Why must Inception win the summer?

A week ago, two articles, from big name reporters in the industry, talked about studios unsure what to make next. What did they ask agents for? Original scripts. If you missed the articles, take a look:

Vulture

Deadline

As someone who needs to break in with an original spec script, I couldn't ask for better news. The thing is though, as someone close enough to the industry, I know that doesn't mean the studios are ready to open their wallets. Money is still very very tight.

This town has a short memory. What won the box office this past weekend with over $100 million? A sequel. Toy Story 3. While many will spin the story of it not doing as well as its predecessors, when all is said and done, Toy Story 3 will be a very profitable movie for Disney. That's what the guys and gals who control the wallet want to see.

Take a look at the big winners so far this year and you can see that this cycle of sequels, remakes/reboots, and heavy adaptation (comics, novels) is far from over. Looking at other years, I'd say it all began in 1999 (the same year Toy Story 2 came out) but really got going in 2002.

By 2002, we had the following active "franchises" going:

Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, X-Men, Toy Story, Shrek, The Mummy, Mission: Impossible, Rush Hour, Ocean's Eleven, Jurassic Park, Austin Powers, Men in Black, Ice Age, Bourne, Bond, Spy Kids, The Fast and the Furious, American Pie

That's right. In four years, between 1999-2002, the age of the franchise was born with a film from each of those listed above. I'm willing to bet more of those listed above have another movie coming along soon than those that don't. But is the end of the cycle in sight? Maybe a crack.

The question, now in 2010, is when are we going to get back to 1998, the last time before Avatar that original material (Saving Private Ryan) was the top film of the year at the box office and original content was in the top spots? Well, Inception winning the summer could add more fire to the original material flames. But can it beat the likes of Twilight, Iron Man, and Toy Story?

I'm hoping so. I want Inception to win the summer because until original material starts to outperform the decade old franchises, those with the money will continue to push the sequel button no matter how many great original scripts come across their desks, like mine. A cycle only ends when a mass shift in frame of mind occurs. Thanks to James Cameron and hopefully Christopher Nolan next, that shift is about to begin.

"The Education of Charlie Banks" - One Sentence Reviews

This slow-burn character-driven period drama, with some good writing and performances, prods instead of punches to it's inevitable conclusion, hampered by a rites of passage plot with more holes than great scenes and a boring visual style that would go better with the 1950s than the decade the film is set it in.

RECOMMENDATION: PASS

What to see? Weekend of June 18th.

As always, The Playlist has terrific coverage of the films hitting theaters this weekend. Below are my picks for what to see.

Go see:

Hollywood Studios:  

Toy Story 3 - Disney/Pixar - Rated G

Thankfully, "Toy Story 3," directed by longtime Pixar vet Lee Unkrich and written by "Little Miss Sunshine" Oscar winner Michael Arndt is a beautiful, nuanced, funny-as-hell...read more.

Independent:  

Cyrus - Fox Searchlight - Rated R

We caught it at SXSW and thought it was "immediately charming and engaging to an almost uncanny level" and that "it's seriously a hit waiting to happen."...read more.

Foreign: 

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky - SPC - Rated R

The material could so easily be played for high melodrama in lesser hands, but Kounen's film, buoyed by solid lead performances, is sumptuous, yet subtle, passionate and measured....read more.

Don't See:

Jonah Hex

As a prosthetic, it doesn't look detailed or graphic enough, meaning half of the movie is spent forgetting you're watching this film and wondering why the kid from "The Goonies" stapled a pancake to his cheek....read more.

Enjoy the movies.

 

Why did The Karate Kid beat down The A-Team?

I recently made it to a screening of The A-Team, which was one of my favorite TV shows growing up, and was completely satisfied by the movie. It was everything I expected it to be and remained true to the TV show story and characters. It's a fun summer popcorn movie and I think a lot more people would be going out to enjoy it if they weren't already burned by the not fun Robin Hood and Prince of Persia. Neither of those had any sense of humor.

What's also funny? That it's been such a surprise The Karate Kid won the weekend hands down. While beloved by it's fans, like me, The A-Team ran in the mid-80s with so-so ratings. That means the largest portion of moviegoers weren't even born yet to watch the show. The Karate Kid's win comes down to demographics, and not anything to do with audiences more interested in a reboot over a TV series remake.

I'll leave you with a quote I recently read on David Bordwell's terrific blog:

The movies live on children from the ages of ten to nineteen, who go steadily and frequently and almost automatically to the pictures; from the age of twenty to twenty-five people still go, but less often; after thirty, the audience begins to vanish from the movie houses. Checks made by different researchers at different times and places turn up minor variations in percentages; but it works out that between the ages of thirty and fifty, more than half of the men and women in the Unites States, steady patrons of the movies in their earlier years, do not bother to see more than one picture a month; after fifty, more than half see virtually no pictures at all.

This is the ultimate, essential, overriding fact about the movies. . . . 

- Gilbert Seldes in his book The Great Audience (1950)

Something to keep that in mind next time you're sitting down to brainstorm ideas.

11 Writers for the A-Team!?!

Happy Flag Day.

I want to start off by saying I would have loved to have been the twelfth writer on the A-Team. I grew up on the show and loved every minute of it. As a writer trying to break into the industry, that's an assignment job I dream about.

I can't help but cringe reading the article from Nikki Finke about the development of the movie. I know that if I was a writer during the development of the script, I'd probably be pretty upset by it when all is said and done.

I know I shouldn't knock the current industry process of bringing writer after writer on to a project. It means more writers working in Hollywood and, therefore, giving me a better shot at getting there. Still, when I think of the best screenplays ever written, usually no more than three people worked on the script.

"Ink" - One Sentence Reviews

Ink travels along the narrative path of the fairy tale, with beautiful dreams and dark disturbing nightmares (reality might be in there too), but this fantasy mind-bender’s action editing, which propels the plot forward rather than just existing to have set-pieces, that ultimately steals the show, making Ink an ambitious feature film from a writer-director talent to watch, Jamin Winans. 

RECOMMENDATION: CONSIDER

 

Alice Sends Shares in Theatre Owners Soaring

The biggest 3D opening by Alice in Wonderland over the weekend gave the major theater owners a boost on Monday. Not a surprise, as the stocks have been rising for the last month, with the 2010 Box Office now 6% higher than the record setting 2009 year-over-year. Take a look at these gains:

Carmike Cinemas  (CKEC) 3/8: +9.09% - Since 2/9: +70.45%

Regal Ent. Group (RGC)  3/8: +8.41% - Since 2/9: +11.11%

Imax Corp        (IMAX) 3/8: +8.16% - Since 2/9: +28.48%

Cinemark Holdings(CNK)  3/8: +1.87% - Since 2/9: +17.81%

Disclosure: Long (IMAX)

I wonder if the original Alice is getting a bump in sales as well.

Avatar loses Best Picture...Because Hollywood Already Won

At the end of the day, the goal of the film industry (aka Hollywood) is to put butts in seats.  No film has been more successful at that since Gone With the Wind than Avatar. 

Yet, Hollywood decided against rewarding Avatar for this accomplishment for I believe one huge reason...3D.  I haven't heard much said about the fact that Avatar is the first live action motion picture to be nominated for Best Picture that was made and released in 3D.  I guess that says a lot to how good that 3D was.

I, for one, believed 3D would hurt its chances at winning, and while I won't go so far as to say it would have won had it not been in 3D, I do believe there was probably some voters who were not ready to see a 3D film win Best Picture. 

I think The Hurt Locker is deserving and don't want to take anything away from that film, but in fifty years when we look back and talk about the films of this era, Avatar will be mentioned and remembered for many reasons in a similar way a film like Citizen Kane didn't take home the big prize in 1941.  And no I'm not trying to put Avatar into even a close category, I am simply pointing to another film that Hollywood wasn't quite ready for at the time.

It is fitting that Alice in Wonderland should ring up the biggest 3D opening on the same weekend as the Oscars.  Because while The Hurt Locker won the battle for the night, Hollywood continues to win the war.  Avatar has proven 3D to Hollywood in a big way and now everyone from Spielberg to Scorsese know if they want to get something done, just say you'll shoot it in 3D.  I wonder how long it will be before Kathryn Bigelow has a 3D film to her credit?

Sure films have come in 3D before Avatar, including a better film that won the Best Animation Oscar in Up, but when we're only going to 3D films in ten years I think everyone will look back, happily or grumpily, and point to Avatar as the film that started the 3D avalanche and possibly the end to films that do a lot with a little and get rewarded for it, like The Hurt Locker.

I believe a real turning point is occurring and Academy Members made the right decision in the end, because I for one do not want the only size screen I have a choice to see a film like The Hurt Locker sitting in my living room or hocked up to my Internet. 

The reason a film should win Best Picture is because the experience you have with it.  3D is being touted as an enhancement to the experience by many, but the only true way to enhance a film is with the story.  Because stories have heart and soul.  The story is what we remember.

I just hope Hollywood will remember that as they are counting up all those zeros at the end of their 3D films box office receipts.

Avatar and The Tipping Point

There were many film journalists, everyone is a critic, who predicted James Cameron's Avatar would be lucky to get to $1Bil in box office.  I wondered why they thought the film couldn't be as successful as The Dark Knight.  After all, Hollywood's relentless push to put only content that we are somehow familiar with, be it sequels or remakes, is a trend that cannot last forever.  Now, Avatar has passed The Dark Knight in worldwide box office, yet I see more attacks of the film than articles about why it's doing to well.

I believe Avatar has done so well because it was able to reach what Malcolm Gladwell calls The Tipping Point, in a book of the same name. While I don't want to go too deep into the book, it's worth a read, Gladwell describes the "tipping point" for something as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point."  With a film like Avatar, we reach a "tipping point" through word of mouth.  Talk of the film spreads like an epidemic to the point where the mass of people shift into must-see mode and an all-time box office return is possible.

So how do we relate this back to screenwriting?  I have two ways.  First, is what Gladwell calls "The Stickiness Factor," which is specific content of a message that renders its impact memorable.  Being memorable is the most important battle a script faces from when it first makes it to a reader's desk to when it finally hits the big screen.  I'd argue Avatar has done a terrific job at being memorable.  The WGA Nominators clearly thought so as well, despite the hate.

So what's memorable in your screenplay?  What happens in your story that will make people leave the theater and talk about it?  It doesn't have to be 3D or 10ft tall blue aliens.  It can be a line of dialogue, a character, or a cop getting his ear cut off.  If you think about it, all the films you love have really memorable moments, that's why you love them.  Have you made your script memorable enough to be one of your favorite films?

The second screenwriting takeaway is using the idea of a "tipping point" in your script.  *SPOILER ALERT if you haven't seen The Dark Knight or Avatar.*  Both of these films have a point where you could say things boiled over for the characters in the story.  In The Dark Knight you had the death of Rachel, and in Avatar you have the destruction of the tree.  Both these "tipping point" moments cannot be reversed and, therefore, are a powerful moment in the story.  

While a "tipping point" in your script doesn't have to be as monumental as the destruction in Avatar, it should be in proportion to the scale of your film.  Avatar aims to be a huge epic and so a huge "tipping point" is needed, and Cameron delivers.  Do you have a "tipping point" scene in your script?  Is it memorable?  A film will challenge Avatar eventually for the records its setting, why can't it be yours?

Another screenwriting blog...hopefully not just another.

I believe screenwriting is an art, and I know it is a profession. This blog’s simple lofty goal is to gather all the craft and business information on screenwriting I can summon into one powerful source for mass consumption.

I am a student of the craft. I have been studying for three years with the last one and a half in an MFA program at Loyola Marymount University. I hope that as I learn and better my storytelling skills on and off the page…so will you.

This blog is an attempt to further immerse myself in all aspects of screenwriting to succeed as a professional writer. It is solely dedicated to writing for the screen. So like any great piece of writing, there will be a structure to the posts to deliver upon this premise.

Posts will cover script reviews of produced films, round-ups of posts from other screenwriting sites and blogs, news re-caps of the business, and other aspects of the craft of screenwriting to increase knowledge and inspire writers in the art and the industry.

In summary, I'd like this blog to be your dashboard to the world of screenwriting so you can focus your time on writing.

Welcome all.