I’ve never forgotten the story M. Night told about how he didn’t know until the 5th draft of The Sixth Sense that Bruce Willis’s character was dead. Before that it was just a movie about a kid who saw dead people in paintings or something. It makes you think, what if M. Night would’ve stopped at the 4th draft? The Sixth Sense would’ve been some nothing movie that was in and out of theaters in a week. Or – and this is what today’s article is about – what if he would’ve turned down the idea? Oftentimes when we get an idea that’s so radical it will require changing a large chunk of the script, a script we’ve already worked so long on, we think, “Eh, it’s too much work,” and we don’t put the better idea in.
You guys know I loved The Big Sick. It was one of my top 3 movies of last year. But I was thinking about the movie the other day when I realized, “Oh my God… they did it all wrong.” The more dramatically interesting version of The Big Sick isn’t the girlfriend going into the coma. It’s the boyfriend. Think about it. The movie is about these parents from another culture who don’t want their son to marry an American girl. Wouldn’t it have been way more compelling, then, if it was the girl who would’ve had to spend time with THOSE parents and win them over while her boyfriend was in a coma, rather than Kumail having to win over parents who really didn’t have any problems with him in the first place other than the minor issue that he’d broken up with their daughter?
Now, of course, there are extenuating circumstances. The event that story was based on REALLY HAPPENED. So to flip the script and write it in reverse would’ve meant inventing 90% of the story. Due to the fact that they were drawing from real life, they were able to make the story extremely specific, which is why it was so good. It didn’t feel like anything else out there. So there would’ve been a risk in putting the boyfriend in a coma. But these are the kinds of things that fascinate me about screenwriting. You’re often faced with these options that could upgrade your script from okay to good, or from good to great! And most writers are scared of following these choices because it means more work.
I don’t know if any of you caught the Counterpart premiere the other day. There I was, at the end of the pilot, watching them wrap the first episode up, and there’s this twist in the last scene to hook us for the next episode. Except, it wasn’t that great of a twist. And, if they would’ve worked a little harder, it could’ve been a great twist.
The story takes place with a wimpy JK Simmons working for a corporation he doesn’t understand. Everything is shrouded in secrecy. Then one day, they call him in because there’s a problem. That’s when wimpy JK meets badass JK. Wimpy JK learns that the building he works at is a porthole to another world exactly like his own, where everyone has a doppelgänger. And the reason they need him is because an assassin from the other world has snuck into this one.
A key storyline is Wimpy JK’s wife, who’s in a coma. Wimpy JK is sad to find out that in Badass JK’s world, his wife is dead. Meanwhile, Wimpy JK’s wife’s family wants to turn off the ventilator keeping her alive. They don’t think she’s coming back. And you can tell Wimpy JK is close to giving in. So they write this scene where Badass JK goes to the hospital room and reams out the wife’s asshole brother, telling him that there ain’t no way he’s fucking killing his wife. It’s one of the best scenes in the pilot.
Anyway, after some assassin scenes, we get to the end of the episode. Wimpy JK is back to sitting by his coma wife’s side, being supportive, and we cut to Badass JK heading back to his world. We follow him into a diner, where he sits down, orders a drink, and who should sit down across from him? But his wife! It turns out his wife IS ALIVE. He was lying to Wimpy JK. It’s a kind of cool twist. But was it as good as it could’ve been?
What if, instead of Wimpy JK’s wife’s family failing to end her life, they’d succeeded? And Wimpy JK watches helplessly as his wife is pulled off the ventilator and dies. Think about that for a moment. There is now no wife left, in either this world or the other one. How much cooler is it, then, when we cut back to Badass JK, only to find out that his wife is still alive? Now that’s a twist with some meat on it. Your mind starts to bounce around thinking, oh my god, Wimpy JK still has a chance to be with “his” wife again.
In the pilot’s defense, it is a TV show. So maybe they didn’t explore that twist because they have something better in mind for later. But I have a theory here. And this is where we get into why screenwriters are afraid to follow these game-changing choices. Writers LOVE bullies-get-bullied scenes. And it IS a great moment in Counterpart. The wife’s brother had been bullying Wimpy JK the whole show. So it’s fun to see Badass JK come in and lay into him. These are the scenes writers live for.
But they’re also scenes that can blind you. The writers probably realized that in order to incorporate the scenario where Wimpy JK’s wife was put to death, they would have to get rid of that – the best scene in the script – because that’s the scene that makes the brother back off and stop pursuing his sister’s death. Since everybody loved that scene, they made it a priority over what would have led to a much cooler final twist.
This is one of the tough things about writing that nobody talks about – difficult choices that can improve your script, but at the cost of losing things you like. It’s my opinion that the weaker screenwriter always plays it safe. They like their comfy little story, their cool scenes. And would rather keep them than potentially strive for excellence.
One of the more well-known “What-if” screenwriting breakdowns is NerdWriter’s video essay on Passengers. As those of you who’ve read this site for a long time know, Passengers was considered to be the best unmade screenplay in Hollywood behind Killing on Carnival Row. But the movie was a big fat, “That’s it?” NerdWriter attempted to fix the script by eliminating the opening section where Chris Pratt spends 25 minutes becoming lonely, which leads to him opening Jennifer Lawrence’s sleep-pod, dooming her to the same existence as him.
NerdWriter’s argument was that if you start the movie on Jennifer Lawrence’s character, show her wake up, and follow the movie through her eyes instead of Pratt’s, the movie is creepier. She meets this guy. He seems nice. But is he? You then play the plot out more like a slow-burn horror film. However, what Nerdwriter fails to address is that you need to refill those 25 minutes of the movie you excised. “Is he or isn’t he bad?” in a movie where there are only two characters is a plotline you can play out for, at max, 30 pages, until the reader gets impatient. So what do you fill the rest of the movie with, especially since you now have to find an additional 25 minutes of story to add? Not to mention, the choices changes your entire genre. In other words, every choice that improves your script comes at a cost.
But the beans I’m selling here are that you should never pick a choice because it’s easier. And you should never write off a choice because it means getting rid of a scene or a section or a character you like. If the choice you come up with is better than what you got, and you’re not on some tight deadline, go with the better choice, no matter how long it takes. Because, guys, it’s not hard for anyone in Hollywood to find “okay” scripts. It IS hard to find great scripts. And great scripts require bold choices, even if they mean rearranging everything you thought your screenplay was originally about.
I’m curious to know from you folks. What movies have you seen where you thought, “If they would have made this one simple change, the movie would’ve been so much better!”
