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21 Shots

Posted on March 4, 2010 | by admin

Genre: Comedy
Premise: A straight-laced college student must find his wallet on his 21st birthday or potentially lose his post-graduation dream job.
About: Sonny Lee and Patrick Walsh, writers on the show “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” sold this comedy spec last week to Paramount. This is their first spec script working together. Interestingly, the duo sold the script only a week after they left CAA for ICM. Also, the idea was thought up and is being produced by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who, of course, wrote Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle.
Writer: Sonny Lee and Patrick Walsh (based on a story idea by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg)
Details: February 16, 2010

Ever wonder how the night in The Hangover actually played out? I’m not talking about the brief glimpses we got through pictures, abandoned babies, and lost teeth. But each insanely crazy detail? 21 Shots is that film. And really, it’s a film chronicling that “legendary” night in college we all had. The one we’ll still be recalling 30 years from now. For me it was Tri-Dorms Destruction Night. Unfortunately I can’t tell that story in a public forum due to fact that I’d probably go to jail for a decade. So I’ll just stick to telling Michael West’s story.

The aforementioned Michael is a lot like Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise’s character from Risky Business). His overprotective parents have carefully planned out his life so that fresh out of college he’ll have that perfect high-paying job that all parents dream of for their kids. For that reason, Michael’s one of those rare college specimens who actually gives a shit about his grades. While his buddies could spend an entire day looking for the perfect sheet for that weekend’s toga party, Michael would rather studying for tomorrow’s unlikely but wholly possible pop quiz. In fact everything Michael’s done up to this point in life has been in preparation for tomorrow’s dream job interview.

The only problem is that the interview’s landed on the morning after his 21st birthday. And while Michael may have mastered the art of slipping out before the drinks are poured, not even he can escape the clutches of his 21st birthday party. Particularly because his friends, Ian (obsessed with blowjobs) Jessica (obsessed with her asshole boyfriend), and Shane (crazy ex-military weirdo) plan to take him out for the night of his life.


However, just as the wonderful evening begins, the group is mugged, and Michael’s wallet is stolen. If Michael doesn’t have his ID, he can’t get into the club where he’s supposed to schmooze his future employers. If he doesn’t schmooze them, he won’t land the job. And if he doesn’t land the job, everything he’s worked so hard for will be for naught. In other words, Michael must find that wallet!

21 Shots follows a pretty standard formula. Stick your characters in a bunch of fucked up situations and see what pops out. In Michael’s case, he and his friends must maneuver their way through a Training Day like house party, a strip club where Jessica must perform (but is unfortunately wearing her unflattering “period” underwear), dodge a crazy Chechnyan who likes to suck his own dick, and avoid a bizarre homeless man who likes to hump people’s legs (his name, in case you were wondering, is “Humpy The Bum”).

21 Shots is what it is – a comedy geared towards the youngsters. But whereas The Hangover treated its debauchery with a certain amount of class (if that’s possible) 21 Shots has no limits. Ball sacks hang over webcams. Guys suck their own penises. There’s a character whose name is Date Rape (no really, that’s his name). And, of course, let’s not forget Humpy The Bum.


But what surprised me about 21 Shots was that Lee and Walsh were actually trying to say something. And I think this is where you see the difference between an amateur script and a professional one. At its core, 21 shots explores that terrifying transition period when you realize you’re leaving the safe confines of institutional life. Your identity as a student is over. You’re now expected to become an active contributor to society. That’s a terrifying proposition for a 21 year old, particularly because you’ve spent most of your life being told what to do. If you’ve lived your whole life being told what to do, how do you know that what you’ve chosen is what you *want* to do?

So that part I liked about 21 Shots. As for the rest, it’s really a mixed bag. The script labors extensively to set up its premise. So much so that I lost track of where we were and why we were there several times. Michael has to find his ID to get into the club where his future employers are so he can schmooze them before tomorrow’s interview. But while we’re told this is of vital importance, I never understood why he couldn’t just show up the next morning and say his 21st birthday got out of hand and he couldn’t make it to the club. I don’t know any employers who wouldn’t understand that, which calls into question just how high the stakes of Michael finding his ID are. Compare that to The Hangover, whose premise was simple and whose stakes are sky-high: Find Doug before his wedding. So I had some issues with that aspect of the script.

But the big question is, why did it sell? I think there’s always going to be a market for the wacky comedy. The trick is partnering up with the right people. Hurwitz and Schlossberg are becoming major forces in the industry, as they’re almost single-handedly branding the young crazy no-holds-barred comedy angle. They have several of these types of movies in the pipeline, including another project I reviewed awhile ago (and liked quite a bit) that they’re directing. So the industry sees these guys as experts in this market and they trust them. So when they come along with an idea in that wheelhouse, any studio is going to take a good hard look at it, and in this case, they bought it.

For me, with college being a good ways away, it wasn’t quite my thing. Maybe if they’d written a script called, “1 and A Half Beers And A Nap.” That’s something I could relate to.

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

What I learned: 21 Shots uses a lot of pop culture references. There are jokes about Clay Aiken, Brandy, the Duke LaCrosse team, and David Carridine sex games. Using pop culture is always a risky proposition, especially these days, with how quickly media picks up new stories. A joke that’s hilarious today could be dated two weeks from now. And since you never know when someone’s going to read your script, staying topical is almost impossible. For this reason, I advise against it. Anything that dates your script is usually a bad thing. For example, if you make a joke about Britney Spears’ shaved head, I know when your script was written, and it’s already feeling stale. Since these two had Hurwitz and Schlossberg on their team, there’s an understanding that the jokes they’re using are interchangeable. They can always update them once production starts. But for you, the non-producer partner-having writer, it’s too risky. I’d advise to stay out of the pop culture game.

One last note. I know these comedy specs get beaten up in the talkback by the fanboys who are looking for more genre-fare. But I also know that there are a lot of comedy fans who read the site because I get a ton of requests for comedy reviews. Yet you guys never show up when it’s time to discuss the script. That’s what we’re here for. We want to see what scripts are selling or getting made, and we want to discuss why so we can make ourselves better writers. So comedy fans, let’s hear you!

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The Land of Lost Things

Posted on March 1, 2010 | by admin

Not too sure what to expect this week. On Saturday, I read “The Crazies,” thinking I’d review it for its upcoming release next weekend, only to realize yesterday that it had been released *this* weekend. Nice. I’m totally on top of things (I blame “Rotten Tomatoes,” who lazily updates their “opening next weekend” list). If anyone still cares, let me know and I’ll throw a review up. I know Roger’s going to write a cool article for us this Wednesday, so that should be fun. Otherwise, let uncertainty guide us. Here’s Roger with a review of “The Land Of Lost Things” (not to be confused with “Land Of The Lost” I hope).

Genre: Fantasy, Action Adventure
Premise: A ten-year old boy, seemingly cursed, can’t stop losing things, and not only that, but his parents are on the brink of divorce. When he finds a mysterious book, he’s transported to a magical universe where all his lost items end up. It’s there that he goes on a journey to not only retrieve the lost book, but to save his parent’s relationship.
About: Set-up at Paramount’s Nickelodeon Movies. Producers are Arnold and Anne Kopelson and Sherryl Clark of J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot. Dan Mazeau was enrolled in the MFA screenwriting program at UCLA when he began work on the script. In 2008, he was featured in Variety’s 10 Screenwriters to Watch. Mazeau has gone on to write Johnny Quest and The Flash for Warner Brothers, and an untitled moon project for DreamWorks based on an original script by Doug Liman.
Writer: Dan Mazeau

Is “The Land Of Lost Things” the next “The Neverending Story?”
Sometimes people write stories that remind you that magic is real.
Dan Mazeau, with “The Land of Lost Things”, has written one of those stories.
I. The Ordinary World
Lowell A. Leavitt is born to lose.
We meet Lowell A. Leavitt at Age 0. As storm clouds brew outside his window, we are told he is a special boy. But because “special” can mean many things, it is immediately clear that Lowell A. Leavitt is cursed.
You see, anything Lowell touches, he’s destined to lose. It begins small. His parent’s keys. His pacifier. Toys. And as he grows older, so does his problem. Not only is he losing stuff like that new bike that was given to him as a gift, but even his beloved pets.
At age ten, Lowell is informed by his teacher at Amelia Earhart Elementary that if he can’t turn in a book report, he’s not going to pass fourth grade. He’s already lost twenty-eight homework assignments and now it looks like he’s going to lose a whole year.
But how is he supposed to do a book report when the library has a mug-shot of him that says, “Do Not Lend To This Boy”?
That’s easy. His parents, extremely concerned about their son and his potential failure of fourth grade, take him to a rare book store called “Famous Lost Words”.
II. The Call to Adventure
Famous Last Words is kinda creepy, and with tell-tale rat droppings everywhere, it’s certainly dirty. When an old stitched together book falls of a shelf and tumbles into Lowell’s arms, seemingly choosing him, a Mr. Koreander-like bookseller tells him, “Ah, but that’s a very special book.”
The old man won’t let Lowell’s parents pay for the book. He tells them that Lowell can borrow it, ominously telling the boy, “Perhaps someday you’ll return the favor.”
Back at home, Lowell physically wrestles with the book as he tries to write his book report. In a moment that lets us know Lowell’s world will never be the same, he overhears his parents talking about divorce.
“We tell him we lost our love, Charles. Somewhere, somehow, we just lost it.”
Back in his room, he breaks some things. Discovers that the title of the mysterious book is called The Land of Lost Things.
But soon enough, Lowell loses hold of the book again, chases it out his window into the storm and watches it disappear into a sewer.
So what does he do?
He takes one last look at his house, then drops into the sewer after his book.
Except, you know, he ends up in a rain forest.
Where a half-ape, half-man thing called the Missing Link exchanges some very educated words (for a half ape, half-man thing) with Lowell and swings off into the trees with his book.
III. Refusal of the Call, Meeting with the Mentor & Crossing the Threshold
Lowell is soon being pursued through the jungle by evil, giant rats. From above, claws grab him and he’s lifted into the air.
He’s been saved by three giant birds. Six-feet tall knight-errant pigeons to be exact.
Parcival is their leader. In true Campbellian Parsifal (the Holy Fool in European mythology who goes on a quest for the Holy Grail to break a curse) fashion, he tells Lowell that he is the “Champion Knight of the Lost Cause!”
The pigeons are surprised to learn who the little boy is, and they quickly whisk him off to Pigeon Parliament, where the Pigeon Elders ruffle their feathers, dreadfully concerned that Lowell’s presence in their abode spells doom.
They’re terrified of a figure known as the Finder-Keeper, and they are anxious to send Lowell on his way.
But Parcival delivers a speech, saying that they are homing pigeons and that it is their duty to return lost things.
But before he can convince them, giant rats invade Pigeon Parliament (it seems there is war between the rats and pigeons) and Lowell tries to run away, caught in the middle. He wants nothing to do with either of them.
But Parcival is determined to protect Lowell, so he and his men battle the rats and we’re treated to a cool aerial battle with cannonballs, nets and rat-on-pigeon warfare.
In mid-flight, a rat sniper shoots Parcival out of the air with a harpoon gun and they crash in a mysterious desert.
IV. Tests, Allies, Enemies
They’re in a nautical graveyard, and Parcival can no longer fly because his wing was wounded by the harpoon. To make matters worse, Lowell finds his lost dog Buster, except he’s feral. And soon he’s being attacked by all his feral lost pets.
In a dark keep, on a glimmering throne made out of lost keys, we meet the Finder-Keeper. He’s a shadowy figure with yellow, spiraled fingernails, and he sends out of a team of bounty hunters, led by Ratsputin, to capture Lowell.
Out of the nautical graveyard, Parcival leads Lowell to the Samsonite Mountains, which is, you guessed it, a mountain range made out of all of Lowell’s lost luggage. Along the way, Parcival gives Lowell a history lesson about the pigeons and the land, telling him that they’re guided by a holy object known as The Beacon.
It should be noted that whenever Lowell finds something that belonged to him, he tries to carry it with him, even against Parcival’s wishes.
V. Approach to Inmost Cave, Supreme Ordeal & Seizing the Sword
In the Cave of Lost Voices, Lowell is attacked by Ratsputin and his hunters, and Parcival rescues him once again and they go on the run. Perhaps even Lowell causes a Samsonite avalanche to help with their escape to The Forgotten Fields.
The Forgotten Fields seem like they’re covered in snow, but it’s all of Lowell’s lost knowledge, including sheets of homework and his mail.
Lowell and Parcival jump on a train to escape Ratsputin, and it’s here where they get into an argument. There’s a funny, poignant outburst from Lowell, “You! You listen! You don’t know what it’s like to be a loser your whole life! Some nights I still get lost between my room and the bathroom! I have to pee in Dad’s ficus.” Lowell sees this as his chance to make up for everything he’s lost by bringing things back.
And Parcival, the wise mentor he is, tells the boy, “At some point, you’re going to have to learn to let go of this, and realize what’s really important.”
And next there’s a delightful, charming and inventive action sequence as Ratsputin and his rats board the train and pursue and fight with our heroes. Except it turns out to be quite an ordeal for everyone involved, because this is no ordinary train.
This is The Train of Lost Thought.
Everyone suffers from short-term memory loss. So as everyone battles and comes up with plans, the fight going from car to car, underneath and above, they all keep forgetting what the heck they’re doing in the first place. Action-packed and funny!
They manage to get away and find themselves in The Lost Refuge, an ancient redwood forest where they rescue a female pigeon, Gertrude. She’s enamored with Parcival and she manages to talk Parcival into taking Lowell to The Keep.
Yep, it’s where the villain is, but there lies a place within The Keep where Lowell can return back to his world. And because they’re homing pigeons, it’s their job to return lost things. And since Lowell is lost, the next step is a no-brainer.
But to get there, they have to venture through The Neverglades (“For never has a soul ventured within, and returned with his mind intact.) and make their way through the Rat Slums and infiltrate The Black Spire.
To do so, they just might have to disguise themselves as rats.
VI. The Road Back, Resurrection & Return with the Elixir
Okay, I’m not going to spoil the brilliance of the 3rd act, but it involves the nefarious Finder-Keeper, his master plan and why he needs Lowell.
And Lowell’s ordeal might just involve finding the lost love of his parents and returning it back to his world.
It’s at this point where the script goes into a dark place. Even for a children’s tale, there was a moment concerning Parcival’s fate that surprised me. I told a friend, “I can’t believe the writer took it to that point.”
To which my friend replied, “Children need to be scared in stories. It’s good for them. It’s our way of easing them into our harsh world.”
So what’s the verdict, Rog?
Man, this is my new favorite script. It’s just so inventive and charming, and it’s told with the assuredness of a talented writer (such a pleasing voice to find on the page) who knows he’s telling a tale rich with metaphor.
It moves you.
“The Land of Lost Things” is a children’s adventure story in the vein of The Neverending Story and The Princess Bride, a powerful and poignant fable that can share the same shelf with The Phantom Tollbooth and the L. Frank Baum Oz books.
But that’s not all.
If you’re an adult, this is a story that transports you back to childhood again. It reunites you with awe and wonder, it reminds you that imagination is a sacred thing. In that sense, its sensibility is very Spielbergian. And I like that. If I were a parent, “The Land of Lost Things” is the type of movie I would take my child and family to see. Simply put, it’s the type of story kids should be raised on.

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

What I learned: To reference Christopher Vogler, Jungian archetypes are masks, and the characters in “The Land of Lost Things” wear them with an assuredness that makes you think twice about the power of archetype. What are these masks? Hero. Mentor. Herald. Shapeshifter. Shadow. Trickster. They’re all here in some form (Lowell, Parcival, Old Man, Gertrude, Finder-Keeper and Missing Link, respectively) and, just as they should, the characters take turns wearing these masks. Especially for those who write fantasy or action adventure, it can help immensely to anchor your characters in archetype and to be aware of what role your characters are playing in every scene. Make the Jungian archetypes, along with the Campbellian monomyth, part of your writer’s toolbox (to use a Stephen King analogy) and see what happens.
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For Aspiring Screenwriters – The Screenwriter Consortium

Posted on February 27, 2010 | by admin

Hello all. Wanted to give you a heads up on a very cool project in the works. A friend of mine, Elsa, one of the smartest and nicest people you’ll ever meet, realized one day that the model for selling screenplays was broken, specifically when it came to the Latino market (if you’re ever in the mood to laugh for an hour, ask Elsa her opinion on the current crop of Latino-themed movies in theaters). Both a writer and a business woman herself, she decided to use her business acumen to correct that. As she reached out to the Latino community, she realized that there were all kinds of minority markets that were being overlooked, and decided to expand her original vision to include struggling writers from all walks of life. Basically, she’s approaching the spec market from a radically different angle. But because she’s the expert here, I’ll let her explain it to you.

Howdy, Scriptshadow!

Thanks for the opportunity to appear on your insightful blog—an honor, a privilege, and I promise that check will clear next week—this time for real.

The Screenwriter Consortium’s intent is to develop script inventories for a variety of target audiences. We began the process targeting the Latino market because of the billion dollars per year this group represents. Success with the Latino market should open up opportunities in other markets, e.g., women, mature, genre marketing, other ethnic, etc., with the hope of providing writers another venue in which to sell his/her scripts.

Rather than solicit script sales on a script-by-script, writer-by-writer basis, the inventory method allows the buyer to evaluate scripts on a target market basis—scripts written to appeal directly to a chosen audience.

In addition, the Latino Heart Blog speaks directly with our target audience, serves to develop awareness of the lack of English-speaking, Latino-centric feature films developed by Hollywood while entertaining our readers. After all, we are entertainers, aren’t we?

Our primary goal is not for our writer members to obtain representation, win writing contests, or receive accolades for literary prowess…our goal is TO.SELL.SCRIPTS.

Thanks for listening,
Elsa

P.S. If any of you haven’t tried Scriptshadow’s script consulting service…he’s brutal, vicious, ruthless, mean—and always right. I hate him.

Not really, I wanna impress the school yard bullies so I don’t get beat up, too.

For more questions, contact Elsa at screenwriterconsortium@gmail.com

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Titan Week – “Fahrenheit 451”

Posted on February 24, 2010 | by admin

TITAN WEEK 4 OF 5 OF 1

We’re 4 days into the Titan Theme Week. We started with Shane Black. Moved on to Amanda Peet’s husband, David Benioff. Then we tackled the dynamo writing duo of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. And today, we’re reading ourselves some Darabont.

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: In a dystopian future, Firefighters start fires instead of put them out.
About: I don’t think there’s any question that Darabont is a true titan in this business. The Shawshank Redemption is one of those examples of screenwriting perfection. It does a lot of things most writers would tell you not to do. Its tone is depressing, it’s long and drawn out, probably has too many characters, depends too much on voice over, and doesn’t have a female lead. Yet it’s pure unadulterated awesomeness, and while credit obviously goes to Steven King, what Darabont did by taking one of King’s most unmarketable ideas and turning into an Oscar-nominated screenplay was pretty amazing. Darabont is easily one of the most respected writers in town. If a script needs fixing – not pampering or gloss, but actual fixing – this is the man that will come in and do it. – This particular script, Farenheit 451, has been in development for something like 25 years. Darabont’s adaptation of the material is believed to be one of the best unmade screenplays in Hollywood.
Writer: Frank Darabont (based on the novel by Ray Bradbury)
Details: 121 pages (September 2005 draft)


I have a secret.

I’ve tried to read Farenheit 451 on three separate occasions and couldn’t get past the first 10 pages. I’m sure you want to know why, so I’ll just come out and say it.

Robot dogs.

I’m sorry but I just can’t wrap my head around robot dogs. And I’m a sci-fi geek! Why would robot dogs ever need to exist?? If you need something that only dogs can do, why not get a real dog? But if something is so complicated as to require a robotic equivalent and you have the technology to create that robot equivalent, why not just create a robotic human instead? Doesn’t it make more sense in the context of what the human robot would be able to do? I understand this was part of the original novel, but in a post-Transformers world, robot dogs sound kinda lame.

The truth is, I chose this theme week specifically for this script, as I’ve wanted to read it for a long time, despite the robot dog issue. Lots of people who I’ve talked to love it, and I really wanted to at least say that I’d read the thing. So here goes.


Guy Montag is a fireman. But not the kind of fireman you and I know. Montag likes to start fires, not end them. In fact, all the fire departments we depend on when we accidentally throw a Wendy’s Chicken Club with the tin foil wrapper still attached into the microwave, have no interest in putting out fires anymore. Their purpose is to find people who still like to read a good John Grisham novel, and BURN THEIR HOUSE DOWN.

Cause in this future, the government hates books. Thinks they corrupt us. Brings out impulses we wouldn’t otherwise have. Man, if only these guys would’ve come around before Peter Jackson read The Lovely Bones.

Firefighters in this far off future, which by now is probably the far off past, since Bradbury wrote the novel back in the 1600s, are basically militarized. Their operation is honed and disciplined to take down offenders quickly, and to evoke a sense of fear in the community. We watch as they storm into houses, tear down walls and burst through ceilings to find these compilations of devil paper. And then burn them! If you don’t like it, you’ve got an angry robot dog to deal with.

Eventually Montag gets curious what all the fuss is about and sneaks home a copy of Lord Of The Flies. Even though he watches Lost every Tuesday at 9, the book is a revelation to him, and it feeds his curiosity for more. So now when Montag goes in with the crew to burn a house down, he stashes more books down his pants than The Situation stashes phone numbers. And the more he reads, the more enlightened he becomes.

Unfortunately, the Firefighter Chief starts getting suspicious of Montag, whose book reading has brought about a moodiness that didn’t before exist. People Montag has conspired with start getting caught, their houses burned and their families taken away. Montag’s wife pleads with him to get rid of the books, but he refuses. Eventually, Montag can’t run anymore, and must face the consequences for his actions.

The problem with Fahrenheit is that the world has changed so much since 1953. As I listen to these characters confide in each other about how important or how scary books are, their plight doesn’t resonate on any level. I suppose there are some places in the world where Fahrenheit’s themes are actually still relevant, but America isn’t into burning books anymore and hasn’t been for a long time.


I’m not saying this couldn’t have been fascinating 50 years ago when people rode around on chariots. But today? The internet is essentially one giant book that we have access to 24/7. If Iran can’t keep its citizens from using Twitter, we ain’t going to be able to stop people from ordering the latest Dan Brown novel on Amazon. Not to mention Facebook! Can you imagine the outrage from the community if we destroyed Facebook?? The implications of a world without Farmville are too much to bear. The day I don’t know when my friend Alandra just planted a patch of strawberries is the day that civilization is dead my friend. The day it is dead.

But seriously, it’s an issue. Darabont doesn’t even mention the internet here, which implies we’re observing this through some sort of alternate future. And from what I understand, this is why lead actors like Mel Gibson and Tom Hanks keep dropping out. Trying to imagine a future without internet is like trying to imagine a future without cars and airplanes. How do you make that leap? This is not to mention music, TV and movies, which essentially pose the same problem as books, and yet for whatever reason aren’t held to the same standards.

Despite that, there’s still a lot of care that went into this script, a lot of love. And you can feel it on the page. The prose and the attention to detail are all top notch, and as a result, you’re able to ignore some of the problems. But in the end, the logistical issues run too deep, and I can’t see this being made without a major rewrite.

How would you rewrite it? I think you’d have to embrace technology instead of ignore it, and probably focus the script on the government wanting to destroy our access to all information, from the internet all the way on down to the written word, a true modern-day telling of the story. That could be interesting. Just please, for my sake, don’t include any robot dogs. :)

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

What I learned: What I like about Darabont is he doesn’t write to impress you. He writes to tell the story, yet ends up impressing you in the process. So whereas a lesser writer might over-write their descriptions to try and impress the reader, Darabont makes sure that everything he describes is motivated. For example, here, he describes the fire truck starting: “The ENGINES START, a turbine WHINE exploding to a DEEP BASSO ROAR. Like a dragon waking up. Ready to breathe flame.” So descriptive. But not gratuitous. Remember, descriptions don’t sell screenplays. Concept, story, characters, and plot do. So resist that 8 line poetic description of how your character walks from his house to his car, and just tell the story instead.

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Titan Week – “Tell No One”

Posted on February 24, 2010 | by admin

TITAN WEEK 3 OF 5

Day 1 we brought you Shane Black. Day 2 we tackled questionable titan David Benioff. And now on our third day of Titan Week, we bring in the two highest paid writers in the business, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman! This oughta be fun. :)

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A widowed social worker receives a strange message that forces him to reevaluate what happened the day his wife was murdered.
About: How can you have a Titan Week without Kurtzman and Orci!! The two most beloved and respected writers in Hollywood!? Heh heh. You knew I had to pull these guys out. They’re the highest paid and most sought-after writers in town. And absolutely nobody thinks they should be but the people who hire them. Kurtzman and Orci first came on the scene in 2005, when they wrote Michael Bay’s “The Island.” They followed that with the second Zorro film, Mission Impossible 3, Transformers, Star Trek, and of course, the single greatest movie to ever be made, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. But “Tell No One” is the script they wrote before all that success, all the way back in 2002. Now some of you may already be familiar with “Tell No One” as a French film that made some waves on the independent circuit in 2008 (it was released in France in 2006). I didn’t see it because I’d been burned too many times by supposedly groundbreaking French Films which turned out to be mind-numbingly horrible. I don’t think there’s anything worse than sitting through a bad French film. I’m glad I ignored it, because it allowed me to have this amazing reading experience. Now a few of you have probably noticed that the dates don’t quite match up. How can Orci and Kurtzman have adapted a 2006 film in 2002? Simple. Orci and Kurtzman have a time machine. It’s what allows them to know what we’re going to like before we like it. I’m just kidding. Or am I??? Actually, the French film was an adaptation of a novel written by American writer, Harlan Coben. I’ve never read a Harlan Coben book before, but people tell me “Tell No One” was one of his lesser efforts. Anyway, Kurtzman and Orci adapted the book before the French did. The French just beat them to the theaters. I still think this deserves the Hollywood treatment though. It’s a can’t miss baby.
Writers: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (based off the novel by Harlan Coben)
Details: 122 pages (5th Draft, 2002)

Warning: If you know nothing about this script or this movie and you like thrillers, stop now, download the script, and read it. You’ll thank me.

At Transformers premiere. “Proud” is not the adjective I’d use to describe these expressions.

Uhhhhh, can someone tell me WHERE THE HELL THIS SCRIPT WAS HIDING??? What a freaking gangbusters screenplay. I haven’t flown through a story that fast since The Cat In The Hat. And I thought The Grey was a good thriller. This is the executive suite of thrillers. 3000 square feet. Sweeping views of Vegas. TVs that pop out of the floor. Tell No One? Tell everyone!

But I’ll get to that in a second. First, we gotta deal with Orci and Kurtzman.

Every burgeoning writer in town cites these two as the oozing puss-filled sores of the screenwriting world. They point to the Transformers movies as their main argument. Anybody, they say, responsible for writing those movies, cannot be a good writer. And I will say this. The Transformers movies are two of the most incomprehensible mainstream movies I’ve ever seen, especially the second one. The thing is, the fault doesn’t lie squarely with them. These guys were brought in to realize a vision from a director who has no interest or understanding of story, to plug in characters that the toy company forced them to, to come up with a believable scenario by which aliens came to earth taking the form of transforming motor vehicles, to integrate pre-existing action sequences into a story that hadn’t been written yet, and to push all of this together in a few weeks, due to the writer’s strike (on the second one). In short, they were set up to fail. Any single one of us would’ve failed as well. It’s hard enough coming up with a good script when NO ONE is telling you how to write it. But when everyone is? And in a few weeks? There’s no way.

However, I’m not here to try and convince you to like Orci and Kurtzman. I was simply curious about reading a screenplay of theirs before they hit the bigtime. These are the scripts that usually GIVE these writers a shot at the big time, so it’s interesting to see what warranted that shot. And holy shit, this shot hit the bullseye.

David Beck and Elizabeth Parker are in love. They have been ever since they were 12 years old, doing the whole “carve the initials in the tree” thing. There’s only one issue affecting their otherwise bliss-filled relationship. David has seizures. Intense full-on blackouts where he doesn’t remember a thing. And one day, not long after the two are married, David is hit by something, triggering a seizure, and he blacks out. When he wakes up, he learns that his wife has been brutally murdered – the only thing he’s ever loved, stolen from him forever.

Four years later, David, now a social worker for abused children in Philadelphia, is trying to put the pieces of his life back together. He’s even dating a doctor, Anna, who helps some of the kids he brings in. Even though it’s not what he envisioned for himself, it’s a job Elizabeth was passionate about, and he feels a duty to carry it on. But the job is taxing, difficult, and he’s thinking about moving on to something more lucrative, something that’ll give him a cozy life, something that will help him finally move on from Elizabeth.

HUGE SPOILERS – PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVE ANY INTEREST IN THIS SCRIPT


And then David gets a message on his computer. He clicks a link. A live video feed. Of Elizabeth. At a park. Older. Today. Right now! Looking up into the camera!

It can’t be. There’s no way. His wife is dead. Isn’t she?

As David tries to make sense of the nonsensical, a car containing two murdered men is found in the lake next to where Elizabeth was murdered. These men were killed at the same time and with the same weapon that Elizabeth was. There are grave implications to this news. The serial killer who killed Elizabeth was thought to have only killed women. That’s why he supposedly left David alive. But if two men were also killed, why was David’s life spared? David has gone from mourning widow to number one suspect.

The worst thing about that? David’s not sure he *isn’t* a suspect. And actually, he’s not sure of anything anymore. Was the video feed of Elizabeth real? A fantasy? Could his fractured seizure-ridden mind be creating this vision to cope with the fact that he killed his wife?

Forced to go on the run or end up on the wrong side of the death penalty, David must scrape together the pieces of his wife’s secretive life, and find out what really happened to her that fateful day. Old friends, old family members, co-workers – no one can be trusted, and yet he needs all of their help to survive.

Tell No One takes its cues from the best, namely The Fugitive, and actually improves on the formula. Whereas The Fugitive has two gargantuan driving forces – the chase and Ford having to find out who killed his wife, Tell No One adds two additional mysteries: Is David the killer and is his wife still alive? With all these amazing threads going on at once, there isn’t a single sub-standard moment in the script. My admiration for this screaming fast story grew by the page because I’m so used to these things falling apart under their own weight. The twists stop making sense. The character motivations become ludicrous. The finale turns out to be a letdown. But Tell No One is the opposite. Every single story decision here is perfect. In fact, if I were teaching a class on how to write a mystery thriller, this is the script I would use to teach it. It’s that good.


And why is it that good? It’s no different than what we were talking about the other day with Taken. Tell No One gets the emotional component right. In the beginning, we see David and Elizabeth grow up together, fall in love together, get married, and start their life. So when Elizabeth is killed, it’s not just David who’s lost someone. It’s us. We watched this girl grow up. We watched her love. We watched her dream. We loved Elizabeth just as much as he did, and as a result, when she returns, we’re just as desperate for David to find her as he is. But the point is, if you stripped this thing of all its twist and turns, we’d still be pulling for these characters, because we like them that much.

As for the writing itself, it’s pretty solid. Kurtzman and Orci created a nice device that I really enjoyed. In general, I dislike unmotivated flashbacks because of their tendency to feel unnatural. Throughout the script, K and O use David’s seizures as a way to flash back to the day of the murder. It’s a little thing, but it plays nicely because it’s motivated by character (specifically – this character’s seizures). Always look for natural ways to move into your flashbacks, as opposed to just hitting us with them out of nowhere. It makes a difference.

The one thing that drove me crazy were Kurtzman and Orci’s use of underlined dialogue. Normally, this kind of stuff doesn’t bother me. But these two, for whatever reason, underline nearly every word of their characters’ dialogue (I guess to give it emphasis?). But instead of giving it emphasis, it gives us headaches, as we’re forced to change the way we read, starting and stopping so we can mentally annunciate the underlined words. It took me half the script to force myself to ignore it, and man was it annoying.

I’m sure some of you will be comparing this to the French film, and with that film nabbing a 93% approval on Rotten Tomatoes, I’m preparing for the barrage of reasons why this doesn’t match up to it. But I’ve never seen the film, so this was a totally new experience for me, and I think they hit it out of the park. Really great script.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (Top 10)
[ ] genius

What I learned: The “found key that leads to the mysterious lockbox” device is one of the few things you can count on to ALWAYS WORK in a screenplay. Every. Freaking. Time! Cause we’re inherently curious about what the hell could be in that box. You can never go wrong with this device. (Just try and make sure what’s inside is something unique!).

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