The group has put forward Adaptation, the Oscar-nominated, loopy script by Charlie Kaufman and his twin brother Donnie, as a script to study. It is a wild, touching film so no doubt the script will be an edifying read as well. Download a PDF below:
Adaptation, by Charlie and Donnie Kaufman, adapted from the book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean.
If it is awards season, then there are more scripts being released. In this stack is the story of financial malpractice, The Big Short; sports malpractice in Concussion; perhaps singing malpractice in Danny Collins, depending on your view of the warblings of Al Pacino; sublime chessery and rampant paranoia in Pawn Sacrifice and Blythe Danner ‘s multiple dating in I’ll See You In My Dreams.
The Big Short, screenplay by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay, based on the book The Big Short, by Michael Lewis
Concussion, by Peter Landesman
Danny Collins, by Dan Fogelman
Pawn Sacrifice, screenplay by Steven Knight, story by Stephen J Rivele & Christopher Wilkinson and Steven Knight
I’ll See You in My Dreams, by Brett Haley & Marc Basch
BUBBLES by Isaac Adamson- 44
A baby chimp is adopted by the Pop star Michael Jackson. Narrating his own story, Bubbles the Chimp details his life within The King of Pop’s inner circle through the scandals that later rocked Jackson’s life and eventually led to Bubbles’ release.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Joe Mann
MANAGEMENT: Lee Stobby Entertainment
MANAGER: Lee Stobby
STRONGER by John Pollono, Scott Silver- 40
The true story of Jeff Bauman, who after losing his legs in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, was an integral part of helping police to locate the suspects.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Joe Mann, Ali Trustman
MANAGEMENT: Underground
MANAGER: Noah Rothman
PRODUCERS: Mandeville, Scott Silver
FINANCIER: Lionsgate
THE LIBERTINE by Ben Kopit- 37
After the Head of the French National Assembly is placed under house arrest for accusations of sexual assault, he must live in a guarded apartment with his estranged wife until the case comes to a close.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Roger Green, Sarah Self
MANAGEMENT: Mindframe Films & Management
MANAGER: Jesse Silver
PRODUCER: Whalerock Industries
FINANCIER: Warner Bros
ROCKET* by Jeffrey Gelber, Ryan Belenzon- 37
Roger “The Rocket” Clemens, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, has 4672 strikeouts, 354 wins and a record 7 Cy Young awards. This is the story of why he is not in the Hall of Fame.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Craig Brody, Ida Ziniti
MANAGEMENT: Grandview
MANAGER: Jeff Silver
PRODUCER: Black Bear Pictures
FINANCIER: Black Bear
CRATER by John J. Griffin- 34
On the moon, five teens take an unauthorized and adventure-filled road trip, just before one of them is to be sent away on a seventy-five year journey to another planet, leaving behind his best friends.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Holly Jeter, Chris Slager
MANAGEMENT: Kevin Donahue Literary Management
MANAGERS: Kevin Donahue
PRODUCERS: 1821 Pictures, Mayhem Pictures
MISS SLOANE by Jonathan “Jonny” Perera- 31
A powerful lobbyist sacrifices her career on Capitol Hill so she can push through an amendment enforcing stricter federal laws regulating guns.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Peter Dodd, Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGEMENT: Management SGC
MANAGERS: Scott Carr
PRODUCERS: FilmNation
FINANCIER: EuropaCorp
TRUE FAN by John Whittington- 28
After interfering with a foul ball during a Chicago Cubs playoff game, Steve Bartman was tortured and stalked by die hard Cub fans for potentially costing them their first National League pennant since 1945. Years later, in a new town with a new identity—but depressed, overweight and working a dead end job—Steve meets a woman who gives him a new lease on life and reason to live.
AGENCY: Verve
AGENTS: Pamela Goldstein, Adam Weinstein
MANAGEMENT: MXN Entertainment
MANAGERS: Michelle Knudsen
PALE BLUE DOT by Brian C Brown, Elliot DiGuisseppi- 26
Twelve months after returning from a space mission, decorated astronaut Laura Pepper is arrested for the attempted murder of a fellow astronaut.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Craig Brody, Matt Martin
MANAGEMENT: Industry Entertainment
MANAGERS: Dianne Fraser
PRODUCER: Pacific Standard
FINANCIER: Fox Searchlight
REAGAN by Mike Rosolio- 25
When Ronald Reagan falls into dementia at the start of his second term, an ambitious intern is tasked with convincing the commander in chief that he is an actor playing the president in a movie.
AGENCY: Kaplan Stahler Agency
AGENTS: Shan Ray
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment
MANAGERS: Aaron Kaplan, Michael Wilson
BUMP by Ori Guendelman, Rob McClelland- 21
After an accidental hit and run, a young lawyer’s entire life unravels over the span of one night as he attempts to dispose of a corpse that turns out to be much more than an innocent victim.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENT: Chris Smith
MANAGEMENT: 3 Arts Entertainment
MANAGERS: Ari Lubet, Will Rowbotham
ELI by David Chirchirillo- 21
Having moved into a “clean house” to treat his auto-immune disorder, eleven year old Eli begins to believe that the house is haunted. Unable to leave, he soon realizes that the house, and the doctor who runs it, are more sinister than they appear.
AGENCY: APA
AGENTS: Adam Perry, Sheryl Petersen
MANAGEMENT: Bellvue Productions
MANAGERS: John Zaozirny
PRODUCERS: Bellvue Productions
FINANCIERS: Broad Green Pictures
SEPTILLION TO ONE by Adam Perlman, Graham Sack- 20
While a former FBI agent is working in the fraud unit of the Texas State Lottery investigating a woman who has mysteriously hit the lottery jackpot three times, he falls in love.
AGENCY: Gersh
AGENTS: Eric Garfinkel, Jeff Greenberg
MANAGEMENT: Apostle Pictures
MANAGER: George Heller
PRODUCERS: Oddlot Entertainment, MC2 Entertainment, Marquee Entertainment
FINANCIERS: Oddlot Entertainment
WHITE BOY RICK by Logan Miller, Noah Miller- 20
True story of Richard Wershe Jr., the only successful white boy gangster/drug kingpin in an African American dominated 1980s Detroit ghetto.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Peter Dodd, Charlie Ferraro, Rames Ishak, Tim Phillips, Michael Sheresky
MANAGEMENT: Thruline Entertainment
MANAGERS: Josh Kesselman, Danny Sherman
PRODUCERS: LBI Entertainment, Protozoa Pictures
FINANCIERS: Studio 8
BOOMTOWN by Matt King- 18
A slick corporate investigator with a closely guarded secret discovers a sinister criminal conspiracy in North Dakota oil boom country.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENTS: Robert Bookman, David Boxerbaum
MANAGEMENT: Bellvue Productions
MANAGERS: John Zaozirny
PRODUCERS: Marc Platt Productions
FINANCIERS: Focus Features
DREAMLAND by Nicolaas Zwart- 18
With his family’s farm on the precipice of foreclosure, fifteen year old Eugene Evans is determined to capture a fugitive bank robber and collect the bounty on her head. Against all odds, he beats out the FBI and the local police to capture her, only to discover that all may not be what it seems.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Daniel Cohan, Tanya Cohen, Danny Greenberg
MANAGEMENT: The Mission Entertainment
MANAGERS: Corrine Aquino, Andrew Coles
THE FISHERMAN by Will Dunn- 18
A fisherman sails out of Martha’s Vineyard in search of the shark that killed his fellow sailors while they were stranded in the water for four days after their ship was attacked by a Japanese submarine.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Trevor Astbury, Jon Cassir
MANAGEMENT: Think Tank Management and Production
MANAGERS: Tom Drumm
THE WATER MAN by Emma Needell- 18
A young boy tries to save his mother from terminal cancer by seeking out the town’s bogeyman, The Water Man, who is fabled to have conquered death.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Joe Austin, Sarah Self
MANAGEMENT: Anonymous Content
MANAGERS: Charlie Scully, Tariq Merhab
PRODUCERS: Harpo Studios, Yoruba Saxon Productions
FINANCIERS: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD- 17
by David Scarpa
The story of Getty kidnapping crisis encompassing the Red Brigades, the Italian tabloids and the Vatican.
AGENCY: Gersh
AGENTS: Bob Hohman, Bayard Maybank
PRODuCERS: Chris Clark, Quentin Curtis
FINANCIERS: TriStar Productions
BOY by Mattson Tomlin- 17
A teenage boy is born with special abilities and spends his childhood switching names and cities so as to keep his identity hidden. When he loses control and accidentally kills his father, he and his mother have to go on the run.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Jay Baker, Pete Stein, Ida Ziniti
MANAGEMENT: Grandview
MANAGERS: Zac Frognowski
THE SHAVE by Thomas White, Miles Hubley- 17
A dirty cop, exonerated in the murder of a high school honor student, visits the boy’s father at his barbershop, and while receiving a straight razor shave, listens to him recount the story of his son’s life.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Stuart Manashil, Solco Schuit
MANAGEMENT: MXN Entertainment
MANAGER: Michelle Knudsen
PRODUCERS: Chris Columbus, Maiden Voyage Films
FINANCIERS: Lost City, Route One Entertainment
DO NO HARM by Julia Cox- 16
An ambitious surgeon’s life takes a dangerous turn when she indulges in an affair with a doctor whose god complex challenges her own.
AGENCY: APA
AGENTS: Adam Perry, Sheryl Peterson
MANAGEMENT: Project D Media
MANAGER: Allison Doyle
HAMMERSPACE by Mike Van Waes- 16
A terminally ill teenager looking for answers about his missing father finds a key that unlocks an opening to an alternate animated dimension and a new friend who helps him repair his broken family.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Trevor Astbury, Joe Mann
MANAGEMENT: Grandview
MANAGERS: Zac Frognowski
PRODUCER: Lin Pictures
FINANCIER: Warner Bros
THE WRETCHED EMILY DERRINGER by Chris Thomas Devlin- 16
Gleefully terrifying her small town as a serial killer known as “The Misfit Butcher,” 13-year-old Emily Derringer becomes annoyed when a new killer comes to town and residents begin attributing his sloppy murders to the Misfit Butcher. In a macabre coming of age story, Emily must deal with her competition while also taking on the other trials and tribulations of junior high school life.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Charles Ferraro, Aaron Hart, Jenny Maryasis
MANAGEMENT: Bellvue Productions
MANAGERS: Jeff Portnoy, John Zaozirny
PANDEMONIUM, SPLENDIDLY MANAGED by Brett Conrad- 15
A local Phoenix newscaster at the pinnacle of local celebrity slowly descends into the depths of madness as he sees his world around him start to crumble piece by piece all while trying to become a game show host in Los Angeles.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Matt Martin
MANAGEMENT: Magnet Management
MANAGERS: Bob Sobhani
PRODUCER: Michael De Luca Productions
THE VIRGINIAN by Michael Russell Gunn- 15
Based on the novel by Owen Wister, a young, down-and-out George Washington, desperate to join the British Army, accepts a dangerous mission to conquer a French fort and save the American colonies.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENTS: David Boxerbaum
MANAGEMENT: Principato-Young Management
MANAGERS: David Gardner
PRODUCERS: De Line Pictures
FINANCIERS: New Line
CASTLE DRIVE by Matthew Scott Weiner- 14
Based on real events, the story of the writing of Fatal Vision, the 1983 bestselling true crime classic that chronicles the summer journalist Joe McGinness spent with “Green Beret Killer” Jeffrey McDonald while he was on trial for the brutal murder of his wife and children.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Ryan Feldman, Meyash Prabhu
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment
MANAGERS: Michael Wilson
PRODUCER: Treehouse Pictures
FINANCIER: Treehouse Pictures
CUT AND RUN by Zoe McCarthy- 14
A female urologist and a retired hooker form an unlikely friendship when they team up to take down a notorious sex trafficker in Miami.
MANAGEMENT: 3 Arts Entertainment
MANAGERS: Olivia Gerke, Ari Lubet
THE BURNING WOMAN by Brad Ingelsby- 13
A reckless, fun-loving young woman confronts the dark side of life after losing her daughter.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Jon Cassir, Maha Dakhil, Scott Greeenberg
MANAGEMENT: Energy Entertainment
MANAGER: Brooklyn Weaver
PRODUCER: Ridley Scott Films
MAYDAY 109 by Samuel V. Franco, Evan Kilgore- 13
Based on actual events, a young John F. Kennedy struggles to save the crew of his PT Boat after it is sunk by a Japanese warship during World War II.
AGENCY: ICM Partners
AGENTS: Bryan Diperstein, Rich Green, Kathleen Remington
MANAGEMENT: Bellvue Productions, Brio Entertainment
MANAGERS: Mia Chang, Jeff Portnoy
PRODUCERS: Thunder Road Pictures, Flynn Picture Co.
MORNINGSTAR by David Birke- 13
The war is over. A bitter and uneasy truce has been reached with an invading alien race, and a new cold war has begun. Fueled by suspicions of an alien spy in their ranks, the United Nations Intelligence Division entrusts their top agent, Martin Webber, with finding the mole.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENTS: Scott Henderson, Valarie Phillips
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGERS: Ryan Cunningham, Robyn Meisinger
PRODUCERS: Quadrant Pictures, Madhouse Entertainment
FINANCIERS: Warner Bros
MOVE THAT BODY by Lucia Aniello, Paul W Downs- 13
Five friends rent a beach house in Miami for a bachelorette weekend and accidentally kill a male stripper.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Ali Benmohamed, Jay Gassner, Carolyn Sivitz, Jo Yao
MANAGEMENT: 3 Arts Entertainment
MANAGERS: Dave Becky
FINANCIERS: Sony
NYAD by Robert Specland- 13
Based on the true story of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, who in 2013, after 4 failed attempts and at the age of 64, became the first person ever to open-swim from Cuba to Florida (55 hours non-stop) overcoming impossible odds, personal tragedy, and 103 miles of open ocean.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: David Park, Amanda Hymson, Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGEMENT: Pacific View Management
MANAGERS: Peter Dealbert
QUEEN OF THE AIR- 13
by Cat Vasko
Based on the book Queen of the Air written by Dean N. Jensen. The story of famed trapeze artist Lillian Leitzel and her relationship with fellow trapeze artist Alfredo Codona, who were two of the most famous entertainers of the world during their time.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Simon Faber, Solco Schuit
MANAGEMENT: Grandview
MANAGERS: Zac Frognowski, Matt Rosen
PRODUCERS: Mad Chance Productions
FINANCIERS: Warner Bros
SPRING OFFENSIVE by Matthew McInerney-Lacombe- 13
Dr. Liz Scott, a British epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, fights to contain an outbreak of Ebola in Afghanistan’s war torn Helmand province as the Taliban’s assault on allied forces threatens to turn the localized outbreak into a global catastrophe.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Jacob Epstein
MANAGEMENT: LBI Entertainment
MANAGERS: Harry Lengsfield, Sam Warren
PRODUCERS: 6th & Idaho
FINANCIERS: Fox
BLACKFRIARS by Chris Bremner- 12
Set around the Blackfriars massacre of 1978, the true story of a Boston police officer and a con man-turned-witness, who become unlikely friends hiding out in Bermuda, ultimately perpetrating a con on the Boston DA they’re tasked to serve.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Emerson Davis, Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGEMENT: MGMT Entertainment
MANAGERS: Dianne McGunigle
PRODUCER: Hasbro Inc.
FINANCIER: Lakeshore Entertainment
CIRCLE OF TREASON by Anna Waterhouse, Joe Shrapnel- 12
Based on the book Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and The Men He Betrayed written by Sandra Grimes & Jeanne Vertefeuille. When two women in the CIA suspect there is a mole working there, they have to overcome the institution’s hierarchy and chauvinism to bring down the traitor.
AGENCY: CAACircle Of Treason script Black List 2015
AGENTS: Jon Cassir, Rob Hertig, Fred Spektor
MANAGEMENT: Grandview, Curtis Brown Group Ltd
MANAGER: Jeff Silver (Grandview); Nick Marston, Camilla Young (Curtis Brown)
PRODUCER: Josephson Entertainment
FINANCIER: Focus Features
STAR ONE by David Coggeshall- 12
Two CIA agents must overcome their opposing worldviews to evade the Soviet and Chinese armies during a dangerous mission to Tibet in 1950. The true story of the first CIA agent ever to die in the line of duty; the “first star’ on the CIA Memorial Wall.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENTS: David Boxerbaum, Scott Henderson, Chris Smith
MANAGEMENT: Writ Large
MANAGER: Noah Rosen
PRODUCER: Mythology Entertainment
THE SET UP by Kari Granlund- 12
Two co-dependent female best friends’s friendship is put through the wringer after a blind date gone awry sends them on a dangerous, all-in-one-night adventure with a drug dealer.
AGENCY: VERVE
AGENTS: Chris Noriega, Melissa Solomon, Bill Weinstein
MANAGEMENT: Industry Entertainment
MANAGER: Sarah Dodge
BARE KNUCKLE by Dave Matillo- 11
New York City 1862: The bare knuckle boxing champion, Bad Jack, develops a crush on a common French girl and uses his political influence to send her Irish lumberman husband off to the Civil War so he can take her for his own. Unfortunately for Bad Jack, the Irishman doesn’t die in the war and t comes back a killer looking to exact revenge on the pugilist and his entire corrupt entourage.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Ryan Feldman, Solco Schuit
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGERS: Adam Kolbrenner, Kendrick Tan
PRODUCERS: Hollywood Gang
CHAPPAQUIDDICK by Taylor Allen, Andrew Logan- 11
A historically factual look at what really happened when Ted Kennedy drove off the road into a Martha’s Vineyard bay with Mary Jo Kopechne in the car.
MANAGEMENT: DMG Entertainment
MANAGER: Chris Fenton
PRODUCER: Apex Entertainment
FINANCIER: Apex Entertainment
GREAT FALLS by Andy Friedhof- 11
After negligently killing a hunter with their patrol car, an alcoholic Sheriff’s Deputy and her superior officer must decide what to do with the only witness to their crime – a death row inmate only days from execution.
AGENCY: Equitable Stewardship for Artists
AGENTS: Antoni Kaczmarek, Varun Monga
MANAGEMENT: Circle of Confusion
MANAGER: Jairo Alvarado
HUNTING EICHMANN by Matthew Orton- 11
The thrilling capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by a secret Mossad team in South America.
AGENCY: The Agency Ltd
AGENT: Emily Hickman
MANAGEMENT: Grandview
MANAGER: Jeff Silver
PRODUCERS: Automatik, Matt Charmin
FINANCIER: MGM
A SPECK IN THE SEA by Jeff Pope- 10
Based on the article “A Speck in the Sea” by Paul Tough. The true story of the rescue of lobster fisherman John Aldridge who fell into the ocean in the middle of the night on July 24th, forty miles off Montauk with no life vest and no way to signal where he was.
BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS by Dan Kunka- 10
In one of the greatest untold stories in American history, General and future President Andrew Jackson reluctantly partners with world-renowned pirate Jean Lafitte to lead a rag-tag team of soldiers against the indomitable British Army in the climactic battle of the War of 1812.
AGENCY: ICM Partners
AGENTS: Harley Copen, Kathleen Remington
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGER: Adam Kolbrenner
PRODUCER: Madhouse Entertainment
FINANCIER: Endurance
CRIMSON TRAIL by Jeremy Shipp- 10
Devastated by the cold-blooded murder of his family, a devout frontier preacher risks his soul to lead a posse in pursuit of the Harpe Brothers—America’s first serial killers. Based on a true story.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Emerson Davis, Julien Thuan
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGERS: Ryan Cunningham, Adam Kolbrenner
LABYRINTH by Christian Contreras- 10
Based on the book LAbyrinth by Randall Sullivan. The story of the investigation into the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Stuart Manashil, Solco Schuit
MANAGEMENT: Grandview, Curtis Brown Group Ltd (UK)
MANAGER: Jeff Silver (Grandview), Lily Williams (Curtis Brown)
PRODUCER: Good Films
OUR WEEK WITH WALLER by Evan Mirzai, Shea Mirzai- 10
After getting laid off, two Americans cash in their vacation pay and head to Spain where their paths collide with one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENTS: Adrian Garcia, Adam Kanter, Martin Spencer
MANAGEMENT: Principato-Young Management
MANAGER: Allen Fischer
SET IT UP by Katie Silberman- 10
Two young assistants realize they can get more free time if they occupy their bosses’ time by setting them up on a date.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENT: Joe Mann
MANAGEMENT: MXN Entertainment
MANAGERS: Michelle Knudsen
PRODUCER: Treehouse Pictures
UNTITLED SOCIOPATH PROJECT by Topher Rhys-Lawrence- 10
A successful New Yorker’s seemingly perfect life starts unraveling once he’s suspected for the murder of his co-worker, and his only alibi is the doppelganger that’s begun stalking him.
PRODUCER: Atlas Entertainment
ARES by Geneva Robertson-Dworet- 9
The survival story of an astronaut whose space capsule crash lands in the African desert and whose mission to space was part of a larger conspiracy.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Rich Cook, Solco Schuit
MANAGEMENT: Management 360
MANAGERS: Jill McElroy, Clifford Murray
PRODUCERS: Roland Emmerich
FINAL JOURNEY by Michael Lee Barlin- 9
A mistreated elderly Inuit woman is forced out of her village to survive alone on the savage arctic tundra.
MANAGEMENT: Lee Stobby Entertainment
MANAGER: Lee Stobby
MILITIA by Henry Dunham- 9
After a shooting on a police funeral by a suspected militia member, a recluse ex-cop and fellow militia man must interrogate the suspected gunmen in his own militia before copycat attacks start a nationwide war between cops and militias.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Emerson Davis, Peter Dodd, Charles Ferraro, Mike Schwartz Wright
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGERS: Ryan Cunningham, Kendrick Tan
PRODUCER: 6th & Idaho
SALEM by Mark Bianculli, Jeff Richard- 9
Fifteen years after the witch trials, the scars of Salem are reopened when young women begin showing up dead. Desperate for answers, the town elders turn to a man of science to uncover the truth behind its terrifying events plaguing their community.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Danny Greenberg, Solco Schuit
MANAGEMENT: Anonymous Content (Bianculli)/Industry Entertainment (Richard)
MANAGERS: Rosalie Swedlin (Bianculli)/Michael Botti (Richard)
PRODUCERS: STX Entertainment
FINANCIER: The Weinstein Company
TOMORROW ON THE RUNWAY by Frederick Seton- 9
Kermit St. Lucy has a ridiculous name and is ridiculously ill-equipped to deal with adult responsibilities. After a tragedy shakes him to his core, Kermit takes it upon himself to look after and raise two young children.
AGENCY: Verve
AGENTS: Parker Davis
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGER: Kendrick Tan
TREASURE ISLAND by James Coyne- 9
Based on the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, young Jim Hawkins finds a map to a buried fortune; to claim it means a perilous voyage, pirate treachery, and the wicked mentorship of Long John Silver.
AGENCY: GershTreasure Island Black List 2015
AGENTS: Eric Garfinkel, Mark Hartogsohn
MANAGEMENT: The Syndicate
MANAGER: Scott Karp
PRODUCER: Ritchie/Wigram
FINANCIER: Warner Bros
UNTITLED LARRY HILLBLOM PROJECT by Matt Portenoy- 9
The strange-yet-true story of the battle over the estate of Larry Lee Hillblom, billionaire founder of DHL.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Rob Carlson, Daniel Cohan, Tanya Cohan
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment
MANAGERS: Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone
PRODUCER: Seven Bucks Entertainment
A LIFE FANTASTIC by Natalie Antoci- 8
A single mother with a terminal diagnosis embarks on a road trip with her eccentric 9 year old son and nanny to find a loving and progressive family that will accept him for whoever he may grow up to be.
MANAGEMENT: The Mission Entertainment
MANAGERS: Corrine Aquino, Andrew Coles
PRODUCER: The Mission Entertainment
AN AFRICAN WESTERN by Chloe Castellon, Ridgeway Wilson- 8
When a young African woman’s village is destroyed by a “Christian” paramilitary unit and her sister is kidnapped, she uses every weapon at her disposal on an odyssey to save her last living relative.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Emerson Davis, Jon Huddle
MANAGEMENT: Principato-Young Management
MANAGERS: Brian Dobbins, Allen Fischer
ATLANTIC WALL by Zach Dean- 8
A lone American paratrooper, stranded behind enemy lines hours before D-Day, is tasked with delivering intelligence critical to the outcome of the war and compelled to fulfill a promise to protect the young son of a murdered ally.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Cliff Roberts, Solco Schuit
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGERS: Adam Kolbrenner
PRODUCER: Madhouse Entertainment
FINANCIER: Imperative Entertainment
BED REST by Lori Evans Taylor- 8
An expectant mother who is confined to bed rest starts to experience paranormal events.
AGENCY: ICM Partners
AGENTS: Rebecca Ewing, Doug Johnson
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment
MANAGERS: Josh Goldenberg, Sean Perrone
PRODUCERS: Chris Sparling, Sunswept Entertainment
FINANCIER: MGM
I BELIEVE IN AMERICA by Terry Clyne- 8
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Godfather, revealing that the creative forces behind one of the finest American films ever made were all as cunning and ruthless as the mobsters portrayed in Mario Puzo’s bestseller.
MANAGEMENT: Kailey Marsh Media
MANAGER: Kailey Marsh
IDA TARBELL by Mark McDevitt- 8
Ida Tarbell’s magazine series “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” not only changed the history of journalism but also the fate of Rockefeller’s empire, which was shaken by the powerful pen of its most implacable observer.Ida Tarbell’s magazine series “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” not only changed the history of journalism but also the fate of Rockefeller’s empire, which was shaken by the powerful pen of its most implacable observer.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Aaron Hart, Geoff Morley
MANAGEMENT: Think Tank Management and Production
MANAGER: Tom Drumm
PRODUCER: Think Tank Management and Production
LOU by Maggie McGowan Cohn- 8
An elderly woman who hacks out a rough existence on a remote island is forced to help her dimwitted neighbor rescue her daughter whose ex has kidnapped her and escaped into the woods.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Jon Cassir, JP Evans
MANAGEMENT: Management 360
MANAGERS: Eryn Brown, Adam Marshall
PRODUCER: Paramount
FINANCIER: Bad Robot
PRECONCEPTION by Jake Morse, Scott Wolman- 8
A couple on the verge of parenthood embarks on a pre-baby bucket list.
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment
MANAGER: Josh Goldenberg
PRODUCER: De Line Pictures
FINANCIER: CBS Films
SENIOR YEAR by Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli- 8
A cheerleader wakes up after a twenty year coma and returns to sit at the cool table and try to become prom queen, as a thirty seven year-old woman.
AGENCY: Gersh
AGENT: Greg Pedicin
MANAGEMENT: Benderspink
MANAGER: Jake Wagner
PRODUCERS: Benderspink, Broken Road Productions
FINANCIER: CBS Films
VERONA by Neil Widener, Gavin James- 8
A re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Jon Cassir, Joe Mann
MANAGEMENT: Grandview
MANAGER: Matt Rosen
PRODUCER: Roth Kirschenbaum Films
FINANCIER: Sony
105 AND RISING by Andrew Cypiot- 7
Amid the chaos of a failing nation on April 29, 1975, the objective was clear: safely evacuate all remaining Americans from Saigon. But to Major Jim Kean and Ambassador Graham Martin, the moment represented something else: the final opportunity to uphold promises and obligations to the people of South Vietnam.
AGENCY: Verve
AGENTS: Parker Davis, Adam Weinstein
PRODUCER: Cota Films
FREE AGENT by Sam Regnier- 7
A female NBA executive for the Golden State Warriors pursues the biggest free agent of her career while managing a messy divorce and a complicated relationship with a younger colleague and his teenage sister.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENTS: David Boxerbaum, Scott Henderson
MANAGEMENT: Management SGC
MANAGER: Scott Carr
PRODUCER: 21 Laps
FINANCIER: CBS FILMS
HOMEGROWN by Jacques Edeline- 7
A teenage boy, raised in total seclusion and indoctrinated by his enigmatic father, is sent to live with a foster family and enrolled in a public high school when his father is incarcerated, threatening their relationship and causing the boy to question everything he’s learned.
AGENCY: APA
AGENTS: Debbie Deuble, Adam Perry
MANAGEMENT: Affirmative Entertainment
MANAGERS: Nicholas Bogner
PRODUCER: Cota Films
THE BOY by Owen Egerton- 7
Sixteen years after stabbing a classmate to appease a legendary phantom known as the Boy, a repentant woman returns to her hometown to live with her sister and nephew, but as the Boy continues to haunt her she must face her deepest terror and discover the truth about the Boy before he claims her nephew.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Jason Burns, Aaron Hart
MANAGEMENT: Epicenter
MANAGERS: Allard Cantor, Jarrod Murray
CARNIVAL by Matias Caruso- 6
A deadly carnival knife-thrower hunts down the members of a powerful crime syndicate who murdered his sister.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Trevor Astbury, Jon Cassir
MANAGEMENT: Untitled Entertainment
MANAGER: Jen Au
PRODUCERS: Anonymous Content, Mitchell Peck
CROOK COUNTY by Gita Pullapilly, Aron Gaudet- 6
A whistleblower’s harrowing journey into an undercover FBI operation in 1980’s Cook County, Illinois, sending him toe-to-toe with corrupt judges, hustling defense attorneys, and Chicago mobsters; and ultimately resulting in the largest number of convictions of government officials in the history of the United States.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Max Mitchell, Carolyn Sivitz
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment
MANAGER: Taylor Benzie
PRODUCER: Linda McDonough
DAMSEL by Bryan McMullin- 6
After first being locked in a tower and then hidden deep in the forest to prevent a prince from rescuing her, long-haired Rapunzel vows to get revenge.
AGENCY: UTA
AGENTS: Charles Ferraro, Aaron Hart, David Park
MANAGEMENT: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment
MANAGERS: Tobin Babst, Michael Wilson
PRODUCER: Josephson Entertainment
FRANCIS AND THE GODFATHER by Andrew Farotte- 6
Facing financial ruin, auteur filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is forced to direct the adaptation of Mario Puzo’s pulp novel The Godfather, pitting him against legendary mega-producer Robert Evans.
AGENCY: CAA
AGENTS: Jon Levin, Elizabeth Newman
MANAGEMENT: Zero Gravity Management
MANAGERS: Jeff Belkin
PRODUCER: Echo Lake Entertainment
GREEN RIVER KILLER by Michael Sheen- 6
Based on the Eisner Award winning graphic novel of the same name. Detectives in the Green River Killer case attempt to unravel both the facts behind the gruesome murders that plagued the Pacific North West for over a decade and the psychosis of the killer they find themselves face to face with.
AGENCY: ICM Partners
AGENTS: Doug MacLaren
MANAGEMENT: Sanders Armstrong Caserta
MANAGERS: Tammy Rosen
PRODUCERS: Dark Horse Entertainment
LANDSLIDE by Will Staples, Tony Camerino- 6
Based on the book How to Break a Terrorist by Tony Camerino. The story of America’s search for terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the man who played a key role in tracking him down by using psychological warfare.
AGENCY: WME (Staples)/CAA (Camerino)
AGENTS: Phil D’Amecourt (Staples)/Jon Levin (Camerino)
MANAGEMENT: Management 360 (Staples)/BE Management (Camerino)
MANAGERS: Darin Friedman (Staples)/Brett Etre (Camerino)
PRODUCERS: Marc Butan
RESURFACE by Pete Bridges- 6
An underwater earthquake decimates a research crew working at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, leaving
two survivors with limited resources to ascend 35,000 feet and reach the surface before their life support runs out.
AGENCY: Verve
AGENTS: Adam Levine, Adam Weinstein
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGER: Adam Kolbrenner
PRODUCERS: Broken Road Productions
SONG OF TREBLINKA by Viorica Baln- 6
Based on a true story. A renowned Jewish conductor plots a revolt with fellow prisoners as he attracts the respect of his Nazi captors in Germany-occupied Poland’s most notorious death camp.
AGENCY: WME
AGENTS: Ryan Feldman
MANAGEMENT: Madhouse Entertainment
MANAGER: Adam Kolbrenner
THE CANYON by Alex Koplow- 6
When parents reunite with their grown children for a road trip to hike the Grand Canyon, the family conflicts on the way prove far more grueling than the twenty mile hike.
THREE MONTHS by Jared Frieder- 6
After being exposed to HIV the weekend of his high school graduation in 2011, a punk gay teenager from Miami attempts to start a new relationship with a someone from his support group as they try to endure the three months it takes to get accurately tested.
AGENCY: Paradigm
AGENTS: Valarie Phillips, Ellie Schiff
MANAGEMENT: Haven Entertainment
MANAGERS: Brendan Bragg, Jesse Hara, Jordana Mollick
WISH UPON by Barbara Marshall- 6
When Claire, a sixteen year old misfit, finds a magic box that promises a chance at the life she has always wanted, she never could have guessed that each wish would demand a deadly payment.
AGENCY: APA
AGENTS: Debbie Deuble
MANAGEMENT: Industry Entertainment
MANAGER: Ava Jamshidi
PRODUCER: Busted Shark
FINANCIER: Broad Green Pictures
If you are unfamiliar with this, Stephanie Palmer is here to explain:
The Black List is a list of the most liked, yet unproduced screenplays in Hollywood.
You want to pay attention to the Black List because:
In this post I’m going to explain what you need to know about the Black List, post the complete list, and make one tiny suggestion for how the Black List could be improved.
The voters are 250 anonymous film executives (I voted when I was at MGM).
This includes people who are currently employed at production companies and studios as Creative Executives, Directors of Development, Vice Presidents of Development and Production.
According to the Black List, this list is not a “best of,” but rather a “most liked.”
There are definitely other scripts that could have been listed and likely some made the list because executives voted as a favor to their representative friends.
However, in my experience, if you read the Black List scripts from any of the past few years, the top scripts are consistently excellent. Over 225 Black List screenplays have been produced, they have been nominated for 171 Academy Awards, including Best Pictures Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, and Argo.
That is why the list has credibility and why Hollywood decision-makers pay attention each year when the list is published.
The Black List provides credibility.
For this reason, if your script is on the Black List:
On this last point, the Black List is used as a reference when development executives are looking for writers to hire for rewrites.
It’s much more likely that an executive will read a writer’s script and hire that writer simply because they’ve made the Black List.
No. Unproduced does not mean undiscovered.
Most of these screenwriters are represented at the major agencies and many have had other scripts purchased and produced.
However, some of the writers are fresh, newly discovered talent.
The barrier to entry to the Black List is high.
You need an outstanding script and representation who pushes your script wide so that lots of executives read it. Bonus points if the script has sold and has major cast attachments. It probably also helps a little bit if your reps send out the script close to the Black List voting period.
The Black List is a list of the most liked, yet unproduced screenplays in Hollywood.
The Black List Script Database is a service where any screenwriter can pay to list their scripts in an online database. (And in my opinion, paying to list your script is unlikely to improve the odds of your script getting voted onto the Black List).
Here is an excerpt from the Black List site that explains the evolution:
“In 2005, Franklin Leonard surveyed almost 100 film industry development executives about their favorite scripts from that year that had not been made as feature films. That first list – many of which have been made since – can be viewed here.
In October 2012, we extended our mission by allowing screenwriters from the world to, for a small fee, upload their scripts to our database, have them evaluated by professional script readers, and subject to that evaluation and our recommendation algorithm, sent to our – at present – over 1000 film industry professionals.”
If a representative is listed on the Black List, they have proven that they have enough clout to get development executives to read a script.
That may seem simple, but the pool of representatives who can achieve this is a surprisingly small.
Take the list of all the managers and agents included on the Black List, add any representatives who are on the Hit List that focuses on spec screenplays, and you have a pretty good sense of who can get executives to read scripts.
In this interview on KPCC, Black List founder Franklin Leonard said,
“True stories and biopics in particular tend to be things that people respond to. If I had to guess, I think that’s probably both a supply-and-demand issue, in that a lot of writers are writing stuff that is based on true stories because of this sort of pre-sold phenomenon in the industry.”
No. You should focus on your best and most authentic ideas.
However, if one of your top ideas is a true story you might dust it off, and if you just happened to have a script about the making of The Godfather, you should probably put that on the shelf for a while and work on something else.
It’s my policy to only share produced screenplays, but with some clever sleuthing on the internet, you may be able to find the scripts.
The first entry is the script that received the most votes, i.e., Bubbles received 44 executive votes.
Even the scripts at the end of the list received more than five executive votes and that is a mark of success.
The Black List 2015 selection is based on the completed screenplays, not on the loglines. Loglines can be written by the writers, their representatives, or readers.
Sometimes loglines do not effectively communicate what is strong about a script – and that’s too bad.
With that in mind, here’s my suggestion for how to improve the Black List.
The piece of information that I wish was included for each script is the genre.
Genre gives context that is necessary to understand the story that follows.
Without knowing the genre, it’s easy to make incorrect assumptions about the story.
For example, if a writer tells me that he’s got a story about the CIA, I could assume:
That’s why I give the following advice to screenwriters:
Whether you are pitching verbally or in writing, lead with genre.
I wish that the Black List included a line for the genre to make it easier to identify projects and writers to read on the Black List.
Thanks to Franklin Leonard and his team for compiling the list and…
The Wrap recently sat down with the writers of three period films (Brooklyn, Suffragette and The Danish Girl) to discuss how to bring out the lessons we can learn from the past and how these films still matter today, despite being set decades in the past:
Nick Hornby, Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a movie of big emotions, but without the kind of big conflicts you’d usually find in a film like this. It’s delicate, emotionally.
I think that was the thing that we were all the most conscious of when we were making it–the delicacy. It’s interesting that there’s no baddie, really. In terms of the central characters, they are all lovely and they all want the best for each other, pretty much.
But I guess the truth is that the experience of living is extremely painful. The intense homesickness, which I have not seen done on screen before, is a big feeling that we all have. And loss, of course. So it felt to me like there was plenty in there without having that conventional structure of obstacle/opposition/whatever. How many of us have baddies in our lives, actually? I don’t have any in mine. A couple of critics, that’s about as far as it goes. And yet, life is difficult and sad and occasionally exhilarating.
Director John Crowley has said that it had to be emotional but not sentimental. Do you need sensitive radar to figure out where that line is?
I felt emotional when I was writing it, and it never occurred to me that it would be sentimental. I just felt the weight of the story and the sadness that was buried in the story as a sort of weight in my chest. I have no idea whether that affected the actual writing. It could have been merely hopeful, like playing a piece of music that you love and hoping that ends up in your writing somewhere.
I tend not to write sentimentally — it makes me feel yucky if I think I’ve done something that’s sentimental. But I knew that we wanted to be close in on this girl [Saoirse Ronan], and to feel everything that she felt.
As an Englishman, did you feel connected to this very Irish story?
I think we’re quite similar, really, the English and the Irish. Of course, the English didn’t emigrate in the same numbers, but in terms of what life was like in those decades, I think our experience wasn’t so different. I read the book and thought, “I can do this.”
Your first few books were about guys of a certain age, sports fans and music fans. But the movies you’ve written — An Education, Wild and now Brooklyn – have young female protagonists. Was that a conscious choice?
After the first three books, I thought, “I don’t know if there’s anything else I want to say about certain guys.” I hoped that I had some sort of long career ahead of me, which meant that I would have to write about everybody. And after I wrote An Education, I got a lot of confidence — or, at least, any fear about writing about a young woman was taken away.
Also after An Education, one of the things that struck me is that if you write these big parts for young women, you get to work with the best talent in the world, because they’re not spoilt for choice. The guys are all like, “Yeah, it’s a nice indie movie, but someone’s just offered me $20 million to wear a superhero suit, so thanks for your interest.” Meanwhile the girls are playing the superhero’s girlfriend. And when they get these scripts where every single page is about them, it’s kind of amazing.
So we got Carey [Mulligan, for An Education] and Saoirse, and they are the best actresses of their age. That’s quite an incentive for a writer and filmmaker, to think that there is this untapped talent that actively wants to do what you’re interested in writing about.
Lucinda Coxon, The Danish Girl
How did you get involved in adapting David Ebershoff’s novel?
Gail Mutrux optioned the book in 2000, and in 2004 she sent it to me to see if I’d be interested in adapting it. They thought there was something in my sensibility, and they were interested in the fact that I was a playwright, which at the time I didn’t think was relevant. I had no prior knowledge of the story, but I was intrigued. So I started reading the novel and researching alongside it, to assess where the novel was fictionalized and how much of the original story was in there.
I was just amazed by the love story between Einar and Gerda [Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander], really. And once I found out more about the real story, I was amazed by the portrait of the marriage and the two artists. It was period, but it also felt fantastically modern–ahead of us, in many ways. I think the importance of sharing that story with people was kind of overwhelming. I became such a bore about it that friends were afraid to catch my eye at parties.
So I worked on the script and everyone loved it and I thought “OK, here we go.” [Laughs] That was a decade ago.
You said that at first you didn’t think your being a playwright was relevant. Did it become relevant?
I can see now that it was. I knew I wanted something that was very intimate, almost claustrophobic, where you are almost under the skin of the marriage. And there is something about that that is similar to writing a play, where you stay under the surface of the material for a very long time. And I hope that’s part of the intensity of the film. I stripped out the obvious fictions and the extraneous characters in the novel, and I kept the focus very tight. It was really about the couple and the art and the spaces in between.
Is the film truer to the actual events than the novel was?
It is truer. In the novel, Gerda had become Greta, and she’d been Americanized–she was an orange heiress from Pasadena. But it was quite a superficial change, and she was emotionally the same. And when I met David, to his credit and my great relief, the first thing he said was, “I’m really sorry about that thing about Greta being American. You’ll have to fix that right away.” But he had done a lot of the difficult spade work, and his novel is still very present in the movie, I think.
It’s been more than a decade since you began working on this story about a transgender person — and now we have Transparent, and Caitlin Jenner…
It’s bizarre. One of the reasons it’s taken this long is that the subject matter was commercially toxic. We had big actors and directors who were keen to be involved, and we almost made the film several times. But it was very, very difficult to finance because of the subject matter. It’s remarkable that the zeitgeist has shifted and all this progress has been made. And I couldn’t be happier that we can talk about transgender issues so openly now, because the truth is we’re all much more alike than we are different.
There was a terrible moment when I thought, “We’ve been ahead of it for a decade, and now we’re almost behind it!” People have stopped short of accusing us of jumping on a bandwagon–which is good, because, my God, I’ve been pushing this bandwagon up the hill for a very long time.
Abi Morgan, Suffragette
What was your reaction when director Sarah Gavron came to you to write a movie about the suffragette movement?
I didn’t look at the material for about six months. I thought, “Oh god, corsets and period?” But I looked at some of the testimonials working women gave in the Houses of Parliament, and I found them so moving. Always, if I get really interested in the research, it pulls me in. But it took me forever to write it. It’s horrific how many drafts I did.
Unlike adapting a novel, if you’re trying to capture a movement you’re starting from a much vaguer point.
Absolutely. It’s all about what you leave out. I did a version that was completelyDownton Abbey-esque, around an upper-class character. I don’t know what I was on. But into that I brought the character of a seamstress/laundress, and I became more and more interested in her. And when I started to look at the hierarchy of the movement, I thought well, they keep referring to the foot soldiers. Who are these women? They aren’t all middle-class, Mary-Poppins-bashing-the-tambourine women. And I came back to the testimonials, and though, “Oh, it’s you. And you had so much to lose. If you were in prison for a week, you lost your job.” I felt that the economics of what it meant to be a woman at that time were really interesting, and that’s what made me home in.
It’s a very tiny story, but I hope it has bigger political effect. This film is about feminism, and has parallels in the modern fight against inequality.
Were you thinking about that current political resonance as you were writing it?
No, not at all. People keep saying, “Did you want to write a feminist film?” And I don’t think like that. But with the digital age we have such a growing social activism, and we can’t ignore the global inequalities. We can YouTube the stoning of a woman in the Middle East, or the gang rape of a woman in India, or just the basic inequalities of a sweatshop in the U.K. I think it’s ignited a growing feminism and activism amongst the generation underneath me.
And then running parallel with that, you do get excited about working with so many women. The core producers, director, writer, production designer, costume designer — all women, except for one male producer. Usually when I write a movie, I’m lucky if I get one good actress. But suddenly, I could think, “What if we had two or three great actresses in a film? Or a great ensemble, like Scorsese has with men?” And then it just became fun to make the movie together and share stories, and just be on the set with that many women.
Everyone says not to use heavy exposition, but what choice is there? You have t get a certain amount of information across somehow.
Jennine Lanouette contends otherwise. She maintains that one does not even need dialogue to convey essential information and what’s more, she proves it in the following video, which talks about world building in The Road Warrior. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the possible.
Dummies.com reallly does have a page for everything. They have one for screenwriting and it specifically covers backstory and the steps needed to establish one for a character.
Creating the Backstory For Your Characters – from Dummies.com:
Most writers dream a little before they tackle writing their scripts. Actually, they dream a lot. Before you craft an environment, you want to know its history, its geographical location, and its condition. Before you write a scene between parents, you want to know what attracted them to each other, how long they’ve been together, how many children they have, and the like…
The ability to write complex events inhabited by complex people comes from knowing everything you can about why those events occurred and who those people are. The details you unearth may not all make it into your final draft, but they will add color and depth to the eventual script…
Backstory refers to everything that occurred in your story’s past. A character’s backstory may include family background, job history, psychological condition, and any memories you create for that person from childhood on. The backstory of a situation includes events that led up to it and a suggestion of why that situation’s occurring now.
Walter White’s past is suggested but never completely explained.
You may find it helpful to invent your script’s history one section at a time. Just as detectives follow a certain line of questioning, so will you subject your story to an inquisition of sorts. Here’s a list of categories that you may want to consider in your search for a backstory:
Each of these categories suggests its own series of questions that you might answer about your story. Jot those questions down as they occur to you; you’ll undoubtedly return to them with each new person and environment you create. Although it’s impossible to highlight upon all that you discover in a single script, much of your story may come from the information you invent now.
12 Years a Slave features a story set in the 1850s.
Imagine that you’re a tourist in a foreign country — you don’t speak the language, the people aren’t familiar, and anything might happen to you next. This experience isn’t unlike that of most movie-goers. They need someone to guide them through their journey and a guidebook to understand the importance of what they see along the way. You are their guide; the backstory is their guidebook.
A detailed backstory may be your greatest source of support as a screenwriter. It renders your characters unique and colorful, which will inform how they speak and behave throughout your story. It helps establish a clear world for your characters to explore and, therefore, provides the fuel for most — if not all — of the future scenes in your script.
Consider the information that you have: You’ve created a time period, an environment, and some character biographies. You may also have envisioned several situations leading up to your story’s main events. Your next step involves conveying those details to an audience that knows next to nothing about your story.
You can easily convey time periods and locations through costume, dialect, a lingering description of the landscape, or a caption alerting your audience that the story takes place in Paris, 1763. Past events and character traits are often more elusive. Although there’s no single formula for using this type of backstory to generate scenes, you may want to consider the following process as a way to begin:
1. Identify the detail that you want to develop. It might be an event, a trait, a location, a family member, or a friendship. Choose one element.
For example, your main character could have moved around constantly as a child and is, therefore, unable to settle down as an adult. That unsettled sensibility could be the detail in question.
2. Visualize three ways the detail manifested itself in the past. In particular, concentrate on what moments might reveal the detail to a stranger.
For example, you could envision your character as a child. She’s kept her bedroom decidedly blank, anticipating the next move. She fidgets constantly in school, often upsetting her classmates. She travels with an imaginary friend — the only constant in an ever-fluctuating environment.
3. Visualize three ways the detail manifests itself in the present. Every character exists in at least three roles during the course of a day. Your main character might be at once a mother, a neighbor, and a renowned biologist. Decide how the detail affects your character in several venues.
Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right has several roles: wife, lover, and mother.
For example, you might imagine that your character is a marathon dater, unable to settle on any person for a length of time. She juggles three jobs at once, constantly dashing from one end of town to another. Although she’s lived in an apartment for a year, she has yet to completely unpack.
4. Decide which scenes might exist in your screenplay. Flag any scenario you visualized that will help an audience understand the story you want to write. If more occur to you along the way, jot those down, too. You’ll return to those scenes later when you begin piecing your screenplay together.
Not every piece of information you come up with will find its way into your screenplay. If you’re telling a Civil War story, you may concentrate on your character’s political history and ignore his family background. On the other hand, if your Civil War story centers on Abraham Lincoln, his upbringing might be important. The type of story you’re telling will dictate which details you reveal from the past. But remember, whether you focus on it or not, everything you imagine will enhance and strengthen your script.
David Mamet is an award winning playwright (Oleanna, Speed the Plow, Glengarry Glen Ross) and an award nominated screenwriter (The Verdict, The Untouchables, House of Games). His latest play, China Doll, starring Al Pacino, has just opened on Broadway, so it seemed like a good time to post some Mametian pearls of wisdom.
Mamet (In case that was not obvious)
“As obliquely as possible”
This is in reference to “the essential information of the play.” This information, Mamet says, is vital because otherwise the play does not make sense. “You want to give people information before they know they’ve been given it,” Mamet remarked.
“They’re just jabbering to try and convince you of something.”
Mamet agrees with Aristotle that character is action. “It’s not what they say, it’s what they do, what they’re physically trying to accomplish… Say someone came up to you and said, I’m glad to be your neighbor because I’m a very honest man…Well, you really don’t know anything about that guy’s character.”
“People only speak to get something. If I say, Let me tell you a few things about myself, already your defenses go up; you go, Look, I wonder what he wants from me, because no one ever speaks except to obtain an objective. That’s the only reason anyone ever opens their mouth, onstage or offstage. They may use a language that seems revealing, but if so, it’s just coincidence, because what they’re trying to do is accomplish an objective.”
“I don’t know.”
Speaking of work habits, Mamet relates, “It’s really not an intellectual process…I think the process of writing a play is working back and forth between the moment and the whole. The moment and the whole, the fluidity of the dialogue and the necessity of a strict construction. Letting one predominate for a while and coming back and fixing it so that eventually what you do, like a pastry chef, is frost your mistakes, if you can.”
“Circumstance”
This is what drama is about, Mamet says, just a set of circumstances. Tragedy is due to individual choice, however. “That’s why we identify with a tragic hero more than with a dramatic hero—we understand the tragic hero to be ourselves.”
In House of Sand and Fog, Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley make bad decision after bad decision until practically everyone is dead or in jail.
“No”
The question was, have you ever considered putting in stage direction in your plays? It set off quite the quote:
” if you’re writing a drama, to get involved in it is kind of nonsense. It’s like, you read a screenplay and it says: BRENDA comes into the room. She’s beautiful, she’s sassy, she’s smart, she’s twenty-five, she’s built like a brick shithouse. This is the kind of girl that you’ll leave your wife for. When you see those deep blue eyes . . . I mean, you’re going to cast an actress and she’s going to look like something, right? Some idiot script-reader from Yale is going to get a kick out of what you’ve thrown in, but it has nothing to do with making the movie, because you’re going to cast an actress who will have qualities that are going to have nothing to do with what you made up. When you write stage directions—unless they’re absolutely essential for the understanding of the action of the play (He leaves. She shoots him.)—something else is going to happen when the actors and directors get them on the stage.”
“Does the character need to convey that information?”
Mamet is not a fan of unmotivated speech: “If the answer is no, then you’d better cut it out, because you aren’t putting the audience in the same position with the protagonist — I try to adopt that as an absolute tenet. I mean, if I’m not writing for the audience, if I’m not writing to make it easier for them, then who the hell am I doing it for? And the way you make it easier is by following those tenets: cutting, building to a climax, leaving out exposition, and always progressing toward the single goal of the protagonist. They’re very stringent rules, but they are, in my estimation and experience, what makes it easier for the audience.”
Check the whole thing out: Mamet Paris Review Interview
This is an interesting list of tips from Jeffrey Hirschberg and this article is an abbreviated excerpt from Jeffrey Hirschberg’s recently published book: “Reflections of the Shadow: Creating Memorable Heroes and Villains for Film and TV.”
Throughout my eighteen years of screenwriting I have read and analyzed thousands of scripts from writers of all levels, including screenplays from my students at Buffalo State College, Cornell University, Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, and R.I.T.’s School of Film and Animation.
During this time, I discovered 11 Laws of Great Storytelling – trends that tend to exist in many of the most memorable stories of all time. Of course, creating unforgettable heroes and villains is an integral part of all the Laws and should always be in the forefront of your mind as a writer.
So while it is impossible to have a foolproof objective formula for a great story, I have learned that if certain principles are followed, the probability of your story achieving a modicum of greatness increases dramatically.
With this disclaimer firmly in place, here goes:
1. Assume everyone has ADD
There has never been a greater truism in Hollywood. While I am guilty of playing dime store psychologist, one does not need a PhD in Clinical Psychology to conclude that audiences (that means us) tend to have short attention spans.
Now, we can argue there are certain external factors contributing to a population of diminishing attention spans (MTV, video games, text messaging, IM, and the Internet to name a few possible culprits), but it is safe to say that the attentiveness (or lack thereof) of the audience is directly related to its ability to make a successful emotional connection – and that connection must be made quickly, or you will lose your audience even more quickly.
Readers, like moviegoers, need to be entertained very quickly.
2. Spend most of your time on the first ten pages of your script
In Gladiator, we are immediately engaged as we are introduced to our hero – General Maximus – and the respect he commands from the Roman army. Add an action-packed, bloody opening battle to the mix, and we are sold.
In Pulp Fiction, the first ten pages of the script feature a restaurant robbery and the prophetic musings of two unforgettable hit men. The dialogue is fresh, imaginative, and unrelenting in its pace and originality. If you are a reader perusing the screenplay, you undoubtedly want to continue turning the page.
Marcellus Wallace, foot rubs and Royale with Cheese. The art of saying everything while saying nothing
When you are finished with your script, give the first ten pages to a group of friends or family you trust. Then ask each of them one simple question: “Do you want to read more?” If the overwhelming response is in the affirmative, you are on the right road to writing a memorable screenplay.
3. Write roles to attract movie stars
Create a memorable hero or villain and chances are you just might attract a movie star to your script. Why? Because characters like the heroes and villains featured in my book are unique, intelligent, and intriguing people with magnetism to spare. Who wouldn’t want to play Hans Gruber, Norma Rae Webster, Hannibal Lecter, Ellen Ripley, or Gordon Gekko?
You may also want to watch films that feature Academy Award-winning roles.
Movie stars can buy anything from Porsches to Picassos; they have adoring fans throughout the world who will wait for hours to get a glimpse of them; and they are told by sycophantic agents, managers, attorneys, studio executives, PR professionals, writers, producers, and directors that they are nothing less than the great Da Vinci reincarnated.
But, they cannot buy the respect an Academy Award affords them. So, if you can write a juicy role that will attract the attention of one or more movie stars, you just might find yourself in the midst of a studio bidding war.
REEEEEESPECCCCT!!
4. Write economically
Throughout my years of writing and reading screenplays, one of the most common mistakes I have experienced is “overwriting.” This phenomenon often falls into two categories: 1) verbose stage direction; and
2) “on the nose” dialogue.
Verbose Stage Direction
Keep your stage direction short (I recommend trying to keep each paragraph to less than five lines) and to the point. Never forget you are writing a piece of entertainment, and stage direction should entertain as much as it informs us as to the comings and goings of your characters.
“On the Nose” Dialogue
Several years ago, I sent a script to my manager and received notes including quite a few pieces of dialogue circled with the comment, “OTN.” I was perplexed and asked him to explain. He said these were several instances where my dialogue was too “on the nose.” The point is to make the audience work a bit for the information – not too much (we don’t want to frustrate them) – but enough for them to feel emotionally involved in your story.
5. Make sure every character has a unique voice
Movies work most effectively when they are populated with characters that are unique from one another. So, you should try to —
Avoid stereotypes
One of the problems I see over and over again with new writers is the depiction of characters who feel familiar and stereotypical. The key is to go against stereotypes, thus providing your audience with the refreshing read they crave.
Surprise us with quirks and unusual traits
Every once in a while, I’ll be sitting in a movie theater and suddenly I’ll discover something fresh and unusual about one of the main characters. It is that feeling of surprise we all desire and unfortunately, those moments are few and far between.
Create someone an actor will love to play
One can only imagine Julie Roberts’ reaction when she read the script for Erin Brockovich. It is simply not the typical role afforded to actresses in Hollywood. The hero of the film is a quintessentially strong character any actress would love to play. She is confident, bold, sympathetic, and has plenty of memorable monologues. It is a classic underdog story resulting in Roberts winning the Oscar in 2000.
Transform him/her over your story
Rick Blaine in Casablanca is a great example of a hero transforming over the course of the story. At the beginning of the film he confidently states his mantra, “I stick my neck out for nobody.” But, at the end of the film, he does just that – sticking his neck out for the woman he loves.
Make everything about his/her journey difficult
We love watching our heroes struggle. What would Raiders of the Lost Ark be if Indiana Jones immediately stumbled upon the Ark of the Covenant and brought it back to America? What if John McClane burst into the Nakatomi Christmas party and took out Hans Gruber and all of his henchmen in one momentous moment? And, what if Ellen Ripley easily discovered the Alien’s whereabouts as well as a surefire way to destroy the monster? Boring!
6. Understand your audience
When you are writing a screenplay, there are two audiences you should consider: 1) the readers, agents, managers, producers, and studio executives who will be reading your screenplay (aka, the buyers); and 2) the demographic you believe will be most interested in seeing your movie.
If your script is a comedy, it must be funny. If you are writing a horror script, it must be scary. Sounds like common sense? It isn’t. Talk to a professional reader and ask her how many comedy and horror scripts she has read of late that are actually funny and scary. “The comedy scripts are scary and the horror scripts are funny,” is the answer you just might receive.
Re: demographics: Hollywood studios like to categorize the world into four simple compartments, typically referred to as quadrants: 1) Male under 25; 2) Male over 25; 3) Female under 25; and 4) Female over 25. If you ever wondered why every Pixar film seems to make a billion dollars in worldwide gross and ancillary revenues, it is because the company excels at making Four Quadrant movies – films that appeal equally to males and females under 25 and over 25.
7. Know your three-act structure
Like it or not, Hollywood has a language all its own. Here is what buyers expect from your script:
1. By page ten, they want to be introduced to your hero, what he wants (his goal), and the genre of the story you are telling.
2. By the end of Act One (page twenty-five or so), readers want to know exactly where this story is going, including the stakes (What happens if the hero does not achieve his goal?) and the villain (The person, place, or thing preventing the hero from achieving his goal).
3. By the midpoint (the middle of Act Two, page fifty-five or so), readers like to feel that the stakes for the hero have been raised in some fashion. Maybe a new character has been introduced. Maybe a new obstacle or villain has reared its head. Maybe the hero has experienced a distinct character transformation.
4. By the end of Act Two (page ninety or so), readers presume your hero will be in a heap of trouble. Up until now, the hero may have been steadily moving toward achieving his goal. But at the end of Act Two, things have changed. He has suddenly been put in a corner and the audience is asking itself, “How in the world is he going to get out of this one?”
5. In Act Three, readers want your hero to somehow devise a new plan and escape from the mess that has presented itself at the end of Act Two. This is the big finish.
8. Be aware of theme, and keep it consistent throughout the script
Theme is a tough nut to crack. When I ask my students the theme of Die Hard, they often restate the film’s core concept (or, in Hollywood terms, the “logline”), saying something like, “It’s about a cop thwarting a group of international terrorists while saving his wife and a bunch of innocent people.” While this is true, it doesn’t quite touch on theme. I then dig deeper, suggesting Die Hard is really about a man trying to reconnect with his wife. True, this reconnection takes place amidst the backdrop of an action-packed heist, but at its core, this is a story about John McClane discovering the importance of family and the love and appreciation he has for his wife, Holly.
9. Watch and re-watch successful movies similar to your story
There is an old adage in Hollywood: They want the same, but different. Because the average studio picture costs over $100 million to produce and market, studios are in the risk aversion business every bit as much as they are in the movie business. The impact on you is that these buyers of product tend to gravitate toward the familiar – stories they think will have the best chance at attracting a global audience.
10. Know what your hero wants (the goal), what happens if he doesn’t get what he wants (the stakes), and who/what is preventing him from getting what he wants (the villain)
Think about some films you haven’t loved. I bet one of the reasons there was no love connection was because they failed to answer the questions above.
In Toy Story 2, Buzz Lightyear is the primary hero whose goal is to lead a group of toys to save Woody from being sent to a museum in Japan. The primary villain of the story is Al (of “Al’s Toy Barn” fame) and the stakes are simple: If our hero and his team do not achieve their goal, they will never see Woody again.
So well written, Buzz came back for the sequel
Jaws is another movie that quickly answers our burning questions. By the end of Act One, we know Police Chief Martin Brody (with the support of Quint and Hooper) is our hero, his goal is to kill the shark, the villain is the shark itself, and the stakes are: If Brody does not achieve his goal, more residents of Amity will die.
11. Leave them wanting more
This Law seems to be as ancient as showbiz itself. Yet it is just as relevant today as it was at the turn of the twentieth century. The Law is really about crafting a memorable, climactic ending that will forever be satisfying to your audience. An outstanding ending can often save a mediocre film while a mediocre ending can often ruin an otherwise outstanding story.
So, does your climax:
1. Feel like a big, fulfilling finish?
2. Reveal a significant character trait of your hero or villain?
3. Resolve the central problem established in Act One?
4. Contain a satisfying surprise?
5. Appear five to twenty minutes or so before the end of the film?
If your story accomplishes all of the above, you are on your way to crafting a memorable tale that will live on in the memories of your audience. Happy writing!
This post comes from the folks at TSL, The Script Lab. Note: they define action as anything a character does. This is NOT a tip on writing a set piece for Transformers 6: Blowing Up Whatever’s Left.
Writing Believable Action
Recently, we were asked about the use of “false action”, which was described as forcing your characters to do something during dialogue because that’s better than having them just standing around.
We had never heard of this exact terminology used to illustrate action, but understood the concept behind it. However, not every concept is necessarily a good one, and this is never more evident than with writers guilty of applying this so-called “false action.” Big rookie mistake!
The word “false” is our first clue. When supporting points in an argument, for example, you wouldn’t use false logic (or fallacies) to illustrate your claims. Your audience would be skeptical of sweeping generalizations, jumping to conclusions, and non sequiturs, etc. Because your argument is based upon false thinking, you lose all credibility. “False action” works the same way: it’s forced and unconvincing.
The screenwriter’s job is to find believable action for the character to do, something that is not only plausible, but probable. You have so little time in a screenplay to create believable and dynamic characters. Wasting that time with “false action” is a sure fire way to lose your reader.
Chef is literally nothing but non stop sandwich-building action.
It’s true that characters should never be just standing around. Film is a visual medium after all, but if the dialogue doesn’t require action, find a reason to have the character interact with his or her environment and use the character’s body to show another part of his or her personality.
While your hero is lambasting his baby brother for wrecking his car, for example, have him whipping up his latest culinary masterpiece. Or while your heroine is reciting some great legal exposition, have her organizing her desk like a consummate OCD patient.
Whatever can show a glimpse into another part of their personality is what you’re after. Each moment is an opportunity to give more depth to your character; never waste it.
Tucson Screenwriting Group 