Clementine script review with some added insight from the writer!

Genre: Thriller
Premise: (from Black List) Set in real time, a Colombian mother barely escapes a pawn shop shootout and goes on the run from her violent ex-husband, a terrifying mob boss, and a bloodthirsty hitwoman sent to collect an overdue debt, all while trying to keep her diabetic daughter safe.
About: It’s finally here! Boy, I sure do know how to draw out the suspense. Longtime Scriptshadow reader and fave commenter David L. Williams, a man who put his nose to the screenwriting grindstone and worked and worked and worked, completing screenplay after screenplay, finally had it all pay off last year when he made the Black List, earning a highly respectable 12 votes.
Writer: David L. Williams
Details: 91 pages

Alexa Demi from Euphoria would kill this role! No pun intended!

Before we get to the review, which was posted in my newsletter (why aren’t you signed up for my newsletter: carsonreeves1@gmail.com), I wanted to share with you a quick discussion I had with the writer…

Carson: What’s happening with this script currently, David? Who’s going to play the lead role?

David: We have the actress (plus director and financiers). She isn’t well-known but she’s rising and FANTASTIC, and was the director’s first choice. They have it budgeted out to shoot in Miami and Colombia for $10M. The strikes obviously delayed m… everything haha. But they’re still aiming to shoot in or by summer.

Carson: Did you query agents with this script or another one?  Is Clementine how you got repped?

David: So back in 2021 my best friend, Jason Gruich (Cop Cam), and I were both drunk one night and decided to burn cash on evaluations on the Black List *website*. Two days later, Clementine got a 9 out of 10 overall, plus a subsequent 8/10. I kind of hustled that: sent a few queries, told some industry people that I already knew (including reps/execs), and some reps reached out to me via the BL website, my email, and on Twitter (because it was popular on Twitter). I met Mitchell Bendersky at Gramercy Park. Could have gone somewhere bigger, but he’s the most amazing fit that it’s not even funny. He and I are best friends now.

David on left.  Jason Gruich (Cop Cam) on right.

As for agents (Verve), I had a general with a studio exec and he sent that (plus another script he loved that I wrote) to a coordinator there and they flipped. My manager wanted me repped there too, but the exec beat him to it. Lol. Neither of us asked him to. A month later I had a meeting at Verve’s offices and walked out repped.

Carson: So your manager and agent got together and started sending it around to production houses and/or directors?  Is that how the package came together?

David: So I was an Austin Film Fest semi-finalist in 2021 for a pilot and met a finance exec from CAA at a roundtable. I was the only person she reached out to after the fest, but she had initially passed on even reading Clementine and read something else instead (she liked that other concept more). But after I got a 9 on the BL website, she read Clementine and wanted to package it asap. I wasn’t repped with her, she just wanted to take it out. She and my manager took it out the first week of Jan 2022 and that Friday we got an offer for an option. So it actually got picked up BEFORE I officially got agents. My agents came in June, and got me a ton of pitch meetings and more generals. They also rep the company that optioned it. That CAA exec is now an exec at Beck/Woods.

Fun fact. We met our director because he read it off the official annual Black List. He’s Colombian and it really connected with him — he had his reps (ironically CAA) send a really emotional letter to the prod/co. He’s attached to a bunch of cool stuff but we sense that this is like his passion project. And we’re extremely lucky he came to us after we’d already met a bunch of directors.

Carson: You wrote a lot of scripts before Clementine.  Why do you think Clementine was the script that broke you through? What was your mindset when writing Clementine compared to your mindset when you first started writing scripts?

David: Well, the idea hit me like a truck while I was reading a different script, and I started writing immediately, like within an hour. I think there are different ways to hook someone; outside of concept, it can also be presentation and intent. In this case, this isn’t a high concept, but there aren’t a lot of movies that take place real-time and won’t allow you to breathe, and for me and people I’ve met, that was an X-factor.

By the end of that day I had the first act written. The whole script was done in a week. No outline. Haha. What you read is actually the second draft, and it hasn’t changed since 2021. No one has wanted to change anything.

As for what’s different between this and other scripts of mine, while I’m not even sure if it’s my best script, I think it’s the least deniable, if that makes sense. Sometimes in movies like this I think it’s considered great when the protagonist doesn’t have a choice. We love to see what kind of choices characters make, but sometimes it’s more entertaining when the character is faced with “Do this your daughter dies. Period.” I think it has the most clarity and urgency which really does a lot here. I was constantly surprised as the story came to me and I think that comes through.

For example (spoiler) while writing the script, I had no intention of bringing Clementine back after she dies. I was prepared to make it Sicaria’s story. I think that’s what makes it feel so real. While writing it, I literally didn’t think she’d come back.

Carson: Any advice you’d give aspiring writers for getting representation or getting on the Official Black List?

David: When you reach a level where you’re consistently getting little to no notes, and people are flipping for it, send it everywhere that seems legit, as much as humanly possible. And when people inevitably want to meet you, being fun and pleasant go a loooong way. Those are the things that make people wanna be your friend and/or see you succeed: a great script written by a dope person.

Carson: Couldn’t agree more with that answer.  Okay, so what’s next for you?

David: It’s a character-driven sci-fi/drama, vastly different from Clementine, called “Intergalactic.” After Orion’s Belt is destroyed in the night sky, an emotionally unstable teenager attempts to prove to a lonesome astronomer that the event was caused by his ability to move objects in outer space.

Carson: Well I’m rooting for you and I’m sure everyone else here is as well.  Okay, on to the original review from the newsletter!

******************************

I’m not going to pretend like I haven’t been nervous to review this script. David’s such a cool positive guy that I got scared! I didn’t want to rain on his achievement with a bad review should I not enjoy Clementine.

But it’s almost the end of the year and I have to write up my Black List re-ranking post soon which meant I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I had to read Clementine and I had to hope, with all hope, that I loved it. Cause I want David to go far in this business.

We meet 25 year old Clementine as she robs a Pawn Shop with her buddy Disco, and another dude. What we’re going to find out soon is that Clementine owes a nasty guy named Martin 100 grand because she stole from him to get her daughter, Sandy, heart-saving surgery. Sandy is a diabetic and suffers from a lot of health issues as a result.

But the pawn shop robbery goes sideways and Disco and Jake are 86’d. Clementine gets away, but not with the money. It doesn’t take long for Martin to call her and tell her what she already knows. That was her last shot. Now she and her kid are dead meat.

Clementine races home to get Sandy before Martin does and barely beats out Martin’s head assassin, a ruthless scar-faced female killer named Sicaria. Clementine hurries Sandy off to an abandoned warehouse but you knew it wasn’t going to be long before Sicaria found her (big spoilers follow).

Clementine fights Sicaria with everything she’s got but Sicaria is strong and kills Clementine. That’s right. She kills her! Now, we stay with Sicaria, who decides to bring Sandy back to Martin. Afterward, she gets a strange call from her personal cleaner. The cleaner says there’s no female dead body at the warehouse.

Guess who’s coming to dinner, Sicaria. The second time around, Clementine wins. But her daughter is still with Martin. This means Clementine is going to have to go into the belly of the most well-guarded beast in all the city to get Sandy back. Luckily, she’s got the AK-47 Sicaria left behind to help her. Will she succeed? With this script, I can honestly tell you, you’ll never guess.

(Big spoilers follow)

So the scenario I was most afraid of was that the script was going to hover inside of that “not for me” “worth the read” middle ground and I would be put in this position of saying it was “worth the read” even though in my heart it was “wasn’t for me” and you guys would all pick up on it and you would say, “Carson, you’re just giving this a worth the read cause you know David and you wouldn’t give that score if it was a random writer.”

Well here’s some great news: WE DON’T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THAT.

Cause this script was awesome.

I’m not just saying that. It was really freaking awesome. I’m talking, it will definitely finish in the Top 5 of my Black List Re-Ranking post.

The script is just freaking RELENTLESS.

Something I’m always telling writers is to make things as difficult as possible on your protagonist. Well, David decided that that wasn’t enough. He needed to multiply the words “hard as possible” by a billion.

I can’t remember the last time a script made its hero work so hard. Wow.

I mean, at one point, we kill her! How much harder on your hero does it get??

The opening is a bit overwritten. I didn’t like when David juiced up his prose to sort of break the fourth wall at times. But it was a heart-stopping opening sequence nonetheless. I fucking felt like I was IN THAT PAWN SHOP. Wow. And I’m swearing because it was that intense.

You know what this script made me think of? Remember that script, “Mother,” that went on to star J. Lo on Netflix? There were so many things wrong with that script. This script fixes all of that. This should’ve been the script they picked. Cause Clementine is Mother of the Century with what she has to go through.

A lot of times I’ll give an “impressive” and writers will ask me why this script got an impressive as opposed to other scripts. That answer is easy as pie with “Clementine.” Everything in this script moves like lightning and is as intense as an African safari with no jeeps. But two moments stuck out in particular.

The first is when Clementine is “killed.” I thought she was really dead. And kudos to David for not doing the age-old “psyche out” where she jumps back up at the last second and keeps fighting. No, David commits so hard to the death of the main character that we then follow Sicaria for the next 15 minutes! This made Clementine’s reemergence a gangster twist that blew the doors off my reading Tahoe.
So that was the first one.

The second one was the ending. The ending in this movie is freaking insane! Cause David stuck to that rule of “make things as hard on the hero as possible” and he made sure that, because it was the climax, he made it even harder.

I had no idea what was going to happen. I loved how Clementine grabbed Martin’s son. Because, usually, in any other script, this is a cheap move. But here, it makes total sense. You jacked my kid. I’m jacking yours. You made up these rules. Not me. So it worked perfectly.

But even beyond that, it added an extra variable to the ending where you’re not just asking, “Will Clementine and Sandy get away?” You’re wondering what’s going to happen to this other kid. In any other script, I would’ve known he was safe. But in this script, a woman tried to kill another child. And our main character died for a while! This is exactly where you want your reader. You want them having no idea what you’re going to do and that’s exactly where David had me.

So then, Clementine clears Martin’s home fence with her car, somehow, impossibly, getting past all his guards and him, AND THEN A COP STOPS HER!!! It’s like, “David! You’re killing me, man!” I so wanted her to escape but now this cop stops her. Martin’s son is trying to get out of the car. The cop is threatening to shoot anyone who gets out of the car. Martin’s men are coming from behind. They’re going to catch up to Clementine if she doesn’t find a way out of this cop situation. Then ANOTHER COP comes up and blocks her car….

I mean… dude. David. You win. You – freaking -win. That was some great writing there. This is going to be an awesome movie. I’m so proud of David. GOOD JOB!!!! And now you can read it too. I guarantee you’ll agree with me. :)

Script link: Clementine

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

What I learned: When it comes to backstory/exposition, avoid your hero dishing out their own backstory. Instead, look to have other characters tell your character their backstory. I know that sounds backward, but I’m telling you, it works a million times better. So here, when Clementine first calls Martin to plead for mercy, she starts to talk about her daughter. But, instead of David having her finish, he has Martin give Clementine her own backstory. Clementine (crying): “My… daughter’s—“ Martin: I know your daughter’s sick to hell. I know about the divorce you can’t handle. Your papers. I have your shit memorized.” We get some quick backstory there about Clementine and we don’t realize it at all because it comes from another character. There were tons of other little screenwriting ninja star throws that hit their mark like this. David hasn’t just been reading Scriptshadow. He’s been taking notes!

Can it be possible?

Is the Hunger Games sequel actually good?

The film made 44 million on its opening weekend, which was considered a proper fail. But it made 28 million on its second weekend, only a 35% drop. For comparison’s sake, another sequel, John Wick 4, dropped 60%. Even Guardians of the Galaxy 3 dropped 47%.

This would seem to indicate that Songbirds and Snakes is getting great word of mouth. But I have a theory here. And it’s a two-pronged theory. I’ll let you guys decide if I’m descending more into the conspiracy zone.

Part 1 is that Taylor Swift has a cameo in the film as an extra. With the Swiftie Army in full assemblage, I’m betting that a bunch of girls came to this film to grab a glimpse, a tiny visual nugget, of the famous singer.

Part 2 – and the bigger reason – is that I think everyone’s sick of Disney. I’ll get into this more in a second. But anything that doesn’t look like Disney right now, people are interested in. They don’t want superheroes. They don’t want space men. They don’t want live mermaids. They want something that feels new.

It’s Hollywood’s biggest blind spot. They milk the cow long after it stops making milk. They can’t help themselves. To be fair, Lionsgate, the studio behind Songbirds and Snakes, would probably do the same. They just don’t have any of those fancy properties. So they’re forced to make stuff that’s different. And, although it took a while to finally start digging into that Disney pie, apparently Thanksgiving was the breaking point for America. They’re finally telling you they want something new with their hard-earned money.

Speaking of Hollywood they’re, once again, using their tricky box office reporting practices to sell a not-so-accurate picture of Napoleon’s debut. Everyone’s touting this 32.5 million dollar opening weekend for the film, a significant box office upgrade over its primary Oscar competition, Killers of the Flower Moon, which only made 22 million its opening weekend. Until you realize they’re using the 5-day holiday take rather than the 3-day take. Napoleon only made 20 million dollars for the 3-day, less than Killers did.

I suppose you want the biggest numbers possible behind your opening weekend but everyone knows that these movies aren’t built to be giant blockbusters. Anything adult-skewing is lucky to hit 30 million on opening weekend. 20+ million is still quite good. Oppenheimer skewed everything but it was an outlier. It probably made 15 million alone that first weekend on dads being forced to take their wives and daughters to Barbie. An atomic bomb was the perfect escape route, lest they be permanently ported into Barbie’s perpetually pink universe.

I tried to get my family to come see the movie with me on Friday but there wasn’t a taker in the bunch. It was an indictment on what streaming has done to the movie-going public. The general consensus seemed to be, “Why go through all that when we can just watch something here on one of our eight streaming services?”

To be fair, it’s a hard point to argue against. Jaqouin Phoenix is one of the five weirdest people on the planet, a total wild card. Who’s to say we aren’t stumbling into another Beau is Afraid as opposed to another Joker?

Maybe the biggest surprise of the weekend is Disney’s Wish. Disney should own any holiday weekend it debuts a movie in. Especially going up against adult fare. Yet Wish found itself the stray coin, far removed from the fountain it was hurled towards—a toss so errant that the U.S. Treasury resolved to expunge its existence from the annals of the mint.

A lot of people are saying that Wish is the culmination of the 2016-2022 Disney era strategy of prioritizing social change over stories that people actually want to see. From Turning Red to Strange World to The Little Mermaid. I think the answer’s a lot simpler: NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE F*&% THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT.

This goes back to Screenwriting 101. Give us a compelling concept. They don’t even get to the “compelling” part. They can’t give us a concept that makes sense! A king is in charge of granting wishes. But then this girl, who may or may not be his daughter, finds a secondary avenue to grant wishes and starts using that instead?? Who allowed this nonsense to be greenlit???

I actually liked the trailer. The villain is hateable. The lead is likable. The music sounded great. The secondary characters were funny. But it just goes to show that if you don’t get your concept right, nothing else matters. You’re building a house on a foundation of sandpaper.

Either way, Disney’s been playing with fire lately and they’ve turned their head long enough to miss the fact that the fire is now a raging inferno. Marvel is in trouble. Star Wars is in trouble. Pixar is in trouble. Disney Animation is in trouble. Disney animation-to-live-action is in trouble.

I remember writing an article six years ago about how every one of these divisions was churning out record-breaking hits. For each one of them to now be as abysmal as they are is kind of shocking. There are a lot of areas you can blame here but, whatever the reason is, they need to figure it out fast. Cause even Disney can’t keep losing 200+ million dollars a movie.

They don’t even have a strategy to get out of this. Their next Star Wars movie is being directed by the director of the least watched Marvel show Disney has ever made and starring the most average character Star Wars has ever created – Rey. And Marvel is expecting to make an Avengers film in 2025? They haven’t even filled in the empty slots that the last Avengers left. The whole reason that the Avengers worked was because it was carefully built up to over 8 years. Maybe they can squeeze Deadpool in there. He’s the only superhero that has a chance of making that interesting.

But they’re in trouble, man.

To finish off on a positive note, I keep running into people who tell me All The Light We Cannot See – the Netflix adaptation of the super bestselling novel – is awesome. They don’t even say, “It’s pretty good.” Or “It’s good.” They literally say “It’s amazing.” Or, “It’s one of the best shows I’ve seen this year.” I have been ignoring all these recommendations because it’s unheard of that I’ll like something that gets in the 20s for an RT score (All The Light has a 28% currently). But I can’t ignore this anymore. I have to watch this show.

Are you guys going to watch it with me?

I need some backup.

Feel free to opine on this weekend’s box office. And remember that Thursday we have a Logline Showdown. So make sure you enter!

Genre: Crime/True Story
Premise: Based on a true story, a young Los Angeles Sheriff’s dream job sours when he realizes that the department he serves in is mired in corruption and a systemic culture of moral depravity. Based on a true story.
About: Today’s script comes from a Scriptshadow veteran, Kevin Sheridan. I’ve done some consultations with Kevin in the past when he was just a young eager screenwriter, so it’s great to see his career continue to progress. The script finished with 14 votes on last year’s Black List.
Writer: Kevin Sheridan
Details: 123 pages

Gordon-Levitt for Sexton?

I think I need to hire FanofYou, the commenter who turned me onto yesterday’s awesome screenplay, Himbo, and now this script, Colors of Authority. This would make my job so much easier because I’d always get to read good scripts! The man (or woman) seems to know what makes for a sharp screenplay.

Better yet, let’s take a look at the process that led to these two discoveries, as it’s a great lesson to screenwriters everywhere. The way that FanofYou found these screenplays was (and FanofYou can correct me if I’m wrong here) to read the first page of every screenplay that made the Black List to learn what the writing bar was for a Black List script.

Himbo and Colors of Authority were the only scripts that, after reading the first page, he felt compelled to keep reading. And then keep reading. And then keep reading. All the way to the end.

This is what I’ve always preached on the site. People have ZERO ATTENTION SPAN. So you have to write a great first page to pull them in, and then a great second page, and a third, and a fourth. You have to make it impossible to stop reading. Let me say that again. The strategy of writing a screenplay should be:

I have to make it impossible for the reader to stop reading.

But the strategy I see most screenwriters employ is:

I’m going to tell a story and I expect the reader to care.

In other words, they think they have leeway to start slow or casually set up a bunch of characters or throw in the occasional average scene. No. No no no no no. The reader owes you nothing. Actually, it’s worse than that. The reader reads so much bad stuff that they actively don’t trust you. They think you’re bad before they’ve even opened your script. You need to prove them wrong. And that’s why you need to start on page one.

So what does page one look like here? It uses a nifty little trick that gets you to page two.

We, of course, could’ve started inside the car. But how interesting would that have been? Jumping from this random shot of the animals (which is actually a set up for a later moment) into the car is a creative choice that says: “I’m not going to write your typical boring obvious script. I’m actually thinking about how to entertain you.”

Deputy James Sexton is part of a Los Angeles special unit called OSJ, which stands for Operation Safe Jails. The LAPD realized that all the information they need about gangs and criminals is right there in their jails and prisons. So James and his team interrogate and observe prisoners, getting any little bit of info they can so they can make these colossal busts.

But one day, while James and his partner, Tony, are watching a video feed of a prisoner-of-interest, they see him discreetly pass a manila envelope to one of the guards. James and Tony decide to follow the guard, who drives to a remote neighborhood where he meets up with three LA cops, and makes a drug exchange with an Aryan gang.

James and Tony are gobsmacked. They now have to make a crucial decision. Do they write up a report on these men? Cause if they do, and things go sideways, they’ll be seen as snitches. James believes it’s the right thing to do so he writes up the report for their superior, Lt. Gutterson (described as a man “with the gravitas of a four-ton boulder.”)

Big problem. Gutterson doesn’t call back, doesn’t write back, doesn’t e-mail, doesn’t text. He ghosts them. That’s when James realizes… they’re f*&%d. James and Tony are blasted all over an internal company memo, which means every cop now knows they snitched on fellow cops. Nobody seems to be seeing this the right way. Which is that cops are in cahoots with the Aryan Brotherhood.

James’s wife gets felt up on a traffic stop. Tony’s mother’s home gets targeted. And it’s clear that’s only the beginning. The goal here will be to snuff these two out. The LAPD just has to find the right time to do it. As if all of that isn’t bad enough, James’s father, a famous Sheriff from the South, joins the very team James is trying to take down. James realizes that his only way of getting out of this is with the help of the FBI. The problem is, the FBI wants something in return. They want James to take down his entire division.

The reason it took me so long to read this script is that when you see loglines for scripts like this, you know it’s going to be WORK. You see intense concentration, keeping notes for long character lists, intricate plot beats that could blow right by you unless you catch every little nuance in the screenplay.

When you’re reading a script like that and it’s bad? It’s one of the worst experiences you can have. Cause not only do these scripts take three times as long to read. But none of that extra work is rewarded. So if you’re going to write one of these, it HAS to be good. Luckily, Kevin’s script is.

That moment where James and Tony see the cops making the deal with the skinheads, that’s what hooked me. I love it when writers put their characters in situations that don’t have a right choice. Both options are bad. If James writes up the officers, he risks being outed, and in the process his career (maybe even his life) destroyed. But if he doesn’t write them up and someone else takes the unit down, he’ll go down with them. So he can’t stay silent either.

Most writers write these false “don’t have a choice” scenarios. This is how it looks when it’s done right. We feel that if this were real life, that the protagonist truly wouldn’t have a good choice.

I also love stand-out bad guys. Gutterson was perfect. He not only ignores James’ write-up on the matter, he tries to take James down for it! Is there anyone more hatable than someone who represents good who’s secretly bad and will take out all good people who threaten him?

The script was well on its way to an “impressive” rating through the first half and while it’s still a good script, the second half wasn’t as strong. There’s an intense subplot involving James’ Sheriff father, who’s good friends with the top brass at the LAPD. This provided a safety net that told me James was always going to be okay. None of these dudes are going to kill James if his dad asks them not to. I know Kevin was trying to create this intense plot between father and son. But I’m not convinced it was worth it for that reason.

Also, James becomes less active as the script goes on. As soon as the FBI grabs him, James is basically waiting for them to tell him how high to jump. He has little moments of activity, of breaking out. But in the first half of the script, he was making all of these strong active choices. He felt more like a hero. For the second half, his character basically resorted to worrying a lot.

But that can be fixed. The script still works. I would be shocked if this didn’t become a movie with a big director and some heavy-hitting actors. It’s got that “Departed” aroma wafting off of it. And Kevin is really good at placing his hero in these impossible-to-navigate situations. It’s so fun to watch the main character in a burning building and every exit is blocked. What do you do?

What. Do. You. Do?

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

What I learned: You must use names that have RECALL in a script like this. Intricately plotted scripts with lots of characters work great on screen because faces are easy to remember, especially since movies are cast to make each character look distinctive. But you don’t have that advantage on the page. So pick names with RECALL, names that contain visual personality. Gutterson and Baca over Smith and Davis. I know the irony here is that these are all real people. So Kevin lucked out a little bit. But if you want to make sure your reader can keep up with what’s going on, RECALL NAMES should be a huge part of your naming strategy.

******REMINDER – NOVEMBER LOGLINE SHOWDOWN COMING UP!******

We’re moving our normal Thursday deadline back a week due to Thanksgiving. So if you have a great logline and you want to compete in the Logline Showdown, send that entry in! You’re got until a week from Thursday.

What: November Logline Showdown
Send me: the logline for any script you have (features will take precedence over pilots but if you’ve got the best tv show idea ever, send it in)
I need: The title, genre, and logline
Also: Your script must be written because I’ll be reviewing the winning entry the following week
When: Deadline is Thursday, November 30th, 10:00pm Pacific Time
Send entries to: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

Okay, let’s get down to business.

I like superhero films.

The Marvels looking at their second weekend drop.

I do.

With one caveat.

They actually have to be good.

And I don’t think anyone in the industry has cared about making good superhero movies for a while. I think that they believe they’re trying their hardest. Nobody starts out trying to make a bad movie.

But over-saturation combined with the prioritization of message-over-concept has shot a poison arrow into Marvel’s magical money-generating organism and the damage is so severe that they can no longer continue with this strategy. Unless their goal is to hemorrhage every single money-generating artery in their body.

It’s long been known that opening weekends are not representative of how good a movie is. Second weekends are. Opening weekends are about concept and marketing. If you have a well-known superhero in a fun-sounding movie and a 100 million dollar marketing campaign, you are guaranteed a huge weekend, regardless of how good your movie is.

But second weekends are all about word-of-mouth. If people are coming back from the theater and bashing your movie or, worse, not talking about it at all, no one’s going to show up the second weekend. The Marvels had the biggest second weekend drop in Marvel history, with 80%. This, just several months after the previous Marvel film, Ant-Man 3, had the biggest second weekend drop (70%).

These are not good numbers. And I’m hoping that this is a wake-up call for everyone. I don’t think we should stop making superhero films. If that happens, I’m afraid the theatrical business might crumble entirely. But we should stop making second-tier superhero films. For example, the next Marvel entry – and the only one of 2024 – is Deadpool 3. That movie’s going to be awesome! Because it’s got a premier superhero at the helm.

It’s no secret why Batman and Iron Man started this movie superhero obsession. Their value had been established via millions of sold comics. So why should we be surprised when these smaller unestablished comic book heroes (Blue Beetle) don’t pull in the same amount of dough?

That’s what was so strange about The Marvels. The first film grossed a billion dollars. So you would think people would’ve shown up for the sequel. Why didn’t they? For one, the first film had a way better premise. This was back when Marvel was wisely exploiting sub-genres to provide templates for their screenplays. Captain Marvel was a buddy-cop movie. And using a younger Nick Fury as the other half of the team-up was a fun idea.

The Marvel’s biggest problem was that the concept was ill-conceived. Why are you downgrading your billion dollar superhero star for her sequel? That was a really odd choice. When people saw this trailer, they no longer saw “Captain Marvel.” They saw Captain Marvel playing second fiddle to the lowest rated Marvel TV character as well as the single most forgettable superhero in history. Who came up with that idea? If anything, Captain Marvel should’ve graduated to riding solo in her sequel. A billion dollars certainly earns you that, don’t you think?

Maybe they were concerned about Brie Larson’s likability. The Brie-ster is an odd duck. I think she has a good heart but she comes off socially uncalibrated so she’s got a bigger share of haters than your average celebrity. The girl who plays Ms. Marvel is certainly more likable than Brie. So I can see why they were able to talk themselves into putting her into a Captain Marvel sequel. But nobody knows who that character is!

And let me just say something screenwriting related, as it appears that everyone in the superhero business has forgotten about this. Rules are important. With superheroes, it is imperative that we know the rules of their powers. The more vague someone’s power is, the less we care about them. There are a couple of minor exceptions to this. But it is otherwise a hard and fast rule.

Spiderman, Batman, Superman. The most popular superheroes ever. What’s the concurrent numerical element? We know the rules behind their powers. And they’re simple. There’s nothing vague or unclear. Contrast that with Captain Marvel. Do you know what Captain Marvel’s powers are? I don’t. I certainly don’t know her biggest weakness. Which means she’s unstoppable? Is that interesting? And I know even less about the other Marvel girls’ powers. So you’re asking a bunch of people to show up to a superhero movie where we don’t understand any of the characters’ superpowers??!!

The new Hunger Games movie didn’t open much better than The Marvels (55 mil) but it cost half as much. So you have to consider The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes a mild success. But the film could’ve opened much bigger had it understood one of the core principles of screenwriting: A clear concept.

Are you seeing a theme here? Clear rules on the superpowers. Clear concepts. Clear clear clear clear clear clear clear. Too many screenwriters throw clarity out the window. They think they can jam in as many ideas and plots and characters as they want and it will all work out. That’s not how this works. Especially if you’re writing for the masses – you need to be simple and clear.

I bet I could ask 100 people, after they watched The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes trailer, what the plot was and 95 of them would have no idea. That’s a problem. I know it’s a nuanced conversation in that you’re working with IP and, therefore, are betting that people are going to show up due to their familiarity with that IP. But the super successful movies are not ones that only cater to their fan base. They’re the ones that break out and pull in the average moviegoer. And for those additional seat-butts, you need a clear story.

Look at how simple and clear the number 1 movie of the year was: Doll living in her doll world goes into the real world. That’s it. Fish-out-of-water. We understand it immediately.

As for the rest of the top 10, “Thanksgiving” did okay with 10 million. Mixing up horror and Thanksgiving is one of the stranger genre choices I’ve seen in a while. But hey! Some people went to see it, so cool. Oscar-hopeful The Holdovers is squeaking by. The highly-rated film is struggling to pull people in as it is only making $1800 per theater (for comparison’s sake, The Marvels’ per theater average was $2500). You can read my review of the script here.

But the film that’s really struggling is Taika Waititi’s, “Next Goal Wins” ($1100 per theater average). Here’s the thing with Taika. At heart, he’s a goofy guy. But he’s one of the few goofy writer-directors who’s earned a level of critical acclaim, especially with JoJo Rabbit. So we hold him to a higher standard. Therefore, when he makes his version of The Mighty Ducks, it all seems a bit juvenile. I think people are confused. They were hoping for something more from him.

But I just watched an interview with Taika and he doesn’t want all this serious stuff. He would prefer to goof around. If you’re Taika, I say go back to your roots and make another movie with Jermaine Clement. I can practically guarantee that it will be great. If you haven’t seen Eagle vs. Shark, do yourself a favor, cancel everything you’re doing today, and rent this movie. It’s awesome.

I was going to head out and see Saltburn this weekend, Emerald Fennel’s follow-up to Promising Young Woman, one of the best scripts I’ve read in the last five years. But the reviews scared me off. It seems to be hovering near 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. These indie movies cannot have sub 80% RT scores. They have to be at least close to the 90s. By the way, this is another Jacob Elordi movie. Elordi is the Australian hunk coming out of Euphoria. He was also cast in Priscilla. Common denominator with these two films? Female directors. The ladies love this guy. He’s primed to be the next big movie star. He and Paul Mescal are going to be fighting over those top leading man roles for the next couple of decades.

Have you seen any good movies lately, at the theater or on streaming? If so, share them in the comments! I’m always looking for something good. I rented Equalizer 3 this weekend and the Italian backdrop spices things up a little bit (what a fun opening scene). I would’ve preferred a faster-moving narrative but it was still solid.

Genre: Contained Thriller
Premise: A young diver heads deep into the ocean to try and retrieve his diver-father’s remains but in the process gets swallowed up by a whale and has the time it takes for his air to run out (roughly 2 hours) to escape.
About: The rights to this novel sold to Imagine Entertainment (Ron Howard) earlier this year. Novelist Daniel Kraus is best known for writing the novelization of “The Shape of Water,” which would go on to win Best Film, after helping del Toro come up with the original concept for his movie. Kraus has a keen eye for picking ideas that both have a level of depth to them but also contain the marketable elements that Hollywood likes. Maybe the coolest thing he did was, after George Romero’s death, completed his unfinished zombie book, “The Living Dead.”
Writer: Daniel Kraus
Details: about 50,000 words (roughly half of most novels)

When I first saw this sale, I thought, “This is the kind of project that would’ve sold as a spec script back in 2004.” It has that “strange attractor” (a man being swallowed by a whale with only 2 hours of air). It fits inside a cost-efficient marketable genre – contained thriller. And it’s not like anything else out there. It’s almost like the Gen-Z version of Moby Dick.

But, unfortunately, these days, if you want to sell something like this, you gotta write it as a book or a short story (ironically, “Whalefall” is both).

The book poses a unique adaptation challenge in that, despite this being a wacky idea, the setting is decidedly tame – we’re inside a stomach the whole movie. I like to place myself in the producer’s stomach for purchases like this and try and figure out what their plan is. Do they stay true to the contained nature of the story and keep it in the whale’s stomach the entire time? Or do they take advantage of the illustrious and unique setting, occasionally taking us outside the whale?

Jay is 17 years old when he loses his father, Mitt. But don’t feel bad for Jay. Jay haaaaaaaaat-ed his father. His dad was a diver and a drunk. He was one of those crusty opinionated dudes who was friends with everyone but would also get into a fight with those friends at the drop of a hat. And he wasn’t a good father. The few times he did pay attention to Jay, it was usually to scold him for being girly or weak.

Mitt got cancer and, instead of fighting it to the bitter end, he took a trip out to where he felt most comfortable – the sea – and simply plunged off the back of the boat, sinking to his demise.

For reasons Jay isn’t even sure of, he decides that he’s going to dive into that same area and retrieve his father’s remains. Jay is not as good of a diver as his dad. But because his dad forced him into so many dives as a kid, he’s good enough. So away he goes, with about 2 hours of air, all by himself. Not advised, by the way.

Not long after he starts diving, Jay sees a fantastical sight. A sperm whale attacks a giant squid! The sperm whale only has one animal it is predator to and that is the giant squid. The squid tries to get away and, in the process, grabs onto Jay. The whale then eats the squid and, with it, Jay.

Jay soon finds himself in one of the whale’s three stomachs. Luckily, the squid gets sucked into another stomach. But it leaves a trail of bioluminescence, which lights up the stomach he’s in. Thank god cause I don’t know how they were going to light this movie otherwise (quick movie fact: The flashlights in Titanic were the sole historically inaccurate element but James Cameron used them because there was no other way he could think of to light the final rescue scene).

As the whale dives deeper into the ocean, Jay must figure out how he’s going to get out of here before his air runs out. Along the way, he develops a close bond with the whale, who is dying himself. Jay begins to see some similarities between the whale and his father, which will allow him, should he not survive this, to at least find closure with his father.

I gotta say: this was one weird book!

For starters, every chapter was 1 and a half pages. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book with chapters that short. It made for a faster read (almost like a screenplay) but it led to an unfamiliar rhythm that I had trouble adjusting to.

One thing I liked, though, was it placed the amount of air (psi) at the top of every chapter. So it starts out as “3000” and then, with each successive chapter, it goes down. So we know exactly how much air he had left.

I bring that up because sometimes writers will assume that the reader knows things that they don’t know. I’ve read versions of stories like this where the writer didn’t give any indication at all of how much air was left, clearly assuming we knew. So you wouldn’t know if the character was totally safe or at the precipice of dying. I always have to remind writers: “If you don’t tell us, we won’t know.” All the better if you tell us in a creative way, which Kraus does.

Kraus also knows he’s battling his own whale here in that the location is limited. So almost every other chapter is a flashback to some moment in Jay and Mitt’s life. There isn’t any real story to these flashbacks. They’re just meant to fill us in – hopefully create a better understanding of their relationship so that we care more about it being resolved.

The author additionally understands that, even in book form, where it’s easier to ignore dialogue, that he needs some sort of interaction in the stomach. So he creates the voice of the whale, who starts talking to Jay. The whale is the most interesting character in the book. There was something very sad about the fact that it was dying and knew it.

That connection Kraus builds between us and the whale helps lead to the book’s best scene, when a group of orcas attack the whale. They know it’s old. They know it’s dying. So they go after it. But we never see it. We only hear it from Jay’s point-of-view. And then, what happens, is this really cool rescue operation by a group of other whales.

Unfortunately, outside of that great scene (and the initial whale-squid attack scene), there isn’t a whole lot here. I’m not even sure if the setup makes sense. First, you establish that this kid hated his dad. So why does he want to find his remains? And second, what are the chances of diving into the ocean and finding the remains of your father? 1 in 500 million?  That never made sense to me.

Kraus is clearly searching for this deeper emotional connection between Jay, Mitt’s death, and the whale, but, if I’m being honest, it’s hackneyed. At first, the whale starts talking to Jay. But then, the implication is that it’s not really the whale who’s talking. It’s Mitt. But then there are clearly times where it’s the whale again. It all just felt very convenient. It was Mitt when the author needed it to be. It was the whale when he needed it to be. Readers and audiences don’t respond well to writing conveniences. It may make your writing easier. But it almost always makes the story worse.

Kraus also tries to shove in an environmental theme. It was actually interesting learning about how much plastic whales inhale because of all the litter in the ocean. But we’re already focused on this whole other storyline so it didn’t feel organic at all and seemed to support the idea that Kraus was never really sure what he was writing about.

We all have this issue in the early drafts of our scripts. You’re not quite sure what your screenplay is about yet so you add a bunch of ideas and a bunch of themes. But that’s what rewrites are for, to weed out the stuff that is no longer relevant. I suspect that because this novel is so short as is that Kraus didn’t have the option to get rid of the environmental stuff because he couldn’t afford to.  It would’ve made a miniature novel even shorter.

Regardless of the fact that I didn’t love the execution here, I’m still intrigued to see what they do with the movie. It’s too unique of an idea for me not to be curious. Best case scenario, we could be looking at the next Life of Pi, which was a good movie.

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

What I learned: You have a couple of options when you do the death of a loved one in a story. Option 1 is that they really loved each other. Option 2 is that they had a contentious relationship. In my experience, option 2 is the better way to go, as was the case in this book. For whatever reason, if your two characters loved each other, it feels too much like a love-fest and therefore inauthentic, potentially even melodramatic. Whereas, if there was contentiousness between them, it feels more like real life. Also, there are more complex emotions involved in option 2, which tends to make the character who matters (our protagonist) more interesting. If our hero loved the person who died with all their heart, and that person loved them, then it’s just straight sad. There’s not a whole lot to do with “straight sad.”  I’ve seen option 1 work well for secondary characters, like Sean in Good Will Hunting. But not with primary characters.