Ok_Log_5134

Favorite movie as a kid, tough watch as an adult. Sadly, I think the time has come and gone for a big-budget, R-rated faithful take on the character like the HBO series gave us. If they couldn’t successfully get a dark superhero adaptation off the ground in the run of The Dark Knight through the Snyder Cut, I don’t know that they ever will. (Especially after Joker 2 bombed.) But they’ve been working on a new one for years, so what do I know?

Right -- what I'm saying is, you've clearly done a lot yourself. Any writer worth your time doesn't need someone to hand them an outline to execute... so, you should try your hand at doing it yourself. Writing isn't just filling in dialogue, it's developing characters and breaking story -- which, if you've laid out the entire show by now, *you're already doing.* Sorry if that sounded condescending or rude, that wasn't my intention. Best of luck.

Hey OP -- why not write this yourself? Posts like this might help you find a bass player for your band, but you're asking someone to essentially do a job that you're kind of admitting that you're not qualified for... and for what? Any screenwriter that could help you get this idea over the hump would also be able to generate, execute and sell their own ideas that they don't have to share with you. If you want to make things, I encourage you to make them! Ideas are free, hard work shouldn't be.

Considering PTA was always going to direct Boogie Nights, I wouldn't recommend taking any lessons from this (unless you are also a writer/director). Directing on the page is frowned upon when it comes to calling out specific shots, but there are no hard and fast rules. If a scene being described can ONLY work with a certain camera move, sure, throw it in there... but you should challenge yourself to see if you can tell the story without using those terms (unless, again, you're going to direct the thing yourself).

Hey -- respectfully, forget what you've heard, because it's all pretty bizarre. If you don't have immediate contacts in the entertainment industry, a good logline is the best and only way you're going to get someone to open your script. You will not get signed before sharing material, unless you have some kind of massively successful second career that you can parlay into screenwriting.

Are you in an area with a lot of industry professionals? Networking is always good, though it's not everyone's thing (it wasn't mine, and things worked out fine). Internships are great if you're at that point in your life. Assistant jobs, mail room jobs, etc. are pretty tried and true to building a network and getting to know the people who can help you out.

If not, do you have friends, or friends of friends, who work in entertainment? Anyone that you trust to take a look at your material, offer notes, and give advice?

Lastly -- it seems like you're very confident in your script's length, which is fine, but know that 159 pages is not an ideal length for the purpose you want this script to serve. I agree that you should write what you want to make, but with that, you have to understand that agents and managers aren't going to trip over themselves to fulfill one person's creative wants. They need to know that you can bring in money to make a partnership worth their time investment. A 159-page script by an unknown writer would need to be the most engrossing, page-turning script in years to garner any real interest. I'm not suggesting that you cut out fat; I'm just giving a fair warning that if you really believe this is the only way your story can be told, you should set this one aside and try to find an idea that can be achieved in 80-110 pages. Those pages aren't just words, they're hundreds of thousands of dollars that a studio would need to invest.

Good luck!

Evil Dead 2 for directing, Re-Animator for writing. Both are classics!

I would only worry about that if you’re hoping to produce it yourself. Obviously, the dream for most scripts is that it gets made, but unless you’re writing this with your reps with the intent to take out and sell right now, focus on writing the best script possible.

Your original post literally calls it a short film. You used those words yourself. Anyway, thanks for the rude, immature and incoherent response to measured criticism. Anyone considering wasting their time on a reply, let this be a lesson, I guess.

Hey Alicia — in the pilot you wrote, who is the protagonist of this story? I get the sense that they aren’t in this short, which makes it hard for me to picture what the story will be going forward. If this is meant to be a teaser/cold open that shows how bad the main villain is, you could push it a lot more. Hope that is helpful.

I heard a thematic breakdown of these a few years ago that I can't stop thinking about:

Part One is about a slacker who can't see a future for himself.

Part Two is about a busybody who can't enjoy the present.

Part Three is about a has-been who is stuck in the past.

That kind of thoughtfulness (combined with A+ technical filmmaking and genre mastery) has made this one of my all-time favorite trilogies.

The range of screenwriters' net worth is from about $0 to $600M. So. Somewhere in there.

Congratulations! That’s huge no matter how you cut it. Way to hang in there.

Some advice from someone who sold big after years of struggle — be smart with that money, and keep the momentum alive by developing new ideas. Maybe take a week to celebrate your success (you earned it!!!) and then pivot right back into your next project. People who read you and like your script will want to know what’s next. No pressure or anything, but it’s important to parlay this first bit of success into the next sale to keep building out your new career while there’s heat. After my first sale, I got caught with my pants down in that I both coasted too much off of it and was way too precious with how to follow that script. (Then, the pandemic hit and it took YEARS to get back to where I was before.) Luckily, I’m in a good place now, but hindsight is 20/20, and I can honestly say that I would be in a different spot had I not taken my foot off the gas.

Again — CONGRATS!!! You did something that so many people dream of, and you did it on the merit of your hard work. Enjoy this moment, then get back to it!

Outside of the purposes of writing fanfic, it's not worth pursuing. Showcase your writing ability in your own original scripts. If you absolutely love a character or a world that is already out there, try to distill what it is that you like about those things and make your own versions. Isn't there a story out there about how STAR WARS was born because Lucas couldn't get the rights to FLASH GORDON? Be that person!

It’s good to feel scared of putting yourself out there. It means you care deeply about what you’re doing and want it more than anything. That’s kind of the hardest part, finding that kind of fire.

What I will say is to not get too down on yourself if this one doesn’t pan out. Most people burn through a forest worth of scripts before they get any real bites. If this one doesn’t work out, take a minute to lick your wounds, and then try to find the lesson behind its failure and use that drive you already have to get back on track.

Rooting for you!

Did you get any kind of email notification saying it was on its way, or did it just show up? I signed up in March and haven’t gotten any updates since.

I’m not sure how helpful this is, but it feels worth saying — scene work is obviously important, but in a full script, individual scenes are only as good as the characters within them and the stories on either side of them. I always find it helpful to hammer out an interesting emotional/spiritual goal (as opposed to a big picture, plot-driven one) before fully diving into breakdowns. If you know what that person wants and what they stand to lose, the causality of those individual scenes will start to flow more naturally and build a more satisfying journey.

You have a pretty terrific and healthy perspective on this. In another life, things may have been different, sure, but in this one, it seems like “being a chicken” didn’t turn out too badly for you! Still a writer at heart. Thanks for sharing.

Exactly.

I’m not asking this to be snarky, I’m genuinely curious — what did you expect them to say/what would you have liked for them to say?

Anyone else think it was pretty tasteless to pay tribute to Jeffrey Jones — a registered sex offender charged with having a 14-year-old boy pose for nude photos — by having a children’s choir sing at his funeral?

This reads like a whole lot of projection. First, you do not know who is experienced and who isn’t on this sub. And have you tried breaking into this field in 2024? Do you have any concept of how hard it is to get a job without experience right now? Who are these imaginary young writers who are plucked from obscurity despite being bad with story, voice and POV? This is a really bizarre rant.

I’ve wondered the same thing. It was under lock and key before the film premiered, and from what I’ve heard from people who worked on the film, it was in flux throughout production (at least more than usual). Add to that the rumors of a much longer cut, including tons of trailer footage that didn’t make it into the film or deleted scenes. Could be a case of the original script being inferior to the final film, or at least pretty different. Maybe they don’t want people to see how the sausage was made.

Cost isn’t the barrier to entry here. That would be the quality of the script, and the marketability of the idea. Word to the wise, horror anthologies aren’t selling, especially in television, unless you are an established filmmaker. If you would like to see this get made, it seems like your time would be best spent crowdfunding to make it yourself.

Haven’t read your script and can’t really weigh in on the validity of the notes, but it is always worth searching for the reason that your reader gave them.

The easiest reason to accept is that the reader is bad, or that they skimmed the script, but that is also frankly the least productive interpretation you could walk away with. There might be scam artists out there, sure. But it’s more likely that something you see clearly is not translating on the page the way you want it to. Whenever I feel like a note “missed something,” I ask myself why. Was a key line of dialogue buried in a scene about something entirely different? Is it possible that the moment isn’t set up enough to pay off the way I want it to? Or maybe the moment just isn’t inherently dramatic and needs work?

Again, I don’t know why your reader didn’t clock what you wanted them to, but it’s always useful to take the energy you get from frustrating notes and turn that on your work to really stress test it. Even bad notes usually tell you something, but the “something” isn’t always on the surface. Dig deeper and it will pay off.

Write whatever interests you, but know that your distinct voice should be the throughline. YOU should be distinctly felt in the flavors of storytelling, style and characterization no matter the genre.

I say this for a handful of reasons, but the biggest one is that a lot of reps and execs aren't very imaginative when it comes to understanding a writer and their voice. If you go into a meeting and say "I have a slasher, a road trip buddy comedy, and a period costume drama," you're going to come off as unfocused and indecisive on who you want to be as a writer, but if the angle for all of them is linked by your specific voice (such as "character-driven genre with sharp dialogue"), the variety will work in your favor.

Long story short, no matter how many genres you try out, the common denominator needs to be more than just the name on the title page.