Early 90s “Die Hard in the Chunnel” spec sold for a million bucks!

Genre: Action
Premise: When his daughter gets stuck on a terrorist-controlled train in the Chunnel, an engineer must team up with his girlfriend to save her life.
About: This script sold 4 days after it went out on the town back in the early 1990s. It was originally written for Jodie Foster, which differentiated it at the time, since nobody had yet written a “Die Hard” clone with a female lead. But Jodie eventually dropped out, forcing the writer to change the lead from female to male. From there, it went out to the number 1 star at the time, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But he eventually passed and the project was forgotten.
Writer: Ron Mita and Jim McClain
Details: 128 pages

When I look back at the spec sale days of the 90s, I realize that, in a lot of ways, it was a big pile of fool’s gold. Don’t get me wrong. Getting paid a million bucks for a script must’ve been amazing. And it happened a lot. But once you got past that, you weren’t really in any better shape than the average aspiring screenwriter who had sold nothing. It was nearly impossible to get from “sold” to “produced.”

Case in point, Ron Mita writes about his experience selling this script and how if you sold an action script, YOU HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO GO TO Arnold Schwarzenegger first. I used to think everybody wanted to try and get Arnold attached. But, in actuality, YOU HAD TO go to him.

This is because, if an action movie became a hit and it had never crossed Arnold’s desk, him and his team would go nuclear on everyone in the industry. Therefore, every single sold action script would enter the “Arnold Bottleneck” and you’d have to wait for his team to read it and pass before you could go to anyone else.

Well, when someone’s team has 100 scripts in a pile and zero incentive to hurry (because they know no one can do anything with those scripts in the meantime), you might be waiting a year for your “no.” And the thing with any project – whether it be then or now – is that they’re entirely dependent on momentum. And the Arnold Bottleneck destroyed 99% of every script’s momentum, leaving a graveyard of forgotten material.

With that said, if a script is great, it will find a way to the big screen. I am yet to read a marketable screenplay (key word there – “marketable”) that was great that hasn’t eventually gotten produced. So, I’m assuming there was something holding this script back.

American Charlie Sanger, an engineer who worked on the Chunnel and is living in the UK, is finally ready to take a holiday to France with his 11 year old daughter, Jessica. Jessica really wants Charlie to marry his current girlfriend, Bridget, but neither Charlie nor Bridget is sure what’s going to happen when Charlie moves on to his next job.

But they at least figure out their weekend holiday and plan to take the very Chunnel Charlie worked on. Unfortunately, once they get to the Chunnel, Charlie is pulled into work because of some flooding sensor issues. He decides to send Jessica onto the early train, where Bridget will meet her, and come in on the next train.

Only one problem with that plan. TERRORISTS TAKE OVER THE TRAIN, led by an evil man named Sinclair. Sinclair is IRA. He wants the UK out of Irish business AND 100 million dollars because why not.

Meanwhile, back at the Chunnel tunnel, Charlie runs into… Bridget!? What the heck are you doing here, he asks. You’re supposed to be on the train with Jessica. Oh no. Reality sets in. Bridget is in on the terrorist plan! She’s IRA.

Except she insists she’s not. It’s complicated, she explains. Yes, she’s IRA. But the people on the train are an extremist version of the IRA. She wants to stop them. She insists that, without her help, Charlie won’t be able to save his daughter. Should he believe her?

The control tower is able to lower one of the flood walls, bringing Sinclair’s train to a halt. This allows Charlie and Bridget to race down the tunnel, board the train, and try to save Jessica and kill Sinclair. But does Charlie really have an ally by his side? If not, can he stop a madman all by himself?

It’s always fun comparing these older scripts to the way scripts are written these days. The very first thing I noticed – and it didn’t take long – was how dense the description was. Lots of 4-5 line paragraphs. Slowing down that read! Readers do NOT have the patience for that these days. And you see it in the final page count. 128 pages. Youch.

There is, of course, no way to know for sure why Arnold’s people passed. But if I was on Arnold’s team at the time and I had been asked to give my thoughts on the script, I would’ve had some heavy reservations in those first 50 pages.

Surprisingly, it’s the same sort of thing that writers do wrong today. The script starts off with a fun cold open. One dude asks another dude what he’s doing on a ship. The guy says he’s a terrorist and he’s here to kill the man and assume his identity. As that tension sits, the guy smiles and says he’s joking and the two keep chatting. But then, as it turns out, he wasn’t joking. And he kills him.

Good fun opener.

Then, not long after that, we get a great scene. Several workers are on the tracks, fixing stuff when they get a warning that the train is five minutes away and they have to clear the tracks.

But one of the workers gets their foot caught in the rail. Everyone’s trying to get him out. They can’t. Time is ticking down. Many of the workers flee for their own safety. One worker stays behind, determined to help him get out. And it’s a race to the last second to save his life.

Simple scene. But very effective. At this point, I was in.

But then, the next 25 pages are some of the densest setup I’ve encountered in a while. Tons of characters to keep track of. Lots of technical track and train stuff being thrown at us. Bouncing between four different locations (bad guys, good guys, track workers, the control tower).

The problem with this isn’t just that it hurts your script in the moment. It hurts it THE WHOLE REST OF THE WAY. Because if we couldn’t follow these 25 pages of setup, we’ll be confused about certain people and certain plotlines the whole rest of the way through. So it’s kind of like Double Doom.

And look, this is one of the trickiest things about screenwriting. Onscreen, this stuff isn’t going to be as confusing. We remember faces a thousand times easier than we remember names on a page. But, unfortunately, people have to read and like the script first in order to want to make it. So you do have to alter your script sometimes to make it easier to read even if that means it won’t be as good onscreen.

If this is confusing, remember that, this is why there are additional rewrites once a movie gets greenlit. Once you officially have that money and you’re moving towards a start date THEN you can bring back in these scenes that were maybe more confusing on the page.

All of this, however, bolsters my belief that the answer to everything is just to write better scenes. The best scene in this script is the “foot caught in the railway” scene. And it doesn’t even involve any of the main characters. But simply drawn out scenes that naturally have suspense and stakes along with a clear beginning (foot gets caught), middle (try to get him out), and end (they either get him out or fail), will always keep a reader’s interest. Always.

So why do we then go 25 straight pages without any of those scenes? Instead we get these little quick mini-scenes that either have beginnings, middles, or ends, but never all three. I don’t get it. It seems so obvious to me and yet only 1% of the working screenwriters in this town understand how to do this.

As for the entirety of the script, there was one main thing that worked for me, which was the relationship between Charlie and Bridget. There was a lot of nuance to that setup of her being a part of the IRA but not the IRA faction that had taken over the train.

When it comes to 2-handers, I’m a fan of non-obvious conflict between the two lead characters. The standard is that the two characters hate each other (Rush Hour). But that’s the most basic version of conflict and therefore cliche. This is much more interesting. Can she be trusted or can’t she? That creates a more layered conflict that makes you think whenever we’re with the two. I actually wished that the writers had explored that on a more extensive level.

But, as for everything else, I thought it was okay. It was too much setup for me. Too overly plotted. I mainly want to have fun in these scripts and I felt like the writers would too often get in the way of that.

Script link for male version of script: Trackdown
Script link for female version of script: Trackdown

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

What I learned: Be careful about aggressively jumping back and forth between a bunch of different locations and characters early on in your script because WE DON’T KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS YET. We’re still in the stage of trying to remember who’s who. Later in the script, once we know everyone, you can get away with this. But, early in the script, you’re playing with fire, because there’s a good chance that the reader is falling behind due to not knowing everybody yet.

How is it that my two favorite movies of the year so far both star Jack Quaid?

Genre: Action
Premise: (from IMDB) When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped, a man incapable of feeling physical pain turns his rare condition into an unexpected advantage in the fight to rescue her.
About: Do not sleep on Jack Quaid, people. This dude understands material. He knows what a good script is. First, Companion. And now this. This is a great script to study for any spec screenwriters. This is how you do it. A low-budget action movie. This is exactly what I was talking about in my post this Friday – where Hollywood is headed. Novocaine did not light the box office on fire. But it deserves your attention on streaming. So go watch it! In fact, watch it before reading this review, preferably without watching the trailer either. The movie evolves in a really fun way.
Writer: Lars Jacobson
Details: 110 minutes

Having exhausted all movie options, I reluctantly rented Novacaine last night and ended up absolutely loving it. What’s interesting about this movie is that, one the years, I’ve read about a dozen screenplays centering around someone who isn’t able to feel pain.

That’s the thing with the spec world. Everybody pretty much as the same ideas. So you need to be able to find an angle that idea that separates you from the pack. What complicates this is that, sometimes, one of these scripts gets through solely because a great producer shoved it through and somehow got it made. That’s why sometimes bad versions of these common ideas become movies.

But in the case of Novocaine, the opposite happened. Someone finally wrote a great version of this idea. Actually, let me rephrase that. They executed the hell out of this idea. I don’t think anyone could’ve written a better version of a “dude feels no pain” movie. I honestly don’t. The writing is so sharp and seasoned here, that I was constantly impressed. I’ll give you a couple of examples of what I mean, but first let me summarize the plot for you.

By the way, I am going to be getting into spoilers because some of the teachable moments here include spoilers.

Nick, a loner assistant bank manager, has a rare condition that prohibits him from feeling pain. This means he stays away from all social interactions, save for his online gaming escapades.

One day, a beautiful young teller named Sherry starts working at the bank. Nick is obsessed with her but too afraid to ask her out. But one day, the two bump into each other in the break room, sparks fly, and she asks him to lunch.

Lunch turns into a date, date turns into a sleepover, and all of a sudden Nick has his first girlfriend ever. He’s in love. But the very next day at work, three Santas come in with guns (it’s the day before Christmas) to rob the place. They kill the bank manager, and as soon as they figure out that Nick loves Sherry, threaten to kill her unless he opens the safe. Nick gives up the combination, they level him to the ground, and take Sherry with them as a hostage for the pursuing cops.

When Nick wakes up, he’s determined to save Sherry. He’s shocked to find all the cops outside dead. These robbers are no joke. He then steals a cop car and begins his investigation into where these guys are going so he can get there and rescue Sherry.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW

The first moment that came where I knew this writing was at another level was the big twist. Sherry was working with the bank robbers all along. She played Nate.

I was SHOCKED by this twist. I had NO IDEA it was coming. And you guys know how long I’ve been doing this. I read a billion scripts. I can always sniff out a twist a mile away. So, I had to stop and evaluate how I missed this one so badly.

Here’s why it happened. Because the writer fully committed to the love story in the first act. There’s this really deep intense moment where the two of them are at Nate’s place and they’re taking their clothes off. For Nick, his secret is that, under his clothes, he’s self-tattooed almost his entire body. And then for Sherry, when she takes her shirt off, we see all these cuts on her. It’s a very vulnerable moment, and we can tell that it’s really hard for Sherry to share this part of herself. She doesn’t usually tell people this. We’re convinced this is deep love at this point.

In a typical script where you’re going to later reveal that that girl was playing our protagonist the whole time, the writer wouldn’t have written this scene. They want it to make sense, later, when Sherry turns on Jack. They would’ve thought there was too much closeness here to get away with that twist. But that closeness is exactly why I was fooled.

As screenwriters, we sometimes get lost in the puzzles we create, thinking too far up the line before we’ve put the puzzle together. Good writers write for the moment. They try to create the most powerful present moment and don’t overthink things to make sure that, later on, it’s all going to fit. Because if the writer would’ve made Sherry a little less committed in the moment, I would’ve seen that twist coming 30 pages early.

The second moment where I knew the writing was great occurred not long after that twist. As we know, movies like this require a lot of urgency. Initially, Novocaine’s urgency is obvious. The bad guys have the girl. She’s disposable. It’s only a matter of time before they kill her. So Nate has to find out where she’s being kept and get to her fast.

But then, we get the big twist. Sherry was working with the bank robbers all along. She played Nate. Note how as soon as this reveal is made, THERE IS NO MORE URGENCY IN THE MOVIE. Doesn’t matter how fast Nate gets there. She’s working with the bank robbers so she’s going to be safe.

At the time this happened, I thought to myself, “Ooh, the writers are in trouble now. How are they going to adjust for this?” And then, we get one of the best set pieces in the script. Nate goes to the house of one of the bank robbers (to try and find out where their workplace is) but the whole house is boobytrapped. He gets his leg snagged in a ceiling rope contraption and finds himself hanging upside down.

So he calls his only friend and begs him to come cut him down. The friend says he’ll be there in ten minutes. Now, before I even get to the lesson here, there’s ANOTHER screenwriting tip to come out of this. 90% of screenwriters would’ve cut to the friend showing up and helping him down.

But good screenwriters ALWAYS MAKE BAD SITUATIONS WORSE. So, what happens right after Nate calls his friend? One second later, Nate hears the front door open. It’s one of the other bank robbers. That’s good screenwriting! Never let your foot off the gas. Always make things more difficult. Even if you’re not sure how you’re going to get your hero out of it.

But back to my point. As soon as Nick gets off the phone, he sets his watch timer to 10 minutes, in anticipation of his friend coming (by the way, if anybody thinks this is strange, Nick uses his watch timer constantly throughout the movie – it’s not random). In other words, THIS PROVED TO ME that the WRITER KNEW he lost his urgency once he revealed that Sherry was a bad guy. Therefore he knew he had to add urgency somewhere else. So he creates this entire set piece around urgency! Nick has to convince this bank robber not to kill him before his friend shows up (in ten minutes).

That’s clever stuff.

And the script is filled with good screenwriting. Nick is NEVER helped by the screenwriter ever. He always makes it hard for Nick. This is one of the best screenplays I’ve read about a normal guy (somebody without black ops or military training) going up against much stronger bad guys. The writer never cheats regarding who Nick is. Also, I always tell you guys, LEAN INTO WHAT’S UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR CONCEPT. What’s unique in this concept is a guy who can’t feel pain. There are literally 75 different moments in this script built around the fact that Nick can’t feel pain.

The only weak part of the script is the fact that cops had been killed and there were only 2 cops chasing Nick around the whole time. But EVEN THEN the writer didn’t ignore that. He tried to explain it by saying it was Christmas and they were short-staffed.

I love movies like this because they show what the power of a good script can accomplish. It will get a movie made. And a good one at that! Highly recommend this one.

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

What I learned: Commit to the emotional beats of your screenplay even if you’re writing in the action or thriller genres. This movie DOES NOT WORK if that love story isn’t perfectly set up in the first act. We wouldn’t give a shit whether Nate saved Sherry or not.

And screenwriters are going to take over

Every time I go out and meet new people these days, one of the first questions I ask them is, “Do you go to the movies?” And the inevitable answer I get is, “No.” The explanations I receive break down into two demographic categories. If the person is younger than 30, they almost always complain about the price being too high. If the person is older than 30, they usually say that life got more complicated (marriage, kids) and they don’t have as much free time as they used to.

With Marvel, the current leader in box office receipts, making half as much as they used to with each release, it is safe to assume that the industry is about to go through a major change. I believe that we’re 3-5 years away from a cratering in the theatrical movie business. But unlike a lot of people in the industry, I don’t see that as a bad thing. I see it as a good thing, especially if you’re a screenwriter. Let me explain.

The thing that is most at risk of dying here is the giant blockbuster. These movies don’t have the box office juice that they used to and it’s causing studios to lose a lot of money. You don’t get to keep spending money forever if you’re losing it so, inevitably, they’re going to have to pull back on these budgets.

This is great news for screenwriters because the less a movie can depend on spectacle, the more it must depend on good storytelling. Movies will go back to the “word of mouth” days of the 70s where, if someone writes a great movie, it will play on and on in the theaters. And even if it doesn’t, it will do well on streaming, because in a world where you don’t need to make 500 million at the box office to break even, it’s perfectly okay to send your movie to streaming early.

What does this mean for screenwriters? What it means is, everybody here is going to have to become a better character writer. The less a movie costs, the more dialogue scenes you’ll be writing into your script. So you need to get good with character in order to write those scenes. Also, the movies themselves will be more character-driven because they have to be. Without spectacle, you have to explore characters internally, explore them in conflict with other characters, and explore them in conflict with the world.

By the way, this does not mean every script now has to be Manchester By The Sea. Far from it. You can still write genre films (horror, thriller, low-budget action). Sinners is actually a good example of what one might write in this new era. It’s character-driven but it still has a genre element to draw audiences in.

Other movies that will do well in this new era (assuming some of them were written better) are: It Ends With Us, A Quiet Place, Longlegs, Heretic, The Beekeeper, Get Out, Air, Bullet Train, and The Menu.

What does this mean for IP? IP will still be valued, of course, but this is also going to benefit screenwriters because the costs of these movies are going to plummet. So they’ll be looking for writers who actually know how to write, since they’ll need you to come up with a fresh cheap take and be able to execute it. A good example would be “Prey,” on Hulu. Big franchise – contained low-budget take.

Again, with less action, you’re going to have more character moments. So screenwriters have to be able to handle those. Thunderbolts is a good example of this. That movie had a lot more character development than your average superhero movie. This tells me that Hollywood may already be moving over to this model.

The next thing that’s going to be important in this new era is separating yourself from AI. AI will get better at writing but it’s only going to get better at the most populist version of writing. It’s going to be able to write a generic sequel to The Rock. But it’s not going to be able to write Everything Everywhere All At Once.

So, in addition to learning how to write strong characters and strong character-driven stories, you need to infuse your own voice as much as possible into those stories so you stand out.

Now, what I’ve learned over the course of reading 10,000 scripts, is that there’s “forced voice” and “natural voice.” “Forced voice” is when you try to ape somebody else’s voice. You’re trying to write all this wall-breaking commentary directly to the reader even though you’ve never done that before in your life. There’s a clear inauthenticity to it.

“Natural voice” is when you take the elements that make you unique as a person and accentuate them. So, if you like dry humor, you up the dry humor in your script. If you love long scenes, like Quentin Tarantino, write long scenes. If you like non-sequiturs, add them. If you’re weird as hell and think about bizarre stuff, include it! If you like telling stories out-of-order, do that. If you naturally love talking to the reader, you can do that as well. Just as long as that’s truly your thing.

Scripts like Civil War, Challengers, Leave The World Behind, Anora, and Missing, will do well in this new era.

This change will not be all-compassing. I think animated movies, like Inside-Out, are still going to do well because parents will want to get their kids out of the house. There will still be outliers, like Barbie and Minecraft, every couple of years. But even those films will take a hit at the box office. They’re not going to become phenomenons anymore, as more and more stuff moves to streaming, keeping even more people home.

But that’s good news for screenwriters as well. The nice thing about streaming is that the admission price is zero. It’s basically: point a device at your TV and press a button. For that reason, the audience doesn’t have nearly the same standards as they do when they go to the theater. I mean I just watched the first 20 minutes of this movie called iHostage on Netflix, about a guy who holds up an Apple Store. It was easily one of the worst movies ever made AND IT WAS #3 ON NETFLIX’S MOST WATCHED MOVIES LIST!

In other words, you don’t have to be the greatest writer to write streaming movies. As long as you’ve got a strong flashy concept, you’ve got a shot. And they need ENDLESS content over there. So there are opportunities to be had.

People have been saying that screenwriting is going to fall to AI over the next few years. I think the opposite. Hollywood is going to need writers more than ever when the mega-franchise collapse happens. So buckle up. It’s about to get fun. :)

40% off Script Notes from me! I’m only giving out two of these deals. Be the first or tenth person to e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line “May Deal” and you get one!

I’ve noticed that people are talking about AI a lot in the comments section. I do think AI is going to make some big leaps in the world of writing in the next couple of years, but not in the ways many assume. It’s not going to be able to write a good script for you, unfortunately.

But I’ve been privy to some behind-the-scenes chats about word processors incorporating AI in a way where they’re constantly evaluating your story and giving you real-time options on where to take it. For example, after you write a scene on page, say, 15, it will have a little prompt you can click on that brings up three potential directions you can take your story next.  Or it may give you options for how you can make your hero’s flaw more consistent with the theme of your story.

It’s gonna be your virtual writing partner, in a sense. And it will probably take a while to get good at it. That’s the thing about AI and writing right now, is that when you truly put it to the test of writing something, it’s still not very good.

I constantly test it with dialogue prompts. I give it a scenario or provide an already written scene and ask it for dialogue suggestions. It has never given me a line that I would use. It *does* prompt new ideas on your end for certain lines. But it never gives you an actual line you’re satisfied with. I think because it still doesn’t understand humanity and how we think. Because how we think is a big part of what we say. It doesn’t get that.

However, there is one area where AI has made writing 1000% better, which is that you can now literally write about ANYTHING.

Through reading thousands of scripts, what I’ve learned is that if the writer doesn’t know the world they’re writing about, the script is always bad. Like 99.9% of the time the script is bad. But when someone really truly knows their subject matter, the quality of the script goes up dramatically. Cause the story is specific and authentic and, most importantly, feels like it’s really happening.

It makes a difference when a cop writes a screenplay about a cop. It makes a difference when a club promoter writes a story about a hot club in downtown Miami. They can get to places that nobody else can, and it makes a huge difference. Which is why we’ve always had the advice: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW. Because when you write what you know, you can write the most authentic story possible.

Well, you no longer have to write what you know. AI has made that advice obsolete.

I realized this because, for the longest time, I had this movie idea about a murder that occurs inside Area 51. I thought it would be fun to explore an investigation where the setting makes it impossible to do your job. And, also, inside a place that has so many secrets!

But I never wrote it because I knew NOTHING about that world. I don’t even know the difference between a general and a sergeant. I truly don’t! I don’t understand military hierarchy. And I definitely don’t understand what the day-to-day operations on Area 51 would be like. I would just be making things up and, trust me, when the writer is making shit up, the reader knows.

But a couple of months ago, for shits and giggles, I popped open Final Draft, opened up a tab in Firefox for Grok, and I started writing the script. Every time I had a question about how it would really be, I’d ask Grok. How do workers get into Area 51? It told me they fly over on a covert flight from Las Vegas airport every day. The movie is set in 1996, so I would ask it, “What kind of plane would they have flown into Area 51 at that time?” It told me the exact plane and what it looked like.

I asked it, “Who would greet my investigator when he arrived in Area 51?” It told me it didn’t know but based on common military protocol, it gave me its best guess. And I quickly realized how realistic I could make this all feel just by having this AI helper by my side.

And that’s when I realized, the world is wide open for writers now. You can never have engaged with an FBI agent in your life yet write a realistic FBI espionage thriller. You may have always wanted to write about The War of Scottish Independence in 1296 but were terrified that you wouldn’t be able to get the cadence or dialogue right for the time. Well, now you can just ask AI and it will tell you.

Or even something simple, like a legal show. We all know the notorious story about how the writer’s room of She-Hulk, which was a legal show, realized that none of them knew anything about the law or legal proceedings in a courtroom. If they would’ve written the series now, it would’ve been a million times easier. You can literally ask AI exactly how each step of a courtroom case would go down and it will tell you.

This is the most exciting thing to me about AI in the writing space by far. There have been so many fun ideas I’ve had over the years that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole because I knew I didn’t have the knowledge to pull them off. And now it’s like… the floodgates have opened. Anything is possible. It’s exciting.

I’m curious if anyone here has taken advantage of this. Or if you’re using AI for other writing tasks. Let me know!

This is a big recent spec sale to Lionsgate. It is being pitched as a “negotiator” version of Source Code

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: Unable to prevent a bomber from blowing up a hotel, a hostage negotiator finds himself stuck in a time loop, using the extra time to figure out who the determined bomber is and what he wants.
About: This script sold to Lionsgate last week. Here’s Deadline’s account of how it went down – “Townend’s deal is remarkable, we’re told, for a writer with no produced credits, particularly given that the script was taken out without any talent attachments. Sources described the outcome as a three-way bidding war that resulted in a mid-six-figure guaranteed fee against a low-seven-figure purchase/bonus. The script was taken out on the first Monday of April, and by Friday of that week, 20 premium production companies were chasing aggressively.” And for those long-time screenwriters who want a little bit of motivation, I have an e-mail from Mark dating all the way back to 2014!  11 years of writing to get to the sale.  So, always keep writing!
Writer: Mark Townend
Details: 108 pages

Hot spec alert hot spec alert hot spec alert hot spec alert.

And a very “Carson” hot spec it is. Sci-fi? Loop? Was this written just for me?

Let’s find out!

40-something Billy Aubrey is a negotiator. He’s also a terrible family man, which is why he’s on the outs with his wife and son. One day, he gets a call from his lawyer wife, who says she wants to have a big conversation with him.

First he goes to work, then he attends a conference, then he shows up at the hotel to talk to his wife. Only to spot a man in a parka with a detonator in his hand. Billy tries to approach him, ready to use his negotiating skills, but the man presses the button and everyone in the lobby, including Billy, is blown to bits.

But then Billy wakes up at the beginning of the same day. At first he assumes he had a nightmare. But when everything in the day happens exactly as before, he comes to the shocking conclusion that he’s stuck inside a loop. He’s a little more ready for the bomber (Chris) this time. But Chris still detonates the bomb.

Billy wakes up again, this time with new information. On day 1, he woke up at 6:47 am. Day 2, 7:47 am. Today, he’s woken up at 8:47am. He’s losing an hour with each reset. And the bomb? The bomb always goes off at 12:47. Which means he only has a few more shots to figure out what’s going on here.

He ropes in his disbelieving partner, Josie, and learns that there’s a major tech titan at the hotel that day. That must be Chris’s target. But with each reset, Billy finds out more about Chris, eventually getting his address. So he visits Chris’s house in the morning, where he finds that there are men there, men who are making Chris do this.

(Spoilers follow) That’s when things get really crazy. The men are talking to someone on the phone. They’re telling the mystery phone man, “He’s here. The target is here.” Which means that Billy…. IS THE TARGET. Which means now Billy has to figure out why he’s the target. He eventually realizes that a man from his past, his old partner John Rosen, who’s about to become mayor, is trying to dispose of him. With only one loop left, Billy will have to confront him and take him down.

We all know I love myself a time loop script.

But – and this is a continuation of yesterday’s theme – what are you adding to the time loop genre that’s new?

Here, the fresh addition is that, after every loop, we start the day 1 hour later. This adds a ticking time bomb (literally) to the proceedings since, sooner or later, we’re going to start too late into the day to prevent the bomb from blowing up.

The obvious question, then, is, “Is that different enough?”

My gut instinct answer is no. Like we talked about yesterday, the objective, when creating the “different” part of the “same but different” formula Hollywood likes, isn’t to win the logic debate. The “different” aspect that you add must *feel* genuinely different. And this doesn’t feel that different to me. It feels like a lot of other time loop scripts I read.

That doesn’t mean the script doesn’t work. From a structural standpoint, I like the idea that one hour disappears each day. It creates urgency inside a genre that is all about anti-urgency (a loop is endless – that’s the obstacle the hero faces). And the writer explains a potentially complicated rule-set (the loop moves forward 1 hour every reset) effortlessly, which I can tell you does NOT always happen. Many amateur scripts I read fall apart because their writers don’t explain their rules clearly enough.

I can tell you exactly when I knew this script would be ‘worth the read.’ It happens halfway into the script when Billy is at Chris’s house, trying to figure out why he’s determined to bomb the hotel, and he overhears the men in the other room – the ones making Chris do this – on the phone with someone saying, “We don’t know why but he’s here.” In other words, the tech guy isn’t the target. Billy is the target.

Why is this such an important plot development? Because I read scripts like this a lot – not loop scripts per se, but mystery thrillers – and nine out of ten writers would’ve gone with the tech guy as the target. The tech guy as the target is an *okay* plot choice. But it’s not sexy. It’s not that interesting. What’s interesting is your hero being the target because now the mystery deepens and the story becomes more personal.

So, why then, doesn’t the script score higher than “worth the read?” Because nothing surprising happens after that. The writer ties up the story threads he’s set up. But that’s all that is – tying up plot threads.

This is a dangerous trap that’s easy for screenwriters to fall into. They set up the pieces of their mystery and, at a certain point in the story, once we know what’s going on, the writer just goes through the motions of wrapping up every plot beat. (Spoilers) We know Rosen is the bad guy now so it’s just a matter of getting to him and taking him down. There are no new developments.

As screenwriters, we should always be looking to stay ahead of the reader. The reader should never get too comfortable, especially in the final act. But here, everything that I expected to happen in the final act happened. We could’ve still pushed in a few areas – had one last surprise or two.

White Lotus did a great job of this in its season finale. I don’t know anybody who predicted what was going to happen in that final episode. Because Mike White knows that you have to stay ahead of the reader. You can’t just use your final episode (or act) to tie everything up. You still have to titilate and excite and throw some curveballs at us.

With all that said, this is another good example of how sexy concepts capture the attention of readers. It doesn’t always mean they’re going to sell, like Renegotiate, but it gives you a much better chance in the marketplace.

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

What I learned: Beware of this word – INEVITABLE.  If anything is inevitable in your story, we’ve lost interest.  I’ll give you an example.  Return of the Jedi.  Everybody already knew that Luke and Leia were brother and sister.  But Luke and Leia had not had that conversation yet.  So it was INEVITABLE that Lucas had to write that scene.  Which is why the scene is one of the most boring in all of Star Wars.  Well, maybe not as boring as episodes 1-15 of Andor, but boring in the OG Star Wars universe.  My point is, you should always try to give a little more than what’s expected when you’re wrapping storylines up.  Cause it’s always going to be more interesting than that inevitable scene we’re all waiting for.  Here, once we knew about John Rosen and we’re just waiting for the inevitable showdown, I thought more could’ve been done.