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.

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!).

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A group of oil drillers on a plane ride home, crash in the arctic tundra, where they become hunted by a vicious pack of wolves.
About: Many probably know Carnahan as the upstart testosterone-filled director who broke out with “Blood, Guts, Bullets, and Octane.” He went on to make the well-received “Narc,” which led to a pre-couch-hopping call from Tom Cruise to become the next director in his Mission Impossible super-franchise. Things fell apart, Carnahan followed up with the all-over-the-place dud “Smokin’ Aces,” and that promising future seemed to be slipping away. Thank God for the ghost of Mr. T, because Carnahan jumped onboard the director-for-hire train and took on The A-Team. It was there that he apparently pitched Bradley Cooper his long gestating project about a group of plane crash victims trying to survive a pack of wolves. Cooper signed on and the movie is apparently a go (though where in the Bradley Cooper go-picture cycle it is, I’m not sure).
Writers: Joe Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (based on the short story ‘Ghost Walkers’ by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers)
Details: 120 pages (6/21/07)

Hell fucking yeah.

Plane crashes.

Wolves.

People trying to survive.

The Grey is a dark eerie thriller that deals with the most primal of human experiences: survival. Oh, and it does so in a way that puts all recent survival stories to shame. Because this script rocks.

We’re in the Arctic Tundra. An oil drilling station up in the coldest regions of the world. When your company gets up near the equator, you don’t exactly attract the lawyers and doctors of the world. You get the ex-cons, the fugitives, the murderers. The people no one else will accept.

In the middle of it all is Ottway, a sad, frustrated, conflicted man who it so pains to be away from the woman he loves, that he simply can’t take it anymore. Combine that with being out in this vast depressing ice desert, stuck with all these cro-magnums, sunlight peeking out two hours a day at most, and you understand why he’s out here, away from the other men, with a gun to his head, considering ending it all. But something…some unknown force…brings him back from the edge. He’ll live. At least for one more day.

Lucky for him and the others, the company is flying the team back to Anchorage for a little recuperation. So everyone jumps on a 737, and they take off into a blizzard. Ottway drifts off, but less than an hour into the flight, there’s a large jolt, a twist, a turn, metallic wheezing, and the plane goes tumbling down. Twisted metal, fire, fuselage everywhere. Almost everyone’s dead. Just a handful of men survive. There’s Ottway, Luttinger (a bear of a man), Flannery (a sort of Bill Paxton type from Aliens) and Pike (the troublemaker), along with a few others.

Nobody’s able to keep their shit together. They are out in the middle of the North fucking Pole, employees of a company they know is too cheap to send out a rescue team to find them. But the only one who understands the true severity of their situation is Ottway, and he quickly takes charge. They need to set up a fire and they need to find food. Fast. As the others gradually slide out of shock, they begin to notice they have visitors. Wolves. Off in the distance. Staring. Pacing. Observing.

But these aren’t ordinary wolves. They’re bigger. More viscious. Unafraid. A genetic result of being forced to hunt bigger pray out here in the middle of nowhere. So they’re stronger. And they’ve never seen humans before. So they’re not afraid of them. They simply see them as another animal species invading their territory. And for that reason, they need to be killed.

And that’s exactly what they start doing. Instantly picking off our men, one by one. At first they wait for them to walk off alone, to go the bathroom. But soon they’re impatient with even that approach, and literally run into the group, grabbing their prey, and pulling the helpless men back to the pack, as they’re chewed apart alive.

It would be over much quicker if it weren’t for Ottway. He’s been out in the middle of nowhere before. He’s hunted animals. Wolves in fact. He understands them. And he’s their only chance at survival.

And the assessment is that out here, they’re toast. They need to get to the forest, where they’ll have cover. But if dealing with hungry killer wolves weren’t bad enough, the lawless Pike disagrees with nearly everything Ottway suggests. Pike wants to be the leader here, and his continual insubordination is threatening to kill them from the inside before they’re killed from the outside.

There are no big plot twists here. No surprises. No trickery or unique structure. It’s a very simple story. Group of Men vs. Group of Wolves. Battle for survival. And what makes it so compelling, is that the men are so grossly overmatched. They’re out of their element, starving, freezing, and the only one that understands the gravity of their predicament is a man that just yesterday wanted to end his life.

What I loved about The Grey was just how realistic it all was. You could feel the ice on your fingers. You could hear the wind kicking up the snow. And Carnahan and Jeffers supplement it with an “in your face” style full of italics and underlines. Normally that stuff annoys me, but here, it feels appropriate, as it embodies the immediacy and second-to-second struggle these men are going through.

And there’s something about Ottway that just makes you root for him. I love characters who want to end their life, only to be thrown in a situation where they must fight for it. Outside of the irony, it’s moving to see that moment a character realizes just how valuable life is. Ottway spends much of the opening speaking in voice over and his words are so real, so intense, they pierce you, bonding you with this man forever. As the odds become stacked higher and higher against him, you pray that beyond all reason, he’ll somehow find a way to survive, to find shelter, to find help. And yet, instinctively, you know no one’s coming to help him.

And then of course there’s the wolves. Oh the wolves. They’ll do what no other wolves would dare do. Run right into the pack, snatch you away, and chow on your throat as they drag you back to their kill den. This ain’t the French-kissing Taylor Lautner kind of wolf, nosiree. But the most terrifying of them all is the Alpha Male, the wolf that’s even bigger than all the other abnormally large wolves. Watching him observe these men from a distance, seeing eyes that almost appear intelligent, plotting, is what brings the reality of this situation to bear. And one of the cooler threads was the parallel between the alpha male relationship to the wolves in the wolfpack, and the alpha-male relationship to the humans in the human pack. As we jump back and forth, we realize these carnivores aren’t that much different from each other. It was all just done to perfection.

If there’s something that can be improved, it’s probably the secondary characters. Outside of Flannery and Pike, none of the other men stood out. And there’s a lot of places you can go with a pool of murderers and ex-cons. I thought that could’ve been fun to explore. But this is a 2007 draft, so I have a feeling they may have addressed that issue. Still, I hope they haven’t messed with anything else. This was an intense harsh thrill-packed ride from cover to cover, and I think it works perfectly the way it is.

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

What I learned: Voice over is one of those things that, unless you know what you’re doing, you just shouldn’t fuck with. But when done well, it does a great job of quickly connecting you to the main character – helping you identify with and care for them in a manner that’s just not possible without hearing their thoughts. I dare you to read the opening 10 pages, hear Ottway’s voice over, and not sympathize with him, not want to root for him.

Back before the internet, film studios used to spend untold millions on predicting the box office. The closer they could get to predicting a movie’s opening weekend, the more accurately they could plug the numbers into their “hit-maker” equation for the next round of summer tentpoles. Of course studios still spend a ton of money playing Nostradamus, but let’s face it – These days, anyone with a love for film and a few key movie blogs bookmarked can predict a film’s opening weekend within three million dollars. We know the hits before they hit us. We know the duds before they’re dumped on us. It’s not like the mid-nineties, where guessing a movie’s opening gross made you some sort of internet rock star.

However, even with all their tools and their stat-charts and their polling and their surveys and their test-screenings. And even with our Playlists and our Slash-Films and our First Showings and our Colliders…every once in awhile a film comes along that bucks the predictions. You would think this would be cause for celebration. But oh how it is not. It is a cause for fear. If a movie ends up being way bigger than the professional trackers thought it would be, that means they didn’t do their jobs. So everyone scrambles to try and figure out: What the hell went wrong?

Their answers quickly turn into a list of excuses. And most of those excuses revolve around two words: “Middle America.” Middle America can pretty much be used as an excuse for any miscalculation ANYWHERE. I’m not just talking about movies. You accidentally put too much ketchup on your hot dog? Middle America’s fault. Your boss is pissing you off? Middle America. Celebrity Trump? Middle America. Okay, maybe that last one is true. But come on, let’s be serious for a second. We can’t pin all our bad predictions on the that pudgy central section of the country. Sometimes, we have to take responsibility for our actions (the key word here is “sometimes” – not always).

So it’s with this spirit that I want to take a look at five surprise hits and see what we can learn from them as screenwriters. I do not claim to have all the answers here. I merely want to figure out what I believe we can learn from each film, and open up a discussion for you guys to add your thoughts.

Now I know a lot of people are going to point out that marketing and casting and directing had a much bigger effect on these box office successes than anything a screenwriter did. While I won’t discount that there are many variables involved in a film’s success, I will say that it all starts with the writer, and he/she has a much bigger impact on that final number than he/she’s often given credit for. The writer (assuming the idea is theirs) is responsible for two things: A great concept – something that can be easily presented and marketed in posters, TV spots, and trailers. And secondly, of course, a great story – something that moves audiences, something that titillates, excites, and entertains them. The former brings them into the theater, the latter brings them and their friends back. Except for adapted material, writers are responsible for both of these things. So keeping that in mind, let’s see what we can learn from these surprise hits.

ZOMBIELAND
Rough Projected First Weekend Gross: 12-15 mil
Actual First Weekend Gross: 24 mil
Rough Projected Total Gross: 35-42 mil
Actual Total Gross: 75 mil
Written by: Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick

What we can learn: People kept trying to get me to read this before it came out but as his been my M.O., I wasn’t exactly thrilled by another zombie clone. Then I saw the trailer and I realized this was anything but the newest boxcar on the stock zombie train. This was a film that took the zombie premise and turned it into something fun. That fun is what brought so many people into the theater. But where Zombieland excels, is in how it keeps you in the theater. The script does something rare for a film aimed at a young audience – it put its characters first. In a world where we’re used to zombie films birthing cardboard cutouts whose depth is measured by how many three-syllable words they can use, Zombieland dares to go deeper. And in a straight comedy no less. Each of these characters is trying to overcome a lifelong series of walls they’ve put up to guard against the world. Each of these characters is trying to learn how to connect with other human beings. In other words, they’re going through the same types of things that a lot of us are. Columbus has led his entire existence shutting himself off from the world. Tallahasse hides behind his anger. Wichita refuses to trust anyone besides her sister. These clearly defined characters are what separates Zombieland from so many other horror films out there. Now you may be saying, “Carson, do you really believe that character development has anything to do with why this film did well at the box office?” Hell yes I do. Giving us characters with depth in a genre known for its lack of depth is exactly what gave this film such a fresh feel. When you don’t do that right in a horror comedy, you get Jennifer’s Body, a movie that by all accounts should’ve left Zombieland in the dust at the box office. It co-starred two of the hottest young actresses in Hollywood for Christ’s sake. And yet still it bombed. So never underestimate the power of character depth, particularly in genres where it’s usually ignored.

DISTRICT 9
Rough Projected First Weekend Gross: 20-23 mil
Actual First Weekend Gross: 37 mil
Rough Projected Total Gross: 60-70 mil
Actual Total Gross: 116 mil
Writers: Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

What we can learn: There are two ways to approach spec screenplays. Two ways to write a screenplay that sells. The first is to take a known formula, and execute it perfectly. Think the heist flick Inside Man, the buddy cop film 48 Hours, or the romantic comedy Notting Hill. None of those movies rewrote the book on screenwriting, but they were all expertly executed for what they were. The reason I don’t favor this approach is that it’s really hard to execute anything perfectly. Of course it *seems* easy – but once you start writing, you realize it isn’t easy in the least. It’s much smarter (and easier) to do it the way District 9 did. Take a well-known story and find a new angle to it. I just talked about this yesterday in my review of “The Resident.” We’ve seen “Fatal Attraction”-type thrillers a hundred times. But we hadn’t seen it with shifting points of view. Same thing happens here with District 9. We’ve seen the “aliens invade earth” plot a thousand times. Aliens come down, aliens try to wipe out or enslave humans, humans fight back. So director Neill Blomkamp said, “Well what if aliens came down, and instead of them trying to enslave us, we tried to enslave them?” Every single thing you knew about the genre was flipped on its head. Every area you explored was going to be unique because it’d never been done before! This is why District 9 feels so fresh and new. And fresh and new is what brings people into the theater. So when you get an idea, you need to challenge yourself. You need to ask yourself if it’s been done before. And if it has? You need to pick at it and pry at it and flip it and redesign it until it’s unique. I’ll give you a scary fact. The number 1 reason a screenplay fails is that its concept isn’t interesting enough to be made into a movie. So stop worrying so much about what’s happening IN your story, and make sure it’s a story worth telling in the first place.

TAKEN
Rough Projected First Weekend Gross: 10-12 mil
Actual First Weekend Gross: 25 mil
Rough Projected Total Gross: 50-60 mil
Actual Total Gross: 145 mil
Written by: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen

What we can learn: Taken explores one of the most powerful dramatic situations there is, the kidnapping. The genre itself is pretty simple. All you have to do is: a) Make us fall in love with a character. b) Have that character get kidnapped. c) Have our protagonist try to find him/her before it’s too late. But while most writers enjoy focusing on “b” and “c,” they forget that the key to making the genre work is “a.” WE – MUST – LOVE – THE – CHARACTER WHO GETS KIDNAPPED. Period. Surprisingly, writers don’t spend enough time introducing us to this character. As a result, we don’t care if our hero finds them. And if we don’t care about the chase in a chase movie, honey child, you don’t have a movie. HOW much time you should take introducing the character is up to you. But the less time you give us with them, the more impactful those scenes must become. Great writers can make us fall in love with a character in a single scene. But for most of us, it takes longer. Taken actually takes a big chance– spending a full 25 minutes with the daughter before she’s kidnapped. In my opinion, this was the big risk that made Taken work. The first act definitely dragged in places, but because we were around this daughter so much, because we were allowed to see the love our protagonist had for her, it solidified our understanding of their relationship, and sent our desire to see them reunited through the roof. – A side note to all this is that the “kidnapped” genre is very similar to the “revenge” genre. In both cases, our protagonist is going after the bad guy. There’s one key difference though. In the kidnapped genre, there’s the benefit of the character being found alive. This not only gives us the hope of a happy ending (translates into: more marketable) but it includes a natural ticking time bomb. Every second that our protagonist doesn’t get to our bad guys is an extra second where the kidnapped character could be killed. In that vein, it’s a smarter genre script to write than revenge, because in the revenge script, there is no urgency or ticking time bomb (they’re already dead) and there’s no hope for a possible happy ending (did I mention they were dead). I liked “Edge of Darkness,” but it was clear as soon as the daughter died that the script was going to end very darkly. Unfortunately, as great as this formula is, the market’s been saturated with Taken-like scripts for the better part of a year. So you’ll have to wait awhile to write yours. The only way to make it work now is to put another spin on it (read “District 9” above). Set it in the Old West. Show both points-of-view. But please, don’t write another staright-forward Taken clone.

THE BLIND SIDE
Rough Projected First Weekend Gross: 14-18 mil
Actual First Weekend Gross: 34 mil
Rough Projected Total Gross: 50 mil
Actual Total Gross: 245 mil
Writer: John Lee Hancock (based on the book written by Michael Lewis)

What we can learn: Whoa. Just give me a second here. Whoa. This is the one movie surprise that I still haven’t wrapped my brain around. And for that reason, I’m very tempted to blame Middle America. But being the good soldier and screenwriting-warrior-in-search-of-truth that I am, I will look to find another reason why The Blind Side became the most shocking surprise hit of the year. Maybe I should explain why I’m shocked first. It’s quite simple really. The screenplay for The Blind Side wasn’t very good. The story, as far as I could tell, is about a well-off family who takes a homeless kid in who ends up parlaying the opportunity into an eventual career in the NFL. Despite this, there isn’t a single down of football played until page 60! The first 59 pages are dedicated to the family getting to know the kid. Sixty! Pages! To make matters worse, despite all that extra time, the character development outside of Sandra Bullock and the boy is paper thin. But alas, as I dug further into this scrap pile for meaning, there IS something I realized we could can learn from it. It doesn’t exactly explain why the film made 245 million dollars. But it does help that struggling screenwriter looking for an advantage over his competition: Write a screenplay with a compelling female lead character. Remember, the majority of writers out there write screenplays with male protagonists. This leaves virtually no options out there for A-list actresses in search of a great lead role. This forces them to search out meaty parts on the risky independent circuit (i.e. Charlize Theron in “Monster”). And the problem with that is, that world is extremely hit or miss. So when a Super Femme A-Lister finds a great leading role AND that role is in a film that will actually be seen? They’re going to fight over that can of meat like a pack of rabid wolves. Once you have an A-Lister like Bullock attached to your project, you’re going to get your big payday, and your shot to become next year’s surprise shocker being debated on a tiny screenwriting blog. Like The Blind Side.

THE HANGOVER
Rough Projected First Weekend Gross: 30-33 mil
Actual First Weekend Gross: 45 mil
Rough Projected Total Gross: 90-100 mil
Actual Total Gross: 277 mil
Written By: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

What we can learn: Let’s get something out of the way quick. The Hangover gained a lot of momentum coming up to its release. So it wasn’t a total shocker like a few of these others. But nobody, and I mean nobody, expected it to make 277 million dollars and finish as the 6th highest grossing movie of the year! With that said, let’s get into it. — If there’s any film on this list that owes its success to its screenplay, it’s this one. The script was widely accepted as one of the funnier scripts around town before it was made (It was in my Top 25 before it came out), it didn’t have any stars to guarantee an opening weekend, it went up against the best of the best – the 150-200 million dollar behemoths studios put out in the summer, its word-of-mouth was the best of the summer. If you are a comedy screenwriter and you are looking for your next idea, The Hangover is your bible. But what is it you’re specifically supposed to take away from this film’s success? Well, it reinforces one of the oldest and most important rules of screenwriting: Concept Concept Concept. The Hangover did 90% of its work before it was ever written: It came up with a high concept highly marketable idea that inspired an endless supply of comedic scenarios. I remember reading an earlier version of the script, and there were 3 or 4 main sequences that were different from the final film. And they were all just as funny. Legendary producer Lynda Obst once said about the film “Flashdance,” which was famously developed for over 10 years and had dozens of different incarnations, that in the end it didn’t matter. It was the concept of a female dancer who was a steel worker that ensured the movie would succeed. Same thing holds true with The Hangover. So before you do any writing, you need to make sure you have that great concept. But how do you know whether you have that great concept? Well, you gotta do something that not a lot of writers are comfortable doing and it’s something that Blake Snyder used to publish entire books about. You have to pitch your ideas to people and you have to force them to be honest with you. Preferably, do it to their face or on the phone. It’s so easy to tell if your idea is good just by the look on someone’s face. Do they look confused? Is there a long pause? Are their eyes dead as you explain it to them? Are they drifting? These clues tell you everything you need to know about your concept. You know your idea’s good when people immediately get excited about it. When their eyes come alive, when they’re offering suggestions or actively engaging you as you explain it to them. Another approach I’ve learned is effective is to mix in your idea with a few other ideas you have, and then include some other movie ideas as well (good ideas of films in development that the general public doesn’t know about). Send that list out to 20 of your best friends and ask them what their top 3 favorite ideas are. If your idea isn’t consistently finishing 1 or 2, I’ve got bad news for you, it’s probably not good enough.

To summarize, right now you should be thinking of a high concept idea that flips a typical plot on its head, where someone gets kidnapped, the lead role is played by a woman, and all of the characters are well-developed. Anyone care to pitch their new concept in the comments section?

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A woman moves into a large apartment, only to realize that someone may be watching her…from the inside.
About: The Resident will star Hilary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Christopher Lee. Newcomer and hot video director Antti J. Jokinen is directing from a script that he co-wrote. The new production arm of Hammer Films is producing. They are probably best known as the company who will bring us the American remake of “Let The Right One In.” And they are not in any way affiliated with MC Hammer. As far as I know.
Writers: Robert Orr and Antti J. Jokinen – rewrite by Erin Cressida Wilson
Details: 99 pages (April 9, 2009 draft)

Hilary Swank’s film “Amelia” was one of those doomed projects from the outset. It had to be made, because in this age of biopics, Earheart’s story is too compelling not to make, but – and I hate to say this because of how Hollywood it sounds – there’s something about Earheart’s look that doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t know if it’s the short hair. I don’t know if it’s the energy. I don’t know if it’s the subject matter, but just like I wasn’t interested in watching Johnny Depp play gangster dress-up, I wasn’t interested in watching Hillary Swank play doomed pilot dress up.

And here Swank is, by most accounts a perfect choice for the role, getting sucked into that black hole. She could’ve given the best performance of her life, and no one would’ve known because nobody showed up to see it. So when you’re a star and have a public bomb, the next project you choose is an important one. Hollywood may be a little more tolerant of their actors than their directors, but string a trio of duds together, and you’re looking at a co-starring role opposite Val Kilmer in a movie called “Passion Kill” that’s cutting side-deals with local Redbox Kiosks to have their poster featured on the new release panel.

And when you’re in that quagmire, the thriller is the perfect genre to take a chance in. Because when you think about it, you’re really not taking that big of a chance. Thrillers are cheap to make, so if the studios realize they’re bad after they’re done, they can skimp on the advertising and cut their losses. We the consumer don’t notice that “Big Name Actress A” is in a new film, so when it bombs bigger than Nagasaki, it does so under the radar and the star’s profile is kept intact. It’s like getting a mulligan. On the flip side, a good thriller has the potential to really break out. Silence Of The Lambs, Seven, Kiss The Girls, Double Jeopardy, The Ring (Horror-Thriller), these kinds of movies can propel a struggling actor/actress back onto the radar. It’s the movie equivalent of low-risk high-reward.

So it’s no surprise that Swank has hinged her next effort on the genre. Now all you need is a good script and it’s back to battling for Oscars. Simple, right?

Juliet Dermer is an ER doctor whose life drastically changes when she finds her husband in bed with another woman. Forced to go on her own for the first time in a long time, she faces a far more challenging task than fixing a marriage. Yeah, I’m talking about finding an affordable apartment in New York. After the expected glut of garbage options (studios barely bigger than a walk-in closet) she happens upon a beautiful sprawling living space in an old building, and guess what? It’s going for 1/10 the asking price of similar apartments. One of the first lessons my dad ever taught me was that if it’s too good to be true? It probably is. Juliet’s father obviously never taught her this lesson.

Max, a studly man’s man who looks an awful lot like that guy who died in Gray’s Anatomy (not that I’ve ever seen it) is the kind but slightly odd owner of the building. About as comfortable in a social situation as your local Spelling Bee champ, Max spends every waking hour working on and improving the building. He plays off the super cheap apartment price by pointing out its many problems (including an underground maintenance train that runs through every so often). But you still get the sense that it’s just a little…too cheap. Well, at least we get that sense. Juliet, on the other hand, is fed up with looking. She just wants a place to sleep at night and this building, with all its imperfections, is far and away her best option.

So Juliet moves in, and her and Max begin a slow but meaningful friendship. During this time, she’s sizing him up. Here is a man who could have any woman in the world, yet has such a warped sense of his self-worth, he’s barely able to look them (or her) in the eye. Now to you or me that might equal: Red Flag. To Juliet though? Boyfriend material!

In the meantime, Juliet’s picture perfect apartment is starting to show its imperfections. All the things she fell in love with about it initially, don’t seem so charming anymore. That warehouse-type space? It sure causes a lot of shadows at night. And she knows its not possible but every once in awhile she feels like someone might be…in those shadows. Watching her.

Juliet then makes the intriguing decision to invite Max over for dinner, afterwards hopping into the bedroom with plans to go to the bone zone. Only right before the deed is done, Juliet has a change of heart, and tells Max that the date was a mistake. Uhhhhhh…yeah. This is going to go over well. Cause the guy who sometimes acts a little “weird?” The guy who has a key to every room in the building? Those nights you think you’re being watched? Well, they might be more connected than you think, sister.

As I was reading The Resident, I couldn’t help but feel like it was too plain. I really like simple thrillers, and for the most part, I was enjoying myself, but I wanted something more from the material. Luckily, after we head into the second act, I got my wish. The Resident shocked me by jumping back in time, and telling the same story but this time from Max’s point-of-view. This was exactly the twist I needed and it really works. We begin to see why Max is so strange, and just how deep that strangeness goes. But the reason it works so well, is that we learn that Juliet was right. She was being watched. And now we get to see where and how Max watched her. Now I’m not going to lie. The Resident makes some questionable choices with this technique, flipping back and forth between terrifying and silly. But for most of the story, we’re pretty fucking terrified by what’s going on.

There’s quite a few things I enjoyed about the script. First of all, it does a great job at shaping sympathy for both characters. Everybody knows how awful it feels to be cheated on, so we like Juliet right away. But strangely, we also sympathize with Max. The guy’s clearly had a fucked up childhood and when it comes down to it, Juliet screwed him over in a big way, so when we’re in Max’s point-of-view, spying on Juliet, there’s this tiny evil part of us that almost understands him. As much as you can understand a fucked up psychotic weirdo potential serial killer who watches a woman from the shadows of an apartment, of course.

I’m also starting to better appreciate how writers texture their screenplays. Once you’ve done all the heavy lifting (plot, character, structure), how do you give your story a distinctness that sets it apart from everything else? I loved how Orr, Jokinen and Wilson placed this building over an underground maintenance train that rolls through every once in awhile, shaking its bricks and rattling its pipes. We’ve seen this kind of thing before, but making it a maintenance train – a train devoid of any human beings – almost ghost-like – that’s what really got me. It’s a minor detail and yet it brings the building alive, almost makes it a character. It’s easy to forget how much of an effect those kinds of things can have on a reader.

The Resident is a cross between Fatal Attraction and Psycho. It’s got enough going for it to justify its existence, and I quite enjoyed the read.

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

What I learned: Where I’m from, there’s two type of folk. Those who ain’t. And those who are knee-high on a grasshopper. Which type ain’t you ain’t? You all come back now. — Okay, that’s not what I learned. But that is the funniest line I’ve heard in ages. And 10 extra credit points for anyone who can tell me what show it’s from. – As for what I learned. This script was a great reminder to never give up looking for a different way to tell your story. Most beginner/amateur writers would’ve written this story with a straight-forward approach. And while it probably would’ve been decent, it wouldn’t have stood out the way it does by switching POVs. So take a step back from the script you’re working on and ask, “Is there some way I can make this story different from every other story like it?” You don’t want to force anything. In other words, switching POVs wouldn’t have worked for every script out there. But I guarantee you there’s something you can do to make your script stand apart from the pack.

Poor Sherlock Holmes! By even the most conservative estimates, the movie was a solid success, and yet no one I know has even mentioned it to me. Why? Because it was swallowed up by the Na’vi! Those giant blue creatures stole Guy Ritchie’s thunder, and probably millions of dollars from the film’s coffers. This movie could have been a sensation, blanketing movie blogs with stories about “the return of the most popular movie character of all time.” By that internet real estate was given to James Cameron’s behemoth. Poor Robert Downey Jr. Who knows if his career will ever recover. Anyway, friend of the site and sometimes reviewer Michael Stark is here to give us his take on another Sherlock Holmes project that was bandied about but never made. Let’s give him our full undivided attention, assuming we’re not strapping on our 3-D glasses and watching Avatar for the fifth time.

Genre: Mash-up of gothic horror and action/adventure.
Premise: Holmes vs. Drac. Nuff said, Pilgrim.
About: Christopher Columbus would have directed this unproduced fanboy fave if it wasn’t for that damned Harry Potter. Jude Law was ironically considered as Holmes. Script sold for 700k against 1.1 million. Marc Gordon is the producer on the project. Sony is currently still sitting on the project.
Writer: Michael B Valle
Details: 126 pages (I imagine an early if not first draft)

We are the Sherlock Holmes English Speaking Vernacular Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula
“The Village Green Preservation Society” – The Kinks

Professor Stark once again will take the Wayback Machine down to the lowermost levels of development hell, armed only with a crucifix, a feather duster and his trusted fireplace bellows to brush off an old spec script that deservedly– and with due market diligence — should rise again.

It’s elementary, my dear execs. After the rollicking success of the DowneyRitchie Sherlock Holmes and the non-stop obsession of all things bloodsucking, Sherlock Holmes and The Vengeance of Dracula seems a no-brainer to un-stake and re-slate.

Holmes vs. Drac (my shorthand retitling) is an action adventure based on existing material (in the public-freaking-domain) that has had proven worldwide appeal for over one hundred years. So, why not, in the entrepreneurial spirit of Alien vs. Predator, Freddy vs. Jason and Godzilla vs. Mothra put these two Victorian superstars together in one, big, expensive, creature feature?!! Hell, Columbia, you already own the script.

Holmes vs. Drac was a spec written by novice scribe, Michael Valle, bought by Columbia in 1999 for $700,000 against a cool million with Christopher Columbus eager to direct. Aging fanboys will recall that ChrisCo wrote the Spielberg produced, Young Sherlock Holmes way back in 1985. Cause all spec scripts must be heavily rewritten, Rand Ravich was later hired to change things up a bit. Valle unfortunately passed away in 2001 and the project seemed to slip from ChrisCo’s consciousness as he embarked onto Harry Potterdom. The script is such an industry and fan favorite that Uberfanboy Harry Knowles openly pleaded with ChristCo to turn the beat around on his “favorite unproduced script”. Now, I too join Harry’s battle cry, adding only:

Just don’t turn the damn thing into Van Helsing!

I did indeed dig Holmes vs. Drac. But, heck, it’s my kinda Weird Tale. I’m a genre-mash-up-period-piece fanatic who loves penny dreadfuls, gothic ghost stories, Victorian bodice rippers, rickety steam powered contraptions, the foggiest of moors, extremely haunted castles, clockwork turks, consulting detectives and the whole lot of Universal Movie Monsters as long as they are terrorizing the Village Green or Queen Vic’s London.

Hell, my writing partner and I just finished scribbling one of these period piece mash-ups ourselves. (Will the usually lazy copyeditor, Carson, let that little self-promotional plug remain? Only the Shadow knows.)

Now, intrepid reader, if you don’t like pulp novels, old movies and comic books, this definitely won’t be your cup of tea. You may want to skip ahead to the next romcom or contained thriller soon to be reviewed here. But, for those few intrepid souls still standing – err, seated — let’s enter the inner sanctum and deconstruct this mother.

Now, these two dudes have crossed swords previously on paper in Fred Saberhagen’s “Seance for a Vampire” and Loren D. Estleman’s “Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula”, proving once again there is very little new under the sun, especially when you’re hijacking famous characters for your plots.

So, how does Valle bring our two literary icons together? Knowledge of the Stoker and Conan Doyle universes is handy but not altogether mandatory to enjoy this ripping yarn. Count Dracula returns to England to exact revenge on Van Helsing, Dr. John Seward and Lord Godalming, who kind-of-almost-sort-of defeated the evil Romanian in the original canon. The stake through the heart wasn’t quite enough to kill the Nosferatu. I hate to say I told you so, but you needed to cut his bloody head off too.

Vengeful Vlad goes after Godalming first, setting up his murder as a convincing suicide. Unbeknownst to the Count, the guy had a perky & pretty Nancy Drew of a cousin, Constance Bracknell, who is suspicious enough to hire the world’s most famous consulting detective to take a closer look. Usually I can’t stand the contrivance of the spirited young lady playing junior detective, but somehow Valle charmingly pulls it off. Maybe cause I really have a crush on this fictional character. Is that wrong? She’s awfully hot.

Meanwhile, Holme’s arch enemy, Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime, is intrigued by the rusty ship the vampire sailed in on. Thinking he is robbing some priceless artifacts, his men unwittingly disturb the Count’s coffin. The surviving thug’s story of the bat-attack piques the Prof’s interests even more than the silver and gold he thought he was stealing.

So, now it’s a race against time between Holmes and Moriarty to see who finds Dracula first. Holmes vows to stop the monster before he kills again. Moriarty wants to become a vamp himself, making him the ultimate, unstoppable, immortal mastermind criminal.

Now, that’s an awesome premise right there. But, it gets even better. The Professor gets to Dracula first and when the vamp eventually betrays his new best friend, Moriarty must suck it up and team up with Holmes to stop the Count from taking over London (and then the world) with his fiendish Fu Manchu worthy plot.

Moving forward, the ante amazingly keeps getting pushed further up with Holmes becoming a fugitive from the law, Watson getting bit and Constance literally torn between two lovers.

Whew! That’s all the plot I’m gonna spoil, cause you’re gonna read it. Right?

The script definitely lives up to its thrill ride status. Even at a bloated 126 pages, it kept me turning and guessing till the end. The only thing noticeably absent was the mandatory action flick humor. Given, neither Sherlock Holmes nor Dracula were exactly known for cracking wise, but previous screen incarnations would use Watson or Drac’s human lackeys for a little comic relief. Downey’s re-invention gives the detective a healthy dose of sarcasm and narcissism for our amusement. We’ll compare the choices between these two scripts later.

For your mandatory character arc, Valle’s Sherlock must open his mind to the unscientific possibilities of the supernatural (faith vs reason, Jack) and his hermetically sealed heart to Constance, who Dracula, of course, has sized up as a tasty potential lifemate.

Holmes vs. Drac is both a throwback to the atmospheric Universal and Hammer horror flicks and the Spielbergian reinvention of serialized amazing adventure stories. There are some fantastic action sequences (some tailored made for a theme park ride), colorful secondary characters (I especially liked Mollie, the hot, trampy vamp) and enough violence and gore to keep the young kids from texting throughout the whole deal.

There’s even a scene out of The Lost Boys where our two unlikely allies drum up some monster-killing weapons with their limited Victorian-tech. How I love Steampunk, clockwork Victorian tech. Ach, it’s my geeky weakness. Oh, Lord, how I want a mechanical woman with her gear shafts showing.

Eek, have I turned into Roger Balfour???

Okay, it’s quite up my creepy alley, but the script is not without its flaws. I know that I probably read the first draft and that I’ll incur the wrath of Knowles for saying it, but the thing may be a ton of fun, but it still needs some tinkering.

That brings us to our first point of discussion. Does a script have to be perfect to sell? Or to even be brought to market? Can it skate by with just a nifty high concept alone? In today’s incredibly shrinking spec script market, can one still sell by premise alone? Was the bought-for-mega bucks Medieval anywhere near faultless? Faithful Script Shadow readers please make voice in the comment section.

The biggest bit of trouble with Holmes vs Drac is that there’s a hell of a lot of dialogue. Vast pages and pages and pages of it. Although the speech is authentic to the pulps and penny novels of the time, it clunks on cement by today’s standards. I’m sure the first thing the execs ordered was a STAT dialogue polish. Which brings us to our second topic of discussion for the boards. How do you write a period piece that will both appeal to purists, fanboys, tweens and civilians alike?

We may find the answer by comparing this Holmes to the recent blockbuster. While Valle voices every detail of the detective’s great deductive process ala the early Rathbone films, Ritchie’s writers show it instead of just telling it. Guy’s characters aren’t Thoroughly Modern Millies, but they sidestep some of the more cliched conversational conventions of the genre. Valle’s draft unfortunately is awash with loving lemons like “You foiled my daring plot.” And “Your primitive brain has no conception how precious this treasure is.”

Even for an old movie buff like myself those exchanges made the read a little plodding at times.

So, how do you hold onto the nostalgia and romanticism without getting too quaint and corny? How do you avoid turning this awesome homage into another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Somehow those producers wove genius source material into dull straw, managing to destroy our collective memories of Alan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Mr. Hyde and the Invisible Man in one fell swoop.

On the other side of the slug, how do you avoid making a Van Helsing? Obviously that team had a great love and respect for the pantheon of Universal Monster Movies, but the film didn’t just run off the rails, it didn’t have any rails to begin with. It was a little too much fun!

What’s the proper mix? When does a retro feel suddenly slide into parody? Do you think The Rocketeer pulled it off? The Mummy? Or Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow? The first Indiana Jones is still the gold standard for this kind of flick, a formula that even Spielberg himself hasn’t always been able to duplicate.

Valle’s script affectionately keeps Conan Doyle’s and Stoker’s characters extremely true to textbook form. But does that form still fly today? These are reboot times where even Spiderman, a film only nine years young, is going through a total retooling. Can the likes of Dracula and Sherlock Holmes dare remain the way they always were? Or must they be transformed into emo teens and bare-knuckled, shirtless brawlers for today’s tastes?

Truth be told, Sherlock Holmes and The Vengeance of Dracula probably could have used a minor face-lift. I’d like to have seen his Holmes a lot less Jeremy Brent and a bit more Robert Downey Jr. And, Dracula needed to be channeling his inner Gary Oldman rather than his legendary, long-winded Lugosi.

If a writer dares to bring an iconic literary figure into their work, I still believe they can bend the rules a bit and make them totally (kinda-sorta) their own creation.

I give this script an impressive. Cause even with the few warts exposed, I think the writer was just a draft or two away from totally nailing it. It being a huge tentpole franchise that would’ve rained money down from heaven. You write the next Pirates of the Caribbean and I’ll be pretty impressed by you too.

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

What I learned: It isn’t always easy borrowing famous characters for your narrative. If you re-imagine them too much, you can have more protestors than The Last Temptation of Christ. Plus, being both in the public domain and the collective consciousness, a few hundred other writers are probably putting Alice in Hoboken and Robin Hood on Mars just like you are.

Also, Holmes vs. Drac confirmed Professor Stark’s Fourth Rule of Screenwriting – always end your movie with a 50-foot tall monster. Hell, nothing less will do.