Any Screenwriters On The Board??
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Memo to Hollywood: AI Is a Threat — And an Opportunity
Evolving tech is blurring lines and encroaching on artists’ terrain. But rather than just fighting AI, the industry must harness it in creative new ways, writes power player Dawn Ostroff.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Memo to Hollywood: AI Is a Threat — And an Opportunity
Evolving tech is blurring lines and encroaching on artists’ terrain. But rather than just fighting AI, the industry must harness it in creative new ways, writes power player Dawn Ostroff.By Dawn Ostroff
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May 29, 2024 7:15am
Lately, it seems as if there are new headlines every day about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence — everything from the technology ruthlessly taking our jobs to it perilously increasing our carbon footprint to fuel the necessary computing power. The headlines are concerning, and some even predict doomsday-like scenarios in the near future. Just like many of humankind’s inventions, AI will surely prove to be both beneficial and harmful depending on its application, but it won’t be the substantial power it will consume or the jobs it will take that pose the biggest risks. It’s the threat to our creativity and thereby our humanity itself.
Our innate creativity is what sets us apart from all other living beings. It helps us relate to our world and to each other. From the earliest forms of communication, which can be traced back 64,000 years ago through cave paintings made by Neanderthals found in Spain, to the earliest forms of stories that were told through drawings going back 30,000 years ago, to the earliest fragment of musical notation found on a 4,000 year old Sumerian clay tablet, the creative process has been an integral part of our collective human experience. It helps us relate to our world and to each other.As our societies became more complex, so did our creativity and our storytelling. We started venturing more deeply into the unknown and imagined far-out stories that envisioned our future. Think of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey predicting sentient computers or Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One imagining the Metaverse and Spike Jonze’s Her exploring the outrageous idea of computers as our companions.
But let’s remember that the computer was originally invented by Charles Babbage to automate mathematical calculations that were previously computed by people. It was human beings who imagined what else the computers could possibly do. We, in the creative community, let our creative minds run wild and imagined a future in which computers could not just exist like humans, but could replace us. Think of Edward Neumeier’s RoboCop or James Cameron’s The Terminator.
And while we were telling our fantastical stories about life in the future, our colleagues in the tech industry set about making those worlds a reality. Did writers who imagined a science fiction future truly believe it could ever happen? Did engineers believe what they were reading as science fiction could be a reality? Who knows? And yet, here we are, taking those stories even further than ever imagined. We envisioned it, and then they figured out how to build it. And today, we have machines being the creators — coming up with ideas, stories, art, music and other forms of creativity and imagining a new future. This is certainly revolutionary, and in many ways, very difficult to comprehend.
But if humans no longer have to do the creating, where does that leave us? While there is no doubt that AI has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of our lives, we must not forget the importance of the creative process in shaping our society. Our creativity allows us to express ourselves and fulfill our uniqueness. It allows us to tap into our deepest emotions, to connect with others, and to share our ideas and perspectives with the world. It is a way of leaving our mark, of making a lasting impact that will be felt long after we are gone. And as we’ve seen, for better or worse, our creativity even helps shape the future.
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The potential applications of AI in the creative field are endless and exciting, but they raise critical questions about the future of human creativity and innovation. What happens when machines can create faster and better than we can? How can we guarantee that AI won’t strip away our fundamental human traits of curiosity, imagination and intuition? We have always been driven to use our imagination to see what doesn’t exist yet, to envision a society on a new planet, to see the best and worst of mankind in the future, to create the next masterpiece. What happens to humanity if we are no longer the composers of our music, or the artists behind our creations, or the tellers of our own stories? Should the future of creativity be left up to the machines we ourselves created?
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It’s a larger existential threat, but the future that we imagined has arrived, and with it come the economic realities of AI. As we chart our path forward, we are all best served to start from a place of mutual respect for one another’s work. Our colleagues in the tech industry patent every aspect of their inventions to ensure that the inventor or company is protected and compensated every time their tech is used. Similarly, artists, creators, talent and IP owners expect to be paid every time their content is used by others. Recognizing that the contributions on all sides deserve a compensatory value and consent to use is a great place to start.
We’ve been at the brink of existential threats before. And while our imagination and creativity often brought us there, it also brought us back. Finding the ways to use AI to make us better at what we do is the path best chosen. Otherwise, AI will do it without us.
And for the record, AI had no role in the creation of this piece.
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Donna Langley Talks AI, the NBA and the “Great Paradox” of Original vs. Franchise IP
NBCUniversal's chief content officer touched on a wide range of subjects at a Bank of America conference Thursday.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Donna Langley Talks AI, the NBA and the “Great Paradox” of Original vs. Franchise IP
NBCUniversal's chief content officer touched on a wide range of subjects at a Bank of America conference Thursday.By Alex Weprin
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September 5, 2024 1:04pm
Donna Langley Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for CinemaCon
NBCUniversal chief content officer Donna Langley weighed in on a wide range of topics of interest to Hollywood, including the state of theatrical films, how artificial intelligence will be used in the entertainment industry, and the give and take between developing original storytelling and the desire for franchise intellectual property.
Speaking at a Bank of America conference Thursday, Langley was asked whether Hollywood studios should invest more in original projects, rather than lean on franchises that are familiar to consumers.
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“This is a great paradox, because the short answer is ‘Yes.’ I think what we’re seeing with the audience is that the pandemic taught them to stay home and watch streaming, and we have to habituate them back into going to the movies,” Langley said, noting that people used to go the movies on a Friday night, then pick what they wanted to see when they got there. “That’s no longer the case, it’s really destination viewing. We’re going to think ahead of time. Oppenheimer is opening, Barbie is opening. We’re going to that movie.”
“As it pertains to that question, we do look at originality, but then if it’s too original and it doesn’t seem familiar, then it’s harder to market and it’s harder to get people to sample it, right? So we talk a little bit about this sort of familiar surprise, you know? So you take something that is familiar and you put a little topspin on it,” Langley added. “An example of that is a competitor’s movie this year, Disney-Fox with Deadpool & Wolverine, putting those two characters together gives everybody a little of what they want. They understand what it is. It’s there’s a value proposition there, but putting them together, you haven’t seen that before, so we’re constantly challenging ourselves to think outside of the box.”
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She also addressed how she thinks about Universal’s film slate, and the role IP plays in it.
“I wish there was a formula, right? I wish it was like all IP makes a hit movie, or all talent is going to open a movie, and it just doesn’t really work like that,” she said. “So the way that we look at our slates and how we build them is really like almost like an investment portfolio. It’s very varied across multiple genres, budget ranges, appealing to all different types of audiences. There’s sort of pillars in there, whether it’s animation or all-audience kind of blockbuster type movies like Fast & Furious or Jurassic. And then we kind of pepper around it, but we’ve got our specialty division Focus Features, and then you’ve got the main studio slate, you know, again, doing everything from Jason Blum’s horror films to catering to maybe a female audience. But we sort of look at it really across the breadth of the whole thing.”
That being said, Langley also had a touch of pessimism when it comes to the future of theatrical entertainment, given the dramatic changes that the entertainment industry has faced in recent years.
“The challenges in the headwinds are clear and obvious and again, just refer back to what I was speaking of earlier that the habituation that we all had as as movie goers has dissipated. I do believe that volume in the marketplace gets that back. But to what extent is really the big question?” she said. “I can say that because we want to be very eyes wide open about our challenges and not pollyanna-ish about it at all, we’re sort of mapping our business to the assumption that we are not coming back to 2019 levels, that we will sort of stay in the range that we’ve been in ’22-’23 I do think ’24 is an anomalous year in that the impact of the strikes cannot be overstated. It was devastating because we just didn’t have the the volume that is required for the audience to feel like there’s something worth showing up to see, you know, so they just get out of the habit.”
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And Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich also pressed Langley on generative artificial intelligence, and what role it could play in the company’s content going forward.
Langley noted that the tech has been around for a long time, even if it has seen exponential growth in recent years.
“It’s really important to us, though, that content creation has got to be human centered. Storytelling, the creation of a story, the making of anything, it’s got to be all driven by human beings,” she said. “And so if there are products developed out there that can enable efficiency, great we will be all about that. But it’s really important for us to protect our filmmakers, it’s really important for us to protect our IP.”
As for what Universal will use AI for: “At the moment, it’s mostly efficiencies, and we’re we’re looking at different ways that it could enable post-production processes as a, for instance, dubbing, some visual effects work that we do in post-production and things like that,” Langley added. “So it should be much like when computer generated imagery came along, CGI… in the world of animation, instead of doing hand-painted drawings that would take five years, you could do it much faster. We’re looking for all of those types of innovations to enable efficiencies, but we want the quality to stay of course.”
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And she touched upon NBC’s $2.5 billion per year NBA deal, and what it could mean for NBC’s content slate going forward.
“I’m actually very excited about it, primarily because it appears that the audience for the NBA is different to the NFL,” Langley said. “It’s going to open up a whole new opportunities, or a set of opportunities, to invite new audience members in, and figuring out how to cater to them, to keep them there after the games and use that to our benefit is really kind of thrilling, actually.”
AI Pros and Cons in Focus at Iberseries: “This Technology Leaves Creators Behind”
On the final day of the big industry event in Madrid, new technologies took center stage.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
AI Pros and Cons in Focus at Iberseries: “This Technology Leaves Creators Behind”
On the final day of the big industry event in Madrid, new technologies took center stage.By Georg Szalai
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October 4, 2024 4:05am
AI panel at Iberseries & Platino Industria. Courtesy of Georg Szalai
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been all the rage, and a reason to start raging about their impact for some, in Hollywood. So it was no surprise that Iberseries & Platino Industria put new technologies, led by AI, but also digital doubles, center stage on its fourth and final day.
The big event for Spanish- and Portuguese-language content in Madrid, Spain featured a session with experts to explore opportunities and risks. The panelists were Clara Ruipérez, director of legal strategy for content, brands and digital transformation at Telefonica, Ignacio Lacosta, founder of XReality Studios, Undersecretary of Culture Carmen Páez, Óscar Olarte, co-founder & CEO of Mr Factory, and Curro Royo, screenwriter (HBO/Max Spain series Like Water for Chocolate) and vp of DAMA, which manages the remuneration rights for audiovisual creators in Spain.
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“This technology leaves creators behind,” warned Royo. “The monster has been fed with our work,” and “it has come to stay.” He called for protections for creatives and their works and a discussion about financial compensation for those impacted, asking: “What remains for us?”
He also said AI “recycles and regurgitates,” quipping that if machines wrote movies, “only machines would watch them.”
Representatives from AI companies naturally were much more positive on the technology and its benefits. “The goal is increasing creative possibilities and reducing costs,” said Olarte, also highlighting the opportunity to produce more projects set in (virtual) international places, thereby potentially opening them up to a more global audience.
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However, he did acknowledge that the legal framework of regulation must be updated for the age of AI to avoid “gaps” in the rules. And he warned that “there is a bubble like with the metaverse,” suggesting a more rational than exuberant approach.
“We shouldn’t be afraid of AI,” said Lacosta. “Those are tools we should learn how to use” instead of worrying about job losses.
Páez said content owners need to be paid, and she warned that broad definitions for the financial benefits of AI are needed to avoid short-sighted conclusions. “If there are lawsuits, you may not cut costs,” she said.
“The legal framework is insufficient” for AI right now, but filling holes too quickly can be risky given the fast pace of development of the technology, argued Ruipérez. Also, “recreating spaces or people is different,” she added, concluding: “So, it is great to have debates like this.”
Earlier in the week, Platino Educa, the educational platform of the event, screened the new film Artificial Justice (Justicia Artificial) from Spain and Portugal. Written and directed by Simón Casal, it stars Verónica Echegui, Tamar Novas, Alba Galocha and Alberto Ammann.
“In the near future, the government aims to replace judges with artificial intelligence software, pledging to effectively automate and depoliticize the justice system,” explains a synopsis. “Carmen Costa, a distinguished judge, has been invited to assess this new procedure. However, when the software’s creator is found dead, she realizes her life is in danger.” So, one key question raised by the movie is this: Would you rather be judged in court by a human or by artificial intelligence?
The Post-Pandemic Life of a Hustling Screenwriter
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John Connery Heffernan III, the gonzo screenwriter behind the 2006 cult hit, was never suited for the country club life into which he was born. In Hollywood, he found his people, his purpose and ultimately his undoing. A long-lost friend uncovers how it all went so wrong.
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Amazon MGM Wins Battle For Julia Cox Spec Script ‘Love Of Your Life’ For Around $2 Million
Amazon MGM Studios just won a battle for Love of Your Life, a spec by Nyad scribe Julia Cox.
deadline.com
Amazon MGM Wins Battle For Julia Cox Spec Script ‘Love Of Your Life’ For Around $2 Million
Amazon MGM Studios just won a battle for Love of Your Life, a spec by Nyad scribe Julia Cox.
@raze
You right.
We gotta start a serious bgol writing clique or something.
Bruh, I would be so down for this... I have ideas. We'd just have to make sure that we're tight so everyone could eat.
We also need to find out who bought that domain from under "godofwine." That was some low-down shit right there. I'm not with that type of shit at all.
I don't even want to be around a cat like that.
Bruh, I would be so down for this... I have ideas. We'd just have to make sure that we're tight so everyone could eat.
We also need to find out who bought that domain from under "godofwine." That was some low-down shit right there. I'm not with that type of shit at all.
BRO!!!?!?!? That was some foul sh*t and I kinda didn't react when it happened in real time. I SHOULD have.
Sean Baker (born February 26, 1971) is an American filmmaker. He is best known for directing independent feature films about the lives of marginalized people, especially immigrants and sex workers.[1][2] His films include Take Out (2004), Starlet (2012), Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017), Red Rocket (2021), and Anora (2024), the last of which won him the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. He is also known for co-creating the Fox/IFC puppet sitcom Greg the Bunny (2002–2006) and its spin-offs.
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Anora’s Sean Baker writes the ending first
“It’s what you’re leaving the audience with.”
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Anora critic reviews
Metacritic aggregates music, game, tv, and movie reviews from the leading critics. Only Metacritic.com uses METASCORES, which let you know at a glance how each item was reviewed.
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Script Breakdown
Welcome to our channel, where we bring you everything you need to know about your favorite movies! We specialize in movie recaps, ending explanations, reviews, spoilers, Easter egg breakdowns, and more, so you can get the full story behind the films you love. Our channel invites viewers to join...
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Inside Ridley Scott’s Producing Empire: “Tell Me the Film in Two Sentences”
Behind the scenes of his production company Scott Free: How the iconic director picks his projects, and his one real business regret.
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Jesse Eisenberg's Fortysomething Creative Renaissance
The writer-director-star of 'A Real Pain' on writing against type, directing awkward scenes and his next project
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Is ‘Red One’ the Worst Movie of the Year? Plus: ‘A Real Pain’ With Jesse Eisenberg!
Sean and Joanna get into the Rock’s baffling film career before Eisenberg joins to talk about his new movie!
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A Real Pain is a 2024 comedy drama film, written, directed, and produced by Jesse Eisenberg. It stars Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, and Daniel Oreskes. Emma Stone and Dave McCary serve as producers under their Fruit Tree banner.
It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024, and was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on November 1, 2024.
Plot
American Jewish cousins David and Benji embark on a trip to Poland to visit the childhood home of their late grandmother, and to connect with their heritage. David, a reserved and pragmatic father and husband, contrasts sharply with Benji, a free-spirited and eccentric drifter. Their personalities clash as Benji criticizes David for losing his former passion and spontaneity, while David struggles with Benji’s unfiltered outbursts and lack of direction in life.
Hollywood out here making it rain on unrepped writers? 
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The production company and banner have preemptively picked up 'Alignment,' a spec script by Natan Dotan, a man who until a week ago had no representation.
An unknown writer, a fast-rising feeding frenzy, and a true multimillion-dollar deal. It’s enough to make executives or aspiring screenplay authors dream of the heady spec script deals of the 1990s.
In a deal that shakes up a sleepy Hollywood before the holidays, Fifth Season and Brad Weston’s Makeready banner have preemptively picked up Alignment, a spec script by Natan Dotan, a man who until a week ago had no representation.
The deal could become one of biggest spec deals of the year — Nyad writer Julia Cox sold spec Love of Your Life, with Ryan Gosling producing, to Amazon in October for low seven figures — but this one involves the breaking of a writer with few Hollywood connections. It also involves a topic that is generating intense interest — and hand-wringing — in Hollywood, namely artificial intelligence.
Dotan has had several careers prior to this splashy entry into Hollywood.
He is said to hold a PhD in sociology from Columbia University and worked in biology, served as the chief analytics officer at several ad-media agencies, was a country director of a nongovernmental agency in Sierra Leone, and produced/directed a PBS investigative news segment with ProPublica. Among his topics of expertise are mass media, computer simulations and data science.
According to insiders, Dotan had written his script then called one of two people he knew in Hollywood. That led to Dotan connecting with two literary managers from Untitled Entertainment, known mostly for its talent roster but which had acquired boutique lit firm Grandview only a few months earlier. The managers signed the writer off a Zoom meeting with the goal of quickly packaging the script and swiftly taking it to market. AI may be a hot topic now, but if you’re making a movie on the subject — one that wouldn’t hit until a few years later — the window of interest is small.
Alignment is described as having the urgency of thrillers such as Margin Call and Contagion and takes place in a 36-hour period. It tells of a board member at a booming AI company who wrestles with corporate politics and warped incentives as he tries to prevent his colleagues’ willful ignorance from causing a global catastrophe.
The reputation of the script grew at lightning speed, and in a week Dotan had over 20 meetings with producers. Even A-listers wanted in; Damien Chazelle is said to have met the writer, looking to produce the piece, while Matt Damon was also interested in the script.
Wednesday evening, however, there was a twist. Out of the blue, producer Weston and Fifth Season, the financing and production company previously known as Endeavor Content, came in with a very muscular offer. The writer and his new team had a three-hour window in which to reply.
The negotiating that followed took place partially at The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Gen event, where members of both sides crossed paths before continuing to their respective corners to wrap up dealmaking in the 1 a.m. hour.
Fifth Season is buying the script for $1.25 million against a price tag of $3 million if or when a movie gets made, multiple sources tell THR. It’s an unprecedented deal for an unknown in modern Hollywood, which has moved away from splashy spec deals that were common in the 1990s when writers such as Shane Black, Joe Eszterhas and M. Night Shyamalan made their careers with seven-figure deals. It was a time when screenwriting was seen as a level-field entry point into the Hollywood dream factory.
Alignment is a new ceiling for Fifth Season, which is mostly known for festival and indie fare. The company was behind the 80 for Brady and the Book Club franchise, as well as John Carney’s critical darling Flora and Son and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Oscar-nominated drama The Lost Daughter. The deal for the spec is being seen inside the company as a beacon to show it is ready and willing to compete for projects it deems worthy.
In addition to Untitled, Dotan is repped by Gang Tyre.
AI Thriller Spec Script Snapped Up in $3M Sale to Fifth Season, Makeready (Exclusive)
The production company and banner have preemptively picked up 'Alignment,' a spec script by Natan Dotan, a man who until a week ago had no representation.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
AI Thriller Spec Script Snapped Up in $3M Sale to Fifth Season, Makeready (Exclusive)
The production company and banner have preemptively picked up 'Alignment,' a spec script by Natan Dotan, a man who until a week ago had no representation.
An unknown writer, a fast-rising feeding frenzy, and a true multimillion-dollar deal. It’s enough to make executives or aspiring screenplay authors dream of the heady spec script deals of the 1990s.
In a deal that shakes up a sleepy Hollywood before the holidays, Fifth Season and Brad Weston’s Makeready banner have preemptively picked up Alignment, a spec script by Natan Dotan, a man who until a week ago had no representation.
The deal could become one of biggest spec deals of the year — Nyad writer Julia Cox sold spec Love of Your Life, with Ryan Gosling producing, to Amazon in October for low seven figures — but this one involves the breaking of a writer with few Hollywood connections. It also involves a topic that is generating intense interest — and hand-wringing — in Hollywood, namely artificial intelligence.
Dotan has had several careers prior to this splashy entry into Hollywood.
He is said to hold a PhD in sociology from Columbia University and worked in biology, served as the chief analytics officer at several ad-media agencies, was a country director of a nongovernmental agency in Sierra Leone, and produced/directed a PBS investigative news segment with ProPublica. Among his topics of expertise are mass media, computer simulations and data science.
According to insiders, Dotan had written his script then called one of two people he knew in Hollywood. That led to Dotan connecting with two literary managers from Untitled Entertainment, known mostly for its talent roster but which had acquired boutique lit firm Grandview only a few months earlier. The managers signed the writer off a Zoom meeting with the goal of quickly packaging the script and swiftly taking it to market. AI may be a hot topic now, but if you’re making a movie on the subject — one that wouldn’t hit until a few years later — the window of interest is small.
Alignment is described as having the urgency of thrillers such as Margin Call and Contagion and takes place in a 36-hour period. It tells of a board member at a booming AI company who wrestles with corporate politics and warped incentives as he tries to prevent his colleagues’ willful ignorance from causing a global catastrophe.
The reputation of the script grew at lightning speed, and in a week Dotan had over 20 meetings with producers. Even A-listers wanted in; Damien Chazelle is said to have met the writer, looking to produce the piece, while Matt Damon was also interested in the script.
Wednesday evening, however, there was a twist. Out of the blue, producer Weston and Fifth Season, the financing and production company previously known as Endeavor Content, came in with a very muscular offer. The writer and his new team had a three-hour window in which to reply.
The negotiating that followed took place partially at The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Gen event, where members of both sides crossed paths before continuing to their respective corners to wrap up dealmaking in the 1 a.m. hour.
Fifth Season is buying the script for $1.25 million against a price tag of $3 million if or when a movie gets made, multiple sources tell THR. It’s an unprecedented deal for an unknown in modern Hollywood, which has moved away from splashy spec deals that were common in the 1990s when writers such as Shane Black, Joe Eszterhas and M. Night Shyamalan made their careers with seven-figure deals. It was a time when screenwriting was seen as a level-field entry point into the Hollywood dream factory.
Alignment is a new ceiling for Fifth Season, which is mostly known for festival and indie fare. The company was behind the 80 for Brady and the Book Club franchise, as well as John Carney’s critical darling Flora and Son and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Oscar-nominated drama The Lost Daughter. The deal for the spec is being seen inside the company as a beacon to show it is ready and willing to compete for projects it deems worthy.
In addition to Untitled, Dotan is repped by Gang Tyre.
BLK LIT - The Black Effect Podcast Network
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BLK LIT | iHeart
BLK LIT highlights the creative wordsmiths of our current and past generations. We will delve into the history, purpose, and personalities behind each literary work, spending an intimate amount of time with each writer’s expression through orated excerpts or reenactments, content dissection...
‘Conclave’: Read The Screenplay That Turns An Ancient Vatican Ritual Into A Modern, High-Stakes Drama
Conclave, a high-stakes drama from director Edward Berger and starring Ralph Fiennes, was written by Peter Straughan, who adapted Robert Harris' book.
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Greetings Fam,
I've finally decided to start writing my screenplay (a Supernatural Thriller). I'm several pages in. I started by writing the ending first, because I already know the outcome.
At the same time though, I started working on the "logline." I'm looking for some feedback. So I would like to place it here and allow you to take a look at it, then critique it if you will.
Thanks ahead of time.
Logline:
"After accepting a seemingly harmless gift from a stranger, an atheistic broker from L.A. must travel to the Middle East to confront a vicious supernatural being who's trying to kill him."
I've finally decided to start writing my screenplay (a Supernatural Thriller). I'm several pages in. I started by writing the ending first, because I already know the outcome.
At the same time though, I started working on the "logline." I'm looking for some feedback. So I would like to place it here and allow you to take a look at it, then critique it if you will.
Thanks ahead of time.
Logline:
"After accepting a seemingly harmless gift from a stranger, an atheistic broker from L.A. must travel to the Middle East to confront a vicious supernatural being who's trying to kill him."
I'd leave out the part about traveling to the Middle East. It might make some people start worrying about the production budget. You can drop a hint by being more specific about the gift, like an antique Persian jewelry box or whatever you have in the script. Being atheistic isn't worth mentioning either. Many supernatural thrillers involve skeptics ignoring big red flags until it's too late.
You can't get any higher than life and death stakes so that really works. A ticking clock, if you have one, would also be good. Seven days to live, before the next full moon, etc.
This should be your hook. How is the vicious supernatural being trying to kill him? Is it a cursed ring stuck on his finger that makes him age rapidly? Slowly starving to death because everything he touches turns to sand? Every animal in his immediate vicinity tries to kill him?
Obviously, you're not going to post it on an anonymous message forum but make it clear to the person reading your logline. Writers can be super protective of their ideas, but you have to create interest in the story. You want the reader to go, "What would I do in that situation?"
What makes your script special isn't the idea; it's the execution. Ideas are a dime a dozen. We don't know how or if your protagonist will defeat the being; that's the part you protect. Hope this was helpful.
I really appreciate the feedback, Fam.
A) The Middle East is important to the story. Some deserts in California look just like the Middle East. Also, being an atheist is important to the story as well. If I was to tell the whole story, you'd see how it makes sense.
I'm going to copyright it when I'm done, then I'll share it here.
B) I'm actually reading about how to create suspense now. So your ticking time bomb reference is right on time.
C) He's given a gift that only certain people can hold, and he's one them. The supernatural being wants it for a particular purpose. But he can't use it if the protagonist is alive.
D) This is the tough one. Trying to boil down a full screenplay into two sentences. I'm trying to create a "Why there, For what purpose, What's the gift, Who's the Supernatural being situation? I guess I'm trying to be vague and clear at the same time.
This is my first go 'round... but I'll flesh it out.
Thanks for the feedback again, Fam. It helps to hear different point of views.
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The 2024 Black List is out. 83 of the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood. The loglines
These caught my eye
THE 13TH HOUR by Anna Klassen
When a group of teenagers repair an old clock with a mysterious 13th numeral, they are granted an extra hour where their actions have no consequence.
TOLUCA LAKE by Mark Fleming
When Gavin discovers the girl of his dreams is actually a persistent hallucination caused by a rapidly growing brain tumor, he’s forced to question what’s real, what really matters, and what’s the best way to end things with someone that’s slowly — or not-so-slowly — killing him.
HOWL by Madison Vanderberg
All hell breaks loose when a famous—but notoriously troubled—actor announces on a talk show that in less than an hour, he’ll turn into a werewolf … all on live TV.
DYERSVILLE by Will Hettinger
Two Federal Marshals guarding the most important cooperating witness in Chicago’s history — a legendary gangster— are forced to reckon with their own complicated pasts and with the first mole in the history of the witness protection program. Inspired by true events.
EX-CONS by Michael Montemayor
A former husband-and-wife jewel thief duo, now divorced and in jail, must team up to help the authorities catch the most elusive thief of all: their son.
These caught my eye
THE 13TH HOUR by Anna Klassen
When a group of teenagers repair an old clock with a mysterious 13th numeral, they are granted an extra hour where their actions have no consequence.
TOLUCA LAKE by Mark Fleming
When Gavin discovers the girl of his dreams is actually a persistent hallucination caused by a rapidly growing brain tumor, he’s forced to question what’s real, what really matters, and what’s the best way to end things with someone that’s slowly — or not-so-slowly — killing him.
HOWL by Madison Vanderberg
All hell breaks loose when a famous—but notoriously troubled—actor announces on a talk show that in less than an hour, he’ll turn into a werewolf … all on live TV.
DYERSVILLE by Will Hettinger
Two Federal Marshals guarding the most important cooperating witness in Chicago’s history — a legendary gangster— are forced to reckon with their own complicated pasts and with the first mole in the history of the witness protection program. Inspired by true events.
EX-CONS by Michael Montemayor
A former husband-and-wife jewel thief duo, now divorced and in jail, must team up to help the authorities catch the most elusive thief of all: their son.
This is an Oscar just waiting to happen
Spielberg need to come back out for this one
And do it with Leo and Hanks
This sounds like a great streaming flick or even series.
I'm curious if this has any comedy to it?
If its mostly straight?
I could easily be a big early summer hit and potential franchise.
The casting will be critical in this
They need Taylor Sheridan level Hollywood alumni. I think you cast Josh Brolin or Pedro Pascal as the dad and a light skin Black or mixed mom like Halle or Zoe Saldana and Josh Rivera as the son
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