The adventures of a professional screenwriter and sometimes film festival jurist, slogging through the trenches of Hollywood, writing movies that you have never heard of, and getting no respect. Voted #10 - Best Blogs For Screenwriters - Bachelor's Degree
Lancelot Link Monday! So, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR only made $182 million in the USA and someone is worried because they thought it might make more. WTF? Why has everyone gone greedy these days? I understand wanting your big summer tentpole to make money rather than flop, but I'm pretty sure that's been taken care of once you factor in the rest of the world's box office. It made $262 million overseas as of Wednesday, so it will probably be close to half a billion by the end of the week. And someone wanted it to make $200 million opening weekend in the USA. Boo-hoo! The film is getting great reviews, great word of mouth, and is likely to keep making money for the next couple of months. Why bitch about it not breaking box office records like the new STAR WARS film did?
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
Six Years And One Month Ago, I saw TOGETHER AND ALONE on the big screen at the Egyptian... and it's playing there again on Friday, May 13th at 7:30. Here's what I said the last time I saw this film...
Movies: EDDIE PRESLEY and TOGETHER & ALONE.
Last Wednesday I rode my bike to the subway station, took the subway to Hollywood, rode the bike a couple of blocks to the Egyptian Theater and literally parked ten feet from the doors to see a couple of films written by my friend Duane. Duane is a character actor, best known for playing the pawn shop owner from PULP FICTION. He’s played tow truck drivers and bikers and cops and just about any other role for a beefy guy from Texas. The American Cinematheque was showing EDDIE PRESLEY and TOGETHER & ALONE with a bunch of the cast and crew talking in between.
Though the cinema was not crowded, there were more people than for EYEWITNESS and FOUR FRIENDS a week earlier. Before the show I hung out in the lobby with the filmmakers, I know most of the people involved in the films. Someone told me Jeff the director was not going to be there - he's making a movie somewhere. Then I grabbed a seat right under the scarab in the cinema, and the big gates closed and the house light dimmed.
EDDIE PRESLEY looked great on the big screen. I think I’ve seen it once before on in the cinema, the others times on video. To me, what is strange about the film is that it's based on Duane's one man stage show... but that's the last third of the film - about 40 minutes of screen time. I think the hour of material Duane wrote to more-or-less pad it out is more entertaining than the play material - it's kind of Duane's artistic sweet spot. Hmm, maybe some background...
Duane’s one man show was about this Elvis impersonator whose performance goes wrong and ends up having a complete nervous breakdown on stage and tells his life story and sings a couple of songs. It’s this crazy, funny monologue. Well, my friend Jeff, who directed the movie, had just gone through absolute hell on TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3 - New Line had micro-managed the film, wanted him to tone the horror way down so that they could get a more favorable rating and play to a wider audience, then took the film away from him in editing and the film they released bombed because it was wimpy and the horror was tame. The CHAINSAW movies are about a guy with a chainsaw who chainsaws people - you can’t exactly make the PG-13 version of that and have it work. So Jeff was pissed off at the studio system and wanted to make his own movie his own way... and Duane, who had played a role in TCM3 had this one man show, and Jeff saw it and thought they could expand it into a feature. Because this was an indie film, they found the money completely outside the system - private investors. They made the film and it was released on video by a really small distrib (which also released John Lee Hancock’s first film) and that was basically that. Oh, the big coup for EDDIE PRESLEY was that it was the first movie bought by The Sundance Channel.
The 60 minutes that is not Eddie Presley on stage having a complete breakdown are about the days leading up to that performance, plus some great flashbacks in black & white to Eddie’s life before he ended up in Hollywood. Eddie lives in his van parked on the street in Hollywood - inside the van is a shrine to his past, when he used to make a living touring small-to-medium venues as Eddie Presley. He picks up his messages on a pay phone and works as a security guard at night. The Back Door Club is the location for the end of the film, the Van is a location, the Security Job is another location, and there’s also the Greasy Spoon Diner - that’s about it for locations.
In the Security Guard story thread, Ted Raimi is one of the other guards, and Lawrence Tierney is the hardass supervisor with a photo album of sleeping guard Poloroids. Willard Pugh plays another security guard and there's a nervous female security guard (Harri James) who has a major crush on Eddie. Raimi and Pugh and James’ characters and Eddie are best friends - and they would do anything to see him succeed. When he finally gets his gig at the Back Door Club, they take the night off from work so they can see him... and pull some favors from friends and friends-of-friends to get him a cut-rate limo to take him to the gig.
In order to stay awake on these night shifts so that he doesn’t get fired, Eddie fills his thermos at a greasy spoon cafe filled with Hollywood losers of all types... plus his girlfriend works there as a waitress. She’ll fill the thermos if the boss isn’t looking, and maybe get him a free breakfast. She wants to actually go out on a real date - but Eddie’s always broke. She’s a wanna-be actress, but has had no luck so far landing a role in anything. These characters in the Diner Thread are Duane’s forte - the struggling artists who litter the streets of Hollywood trying to hang onto their dreams but knowing that they are only dreams... and the reality is that they're a waitress. When Eddie’s not in the diner, there’s a skanky female porn star trying to make the moves on his waitress with promises of leading roles in adult entertainment... is a part a part? Will she do porn?
The other diner regulars are a colorful group, from the toll-taker guy who requires a cigarette from everyone who passes by his seat at the counter, to my favorite character in the film - Clu Gulager's sleazy agent. Hair badly dyed jet black, he tells prospective clients (all gals fresh off the bus) that he has major connections and can make them into stars... and when the pay phone on the wall behind him rings, he answers it with his talent agency name. I've had this agent!
The last thread are the Flashbacks in beautiful black & white of Eddie’s pre-Hollywood life in Texas, with Joe Estevez as his strict father and Barbara Patrick (Robert’s wife) as his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Eddie was a successful pizza store owner (take out only) who sells his business to live his dream of being an Elvis impersonator. Father thinks he’s an idiot, wife divorces him and takes the kid... and Eddie and his band go out of the road. Jeff’s cuts from present to past and back are great - match cut stuff with a character from the present drinking a cup of coffee to one in the past drinking a cup of coffee. There is a great flow to the story which makes it seem less episodic. Because the black and white stuff was shot later, Jeff would end a scene with some action that could be duplicated months later when Duane had lost a bunch of weight and looked like a younger version of himself. Eventually the flashbacks get darker and darker (in tone, not lighting) and Eddie flips out in a burger joint and ends up sent to an insane asylum, where the guards include Quentin Tarantino (before he was famous) and Bruce Campbell and director Rusty Cundiff.
The last third of the film at the Back Door Club is filled with some great characters - the late great Roscoe Lee Brown plays the club owner, Tim Thomerson does a great cameo as an angry comedian, stand up comic Puppy Thomas is the world’s worst ventriloquist, and practically stealing the show is Danny Roebuck as Eddie’s warm up act - the world’s most unlucky magician: when he tries to pull the rabbit out of his hat, it bites him and he bleeds all over the place for the rest of his performance... which includes him accidentally catching fire and unable to put himself out. Then Eddie gets up on stage, everything goes wrong, and he has his big break down right in front of us.
Though that ending was the whole reason they made the film, I really like the parts of the film that come before that. You get a real feel for people on the fringes in Hollywood, the hopefuls without hope...
And that's what TOGETHER & ALONE is all about.
Between the movies a Q&A with Duane, Danny Roebuck (who read Jeff's letter), Jay Woelfel, Tom Callaway, Harri James, Clu Gulager, Chuck Williams, and probably some folks I'm forgetting.
The cameo folks like Tarantino and Bruce Campbell and Tim Thomerson must have been busy. Joe Estevez wandered in after the Q&A was over, but in time to watch himself in...
TOGETHER & ALONE - I had seen it once on DVD or VHS, but never on the big screen. This film is the bridge between Robert Altman and Mumblecore. When I'd seen it earlier, I got a little teary at the end. This time, other parts got to me as well. Big ensemble cast playing people living on the fringe in Hollywood who know they are not going to make it. The hope has been pounded out of them. Like in EDDIE, they all hang at the same greasy spoon diner - and that is where their lives intersect. Very funny, very sad - this is one of those films that some critic somewhere needs to discover and champion. Duane wrote the script, directed, and plays one of the roles. The film was made for pocket change, and I suspect some of the stuff shot on the streets of Hollywood was done without permits (there’s a bit at the end where an unsuspecting person ends up part of a scene where a character goes crazy and starts yelling). The one problem with the film is that it does not have the flow of EDDIE PRESLEY and there are abrupt and jarring cuts between scenes... but that kind of fits right into the whole Mumblecore thing, so we’ll just say this film was ahead of its time.
Here are the story threads in this tale of one day in the life of Hollywood hopefuls who lose all hope...
Billy (Casey Siemaszko) is a guitar player with real talent in some garage band that plays all kinds of low rent clubs. He’s dating a rich girl from a wealthy Texas family, and is about to be introduced to her father (Tim Thomerson) for the first time, and is a little nervous. So nervous that he misses a sound check with his band - who are about to cut a demo record. That demo record might be Billy’s big break...
Zevo (Duane) is the leader of the band - all of them have really big hair - and gets pissed off when Billy’s a no show, and tries to turn the rest of the band against Billy and vote him out of the band. Problem is, the rest of the band are idiots, and Billy is a good guitar player, and Billy also brings beer to rehearsals sometimes. Zevo is so cheap that he goes into a strip bar to borrow the phone when there’s a perfectly good payphone outside. After the band stops being distracted by strippers, they decide to vote Billy out of the band - leaving them without their most talented member and leaving Billy adrift and without hope. There’s a nice scene where Billy and his girlfriend end up at the base of the Capitol Records Building, and he talks about his dreams of a recording deal... and how they are probably never going to happen.
In the Greasy Spoon Diner where their lives intersect...
Chad the screenwriter (Tom Denolf) lays out his pens in a specific pattern on the counter and opens his legal pad to write... when a pair of pests sit on either side of him. An older dude who keeps asking him what he’s doing... and eventually starts to hit on him with the weirdest pick up lines you’ve ever heard, and Dougie Westa (Danny Roebuck) the worst actor in the world - his car is plastered with his headshots in a parody of Dennis Woodfruff’s car - sits on the other side of Chad and asks if there’s a role in the script for him. These three guys provide some great comedy bits throughout the film.
At another table are burned out actor Roscoe (Joe Unger in an Oscar calibre performance - really, this is one amazing piece of acting) and just out of film school young director Gene (Thomas Draper) who is buttering up Roscoe to be in his short film about a door-to-door bible salesman who kills people. Though I have no idea what % of the film this story thread is, it *dominates* the film due to Unger’s performance as a guy who knows he’s a has-been without ever really being somebody. He’s spent his life being a bit part player with his best roles on the cutting room floor (in real life, Unger’s big break-out role in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK ended up on the cutting room floor). He has this great rant about how Hollywood just screwed him over, and how lesser talents went farther. Unger manages to be angry and vulnerable and sad all at the same time... and Gene has to put up with all of this in order to get Roscoe in his short film. Gene has a girlfriend, who is an actress....
Laura (Stacie Randall) is taking an acting class from blowhard acting teacher Blaine (Joe Estevez - Martin Sheen’s brother) who has a big showcase for his acting class coming up where big time agents and big time talent scouts are supposed to be in the audience. There will be wine and cheese after the showcase, but only if the acting students bring the wine and cheese, because Blaine sure as hell isn’t paying for it. When Roscoe talks bout those guys who got undeserved breaks, he mentions Blaine’s name - Blaine was once in an episode of LASSIE in a featured role. Blaine has a photo of him and Lassie in his scrap book... that he shows to Laura after class... just before trying to rape her. See, she’s the only one in his class with any talent, so obviously they were meant to be together, right? Laura kicks him in the nuts - hard - and splits for the diner and Gene.
The part that made my eyes damp the first time I saw it was Janet (Harri James) the female comedian who goes to open mike night and bombs. Bombs big time. And realizes that she is not funny at all, and her dream is never going to happen. After being booed off stage, she gets in her beat up old car... which blows up! Now she has no car, no dreams, no nothing. She wanders to a bus stop where she meets Rusty (John Bishop) a shaggy guitar player who hasn't really made it, but sold some songs. As they wait for the bus - which never comes - they tentatively hit it off... and decide to take a cab to her place, where they do not have sex... but share some powerful moments where they talk about their failure to crack Hollywood. Then, as she sleeps, he writes a song about her. A sad song. The funny part about this is that I started getting misty eyed at the friggin’ bus stop scene! I knew that song was coming, and it was already working on me! Anyway, that is one great scene.
There are two “glue characters” who also connect these story threads... Buffy the free-spirit waitress at the greasy spoon café (Mariah O’Brien) and the chatty philosopher / taxi driver (Larry Lyles) who picks up Rusty and Janet and a few of the other characters and transports them from one location to another. Chad the screenwriter works up the nerve to flirt with Buffy, and eventually asks her out. This is a great little scene. Afterwards, there’s a funny scene where Gene and Laura are talking and he jokes about a 3-way with another woman. Laura puts him on the spot by calling over Buffy and asking why she thinks men want that kind of stuff. Buffy thinks it’s just because they’re dogs, thinks the whole 3-way thing is gross... except for the time she did it, oh, and the other time she did it, oh, and the time before that when she did it, and...
The taxi driver guy talks a mile a minute and has a theory about everything and is funny as hell - he practically steals the show! You keep wanting one of the other characters to flag down a taxi! He has this crazy story he tells about how his ex-wife ran away with some clown... a real clown. Guy who does kids birthday parties. Worst thing was that she got custody of his little girl, and he wasn’t around to be a father to her... some clown was. When Buffy flags down the taxi, and it’s his cab, we can’t wait to hear whatever rambling monologue he’s going to do while he drives her home after her shift. Along the way, they pass Roscoe - who has flipped out and is wandering the streets of Hollywood screaming, then when he pulls up in front of her apartment she kisses him and it’s revealed that she is his daughter. Cool moment that brings all of the story threads together.
This is a pocket change movie that I enjoyed much more than any of the Mumblecore films I've seen - some critic needs to discover and champion this film so that it can find a larger audience.
- Bill
PS: Hope I didn't get any of the cast names wrong - tried to match character names to IMDB cast in the case of folks I wasn't familiar with.
Lancelot Link Monday!If "April Showers Bring May Flowers" does that mean a whole bunch of Pilgrims are going to arrive at Plymouth Rock now?
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
Lancelot Link Monday! After a bunch of articles claiming the spec script was dead (as far as sales go - that's still the way to get assignments), we suddenly had two big spec sales. Is this a chicken and egg situation? Do we need a bunch more articles about how dead the spec sales market is in order to get a bunch more spec sales? If so, can someone get on that? I've got a new script that needs a new home...
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
Lancelot Link Monday! The first of *3* JUNGLE BOOK movies opened over the weekend... and made $291m in global ticket sales. That's just the weekend. That happens to include the #2 opening weekend for April in the USA, which beats movies like CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER and FAST 5. Okay, this version - like the other 2 that will open over the next year - is based on a *public domain* book published in 1894. You read that right - over 120 years ago. Though this version is a remake of the Disney cartoon from the 1960s, the other 2 movies are based on the PD book... and that book has been made into a huge stack of films over the years. Rudyard Kipling (the guy who wrote the book) has about 100 films based on his works over the years, many made over and over again. KIM? GUNGA DIN? MAN WHO WOULD BE KING? RIKKI TIKKI TAVI? Think about all of the great public domain stuff out there!
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
Box Office continues to grow - this is year looks like another record breaker, even without a STAR WARS movie. So far we are 8.3% ahead of last year, 14.6% ahead of 2014, 23.1% ahead of 2013, 8.6% ahead of 2012, and only 28.8% ahead of 2011. Yes - that's over a quarter more! People seem to be avoiding cinemas this year and would rather spend $50 to see a new movie at home... NOT!
Over the weekend I went to Monsterpalooza 3, and every year it is *more crowded* than the last. This year, I looked outside at about 3pm and there was still a line *around the building*!
So, I was supposed to meet my friend Rod there, and looked all over for him... bumping in to other friends and talking with them along the way. As the day went on, I hadn't seen him, and decided to call. Should have done that earlier, but I figured we were in the same very crowded building and eventually would spot each other. Rod picks up - he's just left the venue. He was there - but it was so crowded we never even saw each other!
I went to a couple of panels - the guy who played Godzilla (in the suit) was speaking - a little old Japanese man who told amusing stories about being dressed in rubber and hanging from wires and sometimes being injured in a fight with some other stuntman in a rubber monster suit, but not telling anyone because it took so long to get the suit on and get hooked up to the wires that it was easier to work injured.
As a kid, GODZILLA movies were weekend afternoon TV movie staples. They were silly fun, and I've always been a fan of the big guy. Also Mothra. And Mothra's caterpillars. And those two little girls in the bird cage. I had a Godzilla plastic model and some Godzilla toys and a Godzilla movie poster. Mostly as a goof. Later I had a movie poster for Larry Cohen's IT'S ALIVE, a goofy movie that was actually about something...
The next panel was for THE HOWLING, which is one of my favorite movies. I fell in love with Belinda Balaski in PIRANHA and she and John Sayles and Joe Dante all went on to make HOWLING together. Also on the panel - Dee Wallace (who is in my INVISIBLE MOM movie) and Robert Picardo (this was his first film), and one of Rob Bottin's FX make up team. They had some good stories - one day Bottin took 13 hours putting the werewolf make up on Picardo... and by the time he was done they had run out of time to shoot! Other stories about the difficulties of acting opposite FX to be added later, and the stop motion scenes that were cut out of the film. Dante talked a lot about John Sayles contributions, and the decision to add humor - because audiences can find unintentional humor in an overly serious horror flick, so if you mix a little humor in they laugh at that instead and aren't trying to make fun of the real scares. The whole EST thing was Sayles' contribution, too. I know all of this stuff from reading every article on the film when it came out, but cool to see the real people talk about it. Belinda still looks great.
The next panel was American Grindhouse, and featured a bunch of great film makers - Joe Dante stuck around, but the highlights for me were the amazing Larry Cohen (IT'S ALIVE - and dozens of others, plus *hundreds* of screenplays from DADDY'S GONE A HUNTING (1969) to PHONE BOOTH and CELLULAR (a few years ago), plus Jack Harris (FOXY BROWN and THE BIG DOLL HOUSE) and Bill Lustig (MANIAC COP and RELENTLESS). All of that talent onstage, and the moderator (director of the doc AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE, which is great and a free view on Hulu if you are in the USA) screwed it up by not having any prepared questions and then asking a bunch of silly questions about experiences in 42 Street cinemas in the 70s. Huh? No real questions about making the films (though in the doc Larry Cohen tells some greats tories about shooting the end of BLACK CAESAR on the streets of New York with no permits and just people walking down the street as accidental extras. Fred Williamson (in my CROOKED movie) gets shot and staggers down the street bleeding and eventually falls over and dies - all with real New Yorkers as unknowing extras! I would have loved to have Lustig talk about making movies for grindhouses & drive ins... and then make similar movies for Cinetel like HIT LIST and RELENTLESS (great low budget flick) and then do direct to video stuff like UNCLE SAM. Nobody asked.
After that I did a final loop through the event and then went to the hotel bar and had me some beers on an empty stomach. Darin Scott and many from the Thursday Night Gang were there, plus Tyger Torres (was his birthday), and a bunch of others. I hung out, talked to Don about his DIY feature, and eventually realized I'd better get on the bike and pedal home while I could still balance. In previous blog entries I've talked about what the event is all about, so I'm linking those entries below:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Is Your Screenplay Ready? - a few ways to figure out. Dinner: McD's chicken club while in transit on the bike. Pages: No. Well, actually a page - but that wasn't enough. Trying to dive back into this script after working on 2 others for a week. Bicycle: Yes. I've been doing medium rides every day. I've also thrown the bike on the front of the Orange Line "bullet bus" to ride in far off lands west of here.
Movies: YOUR HIGHNESS - It was better than I was lead to expect from the reviews, and I liked it more than PINEAPPLE... but have no idea how this will ever show on network TV. It's seriously R rated. I laughed, and thought the elements of parody were fun (from the mechanical bird to the endless shots of them marching on mountain tops like in LOTR). I also thought the hand villain guy was a cool idea. Some of the gags didn't work, but it had a story that made sense. I think the problem with a film like PINEAPPLE is that you have this shaggy dog nonsense story, so when gags don't work - nothing works. At least here we had a story to fall back on when a gag fell flat with a splat. Not a great movie (may use one of the big flaws in a script tip - dude starts out as a whinny worthless slacker... and ends up as one, too... I could not understand why he's a hero at the end) but no reason for the critics to trash it to this extreme. I think all of the reviews I read hated it because it was raunchy... and that's what it was supposed to be - a raunchy comedy. Well, it's seriously raunchy, but that's kind of the point.
What's interesting to me about this film: it tested *really* well and everyone thought it was going to be a big hit... but it wasn't. Is that because McBride isn't a star? Because they didn't want to see a raunchy comedy this week? Because there's a difference between test screenings and when a film opens?
Seeing a (secret) movie Tuesday and may see HANNA on Wednesday.
Lancelot Link Monday! BATMAN V SUPERMAN was beaten by THE BOSS after some severe drops in Box Office. I checked in on it on Wednesday, and in it's second Wednesday it had made only 2/3rds of what ZOOTOPIA made in it's *third* Wednesday. Word of mouth seemed to be killing the film. People were telling their friends to avoid it... so maybe the critics were right? Though the film has made 3/4 of a billion bucks, that's on a $400m budget (what was originally reported) and that means it needs to hit over $800m to break even, and it has already begun a pretty steep descent. It will probably make money, but not much. WB has moved WONDER WOMAN forward, but word is the story is just as dark... instead of being *fun*. We want to be entertained! Even a 70s style paranoid thriller like WINTER SOLDIER where everyone is Hailing Hydra at the end was *fun* and *entertaining*! DC needs to learn that audience's just want to have fun. You can explore dark territory, but you need some light. No light, we can't see anything. It's not DEADPOOL quips that we need, it's just fun. So, audiences would rather see THE BOSS (which also got terrible reviews, so don't expect it to spend much time in the #1 position). But - only 8 more months to ROGUE ONE!
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
Lancelot Link Monday! April Fools is over! We can now go back to believing everything we read on the internet!
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
1) Weekend Box Office Estimates: 1 Batman V Superman............... $52,385,000 2 Zootopia........................ $20,000,000 3 My B F Greek 2.................. $11,130,000 4 God's N Dead 2................... $8,104,321 5 Miracles F Heaven................ $7,550,000 6 Allegiant........................ $5,725,000 7 10 C Lane........................ $4,750,000 8 Meet T Blacks.................... $4,086,000 9 Eye I T Sky...................... $4,055,000 10 Deadpool.......................... $3,500,000
Second weekend for BvS and the audience has spoken -0 the film fell 68.4% from last week, when the studio predicted about a 58% fall. That B grade from Cinemascore was a good predictor of what the audience thought of the film - and a hyped fan audience predisposed to like the film thought it was okay, but not great. Though the critics can't make or break a big studio tentpole movie, they often give an indication of what word of mouth by the audience might be (the critics have seen the film, the audience hasn't seen it when they pay for their ticket... but afterwards?). When a film gets a critical drumming studios are quick to jump in and say that critics don't matter, but more often than not the film's second and third and subsequent weekends seem to point out that the critics might be right. You can "buy" an opening weekend, but after that it's up to the quality of the film - and, as we've seen in the past, some movies take a huge nosedive in their second weekend. Though 68.4% isn't terrible, it isn't what the studio needs to keep the film earning money with repeat viewings so that they can make back that massive budget. The film has also ran into some problems overseas in second weekend, specifically in China - where it may have already run its course! This does not bode well for WB's DC plans. The time has come not just to replace Snyder, but to show him to the Hollywood City Limits and tell him not to come back.
Lancelot Link Monday! BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: No Matter Who Wins, We Lose! Because the film made so much money in its opening weekend, we're getting another round of those articles about "Critic Proof" movies - I swear they just change the film title and republish the old ones. Hey, a movie like BATMAN V SUPERMAN was *always* going to have a huge opening weekend. Even with bad reviews. Bad reviews actually *fuel* the opening weekend - "Can it be as bad as they say it is? Let's go see it and find out!" But the real issue is: The critics have seen the film, the people who bought tickets on opening weekend didn't... but now have. So will they want to see the movie again and maybe even again? Will they provide good word of mouth when their friends ask? My FB friends are mixed on this film - some think it's not that bad, others think it *is* that bad. I have yet to read a glowing excellent you've gotta see this review from any of my FB friends (many of whom are the target audience for this). I suspect next weekend will be pretty good, too - but here's the thing: STAR WARS TFA was #13 over the weekend... and that's been out since *last year*. Will BVS have that kind of staying power?
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a baker's dozen links plus this week's car chase...
Though the *current* reported budget for BATMAN V SUPERMAN is $250 million, before the bad reviews kicked in the budget was over $410 million as of October of last year! That's before post production overages and reshoots and P&A advertising and everything else! Yikes! It's common for studios to under report budgets when things get out of hand and there's concern that a film may not perform as well as they thought. So BVS will have to do STAR WARS business to break even. Hopefully it will do great business and Warner Bros will be able to fund another MAD MAX movie.
Lancelot Link Monday! This is the second day of Spring... which means giant blockbusters are just around the corner! Those big summer tentpoles! BATMAN vs SUPERMAN just premiered for press in New York City, and soon there will be leaks about whether it's good or bad or just is. If it flops, with all of those DC Comics characters in the film, what will Warner Brothers do? MATRIX 4?
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
Just a note: DEADPOOL has now made $340,941,383 in the USA alone on a budget of under $60m (making it one of the cheapest superhero comic book movies ever made). More than twice that when the rest of the world is factored in. It's one of the main reason this year's Box Office is shattering records - 10.1% ahead of last year, 15.9% ahead of 2014, 25.0% ahead of 2013, 9.1% ahead of 2012, and only 25.8% ahead of 2011. Yikes!
One of my oldest friend is Paul Kyriazi who gave me my very first film job on WEAPONS OF DEATH building a biker camp at the Black Diamond Mines and generally being a go-fer on set for a few days. I was a stupid teenaged film student at Diablo Valley Community College where Paul was a celebrity. He was making kung fu movies for drive ins, and shooting them right there in my home town! With big 35mm Panavision cameras! And dollies. And grip trucks. And big lights! And I got to help for no pay! I was the happiest guy in the world!
Later Paul called and hired me to write NINJA BUSTERS and my screenwriting career began... and then ended for a while.
Paul is still a friend - he lives out of the country, but when he’s in town we get together and go to a movie or something. I recently re-ran the blog entry about the autograph show in Burbank, and Paul co-starred in that. Over the Holidays I was in my home town and so was he (visiting family) and I got a call out of the blue asking if I wanted to go to dinner... I told Paul I’d just ordered at Taco Bell, and he said “I’ll be there in a minute” and then drove up, At that time I had just put up my Action Book on Kindle and Paul was curious about the process. Paul has retired from film (yeah, right) and has been doing these amazing audio book projects - which are really movies on CDs. He hires a bunch of famous actors from the 60s and 70s and each plays a role. Kind of like an old fashioned radio show. There are sound effects and everything. I’m in one of them called HARD ROCK NIGHTMARE.
But Paul also does seminars - and you may have seen him on TV or on the radio talking about them. He came up with a great twist on the self-help seminar, called HOW TO LIVE THE JAMES BOND LIFESTYLE. Basically, he’s taken some great life lessons and found examples that illustrate them from James Bond movies. Some of the lessons are self-help and positive thinking type things, some are relationship things, some are money management things - but the lessons that I really liked were the ones on very practical things to improve your life - like how to get your rental car upgraded automatically. Things that can really help you live that James Bond lifestyle. Paul has done the seminars all over the world and a few years ago when he decided to do an audio version... I was the director. The easiest job in the world when the voice talent has done the seminar a million times before in real life.
But a few months ago in that Taco Bell, Paul was talking to me about making the James Bond Lifestyle class as an e-book, and expanding it with even more lessons and advice - and a prologue by David Hedison who played Felix Leiter in two James Bond movies. And now he has done that.
Full disclosure - though I have bought a copy of the Kindle version, I have not read it yet. I *did* hear that audio version of the seminar a few years back (since I was in the recording room with the cans on) so my recommendation is based on that version - I’m sure the expanded e-book version is even better. I was hoping to have read it by now... but I’ve been busy!
Lancelot Link Monday! I must have been really drunk Saturday night because I blacked out for an hour!
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Input = output. One of the reasons why I'm a screenwriter is because I grew up watching movies and reading books. And I still do both. Though I usually mention what movies I've seen on the blog, I seldom mention what books I've been reading... and now I've decided to post about that every once in a while.
A while back I bought a Kindle, because it weighs less than a book, and I always have these danged books in my backpack weighing me down. Even though the Kindle itself costs $139, then you have to add books, Amazon tries to keep the Kindle book price down to $9.99 for most "hardback" titles, but the real deal for me was public domain books that you'd pay $3.99 or more for in paperback are usually free or 99 cents. WAR OF THE WORLDS - $7.99 paperback, FREE for Kindle. Since one of my little projects is searching for a kick ass PD novel to adapt into a screenplay, and due to some sort of mid-life nostalgia I am re-reading a bunch of the adventure and science fiction and fantasy books I read as a kid (most of which are now public domain), it made sense to buy a Kindle. I'm re-reading a bunch of great stuff... for free. Already, the Kindle has "paid for itself" if I had to buy those books in paperback. And my aching back also wins - no heavy books in the backpack.
I still buy some books in paper, and just bought Lawrence Block's great new novel A TOUCH OF THE HARD STUFF in hardback... and had him sign it. I'll probably write a review of that book next week, but I need to mention the book I'm reading now - Block's THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART. I have an ancient paperback somewhere on the shelf, and would have stuck it in the backpack, except...
The other good thing about the Kindle and other e-readers is that sometimes books go on a limited time sale, and LONG GREEN is on sale until the 15th for only 99 cents (back in 2011). Having just paid $25 for Block's new book, under a buck is a no brainer deal. I bought it and am now reading it on the Kindle when I'm stuck in line at the post office or taking a break from the laptop.
Block writes several series: Bernie the Burglar, Matt Scudder the alcoholic detective, the new Hit Man series, swinging 70's spy Evan Tanner, and some sleazy books about Chip Harrison who is not a virgin by choice. THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART is a stand alone noir title about a con man pulling the ultimate scam, and the woman who screws it all up. If you like THE GRIFTERS, check it out! (PS: Also check out his new noir novel, GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES.)
Some other stuff I've been reading: the Norbert Davis Carstairs & Doan mysteries. Who? you say? Well, Norbert Davis was one of those Black Mask pulp writers in the 30s and 40s who specialized in funny mysteries - hey, that's exactly what I like to read! He had a few different series in the pulps (at a penny a word, you had to write for different magazines and have stories in a bunch of them every month just to pay the rent) - Max Latin, Private Eye was the series where I first discovered Davis, and when I hit my local public library when I was in High School I found the Carstairs & Doan books - 4 of them. They had been out of print forever, and it took me a while to track them down in the library system. These things are collector's items now, and you couldn't afford to buy them...
Except they're public domain, so you can get them for 99 cents each!
HOLOCAUST HOUSE is the first book in the series. The series is about pudgy smart ass private eye Doan (think Paul Giamatti) who wins a pure breed Great Dane (Carstairs) in a poker game. Carstairs is snobby, aloof, and more intelligent than any human. He is Doan's master (not the other way around) and insists on eating steak while Doan eats hamburgers. But the great thing about this odd couple of detectives is that Carstairs is the brains (often solving the cases) and Doan is the brawn (he may be pudgy, but he can fight and is great with a gun). In the first book, Carstairs is mostly off screen as Doan is sent to guard a young woman who is about to inherit millions... and seems to have no shortage of enemies. In a secluded ski lodge Doan must figure out who among the staff is really a killer. One of the great things about these books is that they are funny and breezy... and VIOLENT. Kind of a screw ball comedy directed by Sam Peckinpah.
MOUSE IN THE MOUNTAIN - this was the first of the books I read back in High School, and it's the first one where Carstairs is more than just a funny prop - he's an equal partner in the story. The two are traveling to a secluded village in Mexico on some sort of secret business involving a mobster in hiding. But after an earthquake brings much of the village tumbling to the ground and takes out the only road in or out, people begin to get bumped off. Among the suspects are an heiress, her secretary, an ex-pat artist, a revolutionary, some military guys, and a strange hotel owner (both the hotel and the owner are strange). There's a secret treasure and all kinds of other fun stuff - and Carstairs figures out who the killer is long before Doan does. This book was a lot of fun.
SALLY'S IN THE ALLEY - probably the best of the four books. During World War 2, Carstairs has become a movie star and Doan is the guy who doesn't get invited to the premieres... but does get invited by the FBI to become a Japanese spy, even though he doesn't look the least bit Asian. Seems there's a crazy prospector who has discovered enough Uranium to make a whole bunch of atom bombs, and because he hates the USA for stealing his land to make Hoover Dam, wants to sell the Uranium to the Japanese or the Germans. Carstairs and Doan go undercover as Japanese spies, and get mixed up in all kinds of wild action (including a massive flash flood - these books all have a natural disaster element) - and along with German Spies and small town cops and cowboys and Indians, there's America's #1 movie star Susan Sally and her pushy Agent, plus a guy named Blue who has a secret past and a young woman who will believe almost anything Doan tells her.
OH MURDERER MINE - If SALLY is the best in the series, this is the worst... but still lots of fun. Less of a mystery and more of a satire about college life, Carstairs and Doan are acting as bodyguards for a faculty member for reasons which aren't revealed until late in the book. One of the strange things with this book is that it begins with a professor, Melissa Gregory, instead of Carstairs and Doan, and for a while you wonder if you're reading the wrong book. The rest of the faculty are a bunch of nut-jobs who make the cast of a Coen Brothers movie look normal and bland. Once again, Carstairs is the brains of the operation and figures out the case long before Doan.
Norbert Davis never wrote any more books in the series because he committed suicide at age 40!
One of the great things about e-books is that Davis' books are available at a low price - no cost for printing and binding. I would love to see a collection of the Max Latin stories and Bail Bond Dodd stories... plus all of his pulp short stories. So, that's what I've been reading.
PS: As I said - there are a bunch of public domain titles that are FREE, and you may even find the Carstairs & Doan books somewhere for free... just not on Amazon right now. I did find the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars books for free, and the Sherlock Holmes books, and many others for free.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Global Screenwriting - 70% of your audience does not live in the United States, probably doesn't speak English, and really doesn't care about baseball statistics. Dinner: That grungy Pollo Loco in NoHo. Pages: Cold still hanging in there, so all of the work on the script I was going to do today did not get done. Other things that require less brain work *did* get done, so it wasn't a wasted day. Bicycle: Short bike ride, just to keep the blood flowing.
Lancelot Link Monday! A week after the Oscars... and we've run out of Movie Awards Shows. How will we possible survive? But, Summer is around the corner, with superheroes and big tentpole movies. This is the calm before the storm... or is it? Take a look at this week's box office - isn't Hollywood All Summer All The Time?
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
1) Weekend Box Office Estimates: 1 Zootopia........................ $73,700,000 2 London Has Fallen............... $21,714,000 3 Deadpool........................ $16,400,000 4 WTF?............................. $7,600,000 5 Bods Of Egypt.................... $5,000,000 6 Risen............................ $3,885,000 7 KFP 3............................ $3,525,000 8 Revenant......................... $3,325,000 9 Eddie The Eagle.................. $3,100,000 10 The Witch........................ $2,509,453
ZOOTOPIA is now the record holder for non sequel animated openings. Meanwhile, in China, MERMAID hits $500m!
Lancelot Link Monday! Oscar Winners!This was the big movie awards season! Best and worst and... While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Lancelot Link Monday! Last week's new film was the vulgar and profane hard R rated DEADPOOL, and it broke all kinds of records. This week's big new film is the early Easter religious film RISEN... did it break records? Did it beat last week's film? As someone online said: "This is a battle for moviegoers souls!" Well, kinda. RISEN was released by a major studio (Columbia Pictures), directed by a major director (Kevin Reynolds, Kevin Costner's ROBIN HOOD, etc), stars a guy who has starred in hit movies (Joseph Fiennes, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE), and opened on 2,915 screens. Add to that a huge publicicty push, tying the film to previous big Christian hit PASSION OF THE CHRIST. Oh, and block selling seats to church groups. Plus, DEADPOOL made so much money it's probably exhausted its audience, right? So... which one do you think won the weekend?
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
1) Weekend Box Office Estimates: 1 Deadpool........................ $55,000,000 2 Kung Fu Panda 3................. $12,500,000 3 Risen........................... $11,800,000 4 The Witch........................ $8,685,270 5 How To Be Single................. $8,220,000 6 Race............................. $7,275,000 7 Zoolander 2...................... $5,500,000 8 Star Wars TFA.................... $3,836,000 9 Revenant......................... $3,800,000 10 Hail Caesar....................... $2,640,000
4)The Real Maltese Falcon. I was talking about this a couple of weeks ago, it's the inspiration for the third Mitch Robertson story, which I will write whenever I get around to finishing the second one!
Lancelot Link Monday! This was both President's Day Weekend and Valentines Day Weekend, causing all kinds of confusion, not to mention thoughts of odd crossover film pitches. The only movies I could find for cross celebration were THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (1995) - Aaron Sorkin's predecessor for THE WEST WING, and KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT (1964) - about the first woman President and her First Man... other than that, we tend not to think of the President in romantic terms. Why is that?
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
1) Weekend Box Office Estimates: 1 Deadpool....................... $135,050,000 2 Kung Fu Panda 3...... .......... $19,650,000 3 How 2B Single................... $18,750,000 4 Zoolander 2..................... $15,650,000 5 Revenant......................... $6,900,000 6 Hail Caesar...................... $6,590,000 7 Star Wars TFA.................... $6,194,000 8 Choice........................... $5,250,000 9 Ride Along....................... $4,130,000 10 Boy!............................. $2,913,000
So DEADPOOL broke all kinds of box office records and seems to have proven than audiences really want to see something Hard R on Valentines day weekend, since the last record holder was FIFTY SHADES OF GREY ($93m). Box Office Mojo has this huge list of records that DEADPOOL has broken so far, but on top of all that it has pushed 2016 ahead of previous years at this point in time... Ahead of last year by 2.8%, ahead of 2014 by 16.4%, ahead of 2013 by 29.6%, ahead of 2012 by 16.4%, and ahead of 2011 by only 35.4%!!!!
But this is a 3 day weekend in the USA, which means there's one more day to go!
Fox estimates it will end up with $150m, but BOMojo reports that other studios are pegging it as high as $156m. That would mean more records would be broken. I predict I will soon get a note from development about having the female lead wear a strap on, because that's what audiences pay to see. I'm sure DC is preparing THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN XXX or something as you read this. I think the real lesson here is that there is an audience for a hard R rated movie filled with all sorts of naughty things... because movies are a fantasy and we all fantasize about all sorts of naughty things (whether from DEADPOLL or GREY). But the *real* solution is just not to give me any stupid notes, and realize that when you hire someone for a specific skill it is because they know how to do their job. Just trust them.
Hey, if you *don't* believe that audiences love the nasty stuff, let's see what happens next weekend when the religious RISEN opens from Sony Pictures. Will it pull down the same numbers as DEADPOOL? $135m opening weekend? Come back next week to find out, same Batplace, same Batchannel!
Lancelot Link, Simian Spy is on vacation today because Bill has a terrible cold and just said "Ef it!" and is on the couch watching movies. Sorry. But just for fun, here's the first Lancelot Link from 2009 - how many links still work?
Lancelot Link Monday! For those of you who buy Playboy for the articles, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Ranked 210 overall and #1 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Kids & Family > Animation #1 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Animation > Kids & Family #2 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Kids & Family > Adventure
I saw it in the cinema, liked it but never got around to reviewing it... even though it pops up as a *great* example of a future or alien world in my review of TERMINATOR SALVATION (which had a stupid and sucky future world). Congratulations to Keith, and if you have those short people in your house, you might add it to your Netflix que.
5) Congratulations to all of the folks who made the top 100 in the Script Shadow logline list - many of them I know, and at least one of them I have slept with. The Top 100 Loglines. Some are... interesting. What are your favorites and the ones that had you saying WTF? Comments section!
Lancelot Link Monday! STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS is about to hit $2 billion bucks. Disney paid $4 billion for the rights to make sequels to all of the LucasFilms titles - STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES being the two big series. With FORCE AWAKENS #3 in the USA over the weekend (still going strong) they have recouped have of that investment in *one film*. Hell, even if they burn out the franchise with one new Star Wars movie every year, they'll be deep into the black by the time we're sick of all of these characters. Sooner or later Disney is going to run out of characters to spin off with their own films... but I sure hope they explore that fan theory that Porkins (from STAR WARS) has evolved into Snoke.
While you're thinking about that, here are this week's links to some great screenwriting and film articles, plus some fun stuff that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
Here are a dozen links plus this week's car chase...
1) Weekend Box Office Estimates: 1 Kung Fu Panda 3................. $41,000,000 2 Revenant........................ $12,400,000 3 Star Wars TFA................... $10,782,000 4 Finest Hours.................... $10,327,000 5 Ride Along 2..................... $8,345,520 6 Boy.............................. $7,894,000 7 Dirty Grandpa.................... $7,575,000 8 5th Wave......................... $7,000,000 9 50 Shades Black.................. $6,186,648 10 13 Hours......................... $6,000,000
