stan.

Stan also has a secret. He’s a killer. His victims of choice are hookers, who he finds in the nearby city. He brings them home, entertains them for awhile, and then he kills them. As if that isn’t bad enough, he preps the bodies, clothes them, and keeps them around so they can keep him “company.” The conversations are noticeably one-sided, but you get the feeling that’s okay with Stan.

After awhile, Stan realizes that the half life for a decaying body isn’t very long and therefore enrolls in some taxidermy lessons. It’s there where he meets Sandra Laird, the daughter of the taxidermist who’s quite beautiful except for the fact that half her face is paralyzed. Hey, beggars can’t be choosers. At first Stan resists Sandra’s approaches, but after awhile they start spending time together.

In the meantime, there’s some really nasty bank robber tearing through the state, leaving a bit of a body count in his wake. Definitely not a guy you’d accept a Facebook friend request from. By chance, before raiding Stan’s town, he runs into Stan, and is kind of a dick to him. Bad move. Stan follows him into town, and when the guy gets the upper hand on the town sheriff and is preparing to kill him, Stan flies out of nowhere to take him out.

Yay!

Or wait. Yay?

Word spreads quickly of Stan’s heroics. But of course when you’ve got three dead hookers stashed in your basement, the last thing you want is attention. So Stan tries to downplay the whole ordeal, but soon he’s got the mayor himself at his doorstep asking if he’ll accept an award in front of the town. Combined with the escalating relationship with Sandra, the violently private Stan is going to have to make a big decision about whether he’s going to move on from the secret life he’s been living or go back to his very unique form of “company.”

I liked Company. I hope I don’t find myself in Stan’s company anytime soon, but I liked this script. Here’s the cool thing about it. Southard puts you in the company of a killer. That’s your protagonist. So from the very first page, you’re being challenged. We’ve been in this position before, most notably with Norman Bates, but Norman was at least charming. I’m not sure Stan would recognize charm if Robert Pattinson himself showed up at his door.

Still, Southard manages to pepper Stan with little sympathetic traits here and there. He’s all alone. He lost his parents. He’s been an outcast since he was a kid. So you’re being pulled both ways. You know you should hate the guy, but in the weirdest way, you’re sorta rooting for him.

A clever trick Southard uses to help you get over the fact that our hero is a killer is actually the opposite of what I recommend doing under normal circumstances. Normally, you’d want your audience to know as much as possible about the killer’s victims. The more we know about them, the more we’ll want them to be saved. But here, since the sympathy lies with the killer, Southard doesn’t let us know anything about the victims. This way, we’re not really torn up when Stan kills them.

But the script’s biggest strengths are obviously the two dilemmas it puts its main character in. First in Stan’s relationship with Sandra, and then when he saves the sheriff. I bring it up all the time, but irony is one of your best friends in a screenplay. It’s hard to wrap your head around a heroic serial killer. Those two things don’t go together. So you’re compelled to see where it goes. Likewise with Sandra. What happens when someone with three dead girlfriends gets a real one?

The drama then comes from these two entities pushing Stan further and further out of his comfort zone to a decision he doesn’t want to make. Our interest comes from knowing that sooner or later, those two worlds (his secret world and the real one) will have to collide. And because each world is so extreme, it’s going to be quite an explosion.

The script’s biggest weakness and the reason it’s only getting a worth the read though is its ending. That big explosion I was just talking about? The one that was driving my interest for a good 80 pages? It didn’t happen. In fact, I’m not sure what happened. Sometimes writers just try and get too clever and I think that’s what happened here because not only did the ending not live up to everything that came before it, but it wasn’t even clearly stated. That was frustrating.

Company also suffers the effects of having such an introverted protagonist. When your hero doesn’t talk much, the writer has to work overtime to come up with ANY sort of interesting dialogue when the hero’s involved. Predictably then, Stan’s one and two word responses get old fast, and the Sandra scenes sort of get stuck in limbo as a result. It’s tough because you have to stay true to the character but it is at the expense of the scenes. That’s why I always say, if you’re going to use an introverted hero, know what you’re getting into. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Norman Bates is so charming and talkative. They knew that his scenes would be a lot more interesting for it. Again, I’m not saying this was a script-killing decision. There was enough conflict here to overcome Stan’s quiet personality. It just made for some stale scenes is all.

However, there’s still enough good here to celebrate both the script and the arrival of Dan Southard. I see this making the lower half of this year’s Black List easy.

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

What I learned: When sizing up a romantic interest for your main character, always be realistic. Yes, in the world of movies, everyone looks like a male or female version of Zac Efron. But in reality, the chilling socially awkward ogre-looking guy probably isn’t going to end up with Megan Fox. Southard does a good job here of mixing Sandra’s beauty with a slight deformity, making it a lot more realistic that she would gravitate towards Stan. Your characters’ appearance, just like everything in a screenplay, needs to be in service to the story.