Genre: Superhero/Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) When a washed-up superhero gets betrayed by a Mexican government, he must lead a populist social movement to fight the Narcos, topple the government, and free the people.
About: We’ve got another Black List script here, this one near the top with 15 votes. Miguel Flatow is a Mexican native who went to NYU for Creative Writing. In 2021 he wrote and directed his first feature film, called For Diego, which he shot on an iPhone for 70 grand.
Writer: Miguel Flatow
Details: 113 pages
Jonah Hill has the comedic and dramatic chops for Captain Bald Eagle
No need to beat around the salvia clevelandii. This script wasn’t my jam.
It wasn’t a bad script. It moved along at a nice pace and everything. But it’s so uneven that it’s hard to get a handle on.
The read got me thinking about Black List scripts and which scripts make the coveted Black List (a yearly list of the best scripts in Hollywood). It’s a question I’ve been asked a million times before. “What’s the difference between a Black List script and my script?” In other words, what do I need to do to get my script on the Black List?
It’s a hard question to answer because the margin between Black List writers and the average aspiring screenwriter with at least five scripts under his/her belt is thinner than ever. If you held a blind vote between a lower-ranked Black List script and a veteran amateur script, the guess on which one was the Black List script would probably come back at 50/50.
So then let’s get back to the question. What’s the difference? What is it that the Black List script has that your script, which hasn’t made the Black List, doesn’t have?
Well, the best way I can think of to explain it is through a tennis analogy. A lot of you probably don’t watch college or professional tennis. But I watch both. And when I’m watching college tennis, I marvel at how good the players are. Almost all of them have serves eclipsing 120mph. They all have huge forehands. They have consistent and even, in some cases, aggressive backhands. If a weekend club player played the number 2 tennis player at UCLA, they would lose 6-0, 6-0.
However, the second you put a college tennis player up against a professional player – a guy in the top 100 – he’s the one who’s overmatched. He’ll definitely look respectable out there. But he’s still going to lose to the pro in straight sets.
The question of what’s the difference between a Black List writer and a seasoned amateur writer is similar to the difference between a pro tennis player and a college tennis player. And what that amounts to is that both players do everything well. But the pro player just does everything a little better.
The college player has a 120 mph serve. The pro player can buzz one in there at 130. The college player can sit in the pocket and groove the ball back through a 15 ball rally without getting tired. The pro player can stay in there for a 25 ball rally and is still be as fresh as he was at the start of the match. The college player can belt out 10 winners on their forehand side throughout the match. The pro player can hit up to 50% more than that.
How this relates back to screenwriting is that, at first glance, the Black List writer doesn’t seem to be doing much different from the amateur writer. But if you look closer, their character work is just a little more thought out. Their structure is a little cleaner. Their dialogue is a little more thoughtful. Their scene work is a bit better. And when you add all those things up, the Black List script reads better than the amateur script.
Now, you may point out that the Black List scripts are hardly show-stoppers. I agree. To extend the metaphor, if a pro player ranked 90 in the world goes up against a pro player ranked 7 in the world, the lower ranked pro player isn’t going to look so great. In other words, very rarely will someone on the Black List write a better script than Quentin Tarantino or Aaron Sorkin. Those guys are in another bracket. But, that doesn’t change that fact that the low-ranked pro player is still better than the college player.
That’s a very long intro into today’s script but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while and I wanted to share it with you guys. Cause I know how frustrating it can be to read some of these Black List scripts and be confused. So, in a second I’ll tell you how you can elevate your writing up to Black List level.
Viva Mexico follows a 40-something sometimes-commercial actor named John who also happens to be a former superhero named Captain Bald Eagle. John’s agent calls him to tell him that he’s been hired by the governor of a small southern Mexican city to take care of a recent issue involving a local cartel (called “Cartel Cartel”).
John flies down to Mexico in his Captain Bald Eagle uniform and is told by Governor Pena about a dangerous man named Juan Rojo who has kidnapped five congressmen. He wants Captain Bald Eagle to take Juan down.
But as soon as John is out of the meeting, he’s kidnapped by a nasty looking tattooed fellow named Sordomudo. Sordomudo busses John to a warehouse, puts on a Mission Impossible mask of Juan Rojo, and proceeds to video tape a decapitation of John.
Well, an “almost” decapitation because a bunch of gnarly men break into the warehouse and kidnap John. John wakes up at the compound of the real Juan Rojo and learns that Sordomundo was working with the governor. Their plan was to stage a video murder of Captain Bald Eagle, making it look like he was killed by Juan Rojo, which would’ve given the government international approval to go scorched earth on Juan Rojo.
But, according to Juan Rojo, the government is the real cartel. Juan and his community are the good guys. And yes, they did kidnap those politicians. But only because they plan on exposing the government. Captain Bald Eagle decides to join Juan Rojo in this endeavor which gets complicated after Sordomundo kidnaps a young Mexican woman John has fallen in love with. Juan and John decide that this will end on Mexcian Independence Day. They are are going to battle Sordomundo’s cartel to the death. And they’re going to take back Mexico for the people in the process.
I could never grasp what this script was trying to do beginning with its concept. It’s a weird one. Bring in some over-the-hill American superhero to solve a Mexico-specific cartel problem?? It’s definitely not an idea that rolls off the proverbial high concept tongue. It takes a few run-throughs to make peace with it.
And there’s a ton going on here. It’s actually exploring some pretty deep ideas in regards to the troubles Mexico is facing. But, at times, it’s trying to tell that tale in a funny way. Captain Bald Eagle is supposed to be Bob Parr from The Incredibles, I think. A former great superhero who’s now over the hill and needs to find his chi again. But it was very poorly set up.
It wasn’t even clear, at the beginning, if John *was* a superhero or a guy wearing a suit pretending to be a superhero. And then when we do find out he’s a real superhero (he’s kind of a low-rent Captain America), we’re told that he only got half-a-dose of the super-serum. So he’s not a true superhero. And, also, I think his shield is the only thing that allows him to have his powers? It’s not well explained.
If I had to give the script a comp, I would say it’s similar to The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent with Nic Cage. An American “superhero” gets chummy with a cartel boss. But that script was written with a level of assuredness that this script is missing. So, even though Viva Mexico was competently written, it’s misguided from the get-go.
Okay, back to our metaphor. How does a college player become a top 100 ranked pro player? Well, it’s not one fix. They work on EVERYTHING. They might realize that they’re falling backwards whenever they hit their backhand, which takes 15mph off the stroke. So they get to work with their coach, who feeds them thousands of backhands where they now practice stepping into the backhand. After several months, their backhand is a completely different stroke.
They may be doing something technically wrong on their serve that’s leaving mph’s on the table. It could be that they’re not tossing the ball forward enough or maybe they’re making contact with their body falling instead of pushing upward. These slight tweaks might add as much as 20 mph. Their footwork may be a little slow so they spend 30 minutes after every hitting session doing footwork drills. This allows them, in matches, to get to balls earlier, which means they’re prepared sooner, which makes the shot easier.
In other words, you’re making all of these small improvements that, when added together, up your total game play. So that’s all you should be doing in screenwriting. Identify your weaknesses and try to improve them.
Do you have enough conflict in your scenes? If not, write 100 practice scenes where all you focus on is adding conflict. Are your characters interesting or boring? If they’re boring, study the 30 most interesting characters in movie history, write down what makes them interesting, and then start incorporating some of those traits into your own characters. Do you know how to construct your 50 page second act to move quickly? If not, study pacing (adding goals with some sort of urgency attached).
The closest thing to a “skip the line” strategy in screenwriting is finding that elusive awesome concept. But minus that, it’s just hard work. It’s making all these little improvements in your “game.” Eventually, those improvements add up to an overall improvement that puts you on the Black List.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “Sorta” doesn’t work in movies. “Sorta” superhero. “Sorta” drug-addict. “Sorta” selfish. “Sorta” villain. I’m sure you guys can come up with a few exceptions, but movies, by and large, work best when your characters have definitive traits. He’s a superhero. He’s a hardcore drug addict. He’s cripplingly selfish. He’s a deadly villain. Not only did the “sorta” superhero thing here make Captain Bald Eagle wishy-washy and, therefore, less compelling. It also made him confusing. I was trying to figure out, through the first half of the script, why he hadn’t done anything super.
