Bust out your Trapper Keepers and get this all down in your calanders!

This year, we’re going to have 11 showdowns at Scriptshadow. If you’re new to the site, a Showdown is when you send me a writing sample, I pick the best entries and post them on the site, then you guys spend the weekend voting on your favorite entry. The winning entry then gets reviewed on the site.

Normally, I’d announce each Showdown the month before. But I want everyone to have that information ahead of time so that you can prepare the best submissions possible.

We’re going to start off with one of my favorite showdowns to run, the LOGLINE SHOWDOWN. Except there’s a little twist! Instead of only submitting one logline, you must submit FIVE loglines. I will choose your best logline. That logline will be officially entered into the competition. I will then choose ten loglines to compete in the showdown.

As a bonus, even if you don’t make the cut, I will tell every single person who enters what their best logline was. The secondary goal of this showdown is to find your next script to write. So, at the very least, I’m going to tell you which of your five ideas you should turn into a script.

JANUARY – 5 LOGLINES SHOWDOWN

What: 5 Loglines Showdown
When: Friday, January 30
Deadline: Thursday, January 31, 11pm Pacific Time
Submit: 5 loglines, each with a title and a genre
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

Okay, let’s move on to the rest of the showdowns

FEBRUARY – FIRST PAGE SHOWDOWN

Not enough writers understand the art of keeping the reader’s attention. They write for themselves rather than placing themselves in the minds of their readers and asking what would entertain them. That first page tells the reader SO MUCH about you. Namely, it poses the question: Would you keep reading? Would we?

MARCH – SCENE SHOWDOWN

Scene-writing is script-writing. You cannot write a script until you first understand how to write a dramatically compelling scene with a beginning, middle, and end. Something that conveys character wants. Something that shows you understand how to inject conflict into a scenario. Most of all, a scene displays whether you know how to be entertaining. This is your chance to prove all that.

APRIL – TWIST ENDING SHOWDOWN

I felt like we needed to have fun with a couple of these showdowns so these next two are, admittedly, different. You will write a short script that MUST HAVE a twist ending. Twist endings are super hard to write but when they work, they turn a script into a must-read.

MAY – CHARACTER INTRO SHOWDOWN

I thought we all knew how important introducing a character was. Yet I continue to read scripts with weak character intros! This is your chance to change that. If I told you that you had to create the best character in cinema history, what kind of first scene would you write for them? I’d imagine it would be amazing. Well, that’s how you should approach every one of your protagonist intros.

JUNE – MEGA-SHOWDOWN RETURNS!!!

Mega-Showdown returns! 10 uninterrupted days of showdown madness on the site. This was my favorite two weeks on Scriptshadow last year so I’m excited to see what happens next. If you haven’t already started on something, you should start the SECOND you get my reply e-mail about which of your five loglines is best.

JULY – HIGH CONCEPT LOGLINE SHOWDOWN

After you finish a script, the very first thing you need to do is COME UP WITH YOUR NEXT IDEA. Hollywood waits for no one. You must keep generating material. This logline competition, however, is going to be high concept only. No sad Alaskan coming-of-age concepts. Only stuff that results in anime eyes from any producer who looks at it.

AUGUST – DIALOGUE SHOWDOWN

Write a scene that is dialogue-driven! I might even impose limitations of allowing a minimal amount of description. The scene’s value must exist solely on the ability to write great dialogue. Better get that Scriptshadow Dialogue book if you hope to stand a chance!

SEPTEMBER – OPEN SHOWDOWN

I’m still not sure what I’m going to do for this month yet. A couple of options are a Second Chance Showdown (for entries that were solid but didn’t make the Mega-Showdown cut). Short Story Showdown. Interpretation Showdown (I post a short script idea and everyone writes their version of it). I’m open to other ideas so feel free to suggest stuff in the comments!

OCTOBER – HORROR SHOWDOWN

It’s been a while since we’ve had a genre-specific showdown and what better month to bring it back than October! When Halloween is in the air. Poe will be thrilled. Scott will be furious. But, in the end, we’ll all be happy if we find a great horror script. :)

NOVEMBER – AI PITCH SHOWDOWN

A part of me doesn’t want to do this showdown but I think it’s necessary if we don’t want to be left behind. By the end of this year, I believe screenwriting will begin to heavily incorporate AI to bring in a more visual element when pitching our stories. So, I want to do a showdown where you pitch your movie idea using the available AI tools out there (image generation, video generation). Whoever wins, I will review their script (yes, this can include scripts that didn’t make the Mega-Showdown). I know there will be a lot of questions about this one. We’ll answer those questions as we get closer to November.

And there we have it. A year’s worth of screenwriting battles. I can’t wait! Can you??

Welcome to 2025!

Tomorrow, I will list the 11 SHOWDOWNS that we’re going to have this year on the site. Because I know how impatient you all are, I’ll give you a quick preview.

Our first showdown, which will happen on January 23rd, is going to be LOGLINE SHOWDOWN.

But it comes with a twist. You are not going to send in a single logline. You are going to send in FIVE loglines. I’ll decide which one is best. I will then post the 10 best loglines (from those top choices) that were submitted and all of you will vote.

Now, there’s a reason I’m doing this. We often get obsessed with a single idea. So much so that it’s impossible for us to receive criticism regarding that idea. We see it all the time in the comments. Someone posts a logline. Others don’t like it. The writer becomes fiercely defensive and everyone goes home angry.

I understand defending one’s idea. If we weren’t personally attached to what we wrote, what we wrote would probably suck.

But, the other day, I saw that one of you posted how John Hughes used to come up with hundreds of ideas a year so that he was only picking the best of the best to make movies from.

I want to use that same approach here. Instead of becoming attached to one idea that may be bad, I want you to generate multiple ideas. This will create less of an attachment and allow you to be okay with others judging them. Also, a lot of times what will happen is that a throwaway idea will end up being your best one.

This happens all the time in pitch meetings. The writer comes into the studio to pitch his slam-dunk idea. It’s immediately clear the executives aren’t into it. He pivots to another idea. They don’t like that one either. He then pitches some throwaway idea he came up with a couple of weeks ago and, bam, the execs are hooked.

So, if I were you, I would start generating five loglines A DAY leading up to January 23rd, Logline Showdown Day. Send me the top 5 of those 100 loglines. If you do that, you should have one good movie concept in there. If all this goes as planned, we’ll have the most competitive Logline Showdown ever.

And this is all part of a bigger plan. I will tell EVERYBODY who submits loglines, whether they get chosen or not, which logline was their best one. There will be a major Script Showdown announced tomorrow. I would then prefer that the entry for that showdown be your best logline.

I always say never to use flashbacks so I don’t know what it says that I’m violating my own rule.

BUT…

I did catch up on the last few movies that I missed last year and I wanted to give you my thoughts about them. Keep in mind that I saw faults in all of these movies from afar, which is why I didn’t see them when they came out. Therefore, I was predisposed to disliking them. I’ll start with the worst and move my way up to the best.

Elevation

What’s interesting about this movie is that this is the type of script I tell you guys to write. In fact, there’s a good chance this logline would’ve finished high on this month’s Logline Showdown. After a worldwide invasion by mysterious monsters, humanity’s only safety is to move up to a higher elevation, where the monsters can’t survive. In this case, that’s 8000 feet.

It comes from the same producers of A Quiet Place so it has that same high concept feel to it. But this movie was no Quiet Place.

I knew it was in trouble when the main plot revealed itself. This community lives in a safety zone above 8000 feet. The main character’s son has health issues. They run out of medicine for him so they have to head to the city to get more. The city, of course, is below 8000 feet. That’s your movie.

The “go get medicine” trope is so played out that you can’t use it as a main plotline. You can use it as a subplot in, say, a TV show, which shows like The Walking Dead do all the time. But it can’t be your main plot. That’s about as lazy of a creative choice as you can come up with. You need to be more original.

But the bigger issue here is that you could tell they didn’t have enough story. There were tons of scenes with characters sitting around, sharing difficult moments from their pasts, or talking about their feelings. A good script should never feel like it’s biding time. It should feel like there isn’t enough time. When you have to write scenes to stretch your script out to an acceptable length, your script is dead in the water.

But are you ready to get mind-f*%&ed?  I would still tell you to write this script.  You know why?  Because you’re reading a review of the movie.  Which means it got made.  Which means that EVEN THOUGH they had a bad script, they still made it.  Why?  Because it was a high concept.  High concept stuff is more likely to get made, which means you don’t need to execute the script perfectly to get traction with it.

Saturday Night

There is NOBODY who likes a real-time concept more than me. I’m of the belief that the tighter you make your timeframe, the more urgency and tension you pack into your script. You do yourself so many favors with this format cause it hides a lot of the problems that come up in a script otherwise.

Jason Reitman has me rethinking that opinion.

Saturday Night has to be one of the more frustrating movies I’ve seen in a while because, with every scene, I thought, “I *should* be liking this.” Yet I wasn’t.

You have the insane pressure of putting on a show with only minutes left to get ready and everything is going wrong. It’s complete chaos. Nobody likes each other. That’s the recipe for a tension-filled movie!

But I think I know why it didn’t work. For one, the driving force for liking this movie is understanding who’s who. It’s understanding who Dan Akroyd is. Who Chevy Chase is. Who John Belushi is.

The movie does a terrible job of conveying this. None of the actors look like their real-life counterparts. This means that older people who grew up with Saturday Night Live come away frustrated.

Then you have the younger audience watching this movie. If you don’t have any idea who these people are at all, I don’t know why you would have any interest in the film. I suppose if you made the characters fun to watch onscreen, anybody would like them, regardless of whether they’d heard of SNL or not. But neither Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd, or John Belushi, stand out. None of them have a moment where you think, “Ooh, this character is interesting. I want to know more about them.”

But the bigger issue is that the movie decides to make Lorne Michaels (the creator of Saturday Night Live) the main character and he is the single most uninteresting character I watched in movies all year.

A good protagonist should be ACTIVE. They should be exerting themselves on the plot. This does two things. It makes us like the main character (we like people who take action) and it injects life into the plot. If the protagonist is trying to do things, he will be met with obstacles and conflict, which create drama and entertainment.

All the Lorne Michaels’ character does in this movie is stumble from scene to scene and observe what’s going on. He never does anything. He never exerts himself on the production. He does so little, in fact, that I would not have faulted a viewer for assuming he was a production assistant.

On top of this, the movie isn’t funny. I didn’t laugh once. Much of the dialogue is Sorkin’esque, the walking-and-talking million-words-a-minute style that made Aaron famous. The problem is, it’s third-rate Sorkin at best. This goes back to my complaint about The Franchise. If you’re making a comedy, you need funny people in the key positions – director, writer, actor. There were no comedians in any of those positions here. So you reap what you sow.

Nightbitch

Nightbitch is one of those movies that would’ve finished top 5 on the Black List. Why? CAUSE IT’S A GIANT METAPHOR. A suburban mother who’s going insane due to her stay-at-home duties starts turning into a dog.

It’s a metaphor for… something.

The point is, scripts like this are always celebrated because intellectual types think they’re smart. They also contain an x-factor that elevates them above your typical movies that examine life.

But the script fails due to a basic problem – no plot. I see this all the time in character examinations. The writer becomes so focused on examining their main character that they forget to create a story for them to move through.

All Nightbitch does is drop us into unconnected scenes of our heroine either a) doing something with her kid, or b) doing something with her husband.

To the writer’s credit, there is a significant amount of conflict. There is conflict within our main character. And there is conflict between our main character and her husband. But you still need a plot. You still need a destination. If you don’t give the reader a destination and they, therefore, don’t know where they’re headed, it becomes very difficult for them to stay engaged.

This is Screenwriting 101. Build some GSU into your story. You may have been able to save the film.

The Order

I have begun to trust IMDB ratings much more than Rotten Tomatoes ratings. Rotten Tomatoes has this movie at 91%. IMDB has it at a 6.8. In general, a 7.0 on IMDB means it’s an average movie. A 7.1 is a little better. And a 7.2 usually means it’s good. Every point higher than that means the movie is genuinely good. A 7.6, for example would equate to a genuinely awesome flick.

The Order is a 6.8 movie. It’s watchable but weak in too many key areas. It’s a confused premise. It presents as a “based on a true story” movie, set in the 70s following domestic terrorists. But it’s not true. It’s all made up. Which is strange.

Why set some fictional movie in the 70s for such a random topic? Idaho (where the movie is set) has some domestic terrorist issues NOW. So, why not set it now? It would’ve been a million times more interesting.

The seriousness with which the movie presents itself prevents any sort of excitement from unfolding. And it seems to deliberately make choices that make the movie worse as opposed to better.

For example, in an early bank robbery scene, our crew steals money from a bank and shoot off in the getaway car, celebrating their victory. Then, out of nowhere, you hear a BANG and blood splatters across everyone’s face. There’s momentary confusion as to what happened and who got shot.

But instead of telling you, the director cuts to the next scene, our bank-robbing leader arriving home with the money, covered in blood. His girlfriend says, “What happened!?” “Nothing, just an ink explosion.”

So nobody got hurt then. Oh and, also, all the money they stole was wrapped in plastic. So none of the money got hit with the ink explosion. Nobody got hurt. The ink explosion didn’t mark the money, meaning it can still be used. WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE INK EXPLOSION THEN!!??

The movie’s shining light was its bank robbery scenes. They were the best bank robbery scenes I’ve seen in years. But there were only a few of them. Everything else about this movie plods along boringly.

Gladiator 2

Oh, Gladiator 2. This is a tough movie to talk about because it’s so decidedly average and we don’t have a community to discuss average movies anymore. Movies either need to be great or terrible. There’s no in-between.

The biggest award I can give this film is that it takes a rather elaborate plot and manages to keep it on the tracks. There’s a lot going on here. You have these co-emperors of Rome and they defeat some country in battle and they make that country slaves and they bring them to Rome and yet one of those defeated men, our hero, used to be Roman and he falls under the tutelage of some “vice” emperor played by Denzel, who turns him into a gladiator and, oh yeah, it turns out (spoiler) that he’s actually Maximus’s secret son and then Denzel takes out the brother emperors and becomes emperor himself and now he and our gladiator are enemies.

There’s a LOT going on in this plot. It’s the opposite of Nightbitch.

Despite Denzel being the best thing about the movie, the decision to hire him ultimately hurt it. Because Denzel blows everyone out of the water in every scene that he’s in in every movie. Here, he’s pitted against an actor, Paul Mescal, who’s still raw. He doesn’t yet have gravitas onscreen. The reason the first movie worked so well was because Russell Crowe was always the biggest thing onscreen. Mescal is no Crowe. And, therefore, it’s the villain, Denzel, who comes away as the biggest character in the movie as opposed to who it should’ve been – our hero.

I still think this movie is worth checking out. I liked the unique choice to make the emperor a two-headed monster. And I liked the weirdness of those characters. And, unlike a lot of the movies listed above, Gladiator 2 never gets boring. It only fails to achieve what you want it to. And maybe that’s because our expectations were too high to begin with.

Wicked

Wicked wins the “Best of the Missed Movies” list by a hair over Gladiator 2. You can always tell if a movie is “working” within the first scene. That doesn’t mean you’ll like it. But there are so many movies where the elements don’t come together in a harmonious way, leaving the movie feeling disjointed and unsure of itself.

I’m thinking of movies like The Fall Guy and If and Fly Me To The Moon and Borderlands and Megalopolis. The ingredients of these movies are all fighting against the overall product.

Not the case with Wicked. You can feel a certainty behind the film. The director, the actors, the production designers – they all knew exactly the film they were making and that confidence comes across on screen.

The actor I was most worried about was the big revelation in the film – Ariana Grande. This is because I assumed she was playing the good guy. Ariana Grande is not good! Therefore, when we learn that she actually plays the villain, everything falls into place. She is the most villainous villain of the year, both in real life and in the film. And the movie shines because of it.

The script shines the brightest by utilizing one of the most tried-and-true devices in screenwriting – a pair of characters (Glinda and Elphaba) who despise each other. Forcing two people who don’t like each other to be around one another is the dramatic gift that keeps on giving. It’s so simple yet so effective and, for me, it was what made the movie so fun. In fact, whenever the two were apart, I would eagerly wait for them to reunite. The movie was always best when they shared the screen.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t issues. The movie was way too long, an unapologetic 2 hours and 40 minutes. It certainly took its time through some sections. But I thought the movie was good overall.

Did you see any of these movies? Or did you catch up on any 2024 films that surprised you? If so, share your thoughts below!  And if you want to start pitching loglines for community feedback, go for it!

The great thing about a Scriptshadow Best Movies of the Year list is that you’re not getting any b.s. All these other list-makers are giving you their cinephile-signaling choices, the movies they think they’re supposed to tell the world they like. Not Scriptshadow!

Every single pick here is, genuinely, one of my favorite movies of the year. That means you’re going to see some movies you’re not used to seeing in a Top 10. There will be complaints. There will be defiant comments written, comments that sound something like this: “That movie was garbage. It was boring and I hated the characters and you could see the twist coming from a mile away.”

Those comments? Those comments are wrong.

Every single pick on the Scriptshadow Best Movies list is, objectively, one of the best movies of the year according to moi.

Before we get to those picks, I want to comment on some movies that didn’t make the list, in case you were wondering where they were.

I haven’t seen Wicked because I assumed I wouldn’t like it. But several friends who aren’t Wickeders, or whatever you call them, saw the movie and enjoyed it so there’s an off-chance that if I saw the movie, it would make my Top 10. I finally saw A Quiet Place: Day One and it was better than I thought it would be but too flawed to make the list.

Longlegs was too “indie” for my taste. The movie felt like it needed another 20 million in budget to make the most of its potential. Smile 2 was a nice surprise. Great directing. But I definitely wouldn’t call it one of the best movies of the year.

Blink Twice was better than I thought it would be so if you haven’t seen it, check it out. Just not “best of” worthy. I absolutely positively HATE The Substance. It has permanently put me off body horror. Late Night with the Devil was probably the best surprise I had all year. Very fun movie. Nearly made my Top 10.

The Last Stop at Yuma County would’ve made the list if it extended to Top 15. A tense little thriller with great directing and good use of payoffs. As would Love Lies Bleeding, another directing tour de force. A very spooky film that makes you feel off-center from the very first scene. Oh, and Magpie! Magpie’s concept comes from Daisy Ridley. A fun little slow-burn thriller about a family that’s falling apart with a unique plotline that involves a married couple’s child landing a role in a big local movie.

Never saw Here. Never saw Monkey Man. Never saw Heretic. Of those three, Heretic is the only one that legitimately had a shot at making my Top 10.

All right, now that you know all that, time to get to the Top 10 movies of the year!

NUMBER 10 – CIVIL WAR

I watched this movie at just the right time. If I would’ve watched it when it came out, I think the hype would’ve led to disappointment. But I went in long after the movie hit streaming and therefore my expectations were low. The movie is not perfect. And, if I’m being honest, it’s slow, especially early on. But it grows on you. You start to care about the characters. And when you hit one of the best scenes of the year – Jesse Plemons killing anybody he sees fit – you’re all in. The movie then has a big finale that climaxes in the ultimate character arc. If you’re looking for a good adult movie, this is the second best option of the year. I’ll get to the first soon enough.

NUMBER 9 – KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

There may not have been a studio movie this year I was more convinced I would dislike than Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. 20th Century Fox has had issues with this franchise from the start. Every single one of the movies looks the same. Every single one of these movies has a title that sounds the same.   I had no interest in seeing this. But the director does an incredible job mining an emotional story from the ape characters. I was shocked at how intensely I was drawn in. It’s one of the few examples of a studio putting character over spectacle. Definitely worth your time.

NUMBER 8 – DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE

Deadpool and Wolverine had a lot to live up to. If it would have toppled, it would’ve taken all of the 2024 box office with it. So give it to Ryan Reynolds for knowing exactly what the audience wanted and giving it to them. The thing I was most impressed by with this movie was how the character of Deadpool was in this sunny crazy kooky movie while the character of Wolverine was in this dark dusty devastating movie.  And yet, somehow, they still played off each other perfectly. You know a movie is working when you don’t even care about the parts that aren’t working. For example, I have no idea what was going on with the villain in this film or what she wanted. Didn’t matter. We got Deadpool and Wolverine fighting 300 Alternate Universe Deadpools and that’s all we needed. That and Madonna.

NUMBER 7 – CONCLAVE

Conclave is a masterclass in plotting. A big part of plotting is pacing – understanding when to introduce new plot developments into the story and how frequently. Most writers wait too long to introduce the next big plot point and, as a result, their stories stall. You don’t get that with Conclave. Conclave keeps hitting you with new plot points every 10 pages. And each of those revelations either make the story more interesting, add higher stakes to the proceedings, or both. It’s a great example of how you can build an exciting plot into “small” situations. You don’t need to have Tom Cruise trying to save the world. You can build compelling plot points out of many different situations, especially high-stakes situations like needing to anoint the next pope.

NUMBER 6 – KINDS OF KINDNESS

Contrary to popular belief, I need my “weird” in my movie-watching. I don’t always want it. But I eventually crave it because I need something to balance out all the logical storytelling that dictates my taste. Kinds of Kindness gave me all of that and more. What surprised me most about the movie is that, even though it’s a compilation of 3 short stories, each of those stories is really good. Normally when writers do this, there’s always a weak story. But not here. Each one is weird in its own wonderful way. The storytelling Yorgos Lanthimos uses is one where he plops you into a story that you don’t quite understand yet and you need to keep watching to figure it out. I noticed that that device was very effective here as I always wanted to know more. I kind of wish Yorgos would’ve figured out how to make this one big movie because, that way, more people would’ve seen it. But even in its current state, it’s a gem that people will stumble upon and enjoy for years.

NUMBER 5 – THE WILD ROBOT

The second I saw this trailer, I knew it was going to be great. The contrast of this mechanical being placed in the midst of such unforgiving nature was a pot just dying to boil up plenty of drama. I was telling a writer how clever the writing was in that it could’ve been really sappy with just the robot and the little bird. But the writer, Chris Sanders, added this conniving fox to the mix and that created the perfect balance to the proceedings. The movie has these great sequences that are both cinematic and emotional. When Roz teaches Brightbill to fly, it’s total movie magic. Sanders also took a big risk by embracing maturity instead of catering to a more youthful approach. He could’ve easily pandered to children here and the film probably would’ve done a lot better at the box office. Instead, he kept it mature and, as a result, it’s going to win the animation Oscar and go down as a classic.

NUMBER 4 – STRANGE DARLING

It’s hard to talk about this movie without spoiling it. So, if you haven’t seen it yet, move on to the next movie on the list. Okay, spoiling commencing. Strange Darling shows that you can make a small cheap movie hit hard. One of the best ways to do this is to tap into a belief that the general audience has been conditioned to believe and then slam into them with the opposite. The last four years have been movies telling us: Men toxic, women perfect. Director JT Mollner uses that belief against you. When our evil looking dude is hunting our helpless heroine, we’re rooting hard for her to get away. That is until we find out that the heroine is the villain and the man is the hero. It’s a great midpoint twist that turns the movie into a whirlwind of emotions and momentum. Biggest surprise of the year. Didn’t see it coming.

NUMBER 3 – SPEAK NO EVIL

A few of you are probably surprised to see this movie ranked so high. So let me explain why. Speak No Evil is, in my opinion, the type of screenplay you can get the most bang for your buck out of. Because all you’re doing is putting characters in a situation. There are no monsters here. There are no shootouts. There are no car chases. It’s just a group of people, in this case a family, placed in a dangerous situation that they probably won’t escape. I love scripts like this. I love scripts that reveal things before our heroes know. Cause now you’re strictly using dramaturgy (in this case, dramatic irony) to keep the reader invested. It’s pure writing, these stories. So to see one done so well? I’m always going to celebrate when that happens. And even if you throw all the complex screenwriting terms to the side, it’s just a fun thriller. It’s tense. It’s suspenseful. It’s got a couple of great reveals. It’s got a great villain. For pure entertainment, you can’t beat Speak No Evil.

NUMBER 2 – FURIOSA

Years down the line, random people are going to stumble across this movie on streaming and wonder where it came from and how they’ve never heard of it before. It is a riveting movie. It’s also an epic story. This isn’t Mad Max. It isn’t Fury Road. It takes place over years and years. We see characters grow and mature and move their way up the ladder. We see these incredible action sequences. The best car chases you’ll see in any movie this decade. I remember watching this film and, at first, feeling that it was too clunky. But it was only because I didn’t understand how big the scope was. Every time I look back at this film, I grow more and more fond of it. It achieves that rare feat of feeling big (incredible set pieces) and small (intimate moments) at the same time. I have no idea why this movie didn’t do better. Maybe it’s because nothing in this universe could’ve looked better than that Fury Road trailer. So it was always doomed. But this movie was freaking awesome.

NUMBER 1 – ANORA

When I think of Anora, I think of one word: Energy. Every single frame of this movie is packed with energy. You don’t see that anymore. We used to get it in movies like Trainspotting and Fight Club and Amos Perros and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. We don’t see it much anymore, though. Sean Baker is one of the few filmmakers who’s able to infuse that same level of energy into every moment of his movie. Anora is a long film but it never plays like it. The entire second act is a chase where we’re always one step behind. The screenplay preys on your expectations at every single juncture. You always think you know what’s coming. You don’t. Even when we get to the ending, a time when we’re usually able to put all the pieces together, we STILL don’t know where it’s going. And it’s an amazing experience because of it. The acting is incredible. The casting is incredible. The directing is superb. Scott says this movie won’t win the Oscar because Neon doesn’t have the cash to bankroll an Oscar campaign. But I think this movie is so good that it will overcome that. Expect Anora to pick up a golden statute this March.

Genre: Comedy/Holiday
Premise: After finding his dream girl, a young man heads to her small hometown for Christmas, only to realize that the town has an annual “Purge”-like game where, in order to keep the peace 364 days of the year, anyone who has beef with anyone else takes them on in a fight.
About: Jack Waz has had several scripts make the Black List in recent years. This is from last year’s list. In a Creative Screenwriting interview from 2018, this is what Jack said was the key to getting a manager: “Two things: have a great sample, and a personality to match. Your manager and agent are your partners in your career, and you need to treat them as such. Finding people who believe in you and are willing to put up with years of investment before payoff is key. Be honest, open, direct in what you want.”
Writer: Jack Waz
Details: 91 pages

Well, the weather outside is frightful. But the fire is so…

Okay, I’m totally lying. The weather outside here in Los Angeles is a perfect 70 degrees. I’m wearing shorts and sipping an ice-cold Coca Cola. There’s nothing frightful about my situation at all.

But cut me some slack. I’m trying to get in the Christmas spirit. The Christmas spirit back in my hometown of Chicago could be encapsulated in a single word: MISERY.

The snow this time of year wouldn’t even be white. It would be that dirty snow that would get mixed with the fallen snow, turning into a grayish mixture. Combined with the 300 days a year of gray skies in Chi-Town, it’s a miracle I ever learned how to smile.

But once you pull on that sweater, get cozy beside the fire, and light up the Christmas tree, a lot of that frustration melts. Especially when you put on a good Christmas movie.

Which is what I’m hoping to find in today’s script.

Grab your stockings which, by the way, are hung by the chimney without care (I was in a hurry), load up that Red Ryder BB gun, and let’s shoot some people in the eye while summarizing today’s holiday adventure…

Harrison Powell, who’s in his late 20s, is at a bar during the most annoying event of the year, SantaCon, where everyone dresses like Santa and gets wasted. He’s so disgusted by the actions of these Santas that he storms out of the bar.

But as he’s leaving, he runs into the gorgeous Emily, and when the two meet, they know it’s love at first sight. They spend every waking second together and within months, Harrison is ready to propose. Emily invites him to Christmas at her family’s place and his plan is to win her parents over then ask her to marry him.

They travel to the small secluded town of Summit Valley, voted the most peaceful town in the U.S., and after meeting the family, which includes her dad, Tom, who’s the town mayor, they head out to “The Pagent.”

Except when they get to the Pagent, it’s not a pagent at all! Two townspeople who have beef with each other square up… then start beating each other’s brains out! This is when Harrison learns Summit Valley’s secret. In order to keep the peace, the town allows anyone who has beef with someone else to square off in a brawl in the three days leading up to Christmas.

All of a sudden, Harrison is pitted against the teenage store clerk he got snippy with when they came into town. And after he’s done with her, he has to fight the 70+ year old snow plow driver who hates him for no reason.

As Harrison keeps fighting people, he starts to realize that Tom, who came up with this whole ‘Fistmas’ idea, has been cheating every election! And that his plan is to keep everybody in town angry with each other so they don’t realize he’s a terrible person. But Harrison is finally going to reveal it, even if that means losing Emily.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

A bizarre comedic Christmas premise that kinda works?

Let me give Mr. Waz props for, at the very least, coming up with a Christmas idea that I have never encountered before. Every other Christmas script I’m sent is some version of Red One. Santa is kidnapped and our hero needs to save him.

This is most certainly not that.

But does it work?

I’m not sure. It’s like one of those presents you didn’t ask for, so you don’t care about it when you first open it. But then surprisingly you find yourself playing with it a few days later.

One of my big things with writing comedy is that with your big jokes and your big set pieces, to utilize what’s specific about your concept.

And Fistmas does a good job of that.

This movie is all about these Christmas fights. The first fight, Harrison takes on a teenage girl. The second fight, he takes on an old man. The third fight, he fights inside this active snow globe. All of these scenes were either imaginative or funny or both. That part I liked.

But nothing else really works in the script.

You have this Emily romance that’s thrust on us for most of the movie. Yet, Harrison starts falling for her sister? Maybe if Emily was more of a clear villain, that would work. But we liked her. And the only reason we’re given not to like her is that she lives in this weird town.

Which left us without much to grab onto. I’m not sure what the theme of this movie was. It seems to be that leaders take advantage of violence to control people? But the script is too goofy to sell such a sophisticated theme. Let me reiterate that a grown man fights a teenage girl while everyone stands around and cheers. That’s not the kind of movie you try and push a 12 Days A Slave level theme onto.

It seems to also be about how violence is bad. But if that was the point, it wasn’t set up very well. It’s not like Harrison was in the Peace Corps and Emily used to fight in the UFC. It’s almost like the writer stumbled upon that theme and said, “Oh yeah, I guess this is what I’m writing about,” but then never went back to set it up.

Pro Tip: When you discover important things while writing the later parts of your script, make sure to go back and set those things up in future drafts.

Maybe the most frustrating thing about this script is that I think if you had changed the genre, it could’ve been amazing. If you made this a dark mix between the original Finnish version of Speak No Evil, a dash of Get Out, and then Fight Club? This could’ve been iconic. As a comedy it has its moments. But as a dark thriller, it would’ve been badass.

Finally, I will leave you with the best script line I read this month. Props to Jack Waz for coming up with it: “Season’s beatings, motherf**ker.”

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

What I learned: I hate expected replies to common lines. Here’s an early line and reply.

HARRISON
It’s so great to meet you. Emily’s
told me so much about you.

TOM
All nice things, I hope.

Yaawwwwwwn. I’ve read, “All nice things I hope,” in 600 screenplays.

I could probably even get ChatGPT to create a better response to that line. Actually, I’ll go ask it right now. Give me a second.

Okay, I’m back. Here’s what it gave me for Tom’s response: “It’s nice to hear I made the highlight reel. But you’re here to see the full game, aren’t you?”

Great line? No. Ten times better than “All nice things, I hope?” Definitely.

Dude, if AI is writing better lines than you? You’re not trying hard enough!

One million dollar spec sale!

Genre: Erotic Thriller
Premise: A beautiful trophy wife and her perfect husband attempt to buy a New York City condo but the deal is held up by a rather unusual request from the seller.
About: Million dollar spec sale. Fresh new 2024 Black List script. Over Asking is said to be bringing back the erotic thriller genre that was so popular for that 7 year period in the 90s. Screenwriter Caroline Dries works exclusively in the TV space, and is best known for writing on The Vampire Diaries. She also does a lot of CW comic book TV writing.
Writer: Caroline Dries
Details: 119 pages (!!)

I’m surprised Hollywood hasn’t pushed harder to bring the erotic thriller back. It is one of those genres that’s cheap to produce yet has the potential to make a ton of money. Because it’s so character-driven, you needed movie stars to play one of the leads. So that added a sizable chunk to the budget. But, otherwise, if you could come up with a good concept, create strong sexual chemistry between the leads, and had a clever plot, you’d be counting money.

Caroline seems to have recognized this and come to play, using Indecent Proposal as her template. Let’s see if it worked.

33 year old Margo Pretty is stunningly beautiful. She’s been handed all the breaks in life because she’s won the genetic lottery, including bagging her perfect money manager husband, Christian Pretty. The New York couple seemingly has it all.

But, inside, Margo struggles with self-worth. She wants to be more than a trophy wife but never went about doing anything about it. These days, she’s looking to get into the influencer space but all the companies she interviews with aren’t sure what to do with her. She’s too old to be young and hot yet too young to be the hot mom.

Margo and Christian have their eyes set on a 25 million dollar condo and, after going to take a look at it, meet the seller, a top New York attorney named Gillian Town (50). Gillian says she’ll sell them the condo for just 20 million bucks with one stipulation… that on the first night, Christian stays home and Gillian sleeps with Margo.

Margo is a hard no but Christian really wants that condo so he pitches Margo on going through with it. Margo’s disgusted by her husband but the more she looks into Gillian’s life, the more intrigued she gets, and eventually says she’ll do it.

So Margo shows up at the condo (spoilers coming), chats with Gillian for a while. Then Gillian tells Margo to head to the bedroom. She’ll be there in a second. Margo does. She waits. She waits more. She waits more and more and more. Until, finally, she realizes that Gillian isn’t coming. She falls asleep and the next morning finds a note. It says, “Enjoy the house. Wasn’t feeling it.”

Those words stick like cellophane to Margo. Her whole life she’s been told she’s beautiful and now, for the first time, she’s been rejected. After going back to her life with Christian, she can’t help but think about Gillian’s rejection. So she stalks Gillian online and finally goes to her office to confront her. She forces a kiss on Gillian but Gillian still rejects her.

Meanwhile, Christian gets involved in an insider trading scandal and begins to suspect that Gillian is involved. He also checks Margo’s internet history and sees that she’s been stalking Gillian. As this obsession continues, it becomes clear that Margo isn’t going to stop until she “gets” Gillian. But what Margo doesn’t realize is that she may be a pawn in a bigger game.

So, obviously, we have a gender-swap concept here. This is Indecent Proposal with a woman making the request rather than a man.

Female gender swap concepts became so big 10 years ago that they quickly fizzled out. But I have to admit this one feels fresh. It’s unexpected. And, no doubt, it’s the reason the script sold for so much money. You can see the poster. You can see the trailer. It’s going to work. If they cast it well, it will make a ton of money.

And they should be thrilled that the concept works so well. Because, outside of one banger creative choice, the execution is subpar.

That creative choice is when Gillian doesn’t sleep with Margo. We’re SO SURE that’s going to happen – the whole first part of the movie has been setting it up. So when the writer pulls the rug out from under us and has Gillian change her mind? We’re rattled to the core. We have no idea why she would do that and have to keep reading!

It creates an interesting narrative because it turns the reluctant Margo active. She’s so confused that someone would reject her that she must find out why. She must win Gillian over.

I found all of that to be fun.

But much like the original Indecent Proposal, because the story’s biggest moment happens so early, it’s impossible for the rest of the story to live up to that moment. As a result, every ten pages contains less energy than the previous ten pages.

Caroline tries to fight that off by creating this secondary plotline where Christian engages in insider trading. And that plot does bring more context to Gillian’s indecent proposal. But it’s messy enough that none of those later beats are satisfying.

In fact, for an erotic thriller, there’s very little eroticism. This is due to the plot which focuses more on Gillian’s sinister plan. That plan doesn’t have anything to do with sleeping with Margo. The two only sleep together one time. I guess you could make the argument that all that buildup makes for a great sex scene. But I felt short-changed. Imagine all the people showing up for a sexy thriller and get… a two minute sex scene late in the movie?

Also, the most interesting thing about this story is this beautiful woman being told no and not being able to handle it, going so far as to become obsessed with the woman who rejected her. However, despite me highlighting that obsession, it doesn’t last long enough. Margo becomes obsessed quickly, then a few scenes later confronts Gillian, and then she cools on Gillian for a while. I would’ve liked to explore that aspect of Margo’s character more – her facing the death of her beauty’s influence over others. It’s the most interesting thing about her character.

Elsewhere, the script either makes odd choices or bumbles sound ones. This whole thing where Margo is trying to be an influencer never works. Every influencer starts out by making videos. Why is Margo going to influencer meetings to create her persona before ever making a video? It shows someone completely out of touch with the influencer space. Even so, nothing about the influencer subplot works. It should’ve been ditched.

And then the insider trading storyline is so muddy that it destroys the big final twist built on top of it. Again, you get the sense that the author doesn’t even know how to use PayPal, much less communicate how insider trading works.

Despite that, the script has SOMETHING. It’s entertaining most of the way through. The Gillian denial gives it a turbo boost. And not knowing how the Margo-Gillian relationship is going to play out keeps us curious. So, I do think it’s worth reading. And I support the big sale. You can totally see this being a movie, which should be the end game of writing every script.

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

What I learned: Sometimes, when we spend so much time setting something up, we become single-minded regarding the payoff. We pay it off in accordance with the setup. But Caroline shows us that we shouldn’t always be locked into our payoff. There is not only one way to do it. You can flip the script and go in the opposite direction, which is what happens here. Not only was that a strong choice in Over Asking. It saved the script.