Character flaws used to be a giant mystery to me. It was hard to identify them in movies unless they were overtly obvious. If I did identity them, I became obsessed with charting the flaw over the course of the movie and when the character actually overcame it. I wasn’t sure if the character was supposed to overcome the flaw all at once, in the end, or if they should overcome it bit by bit over the course of the story. I got so frustrated by this process that I actually swore off character flaws. I convinced myself that they were antiquated Screenwriting 101 riff-raff. You didn’t need them. A ..read more

Some quick clarification. I had to put up yesterday’s review late. So you can check that out here. I’m moving the Thursday article to Friday. You get to play with the newsletter in the meantime. We’ve got some things that have never happened before in a newsletter. I make a pitch for the next Star Wars show and it only involves Jawas. I recommend a cool new show that I suspect will be the successor to Ozark. I announce some really cool news about Scriptshadow alumnus, Nick Morris. And I take on a screenplay that has an even bigger concept than “Classified.” Can anyone say, “Inception Meets Sa ..read more

Genre: Drama Premise: Awkward and lonely, Jared is only able to find a community online — until the day he realizes that his favorite Youtuber lives nearby. Desperate for a connection, he becomes determined to find a way into her life… whether she wants it or not. About: This script finished with 7 votes on last year’s Black List. The writer, Alexandra Serio, has written and directed a couple of short films, one of which looks to be the inspiration for this screenplay. Writer: Alexandra Serio Details: 90 pages One of the things I’ve been actively doing over the past month is weening myself of ..read more

Today’s writer does something really clever. He takes a recent hit movie and slides it over to the horror genre. Genre: Horror Premise: While meeting her boyfriend’s dysfunctional family at their ancestral manor, a young woman finds herself entangled in a bizarre and terrifying mystery when the family’s patriarch claims to have been cursed by a demon. About: This script finished on last year’s Black List with 9 votes. Screenwriter Edgar Castillo is new to the game. This is his first major achievement as a screenwriter. Writer: Edgar Castillo Details: 116 pages Sydney Sweeney as Katie would INS ..read more

Today we review the winner of Comedy Showdown. Plus a little surprise announcement! Genre: Comedy Premise: On the last day of high school, two overlooked seniors execute a series of pranks to get their principal fired, while he does everything in his power to catch them and keep them from graduating.  Why You Should Read: It’s a throwback to all those 80’s comedies you know and love but updated for a 2021 audience. In a mash-up logline, it’s Ferris Bueller by way of The Fugitive. Or in a modern-take, it’s Booksmart meets Neighbors — a competition comedy ..read more

One of the struggles of being a screenwriter is trying to decode the matrix that is the feature length screenplay. If you could master all the individual pieces and put them together like so, you’d be living the dream – making a living off screenwriting. But decoding the matrix is a lot harder than it looks on the surface. There are an untold number of variables that need to come together in just the right way for a screenplay to work. One of things I’ve found helpful is identifying what your CORE SCREENWRITING PHILOSOPHY is. What this allows you to do is measure any script you’ve written aga ..read more

Today we look at the script that got Mattson Tomlin the most coveted screenwriting job in Hollywood, writing Matt Reeves’ “The Batman.” Genre: Action Premise: A bad man takes a group of people hostage at the top of a building and informs the media that he will start killing one of them every hour until the masked vigilante known as The Leopard surrenders to him. About: Mattson Tomlin is a spec-writing machine. He writes fast and doesn’t like rewriting, which allows him to deliver product after product at a breakneck pace. His biggest credit to date is the Netflix film, Project Power. He’s writ ..read more

“Cosmic Sunday, wake up in the late afternoon! Call Parnell, to see what he’s doin…!” Genre: Sci-Fi/Time Loop/Comedy Premise: A small percentage of the population is stuck in a time loop and have had to create a society that functions within the same day, repeated day in and day out. One man struggles to find himself for the first time in ages amidst a society clinging to a sense of normalcy. About: This is MacMillan Hedges’ second time on the Black List. The first was for “The Searchers,” an exploration of John Wayne and John Ford’s unique relationship on the set of the famous film. Writer: M ..read more

When it comes to being pigeonholed, producing isn’t that different from writing or acting. You usually have a bunch of scripts you’re trying to get made. After pushing and pushing, one of those scripts finally breaks through and gets produced. Whatever the genre of that script is, that’s what you become known for for the foreseeable future. You may want to produce Westerns. But if you just broke through with a Musical, you become the “Musical Guy.” Well, in a world where I get to choose which genre I break in with, without question, it would be sci-fi. I looooovvve sci-fi. So this next Showdo ..read more

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!! As I combed through all of the comedy submissions, it became clear to me that three things would determine which scripts made the showdown. One, you had to have a funny marketable concept. Two, you had to be funny (your first page should’ve made me laugh). And three, you had to know how to write. Even a good concept and a funny writer can fall apart if the writer doesn’t know how to write a screenplay. It also became clear to me that when you’re dealing with not-yet-professional writers, finding all three of these things in a single script would be hard. With that said, I ..read more