This is the trailer to CHLOE, Atom Egoyan’s new movie.  When I read the script more than a few times back in 2007 and 2009, it felt like confectioner’s sugar.  Erin Cressida Wilson wrote it, and I had no idea it was adapated from a French film (Amanda Seyfried looks like she’s from France, doesn’t she?  Either that or another fucking planet.) which is a shame because had I known there was a sexy French movie starring Emmanuel Beart, I would’ve Netflixed the shit out of it. If a script is adapted from something, the title page should ALWAYS reflect that.

CHLOE is about a woman who hires a hooker to lure her husband so that she can find out if her husband has (or has the capacity to, I suppose) cheat on her.  It’s a ludicrous script, filled with on-the-nose dialogue and absurdly precise descriptions of sex.  It’s a grown-up WILD THINGS, in a way, replete with the lesbian subtext that doesn’t stay subtext for very long.  My favorite part of the script — or, well, one of them considering there are simply so many parts here I dug — was that Catherine the main character is an OB/GYN, and the script includes more than a few graphic scenes with her at work talking to and looking at vaginas.  The script wants us to get off on her job in some way; it also showcases how Catherine’s clinical ways have bled from work to home and that’s a large motivator for why she hires the titular Chloe.  The movie hinges on Chloe describing to Catherine all the different ways she screws Catherine’s husband.  It’s Penthouse Forum in an art movie, and it’s just as ridiculous as that sounds.

I gave the script a consider; it’s wacky pablum in the end, a trifle, and the part of the script that should’ve been the best (Single White Female Chloe) was always the weakest.  Had I known Egoyan was directing, the tawdry ribald genre-slumming would’ve made all the sense in the world; he has a knack for elevating this kind of thing, and he’s got an eye for twisted sexuality done in an adult, coherently mature way.

The script is a great example of taking a concept and turning it.  I’m going to spoil some plot details here (though they’re intimated in the trailer), so look away if you wish to remain untainted.  The concept is woman hires hooker to lure husband.  That’s not enough, though — that’s only the beginning of the story.  For that to be a movie, it needs something more, a complication, something that elevates it from one-liner to developed narrative.  So the script has Catherine and Chloe start an affair of their own, and then we start to doubt whether or not Chloe is telling the truth about sleeping with Catherine’s husband at all.  We even suspect that Catherine’s belief that her husband is unfaithful could be another fabrication.  The characters are all lying to themselves and each other, and figuring out who’s telling the truth becomes nigh impossible until the final reel.

The third act is something of a mess.  Instead of tying up loose ends, the script just creates convenient character motivations out of whole cloth and prays we won’t notice.  The script takes itself too seriously to drag itself out of the genre ghetto, and at times it feels too much like SINGLE WHITE FEMALE but more lesbian-y.  I can’t imagine it’ll be a big domestic box office hit — business-wise, this movie makes sense in ancillary markets (DVD, overseas), with the domestic release little more than a marketing campaign for the DVD/VOD release.  It’s a perfect addition to the Egoyan pantheon, though.

I’m on the lookout for the script.  If I find it, I’ll post it.

Funny story:  here’s an excerpt from an email I got some time back…

“Is it really OK if I use your notes?  You just posted about [redacted], and I’ve been procrastinating for weeks doing these notes.  Stupid agent keeps calling, my boss is too busy fucking his masseuse, and the writer won’t stop emailing because this is supposed to be the first step on the new contract.  FUCK.”

Yes, folks, good things happen to good people.  If you want me to give you time enough to drink in the early afternoon, send that script your company has thrown eight writers at since 2007 and still can’t make heads nor tails of and I’ll solve all your problems, as long as you’re comfortable with me publishing the notes right here on Courier12.

Oh, and!  Let’s not forget a nice little tidbit of info from Variety yesterday: Gabriele Muccino is talking with Morgan Creek about directing PASSENGERS, the Jon Spaihts script yours truly likes a lot.  He’s a character guy, and that script is all character, so he might actually be a good fit.   Advanced negotiations are always a good thing.  Fingers crossed the sucker gets made.

I’ve been hiding behind ScriptShadow for quite some time; I’ve always felt like, “Well, if he’s doing it, then it’s OK for me to do it.”  This isn’t fair to the writers whose scripts I write about.

I’m trying to figure out just where to go from here.  For now, I’m removing the .pdf links on the site.  August suggests getting permission from writers before posting scripts or only posting scripts from movies that have already come out.  I don’t think either idea is realistic.  Hopefully I can come up with a way to do this ethically while still keeping it interesting.

12 July 09

90 pages

Nimrod Antal directing

Robert Rodriguez producing

Starring Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo

Troublemaker producing for Fox

In pre-production now

A little meta moment first: sorry for being out of pocket for these couple weeks, but fatherhood and Thanksgiving conspired to keep me away.  I’m going to try to get back to my previous output soon.  Bear with me.

I have a deep respect for Robert Rodriguez – the guy knows how to make movies for a price, he’s an iconoclast who has always found a way to do what he wants, and he’s not a stylist, priding himself more on making a movie what it wants to be rather than making a movie what he wants it to be.  That being said, he misses as often as he hits.  “Planet Terror” was undercooked.  “Spy Kids” and its sequels are great, but “Shark Boy & Lava Girl” and “Shorts” did not recapture that magic.  And yes, I might lose all credibility with a sector of my audience here, but I’m not a fan of “Sin City.”

Rodriguez producing this “Predators” reboot-sequel makes all the sense in the world, actually.  The original was exactly the kind of made-on-the-cheap great genre flick that Rodriguez does so well  This isn’t a project predicated on aesthetics, but rather story and sizzle, Rodriguez’s strong suits.  It’s being directed by Nimrod Antal, whose latest film “Armored” comes out in a couple weeks.   Armored’s script hurt my eyes the 12 times I had to read it.  Apparently Rodriguez was hired to write “Predators” back in 1996, and this is based on that script.  **I’ve just added a link below to Rodriguez’s original ’96 script (thanks, DS!), and after I read it I’ll let you guys know how it measures up.**

Are they still together? I can't keep track anymore.

The story starts with ROYCE, EDWIN, ISABELLE and four others waking up while they land in an unknown jungle, no one knowing where they are or what they’re doing there.  They’re all killers, assassins, soldiers, warriors, supposedly worthy prey.  Turns out they’re being hunted by the titular predators, here described as Super Predators – jacked up, like the original on steroids.  This is a game preserve on an alien planet and they’ve got to fight their way out.  Along the way, they run into NOLAND, who has survived on the planet for decades.  The finale has Royce surviving to do battle with the last Super Predator while Edwin tries to kill Isabelle.  An alternate ending included in the script has a ship land in the final frames of the film and Dutch himself, now some kind of Predator leader, descend from the gangplank to congratulate Royce on a job well done.

No more script links, guys.

Robert!

I’m running low on Salt Lick sauce.  Can you send over another case?  What do they put in their brisket?  It makes my tongue cry happy.

Thanks for PREDATORS.  It’s pretty good, but between you and me, it can be a hell of a lot better.  You have an opportunity to make whatever movie you want.  Fox has given you a massive amount of latitude, they aren’t going to interfere, and you know that if you even do a half-ass job, the movie will do well.  You’ve got some great talent  – Adrien Brody is obviously wonderful, and nobody kicks ass like Danny Trejo.  I really like Topher Grace, too.  I think he’s underrated, and he has an offbeat staccato synchronicity to him that dovetails perfectly with Edwin the serial killer.  So with all these eggs in your basket, you can choose to throw some shit on screen and be done with it, which is about where I’d say the script is now, or you can come up with something better.

You Brody haters are short-sighted. It's an inspired bit of casting, I think.

I’m not talking about reinventing the wheel, either – I’m just talking about making sure that the script pays off on its concept and doesn’t lapse into plot laziness.

I think there’s an endemic problem with the conceit here.  PREDATOR was about an alien hunter on Earth – seems he’d been there for awhile, because local legend spoke of him, although the opening of the movie showed his ship landing – hunting down Ahnuld and his buddies.  It didn’t seem like a fair fight; the Predator, after all, is an alien with amazing technology at his disposal, while the soldiers are just guys with guns.  But Ahnuld is on his home turf while the Predator is all alone on an alien world, which appears to even things up a bit.

But here, Royce and the others have a few guns and not much else, they’re dropped in the middle of an alien place with virtually no preparation, and the Predators not only are numerous, but they’re souped-up versions who also have alien dogs and birds-of-prey at their disposal.  What’s the challenge there?  The Predators are set up to be honorable warriors, even only killing prey who’re armed.  They aren’t the kind of killers who enjoy an unfair fight.  The first movie establishes that Dutch and his crew are complete badasses, and only then does the Predator go after them. But if these Super Predators can’t kill a few measly disoriented humans, then they don’t much deserve their mandibles.

I am Predator! I am late for the 4:15 of New Moon! Team Jacob!

There are a few ways to fix this problem.  Maybe the Predators should prep the humans more, give them supplies, better weapons, information about where they are and so on.  Maybe the game preserve isn’t a jungle, but rather a fake town or fort, created to give the humans a fighting chance. Perhaps the Predators are just as much captives as the humans, both played against each other for the amusement of some other alien race.  Perhaps you simply hang a lantern on the fact that this is an unfair fight, and pass off these Predators as the equivalent of English fox hunters; the kill is an inevitability, and a gruesome one at that. Or maybe the Predators should hobble themselves somehow; they aren’t allowed to use all their tricks and gadgets, camo, armor, what have you.

That last option could be cool – when the humans start succeeding at fighting back, the Predators have to trot out more and more of their tricks in an attempt to vanquish the prey.  This would have the added benefit of ramping up the stakes as the script goes on; start with a food fight, move into a fist fight, a knife fight, a gun fight, and finally global thermofuckingnuclear war.

I will hunt you down and kill you just as soon as I return my books to the library!

You know me – I like scripts that are transformational.  I’m always looking for layers – ALIEN isn’t just about fighting a bloodthirsty alien, it’s also about a corrupt corporation.  POLTERGEIST is about subdivisions and real estate as well as things that go bump in the day.  The original PREDATOR involves the CIA, a guerilla war, and US meddling in Latin America.  So where are the layers here?  As written, the best that could be done might be a real character arc, hammering something into Royce and showing how he goes from being a cold-blooded killer who works on his own to someone willing to sacrifice himself to save Isabelle.  I don’t think that’s good enough, though, so the trick becomes how to find another story to tell here.  Since we’re on an alien planet, that becomes a little bit harder, and since the characters are basically transported there without knowing anything, that becomes even harder.

One idea: perhaps you exploit Edwin-as-serial-killer thing.  He’s the lone mystery in the script and I kept waiting for something amazing to happen with him.  I was hoping for a surprise, someplace where he’d turn and show off just why he’s so crazy.  That scene in the pit with Isabelle doesn’t count – it’s a placeholder at best, downright boring at worst.  I think you can do a lot more with the concept.  At what point does Edwin turn?  Could it be that the Predators brought him there because they believe he’s the ultimate predator?  How many people has he killed?  Perhaps he starts killing everyone else, and at first they think it’s the Predators but then they realize it’s one of their own, 10 Little Indians on Ceti Alpha VI.  Maybe he knew about the alien planet already, maybe he helped the Predators track down all these bad-ass bad asses, maybe he’s in cahoots with the Predators.  I’m grasping here, because there’s just so little to hold on to aside from the shit-blows-up parts of the script.

Noland presents other problems.  He’s nothing more than a placeholder here, a speed bump.  He’s a fascinating character – he’s survived for years, killed more than his share of Predators, and seems to know all there is to know.  I like the twist that he tries to dispatch our characters so quickly, but it means that his character is squandered.  I want him to try to kill them and then they’re forced to join with him.  The script needs that kind of conflict – too often it seems like you’re just hoping that people will argue and clash just because of their personalities.  In a script like this, I don’t think that’s enough.

A few smaller thoughts… The opening needs a set piece of some sort.  Challenge the characters right off the bat with immediate jeopardy.  Force characters to make hard choices right away.  Scenes of characters parachuting into the jungle isn’t enough.  Maybe they’re chased right off the bat – maybe not by a Predator, maybe by an indigenous life form.  Maybe they wonder why this weird animal is in wherever they think they are (Latin America, maybe?).

Do what you can to make us believe that they’re on Earth, so that when it turns out they aren’t, we’ll be as shocked as they.  Hopefully you can find another way to do it, but the movie needs a ‘what was the last thing you remember?’ kind of conversation, as the characters try to piece together how they ended up there.  You definitely need a better conversation at the moment they realize they’re on another planet.  Silent pondering and one character’s WTF does not a good scene make.  This moment is epic; these characters have just had their minds blown upside down and back again.  Give them a moment to realize the gravity, and give them something interesting to say about it.

Predator kill! Also, Predator babysits for $15 an hour.

Be careful with foregrounding the characters all wondering what’s hunting them.  We already know what it is, so we’re far ahead of the main characters and that’s a bad thing.  The only possibility here is that you hang a lantern on the fact that we know more than they do, but I’m not a fan of that.  Get it over with in the first act, so they think they’re being hunted by aliens in El Salvador or somewhere.  Let the holy shit moment be the revelation that they’re on an alien planet.  I’d also move that hunting camp scene that comes at the start of the second act – I think it would accomplish more if it’s later.

I think the script has a ways to go before it’s ready for production.  I know you’re aiming to release next summer, but I’d rethink that.  In fairness to you, I’m quite sure you’ll get Nimrod to deliver a decent movie at a price that’ll make back its nut and then some – but if you stick with this draft, it won’t be as good as it could’ve been.

I’ll be in Austin next week.  Dinner’s on me, drinks are on you.

- John

more fantastic Predator cosplay pictures here (via io9)

25 March 09 draft

129 pages

Darren Aronofsky to direct

Starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey

Fox Searchlight, Overnight Films producing

Fox Searchlight distributing

Darren Aronofsky is unique in Hollywood; he’s a brand, a brilliant filmmaker, but his artistic reputation is predicated on one crazy film (Requiem for a Dream), one good low-budget exercise (Pi), one brilliant character study (The Wrestler), and one absolute train wreck (The Fountain).  He’s a good director, but his reputation far outstrips his actual output.  He’s able to attract great actors and he’s a gutsy, unrelenting artist, but his movies are unapologetic exercises.

Auteur with a capital "A."

When news of Black Swan first hit, everyone got 12-year-old-boy excited when they heard that Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis would have sex in the movie. The script is far more than that, but the sequence that ends in Portman and Kunis’s characters sleeping together is the centerpiece of the story.  The script is a plague of mood-without-story, and it seems to play into all the qualities that make Aronofsky a critical darling and a commercial conundrum.  This is insular writing that doesn’t need to be.  It makes one yearn for the fantasia that would’ve been Aronofsky’s Robocop reboot.  If anyone has that script…

Black Swan follows NINA, a ballet dancer with a company in New York.  She’s cast in the lead role in Swan Lake by Korolyevna, the company’s artistic director, but he’s still not sure she can play the black swan, the dark half of the role.  Enter LILY, new to the company and a dead ringer for Nina.  She’s a free spirit and Nina feels threatened by her.  Nina pushes herself to prepare for the role, she has a brief affair with Korolyevna, and she becomes more and more paranoid as opening night approaches.  Lily takes Nina out, inspiring her to cut loose but also stretching Nina’s psychosis past the breaking point, ending in Nina having sex with what she thinks is Lily but turns out to be her own doppelganger.  On opening night, Nina kills her double and dances the role brilliantly but she bleeds on stage, the wound self-inflicted.

Darren –

That week in St. Barts was fantastic, thanks again for inviting us.  My wife was wondering if Rachel wouldn’t mind passing on her recipe for cioppino – OK, really I’m the one asking.  The secret ingredient is Worcestershire, isn’t it?

I read the latest draft of Black Swan.  I see how it’ll play to your strengths, and Natalie and Mila are great casting choices.  I’m concerned, though – I don’t think the script is up to par.  It’s good, but it’s not great.

To me, this script is about the relationship an artist has with herself; it’s about her perception of herself, about catalyzing her inner conflict by physically manifesting it in another character.  I like that theme.  It’s an exploration of the duality artists must inhabit, and in many ways I think the script becomes a metaphor for the actor’s process.  That the medium is ballet rather than theater or film makes all the difference – ballet can be visceral, visually arresting, and enrapturing without lapsing into cliché.

The Black Swan

That’s all why the script is a good idea, but the issue here is execution.  I don’t think the script has made good on its conceit, and although some of what I’m going to suggest might feel as though it’s taking the script in a more commercial, less auteur-centric direction, you know all too well that I believe in the audience, not the artist.  The Fountain is an amazing piece of art but it’s not much of a movie, and I don’t want you to make another one of those.  The Wrestler touched people because Mickey was an amazing character and the relationships were conflicted, difficult, and nuanced, and the script was impeccably structured.  Black Swan is more The Fountain than The Wrestler right now.

Let’s just run through the sketch of the plot here.  Nina gets the chance of a lifetime when she’s cast as the swan in Swan Lake.  Nina starts to doubt herself, sabotage her own dancing, and throw away everything she’s worked so hard for. Nina is pushed to the brink, but as she self-destructs, she also finds the inner fire needed to fully execute the role.

Do you see what’s missing there?  Any other character aside from Nina.  They’re all unnecessary to the story.  Even though Lily appears to be the driving force behind Nina’s breakdown, she has nothing to do with Nina falling apart.  She’s only present for Nina’s breakdown, not inciting it.

As we deconstruct the story, it feels as though there is less and less substance here.  I keep waiting for something to happen.  The affair with Korolyevna and Nina’s guilt about Beth takes up most of the first half of Act 2, climaxing in the cocktail party and the first real moment of connection between Nina and Lily.  The second half of Act 2 doesn’t really get started until Lily and Nina go out together; that’s a great sequence, but I don’t feel like the script earns it.  Really, the whole story seems to be building to the moment where Nina and Lily have sex.  It’s the ultimate act of self-love on Nina’s part – she’s having sex with someone she believes is a manifestation of herself, as much about her own self-confidence and interior struggle as it is about her relationship with Lily.  It’s the one moment in the script that feels dangerous, unexpected, daring, and a little bit original.

In order for that moment to work, I think everything up until then has to change.

First of all, Lily must become a central part of the first act.  I’d like her to show up first by page 12, or no later than page 15 rather than half an hour in.  Introduce her as Nina is trying out for the swan, establish Lily’s part in the company, and begin the connection between Nina-as-the-swan and Lily’s presence.  I want Lily in a lot more of the script, and I think it’s important to keep her front-and-center, always near Nina.  She must be the manifestation of everything in Nina that is both dangerous and powerful, everything that Nina has repressed.

I don’t understand why Korolyevna gives Nina the part right now.  If it’s his attraction to her, I don’t think that’s interesting enough.  A more genre approach would have the other competitors felled by mysterious injuries; better might be that Lily is the front-runner, but she purposefully messes up so that Nina gets the part. Perhaps we find out later that Lily was just too scared of the role, that her flub had nothing to do with Nina at all.  I want Nina to feel as though she’s being manipulated by Lily in every scene.  The relationship between Nina and Lily is where this script works best; let’s put it everywhere we can.

The relationship with Korolyevna and Nina doesn’t have enough tension to it right now.  Yes, she’s not all that interested in sleeping with him and that sex scene toes the line of consent (until, y’know, she commands, “Fuck me”), but otherwise?  He’s single, she’s single, it’s ballet; their affair doesn’t have any conflict to it.  There isn’t even a cautionary tale told early on, where Nina hears how one of Korolyevna’s former lovers lost a great part or went crazy or killed herself.  If Nina has a boyfriend then the affair matters a little more.  If Korolyevna is married, I’m more interested.  If he’s married to the prime benefactor of the ballet, now I’m intrigued.  If the ballet is going to close down if Korolyevna gets divorced, the affair starts to make sense.  The thing is, I never feel like there’s any jeopardy for these characters – the worst that might happen is that Nina loses her role as the swan and ends up back where the script started.  It’s a cliché to tell a script to raise the stakes, but, well, raise ‘em.

The script doesn’t handle Beth well.  I suppose she and Korolyevna were having an affair too, but it doesn’t matter to the plot.  We don’t see her accident or even really hear about what lands her in the hospital, which turns what should be an important detail into inconsequential trivia.  If I had to guess, I’d say that she’s supposed to be a warning to Nina, but the script doesn’t make that work in the least.  This isn’t to say that Nina has to be accused of causing Beth’s accident or that Lily should be the one who harms Beth, or even that Beth should point a crooked finger at Nina, warning her of what’s to come.  Nothing so on the nose is needed.  Play up Nina and Beth’s similarities, how Nina is supplanting Beth (and an errant newspaper clipping doesn’t cut it).  Show the horror of Beth’s accident, the sudden and sheer terror that she feels when she realizes she’ll never dance again.  That way, she’s a cautionary tale for Nina without being cliched about it.

$20 says she's playing Beth.

I don’t think the script pays off Erica either.  The fact that Erica is Nina’s mother isn’t much of a revelation, except to make us wonder why Nina is still living with her mom and why her mom is a controlling freak.  Without context, more information about Nina’s family, I don’t care.  Erica is an unnecessary character right now.  Also, be careful about the eating disorder stuff; it’s such cliché in a ballet movie and it never pays off here.  That’s also true of the Mean Girls nattering Nina overhears in the hallways, all the other ballet dancers talking about her behind her back.  A little goes a long way.

The script finally starts to cook when Nina and Lily go out together in the sequence that culminates in them having sex.  The script needs more of when Lily and Nina clash, when Lily cajoles Nina, when they inspire each other.  Often the script only tells us that Lily looks up to Nina instead of putting that in a scene.  We know how Lily effects Nina.  How does Nina effect Lily?

In the end, I don’t think the script reaches the transcendent moment it’s looking for.  It’s trying to boil to an aha; that moment when Nina kills her double and then dumps the body in the closet should be frightening and scary, but instead it’s just weird.  I never believe that the body is real.  When she bleeds on the stage as the script ends, I’m not sure what the point is.  Does she die?  Does this mean she’s sacrificed herself for her art?  To what end?  Has the soul of the Black Swan taken her over?  It’s all just metaphor at this point, metaphor I’ve seen done elsewhere better.

The script can climax in cacophony – build to opening night, maybe Nina’s double has actually become real, and it’s Nina’s double who dances the Black Swan part.  Maybe Lily, understudy to Nina, takes over the role because Nina isn’t ready and Nina’s double kills Lily and takes her place.  The idea of Nina’s double becoming a real person, Nina’s psychosis manifested physically, is attractive to me but by no means is it the script’s only option.  Either way, I don’t think it’s enough for the script to build to Nina just performing the part on opening night and that’s it.

I trust that your vision for the movie can smooth over a lot of these rough patches, but no matter how deft your touch, you can’t fix the endemic problems with the script.  I know you don’t want to turn this into some kind of mechanical exercise in plot, but the script needs purpose and direction so that it’ll pay off on its potential.

I’ll have Simone send over my page-by-page notes.  See you in Vail?  We’re there between Christmas and New Year’s, as usual.

- John

117 pages

30 Nov 08

Producer: Timur Bekmambetov, The Jacobson Company for New Regency

No attachments

First off, I’d like to thank all of you for your kind emails and comments congratulating me on the expansion of my family.  Bear with me as I try to get back up to speed and resume regularly scheduled programming.

I first read this script a couple years back when it was written by M.T. Ahern & Leslie Bohem – Bohem had something of a career back in the 90’s, getting credits on the Van Damme picture NOWHERE TO RUN, Stallone’s DAYLIGHT, and the better of the dueling volcano flicks DANTE’S PEAK.  That DARKEST HOUR draft wasn’t just bad, it was embarrassing; sometimes you’ll see an early draft of a script in development and think, “Wow, they missed, but they were going for something and there’s a lot here to work with and when you get down to it, they aren’t that far off.”  That wasn’t the case with Ahern & Bohem’s draft.  Had I written it, I would’ve refunded the production company’s money.

Flash forward a year, and this comes across my desk.  Spaihts.  Oh, yeah, I like him.  Bekmambetov?  Not my favorite, but I get him, I understand why he matters.  But this script?  There wasn’t a single thing worthwhile about that last draft, so why even bother with a rewrite?  But this isn’t a rewrite so much as it is an entirely new script with the same title and name for the alien species.  Otherwise?  Nebraska has become Moscow.  8 main characters from all walks of life have become 4 Americans in Moscow for differing reasons thrown together during the invasion.  And drudgery has been transformed into everything but.  This script is great.

The Jacobson Company has the project, producing for New Regency.  Word is they might start making it in March of next year, though that green light is dim according to people I talk to.  Timur is a headstrong guy who knows what he likes, so I’m sure he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what I say, but I think as good as the script is, it actually needs a decent amount of work.  This is a good example of how even a great script isn’t all that great once you start to pick it apart and unlock its secrets.

In Mother Russia, film watches you!

The script follows REX, NATALIE, VIKA, and SEAN, four survivors of an alien invasion.  We’re in Moscow, Rex, Natalie, and Sean are Americans, and they’re all at a nightclub when aliens called spooks attack the planet, and three weeks later they’re some of the last survivors, hiding from the creatures, trying to find shelter and safety that probably will never come.  They rescue Vika from the spooks, they meet up with a platoon of soldiers who have figured out how to kick some ass, and then they make it to the US Embassy where they hope to find sanctuary.  Turns out the bunker at the Embassy is a fool’s paradise, packed, squalid, awful.  The spooks attack and Rex, Natalie, Vika, and the soldiers escape, making it to a sub where they figure out how to use a weather station to make a large electrical surge that kills many of the spooks at once.  Now maybe they have a way of fighting back.

No more script links, guys.

Timur –

Thanks for bringing me in to work with Jon on the project.  I think there’s a lot going on here, and holy shit you did some great stuff considering where it started back before Jon got his mitts on the project.  That being said, if you want to start shooting in March, Jon needs to get this sucker down to fighting shape.

First off, I’m not a big fan of starting the script in media res, but if you feel like it’s necessary, then it needs to justify itself.  Either the scene needs to ask a question answered later on, or raise a mystery, or lay out the characters and their relationships, or even just provide irony with the rest of the opening.  None of those things happen right now.  It’s not a matter of just shooting everything and then picking a scene to drop in to the open, either – it needs to work in context, as the cold open.

Hi. I'm Jon Spaihts. I'm a talented sumbitch.

And while the set-up is good, I don’t think it’s entirely great – the stuff where Rex is trying to pull off the big deal and he gets screwed at the last minute is interesting, but it overshadows everything else.  Natalie and Anne’s moment is clunky, Vika’s is barely present, and Sean seems almost an afterthought.  These scenes seem like placeholders.  I want something like that argument between Natalie and Anne about the maps, but better than that.  This is a challenge; surprise me.

All that being said, I think the alien invasion has to start sooner, like page 12 or 13 instead of 17.  You’ll get a page and a half just by eliminating the cold open (hint hint).  The bar sequence is cool, but when the script jumps forward 3 weeks and doesn’t tell us anything about what’s transpired in the intervening time, I feel like the story drops the ball in a really big way.  That’s your chance to establish just how bad things have gotten, how frayed they all are, and best of all to set up some sort of mystery or question about what happened in those three weeks.  Did someone betray someone else?  Did a relationship develop?  Did a relationship break apart?  Is someone mysteriously missing who was there?  Where did they go?  Might they show up later in the script?  Utilize those missing three weeks in the plot to deepen the story and the characters.

Moscow!

I also would advocate for starting off the second act (which I’d place at that three-weeks-later place) with a set piece, something that establishes the situation they’re in, what they’ve learned so far about the invasion, and how much they really don’t know.  Let’s see them attempt an ambush or make a daring escape or something.  I’d also like to see them learn about the US Embassy bunker here; I think establishing the bunker’s existence as early as possible will pay greater dividends down the road.  That gives them a goal to aim for through the script, and means that when they finally get there and discover how horrible it is down there, it’ll have a lot more meaning and be that much more disappointing and destructive to their (and our) morale.

The set piece at the open of the second act should solve another problem – until the middle of the department store sequence, I don’t have a sense for how prevalent or dangerous the spooks are.  I need you to set up the rules for how the spooks behave and how to avoid them or chase them off right from the start.

From there, the plot operates pretty well – the Sergei sequence is cool, and Skyler’s betrayal feels just right.  The bunker sequence is simply fantastic, and the showpiece for the script.  Carlin is a great character, fascinating, a great opportunity for a surprising cameo.  I’d ask Tom Cruise, actually, or another A-lister.  That moment when Sean prays as the bunker blows is chilling, beautiful, and damn near perfect.  Work a bit more on Sean’s character, though – he hasn’t earned the elegiac sacrifice quite yet.  Get more subtle with his religious background, and establish why he might connect with a boy like that.  Try not to make Sean an orphan, though – nothing so on the nose.

The US Embassy in Moscow, before the alien invasion.

I sometimes feel like there’s too much conversation about what the spooks are and how to fight them and theories on what might kill them or stop them or whathaveyou.  It’s a little frustrating because I feel like we should see the characters discovering things themselves more, rather than just learn from others like Sergei and Matvei and Nikolai.  That way when they finally do defeat the aliens in the finale, they’ll have earned that revelation.

Once the script introduces the bigger badder alien ‘Seekers,’ I’m not sure what their purpose is or why they’re that important to the plot.  It seems like they’re an attempt to deepen the story or increase the jeopardy, but it doesn’t quite work; too little too late.  The script does need a transformation, where the plot shifts from one thing to another.  I’d like to see it at the midpoint, or perhaps as the bunker is blowing up.  If transformation is going to come, though, most likely I think it’ll be where the first part of the script is about survival and the second part is about fighting back.  That’ll be tough, though, because that will change the tone and content of a lot of those scenes in the first half.  If you have other ideas for what the transformation might be, let me know.

Last but not least, Rex is your headliner so give him more punch, more gut.  I like the simplicity of his attraction to Natalie and how he tries to keep things together and leads the group, but his character arc is slight here.  Deepen it, give it more texture and meaning.  Make him into the star he deserves to be. He starts out a cocky American, but he’s put in his place right away in the script – so what then?  Is this about him gaining his confidence back?  Is this about him realizing that he was going to rape the land just like the aliens are doing? I’m not sure either of those options are interesting enough.  There’s a lot more to find in Rex.

Oh, and that final speech Rex gives?  Nope.

Hope these help.  If you need clarity on anything, feel free to give a call.  I’m up all hours these days – new baby.  I think he’s on Moscow time, actually, which should make our conference calls convenient.

-JCG

This coming week I’ll post notes on some fun scripts — a Jon Spaihts script might just make another appearance, and maybe an adaptation of a piece of 80′s nostalgia or a notable from Scriptshadow’s reader 25.  I’ll try not to promise too much (being a father to a newborn takes some work, after all!), but don’t worry, I won’t be neglecting Courier12.

In the meantime, press reports have Sam Worthington being “replaced” by Johnny Depp (c’mon, he was never signed in the first place, who’re we kidding?) on THE TOURIST.  Will Johnny Depp make a difference?  Only if he brings with him a new draft.  Hopefully he’ll read my script notes  over here.

Johnny, feel free to print them out and take them with you to your first meeting with Florian.

Also: I need a catchier name than ‘script notes.’  I don’t want to say coverage or review, because the development notes (another cumbersome term) aren’t evaluative as a review always is, and certainly has more detail and actual answers to script problems than coverage.  I sometimes say ‘analysis,’ but that makes me feel like I’m a script shrink (although in many ways, I suppose I am).  If you think of anything, let me know.  Maybe I’ll do something as fantastically dorky as putting up a poll so everyone can votes for their favorite replacement term for ‘script notes.’

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go relieve my wife and take over babyduty for a spate.

120 pages

3 June 08

Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck attached to direct.

Set up at Warner Bros.

Orci & Kurtzman also producing.

No current actor attachments.

Say what you will about the grand doyens of crazyscript, these guys have a lock on big-and-wild movies.  They’re a brand name now, producing films like Eagle Eye and The Proposal, scripts which weren’t written by them but certainly feel like they could’ve been.  Whatever you think of Star Trek (like) and Transformers (uh…) and Mission Impossible III (no), box office doesn’t lie.

I'm certain they had nothing to do with the minstrel show characters in Transformers 2.

What’s interesting about 28^th Amendment is that this isn’t based on a previous property.  That’s a first for them (in terms of produced scripts).  Even The Island wasn’t originally written by them; it was a rewrite.  It sold to Warner Bros. some time ago.  Denzel and Tom Cruise were attached at one point (although what isn’t Tom Cruise attached to these days?) and then in March, WB announced they’d attached Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, the German Oscar-winning director of The Lives of Others.  Whether or not this actually comes to pass remains to be seen.  As my habitual readers might recall, Donnersmarck is also attached to The Tourist, which seems to have a clearer path to production.  I’ll bet that one gets made first.

The script is described as The Firm in the White House, but that’s like saying Where the Wild Things Are is Die Hard with muppets (when really we all know it’s a Woody Allen movie).  BEN has just been elected President but he finds out that the President is little more than a figurehead when a black bag op in Macau goes wrong and the US is brought to the brink of war with the Chinese.  Turns out a secret organization runs the country.  They’re led by HAWTHORNE, a Senator, and they want to start a war with China.  Special Forces soldier GRAY escapes Macau after the bungled job and he’s prodded into killing Ben by Hawthorne’s group, but Gray realizes that Ben is one of the good guys and together they team up to stop the war, keep Hawthorne’s men from killing Ben’s family, and restore the Presidency.

No more script links, guys.

Roberto & Alex:

Hey guys.  Great seeing you at the premiere last night; those Bob Zemeckis movies are wild, huh?  My wife wants to replace me with a fully-motion-captured animated character now.  I might have to get myself one of those ping pong ball leotards.

So the good news is that I’ve dug up the June 08 draft of 28^th and it’s aged well.  The bad news is that it’s still a long way away from getting into fighting shape.  I still like the core idea, but there isn’t much underpinning the story.  It’s something of a mess and it’ll take a lot of digging to extract it.

The script starts too early.  You spend an inordinate amount of time on Ben, the inauguration, setting up that he’s a maverick, showing us around the White House, introducing the concept of the bunker, the chip, and it takes you 14 pages to do it.  Everything up until the hit in Macau feels clumsy, too long, and overly indulgent.  Every time you cut to a talking head on television, you’re just giving us exposition.  Cut every last one of them – they aren’t necessary.  Show us how he’s a maverick, don’t just tell us.  Gray’s scene with Anna is a flatliner and the very next scene with Ben and Hawthorne going toe-to-toe is equally wan.  C’mon, you can do better.

Do we need an entire sequence devoted to the inauguration?

I’ve got an idea for the first act.  I think the script needs to open on an operation or a moment of crisis that sets up a couple of ideas: first, we need to establish that this young, new President is an independent thinker who works against the system (although that describes every President ever portrayed on screen); second , we need to show the details of the world Ben exists in and how crisis can change it (here’s where we set up the bunker, the chip, the ever-present Secret Service, and Ben’s family); third, and most importantly, Ben’s behavior during this crisis has to push Hawthorne to reveal the existence of the 28^th.  Everything at the open of the script is static and expository; throw it out.  Let’s see these elements in action.

The script cannot work unless Hawthorne’s revelation of the 28^th to Ben makes sense, and right now it doesn’t make any sense at all.  Hawthorne has no reason for telling him, regardless of how he tries to spin it right now.  Telling Ben about the group only puts it in jeopardy.  You’ve got that moment right before the reveal where the cabal of men talks about how it’s necessary, but you don’t show us that it’s necessary.  We have to understand on a gut level that if they don’t tell Ben, it’ll end badly for everyone.  Back them into a corner and force it out of Hawthorne somehow.  Maybe they’re telling Ben because they want to bring him in; maybe he’s been nominated to join them.  Maybe they realize that for the first time they’re dealing with a President they have to bargain with.  What if there’s a period in the script when Ben assumes that every President is part of the 28^th?  What if he thinks they’re benevolent at first, and then only later does he realize how horrible they are?  Maybe that’s the moment when he finds out they were responsible for JFK.  That moment should still come at the end of the first act.

Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.

And just as an addendum – you have to show that the 28^th is responsible for way more than just the JFK assassination.  I want to understand how their hands are dirty with every single foreign policy decision of the last 60 years.  I want their manipulation to be fascinating, all-encompassing, and fucking scary, because that’s the only way the stakes get raised here.

Gray is a great character, but his arc happens way too quickly.  I do not believe in any way, shape, or form that he’d so immediately turn into wanting to kill the President.  I like the concept of the scene where he’s about to kill the President but realizes that Ben is in the same predicament as he is, and I like the placement of it, smack in the middle of the script, but no way, no how do you sufficiently motivate him turning into an assassin.  Besides, you establish with the JFK footage that if the 28^th wants to kill a President, they need a patsy but they have redundancies in place.  Gray wouldn’t be the only one there and the other sniper wouldn’t hesitate.  This presents a sticky problem – you’ve gotta come up with some way to keep the core of the scene but making sense of it this time.  I don’t have an answer there; we’ll have to brainstorm some ways of working that out.

The very next scene, with Hawthorne confronting Ben in the interrogation room, points out a particular problem with the script.  It’s filled with these monologues and clumsy, blustery exchanges between characters that don’t amount to much of anything.  Hawthorne doesn’t need to threaten and pound his fist like this – it’s false, contrived, and uninteresting.  All he apparently needs to do is hold up a picture of Ben’s family in order to get what he wants.  And yet I’m not convinced that Ben would choose family over country here.  I think he might consider sacrificing his own family in order to keep the world from falling into World War III.  Hawthorne, then, needs another tack, another way to convince Ben to do his bidding.  Considering just how powerful you’ve set up the 28^th to be, I’d think they’d have no problem manipulating the situation so that Ben makes exactly the decision they want him to.

What if Hawthorne makes it look like the Chinese are planning on assassinating his family?  That brings the threat against Samantha and Marisa into the China storyline.

This presents an interesting option.  Could we delay the revelation of the 28^th?  Could the first half of the script be all about Hawthorne manipulating Ben, Ben getting suspicious that something isn’t right but almost coming to the brink of war with the Chinese, and then finding out the truth?  It might take care of a lot of the script’s clumsiness and if Ben discovers the 28^th rather than is told about it by Hawthorne, we avoid the entire issue of Hawthorne’s motivation for telling Ben when no one has ever told any other President ever.

Small note: I’d like to see a quip about how originally, they were the 23^rd Amendment, but they keep getting pushed back when a new amendment is enacted.  Also, a history note: the 22^nd Amendment which created term limits was created out of recommendations from the Hoover Commission during Truman’s presidency.  No one ever talked about term limits during FDR’s presidency.  The Hoover Commission could be the genesis of the 28^th, actually – maybe they were the first members of the society now run by Hawthorne.

There are a few other, larger logical missteps.  Ben and Gray’s team get to the Chinese premier’s plane way too easily – you have to explain why the Secret Service isn’t able to cordon off the plane, set up a perimeter.  Something like the plane doesn’t land where it’s supposed to, just to establish how the Secret Service is caught off guard.  And through that whole assault on the air base, you show Samantha in the bunker as the bad guys are getting closer, and then, suddenly, Ben and his forces take out the bad guys and magically show up.  Exactly how far away is the air base from the White House?  How easy is it for Ben to extricate himself from the Chinese premier’s plane, get back to the chopper (keep in mind the Secret Service is still going to be pursuing him this entire time), get to the White House, and then fight his way in?  It’d take Jack Bauer at least three episodes.  I’m thinking Ben is no different.  The way it’s written here?  He wraps things up with the Premier and then five minutes later, he rescues Samantha.

With all due respect, Madame President -- ask around.

And about Samantha in the bunker: the script expends a remarkable amount of energy setting up the idea that neither Samantha nor Ben know if the other is alive, and each frets interminably about the other’s safety.  Except we know both are alive, so the question is completely moot.  You know better than to set up a situation where the audience is waiting for the characters to catch up.  The Samantha bunker sequence can be pared down extensively; end it on a cliffhanger where we don’t know if they made it and then have us find out when Ben finds out.

I love how much of a two-hander the script is, and I love how it’ll really only work with stars.  It’s a big sweeping scope of a film; the only trick now is making it great. Consider the gauntlet thrown.

John

111 pages

19 July 2006

Lightning on the Sun is an adaptation of a novel written by Robert Bingham, published in 2000 around the same time the author died of a heroin overdose.  He’s like the Shannon Hoon of novelists.  He’s the Andrew Wood of writers.  He’s the – aw hell, I don’t need to do another one of those, do I?  Burr Steers is a great writer, the kind of guy whose prose melts on the page.  IGBY GOES DOWN was a solid movie and there are lots of moments in the film that work beautifully.  If you want a surprise, check out Steer’s latest directorial effort 17 AGAIN.  It’s no DR. ZHIVAGO, but it’s probably the best version of that movie someone could make.  Zac Efron’s performance isn’t revolting, which is a true accomplishment.

Based on Robert Bingham's novel. He died of a heroin overdose, which might explain why the story is infused with the drug.

This script made the 2005 Blacklist (the list’s inaugural year), although it only received one vote.  I have no idea what’s been going on with the script since then; I’m not even sure who Steers wrote the script for.  Dollars to donuts the option on the novel has lapsed and this project is floating in no man’s land.  I’d love to see someone take it on; it’d have to be a passion project, but it’s a cheap movie to make and the right producer could get this project back on track quick.  It might require shooting the NYC stuff in Toronto and the Cambodia stuff in, uh, Bangkok maybe?  If the plot gets straightened out and boned up, I’ll bet Steers’s reputation could attract a great cast.  I haven’t read the novel, but I’d guess that the script hews a bit too closely to the novel, which tends to work against adaptations.  I’ve found the looser a writer can get, the better an adaptation will be.

The script is about ASHER, JULIE, and REESE.  Asher is a down-and-out American in Cambodia, Julie was his girlfriend five years ago in NYC but now she’s a bartender at a strip club, and Reese is a reporter in Cambodia who befriends Asher.  Asher tricks him into carrying 3 kilos of heroin into the States which Julie’s boss GLEN is buying, but Julie sleeps with Reese, steals the heroin, cuts it, and sells it on her own.  Glen comes after Julie and Reese but they kill Glen and now Julie has to escape to Cambodia where she and Asher are reunited, but a mobster Asher has crossed ends up kidnapping them and holding them for ransom, and Reese has to deliver the money to save them.  Asher ends up sacrificing himself so that Julie can get out, although that’s short handing things quite a bit.  Read for yourself, if for no other reason than Steers has a way with the words.

Burr –

Great running into you at the 17 Again premiere.  You remember my assistant Simone?  She needs Efron’s number.  Or a lock of his hair.  Don’t ask.

Why is it when his hair looks like this it's rakish and jaunty and when my hair looks like this it's just messy?

I think we can revive LIGHTNING, and I think we can find a great director to carry this thing through to the end.  I’ve got ideas about where we can shoot in Southeast Asia (Malaysia?  Vietnam?  Not sure if Cambodia will allow, considering the subject matter), but either way it’ll be a blast.  Hot, humid, sticky, and drunk, just like I like it.  Turns out you’ve still got a step left on your contract we never exercised (I know!), so indeed, we owe you the money and you owe us the draft.  How perfect is this?  It’s almost as if I’m making this up for a fictional blog, right?

There’s a lot of interesting stuff here.  ASHER is a great character; he’s got guts and charisma and he’s a mess and a little bit heroic all at the same time.  He’s a charmer with attitude.  The attention to detail is spot on – the two worlds on display here, Cambodia and New York, are rich and evocative and well-drawn.  I can taste the humid South Asian nights, I can feel the Upper East Side dismissiveness.  It’s fine-tuned.

But this script can’t just be character and mood.  Although I know you’re working from a looser structural philosophy, we need some plot and the movie will be better for it.

Right now the first act jumps around all over the place.  There are three different openings to the script, Julie and Asher’s first meeting, Asher getting caught at the checkpoint, and then 3 months earlier Reese’s arrival in Cambodia.  None of those are narratively connected, and the checkpoint scene in particular seems conveniently plopped in place.  The rest of the first act is also clumsy.  Glen tells Julie his supply has dried up on page 27.  Asher buys the heroin a couple pages earlier.  Asher ropes in Reese on page 20.  Asher borrows money from Mr. Hawk on page 11.  I feel like these scenes are all mixed up – first Julie should learn Glen wants the dope, then Asher borrows the money, then he buys the drugs, and through it all he befriends Reese.  It’s a balance, of course – on the one hand, you don’t want the script to feel like just another drug-smuggling story, but on the other hand, the script needs to have some sort of clear plot.

Part of the difficulty is that it’s not clear whose story this is.  Is this about Reese?  Is this about Julie and Asher’s relationship?  Is this about Asher’s redemption?  The ending tells us that it’s more about Asher than anyone else, and that the love between Julie and Asher is the tragic victim of the story.

The script uses a lot of flashbacks to tell Julie and Asher’s relationship, but I’m not sure they work.  They’re the glue that holds together the story right now, though; without them the script would be rudderless, but their relevance to story and theme is questionable.  They don’t have any impact on the core storyline and feel more like color, stuff that should’ve been back-story.  If we keep in the flashbacks (and I’m not sure that’s a foregone conclusion), then I’d like to see them have a direct impact on what comes later.  I want to see Julie and Asher talk about running drugs, Cambodia, what it means to Asher to go overseas.  I want to hear him talk about his dreams, because it’s clear that by the time we see him five years later, those dreams have dissolved somehow.  I want to know about Julie and what she needs and what her plans are.  I’m not saying you have to foreshadow anything; on the contrary, I think the less on the nose these scenes are the better.  But these scenes need to matter more, we need to care about what’s happening.

Cinematic? Yes times 12.

Whenever Glen shows up in a scene, I always feel like the script heads into questionable territory.  He’s such an obvious bad guy, and his knife-threatening ways feel so simplistic that he seems out of place with the rest of the script.  There’s nothing layered about him, nothing subtle – he’s just violent.  In the world you’ve created, ancillary characters like that don’t work.  Eliza, the seductive wife Asher has the affair with, is exactly the weird, odd, complex character that feels right at home next to Julie and Reese and Asher.

Julie needs a reason for doing what she does.  If she just sticks to the plan of letting Glen buy the dope, she and Asher both stand to make some money.  Why does she risk eliciting the wrath of Glen, a guy who’s already threatened her life?  I also think that Julie’s actions need to have more of an impact on Asher – because Glen doesn’t get the dope right away, he doesn’t wire the money to Asher’s account, which means Asher can’t pay off Hawk.

Ideally, I’d like to see everything moved forward – Reese should get the package from Asher on p. 27, not 37.  Julie should seduce Reese and steal the dope on 44, not 52.  By 55, Reese should realize that he’s deep into something bad, and that’s when Vibol Thom should narrow in on Asher.  I want Asher to know gangster-warlord Thom is after him immediately; he has to feel threatened, otherwise Asher’s entire storyline once he gives the dope to Reese comes to something of a halt.  Right now, it isn’t until 77 that Asher finds out the money isn’t coming in time.  That’s way too late.

The third act feels entirely contrived.  Thom has Asher and Julie taken hostage, but why?  Asher pays his debt.  He’s clean now.  So why does Thom target him and Julie when he could certainly kidnap UN workers or others who would guarantee him a bigger ransom?  If Thom takes them hostage, it has to be because Asher has done something, crossed Thom somehow.

I’m not sure this is the right third act, though.  The second half of the second act seems to be about Julie and Asher reuniting.  If we move things up so that everything starts to go wrong on 55, then by 70 or 75 Julie can make it to Cambodia.  Getting into the country has to be impossible for her, though, and she has to be racing to get there before Asher is found by Thom.  She might not make it in time, actually.  I’d like to see what would happen if Thom gets Asher and Julie has to bargain with Thom to get back Asher.  But… what then?  Let’s say she gives all the money to Thom, and now she and Asher are reunited, but there has to be another wrinkle.  At this point, the script’s lack of focus at the beginning becomes apparent – Julie and Asher don’t have a plan, a goal, an idea of what they want.  It doesn’t need to be simplistic, but it should be concrete.  What’s the purpose of this drug running?  Just the money?  What do they want to achieve with the money?  Do they want to run away with each other?  Do they want to move back to the States together?  What will the money accomplish for them?

Burr Steers on the set of Igby. Great little movie if you haven't seen it.

Once we answer that question, the third act can come into more focus.  They’ve had to give up all the money to save Asher’s life, so they have to find another way to accomplish whatever that goal is.  Maybe they do get taken hostage along with missionaries here, but by the Khmer, not by Thom’s people.  This is where the synthesis happens – now the politics of the region intersects with the lives of our characters as they’re thrust into a situation that’s partially of their own making.  We can see how heroin helps fund the bad guys and how Asher and Julie are partially at fault for their own kidnapping.  Keeping the story from being didactic will be a balancing act, but you can do it.

I know you said you didn’t have time to direct this, and although I’m disappointed, I’d love to get your input on other possible directors.  I’ve got a wish list I’ll forward along.  In the meantime, I’m looking forward to digging this one up again – I know it’ll turn out great.

- John