I wanted to see Captain America about as much as I wanted to be on that plane that crashed into a helicopter a few weeks ago. Marvel hasn’t just lost its mojo. It’s lost its soul. So when the latest Captain America film made 100 million dollars this weekend, I had to check to see if that was good or not.
It’s actually not bad. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 made 113 million. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania made 106 million. If you go back to Marvel’s best time period – Phase 3 – Thor Ragnarok made 122 million. I think, these days, that’s what you’re aiming for with a Marvel movie, is to get that 100 million dollar opening, which Captain America achieved.
EXCEEEEPPPPPPTTTT.
It’s one big lie.
What you’ll see buried in all of the box office reports of this film is that this is not a weekend tally, but rather a 4-day tally, as they’re including box office from the tiniest holiday of the year, President’s Day. The real tally for Captain America is 88.5 million.
This kind of garbage reporting annoys me because: just be honest. It’s not difficult to be honest. You can’t make something true just by saying it. 88.5 million is a different tally than 100 million. Cause it shows that there is a downward trend in these Marvel movie box office takes. Telling yourself it’s 100 million when it isn’t is preventing you from being real about your product and making the necessary changes to fix it.
Marvel has run into the same problem that every other genre, over time, has run into – which is that unless you’re giving us something new and fresh, we’re not going to be excited to see your film. This new Captain America looked like assembly-line superhero filmmaking. That’s not good enough.
But you wanna know what I *was* excited about this weekend? White Lotus! Season Three! Premiere episode! Mike White – a master screenwriter AND a master caster – is back. What does he have in store for us this time? And what tasty little screenwriting lesson morsels has he left for us peasants to chew on?
This time we’re headed to Thailand. We have Belinda, the masseuse from Season 1 who’s here to learn and improve her skills. We’ve got Rick, 55, and Chelsea, 25, a couple dominated by Rick’s nonstop negativity. We’ve got Timothy and Victoria Ratliff, a successful couple. Timothy is hiding from his fam a big negative article that’s about to be written about his company back home.
We’ve got the Ratliff’s weirdo children, Piper, Lochlan, and Saxson. Saxson is an oversexed weirdo who just wants to get laid. Lochlan as innocent as newly churned butter and is unsure of what he wants to do in life. And Piper is the whole reason the family came here. She wants to get an interview with the big Buddhist celebrity on the island, an interview the family is only learning now that she hasn’t secured yet.
Finally we have Kate, Jaclyn, and Laurie, three childhood friends who lost touch and are reconnecting on this trip. Jaclyn is a TV star. Kate is her cool successful friend. And Laurie looks to be the loser of the group, and therefore is immediately uncomfortable with the trip.
So, question number 1: How does it hold up to the other seasons of White Lotus so far?
I would put it in third place but that’s not as damning a ranking as you’d think. The first two seasons were amazing. This one, so far, is only very good. There are no stand-out characters yet, although there are definitely a few who have the potential to be. Saxson (Arnold Swarzenegger’s son) is super weird and acts utterly bizarre around his siblings. I’m 70% sure that Mike White is setting up an incest storyline between him and one of the other siblings. Things are going to get messy in The White Lotus Thailand!
Like in previous installments, White has started the story in the future, showing or hinting at a death, then jumping back in time. He does this because he knows that this is a character-driven story and, if you don’t add a little bit of jus to character driven stories, they can fell like any other generic TV show. So we hear gunshots in the opening scene, and they’re coming from multiple directions. If I had to guess, I would say that gang activity has spilled over onto the hotel grounds. I don’t think it’s one of our characters who’s shooting.
If you want to get good at character work, watch Mike White play. This guy is like Mozart for character development. Count how many characters are in this story. There are a dozen.
He not only sets up all one dozen of those characters within 30 minutes (by the midpoint of the first episode). But he sets up the conflict within each group. I read a lot of pilots. Writers CONSTANTLY struggle to set up a single character that’s memorable. To set up 12 and already introduce the main form of conflict within their groups is genius-level screenwriting.
With Rick and Chelsea, Rick has clearly come here with a plan. There’s somebody he wants to meet and when he learns that that person isn’t on the island, he’s furious. This creates a lot of tension in his relationship because Chelsea thinks they’re here to have fun. And she can’t even get her boyfriend to look her in the eyes.
With Timothy and Victoria, the conflict is more deeply embedded and subtle. They have a happy marriage but it’s clear that the level of love that ignited it isn’t there anymore. There’s a quick moment near the end of the episode where Victoria is trying to cheer Timothy up and she’s telling him how lucky he is with all the stuff he has. She starts by saying, “You have this amazing wife…”. And she looks at him and waits for him to confirm but he hesitates. She looks at him a little more sternly and he says, “Yeah yeah, an amazing wife.” We can already see that she wants more than he does.
Their kids are all really weird. That, in and of itself, creates conflict because nobody is in sync with each other. But really, it’s Saxon, who constantly says or does things that are socially uncalibrated (such as hit on women when it’s inappropriate), which makes his siblings feel uncomfortable.
This is actually a great way to create a character who infuses conflict into a story – build a character who is socially uncalibrated. Pretty much everything they say is going to infuse the scene with an uneven tenor. Scenes can never be boring if that character is around.
With the three girlfriends, there’s this clear hierarchy. Jaclyn is at the top. She’s the TV star. She’s had the most success of the three girls. Then you have Kate, who isn’t famous but her husband is extremely successful, which has given her a lot of power and status. Yet, it’s clear that she’s a little bit jealous of Jaclyn’s success. Finally, you have Kate, who is living a normal life. And that normalcy is being spotlighted now that she’s alone with these two extremely successful women. And it’s starting to eat at her. We can see that she’s the first one who finishes her wine and refills it. Cause it’s hard to stay sober around these two where she’s being reminded of her lack of success.
A great screenwriting lesson to take away from this episode is LOOMING PROBLEMS. You should always be adding looming problems to TV shows because TV shows require a lot more time to be filled up. And, therefore, if you don’t place rewards down the road, the viewers will wonder why they’re hanging around for so long.
Here, we get this scene where Timothy takes an urgent call and learns that the Wall Street Journal is about to publish a very damning story about his company this week. And there’s nothing he can do about it. That’s a looming problem – a reason to keep watching the show. We want to see what happens when that news story drops. Will his entire career blow up?
Also, it does so much work for the character in the meantime. Cause every time we come back to Timothy, we can see the weight of that looming problem on top of him. Whether he’s happy, sad, having a good moment, a bad one, scolding his children, enjoying a fishing excursion – it’s another layer on top of the character.
This is how you create three-dimensional characters, guys. You add these layers so that the character is not just who he’s presenting himself to be in that moment. There are other things going on with him.
Ditto for Rick (Walton Goggins). He isn’t coming into this story naked. He brought a story with him. He’s coming here to do something. We don’t know what it is yet but we know it’s consuming him. Which creates the same effect. Everything he does is complicated by this thing that’s looming over him.
What also amazes me about Mike White is that he was able to set up all 12 of these main characters but then he also sets up 8 other characters! There are smaller characters, such as the two hotel workers who like each other. We have Belinda’s son. We have (spoiler) Tanya’s crazy husband back in the mix! We have a potential female love interest for Chelsea.
I don’t know how he does it.
Even if this wasn’t as good as Season 1 or 2, I was riveted the whole way through. This is easily my number 1 show. I can’t wait for next week. Mike White clearly has a plan here. You can see it in how confident he is in all of these characters. My only real complaint is that the title sequence song isn’t as catchy as the first two seasons.
:)
