American Film Market Day 1

Originally published *7* years ago - but rerunning it while I avoid AFM this year.

On Wednesday, November 3rd, the American Film Market opened in Santa Monica at the Loews Hotel on the beach. I have been attending AFM since 1986, and covering it for Script Magazine and a few other magazines since then. Now, my coverage is exclusively for Script and my blog. Last week in Los Angeles it was raining so hard people were wondering if they should build an ark, this week we’re in the middle of a heat wave. But the temperature wasn’t the only thing making people at AFM sweat...



Though the trades always announce that attendance is up from last year, the building seemed empty. For the past two years the number of vendors at AFM has expanded, so they took over the Le Merigot Hotel next door. This year, only four companies were next door, and much of the 8th floor of the Leows was empty. Though the first day of the market is usually slow - the crowds show up on the weekend - I don’t ever remember it being *this* slow. If I wanted to sit in the lobby I had my choice of chairs... even though there were only half as many chairs as last year! Though some of this may be due to the economy, there’s a much larger sea-change going on in the world of independent films. Several years ago the “middle” of the business began shrinking, and I believe it is completely gone at this point. More on that later, after I’ve spent more times wandering the halls and talking to people. Hey, I know what you’re wondering...

WHAT THE HECK IS AFM?

I’m so glad you asked. American Film Market is a market for films - just like K-Mart or Target or Walmart. Well, actually it’s closer to a swap meet. Major studios like Warner Brothers, Paramount, and Universal, have their own foreign distribution arms or long standing deals in place with foreign distributors.. But Independent Producers, without the consistent output of a big studio, make their foreign distribution deals on a film by film basis. Selling each film to each individual country. Every year producers would fly to Cannes to sell their product (the Cannes Film Festival is the excuse for them coming to town, the Cannes Film Market is the real reason they are there. Three decades ago a group of American Indie Producers decided to start their own market. Why fly to France when the French can fly here?



Every year since then, Indie Producers from all over the world set up shop at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica for a week in November to sell their films. Beds are removed and replaced with office furnishings, turning the luxury hotel into the world's most exclusive office building. Security guards are posted at the elevators and stairwells, to keep the uninvited off the sales floors. Only those with badges are allowed upstairs. The hallways are filled with buyers and sellers with badges, the occasional movie star, and lots of posters on stands outside of the “offices”. Lately it has become more and more common for a company to have two offices - one that is open to the public and one that is private - for making large deals with special clients. American producers selling films to foreign countries, or foreign producers selling films to America - that’s the swap meet part. Every foreign film that shows in a cinema in the United States or is on DVD or BluRay comes through one of the film markets - like AFM or Cannes or Hong Kong.

These films range from potential Oscar winners and nominees like the late George Hikenlooper’s CASINO JACK starring Kevin Spacey to B movies like Roger Corman’s SHARKTOPUS to big budget films like GHOST RIDER 2 with Nicolas Cage and KANE & LYNCH with Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx to foreign films like Europa’s Algerian War drama A VIEW OF LOVE. Any movie that is not made by a studio is here - and the studios often send “scouts” to look at films they might pick up for distribution.

Film is a global business. The same Will Smith film that we see in the United States will be exported to France and Italy and Japan and Zimbabwe. Almost 70 percent of the average USA film's earnings come from outside the United States and rising production costs have made foreign box office increasingly important. With the *average film* costing $106.7 million by the time it reaches the screen and blockbusters costing north of $200 million, studios need films to be hits overseas... and a domestic indie films also need to be seen around the world.

In fact, with the economy in disarray and private financing drying up, foreign sales & financing are often a way for an indie film to get made. Filmmakers from the indie world pop up in the most unusual places here at AFM - the Polish Brothers may have a film at a company that usually does genre films... so their movie is surrounded by horror or action films. Of course, Harvey Weinstein has his own suite where he is buying and selling films. The other 70% of the world seems to be the new place to find Indie financing... for now. There have always been traditional indie films at AFM - usually just for sale - but now some are here for funding as well.



What may seem strange to you is how AFM is a “shadow film industry”. You may think everything is made by the studios, but when you wander the halls and see so many films made outside the system, with stars you know and sometimes even directors you know, you realize that this is a huge business that isn’t part of the studio system until Paramount buys the film or Warner Bros makes a distribution deal in the USA. Then you think the film was made by Paramount or Warner Bros, not made by the scrappy guys in the suites at the Loew’s Hotel. In the movie CHARLIE VERRICK criminals are divided into Organized Crime (the Mafia) and The Independents (bank robbers like Charlie Verrick). The Mafia thinks they are the major power, but there are many more Independents... and those Independents are just as powerful in their own way. AFM is like a convention of those independents (and at least a couple of people here may have robbed a bank or two). They make those movies you see on SyFy Channel or Lifetime or HBO or Showtime. They are those movies on NetFlix with some slightly faded star or that actress who was in last year’s hit... but just turned 35 and is now too old for Hollywood. There are hundreds of films here that are *not* made by a studio or a studio based producer. It is a shadow industry... and maybe just as strong as the studios.

AFM RECON & LOBBY RATS


Uwe Boll's Leg!

After grabbing my badge I did a sweep of all of the floors, just checking out who is where and which companies have gone out of business or changed their names to avoid prosecution. Usually the hallways are filled with posters for movies on stands, this year - almost no posters. And very few monitors blasting trailers. Yes, this is the first day, but it seems really subdued. Has AFM gone upscale or are there just fewer companies than ever before? And have those companies cut down on their displays and publicity? In the past, a press badge guaranteed that you would be ignored, but a distributor grabs me and asks if I would like to see their movie tomorrow... and mentions there will be many cases of vodka at the afterparty. He talks more about the vodka than the movie! I don’t know what that means, but I accept his invitation. Maybe they should serve the vodka *before* the movie? I continue down the hallways, up stairs, down more hallways. I wave at a couple of people I know as I wander down the halls - people I may talk to tomorrow, but I have a seminar to attend at 4pm on making films that will play in Asia and Japan, with Don Murphy (TRANSFORMERS producer) on the panel. Don is a young legend - one of the guys who discovered Tarantino. He is also a legend for fighting in public. I’d love to hear what he has to say about creating movies that play well in Asia... But I get to talking to a producer about the market and miss the panel by a couple of minutes. So I check out the lobby and the first day “lobby rats”.

Though there will be more on the lobby rats in a coming entry, that’s the slang term for the people without badges who hang out in the hotel lobby waiting to pounce on anyone with a badge who comes downstairs. Actors, producers, writers, directors, stunt people, etc. Many of them kinda wacky. I do a lap and go out to the pool, and when I come back in I spot the amazing Dave S*******. Dave is a character. He was a wedding videographer who made a movie for pocket change, sold it, and now produces movies for $10k or less. You read that right. His company makes a dozen films in a year. Most of them are horror flicks, and what amazed me about his trailer reel is that there are even some faded stars in some of these films. Dave has a budget formula for extreme low budget films, and can get the film completed and to a distrib on time and on budget... and he actually pays his crew! Not well, but most of them are film students who would be happy for the credit. Dave is also famous for making a film called KING COBRA about a giant killer cobra... where there was no cobra in the film. They couldn’t afford to show it. “Cobra shmobra!” he said.

Dave was complaining about the way the middle has fallen out of the business, and there are companies who are hiring him to make films for them... making a lot of money off those films... then *not* calling him once the company is back in the black. What pissed him off was that these companies that didn’t call him for a while go back in the red and then want him to drop everything and make a movie for them... oh, for less money if possible. He’s tired of being used - he just wants a little respect. There is a skill in making a movie for $10k or less, and having a core crew that will continue to work at those low wages. Hey, there may not be a giant cobra in the movie, but the buyers don’t know how little in cost - they think Dave’s films cost $250k-$500k.

Someone else who knows Dave came by and told us the Puerto Rico Film Commission is serving free rum on the 5th floor... so we climbed some stairs. I was the only one with a badge, but security is kind of relaxed in the lobby area of the 5th floor - where the free rum was. Here’s the whole hotel mafia thing - the rum was offered by the PR Film Commish at their booth - but a hotel bartender had to do the actual pouring. While drinking a few glasses of free rum, I talk to a filmmaker from Australia who is at AFM to find the rest of the funding for his film and cast some USA actors to help with the US sale. I find this funny, because American films star Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson and a bunch of other Australians. I talk to some other folks, then decided I could drink no more free rum if I intended on standing, and wandered back downstairs for a final sweep before heading home...

Except I ran into another lobby rat - a screenwriter named Steve who is famous for doing an uncredited rewrite on BLOODSPORT 2 and turning that into a career. Steve gave up writing to produce, and now puts deals together based on people he knew when he was writing B movies. He had spent the whole day in the lobby doing meetings - and closed a deal just before I walked past. In the couple of minutes I talked to him a distrib came by - they will be handling the film. I looked at this and realized maybe I am doing everything wrong, and should be making my own scripts... not just shooting them on a rented RED camera, but putting together deals for real movies.. Have to think about that over the next few days. Meanwhile, I’ve figured a couple of angles for my Script Magazine article - I was going to focus on what kinds of scripts and elements in those scripts that AFM distribs and producers are looking for... but now I am also going to investigate the way the business continues to evolve and what that means to us as screenwriters. What if we all end up having to write $10k movies?

Then it was time for me to leave - I said goodnight to the distrib (will visit them upstairs later in the market) and headed home... with a stop at Staples to make color copies of 8.5 x 11 posters for some of my scripts. Tomorrow I will attend a press conference and do some actual AFM journalism stuff.

NEXT PART - AFM Day 2

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Character's Goal And Fears - some core character elements and how to make them visual.
Dinner: I had Chinese food - S&S pork and BBQ chicken & fried rice.
Pages: Just climbing stairs.
Bicycle: No - but lots of stair climbing.

Is 80's Style Action Dead?

From Feb 2013...

You may have noticed that Stallone’s new film BULLET TO THE HEAD was not #1 over the weekend (it came it at #6!)... and that An-nuld’s movie THE LAST STAND sunk like a stone last weekend (it opened at #10... and two weeks later was #27 behind the Oscar Nominated Short Films in limited release!). We have a new DIE HARD movie right around the corner, and there is lots of talk on various movie message boards that 80s style action movies are over. Maybe even action films are we know them are over. Do you think that’s true?

I hope it’s not true - since I have a book on how to write action movies (though it’s good for all genres).

Well, let’s take a look at 1980s action flicks. Both Ah-nuld and Stallone were the #1 stars of action films in that decade and they spilled over into the early 1990s.  These guys were as big as Burt Reynolds was in the 70s! Hmm, maybe that wasn’t a good example...

After the 80s, Stallone continued acting, and his film career was kept alive mostly through ROCKY and RAMBO sequels, along with the recent 80s throwback EXPENDABLES films that are kind of like those 70s disaster movies that have a dozen has-been stars who combine to make one star.

After that 80s period, Ah-nuld quit films to become the Governator and ended up in EXPENDABLES 2: ELECTRIC BUGALOO, which was a hit!  But LAST STAND was his big return to action movie stardom as the lead.

Other 80s action stars like Bruce Willis have stuck around, though aren’t as big as they used to be... and some like Jean Claude Van Damme and Seagal ended up working in B movies where they continued that thing they do, just at reduced budgets.

Are 80s action movies dead, or is it just the careers of those 80s stars (who are getting a little long in the tooth to be an action star)? Is it the stars or the genre?

ELEMENTS

One thing to consider is that a film is a popular film isn’t due to just one thing, but a combination of elements that include the star... plus dozens of other things. When they all come together you have a hit... but we can look at bot Stallone and Ah-nuld’s filmographies and find misses, even when they were as big as Burt Reynolds was in the 70s. People often like the cherry pick one particular element and say the film was successful because of that. Sure, Ah-nuld was a big star and people would often go see movies just because he was in them...  but some of those films sucked, or didn’t have the other elements that audiences expected in an Ah-nuld film. Or, like RAW DEAL, the film had Ah-nuld and action... but the story was kind of bland, so the audience wasn’t as excited by it as they were by PREDATOR.

Often a film becomes a hit because of elements that might seem silly alone - I love BULLITT, but I think without both McQueen and that car chase, it would be just a standard cop film. It would still be on my DVD shelf, but probably not on almost everybody’s DVD shelf. I think RONIN is similar - take out the car chases and would anyone want to see this film a second time? But the car chases plus RONIN’s cast of great character actor types and a really hard edged attitude makes it a hit.

Studios and producers often cherry pick some element and decide *that* is what made the film a hit, which is why when some new take on a fairy tale does well... there are a half dozen more new takes on fairy tales, and some are HENSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS. It’s never one element - it’s a combination. So just making a movie starring Ah-nuld doesn’t guarantee a hit... but Ah-nuld in the right combination of elements might. You have to look at *all* of the elements.

But shouldn’t Ah-nuld in a bad-ass action flick equal box office? Those are the two important elements, right? It’s not like Ah-nuld in a rom-com or something.

Well, let’s take a look at Ah-nuld’s big action hits from that 80s/90s period, starting with his biggest hit...

TERMINATOR 2 - robot from the future goes back in time to *protect* the boy who will someday lead humans to defeat the robot-ruled world in the future.

TRUE LIES - meek geeky husband is really James Bond like spy and must save the world (and his family) from terrorists after they steal a couple of nukes.

TOTAL RECALL - regular guy takes a vacation to Mars, where it ends up he’s a double agent who has been brainwashed to forget his action-packed past... and now is in danger!

END OF DAYS - Bodyguard has to save woman from becoming Satan’s girlfriend and having his kid... which will signal the End Of Days when Satan rules the earth.

PREDATOR - military team goes into the jungle to save politicians in a plane crash and come up against an alien hunter who sees them as prey.

RUNNING MAN - prisoners engage in a fight to the death on a game show that is rigged for ratings... and has some wild-ass contestants.

Okay, I’ve left out the comedies like TWINS and JUNIOR and KINDERGARTEN COP to focus on the action films. But compare the *type of action story* from Ah-nuld’s 80s/90s  films to LAST STAND. Do you see any difference?

Okay, let’s look at Stallone’s action films (excluding the Rocky and Rambo films)...

CLIFF HANGER - Mountain rescue dude is sent to save a group of people after a plane crash... except it was a mid-air heist and now he’s battling mega-criminals on a mountainside!

DEMOLITION MAN - When the world’s top criminal is thawed out in a pacifist future, the authorities thaw out the world’s most violent cop to stop him from taking over the world.

JUDGE DREDD - I am the law! Cop in the future is framed, sentenced, and now must escape and prove his innocence... by finding another cop who shares elements of his DNA.

DAYLIGHT - Robbers with a truck full of explosives take out the Holland Tunnel at rush hour, and a rescue guy goes into the tunnel to help the survivors escape... and ends up tangling with the robbers.

TANGO & CASH - Two extreme cops (almost cartoonish)  who hate each other are framed and thrown into prison together, and now must survive life behind bars, then escape and bring down the drug kingpin who framed them.

COBRA - When a massive cult of killers called “The New Order” descends on city and begins killing *lots* of innocent people, a cop must protect the only witness who can help convict them - an ultra hot model.

Okay, once again I’ve left out the comedies and series films, but compare the *type of stories* in Stallone 80s/90s films to BULLET TO THE HEAD. Do you see any difference?

It seems to me that the problems *isn’t* 80s/90s style action films, because BULLET TO THE HEAD (despite being directed by the great Walter Hill) and LAST STAND are completely unlike 80s/90s style action films. Both films are small and low key compared to the wild high concepts that were the norm in 80s/90s action films. There is no science fiction component nor any disaster movie component. Both of these two new films have *dull ideas* compared to the films from the 80s/90s. They are kind of bland... missing *key elements* of the films that made these two guys into stars. A cartel leader escaped and tries to cross the border? A cop partners with a hitman to take down a common enemy? Neither of these story ideas are all that interesting, leaving the only draw a couple of old movie stars playing roles much blander than they did when they were the world’s biggest stars... in stories that are much blander. One element does not make a movie!

GRUMPY OLD MEN

I think the 80s/90s style action film is fine - if anyone ever makes one again! Ah-nuld and Stallone might have some problems re-entering action movie stardom, but the easy answer there is to do what Eastwood did when he got a little long in the tooth - partnered with a younger ***star*** like Charlie Sheen. Johnny Knoxville is *not* a movie star (unless he’s sticking fireworks up his butt), he’s a comic relief sidekick at best. The problem is, Stallone and Ah-nuld need to be the comic relief sidekick now. They need to be re-introduced as the second billed actor... and maybe they will someday be back as the #1 star, maybe not. Hey, actors need to act their age. The odd thing about an action star is that they are beefcake to a female star’s cheesecake. You don’t see actresses Ah-nuld or Stallone’s age doing sexpot roles... they’re playing moms and grandmothers. That’s okay! And it’s okay for Ah-nuld and Stallone to play their age - and *not* be the star. One of the things about the new DIE HARD movie is that Willis is playing *dad* to a kid in the big action role. They get to play buddy action (an 80s staple - usually with a top comedy star partnered with an action star) and the story seems *big* and exciting (not a small story like Stallone and Ah-nuld got stuck with). A few years ago I got called in to pitch stories for a Vin Diesel buddy action film with Stallone (whose career wasn’t so hot at that point). Though I’m not sure Diesel is the star to bring back Stallone right now - I can easily see how putting them together might be good for both of them. Someone get on that!  Maybe The Rock and Ah-nuld can pair up? Or have Ah-nuld play Jake Gyllenhaal’s grandfather? (Both have difficult to spell last names.)

I also wonder if CGI stunts have created a focus on high concept stunts at the expense of high concept stories? If you look at the scenes in PREDATOR - they are great action scenes but *connected* to the high concept of the story itself. Now we have all of these wild CGI action scenes in stories that are kind of pedestrian - and because the action scenes are not connected to the concept, the concept may have to be more realistic to make up for the over-the-top action. They aren’t connected.

Another possible issue is *nostalgia* - why are we making 80s/90s style action flicks in the first place? Why aren’t we doing something new? Plus, these seem to be kind of the faulty memory version of what 80s/90s action flicks were like. Everyone complains about all of the remakes these days, and I usually jump in to point out that remakes have *always* been part of Hollywood movies. But the difference is - in the old days the remakes were *not* nostalgic - they were new spins on an old story. They would take a successful story and give it a modern twist. Now it seems they want to take an old story and make it seem like a film from the old days. Where’s the twist?  Instead of longing for those action films from the good old days, we should be making the amazing new films that people will be fondly remembering a couple of decades from now.

By the way, if you wonder whether the action film is dead... did you see the trailer for FAST 6 on last night’s Superbowl broadcast? I’d say action is alive and well.  Can’t wait to see it!



- Bill

Optimistic Disappointment

An old blog entry re-run... from 2008.

Tuesday I ran the Romeo-to-Rambo Script Tip, which is always good for a few messages and some spirited debate. The responses are always: "Why are you so pessimistic?" "Why would anyone want to be a screenwriter if your stuff is just going to get screwed up?" "Why do they always screw stuff up?" "How can I make sure they don't change a single word of my script?" and "How often can Bill name drop in a single blog entry?"

First - no matter who you are, no matter how many Oscars you have on your mantle, no matter how many #1 hit movies you'd written... you will be rewritten. It's just the way the business works. Hollywood goes through screewriters the way screenwriters go through toner cartridges. They are constantly replacing them. Not for any logical reason - the excuse you hear is often "We think you've given it your best shot, but it's time to move on" or "We're thinking about taking it in a new direction, and need a new screenwriter to take it there" or "We've used all of your contracted rewrites." Love him or hate him, when Joe Eszterhas was the top screenwriter in Hollywood, they paid him $3 million for BASIC INSTINCT... then fired him the next day and brought in another writer. That was the most anyone had ever paid for a screenplay, so you'd think they must have liked it; but replacing writers is business as usual in Hollywood. One of the amusing things about this business is that sometimes - after a parade of writers has ruined your screenplay - sometimes they hire you back to rewrite whatever mess they ended up with. Of course, you aren't rewriting your *original* script, you're rewriting the crappy messed up rewritten by an army of damned dirty apes version.

And often you are the one who ruins your script. They own it, and if your contract includes 2 rewrites and a polish (as mine always do) they will order you to make all kinds of stupid changes. When you and I think of rewrites, we think of *improving* our screenplays, but producers think rewrites are to *change* your script. Change it completely. Change the genre, the protagonist, the arena, the locations... hey, can they be cowboys? As Joe Gillis says in SUNSET BLVD. "The last one I wrote was about Okies in the dust bowl. You'd never know because when it reached the screen, the whole thing played on a torpedo boat." You know, a writer wrote that line.

Even if you fund the film yourself (so that you’re the boss) things will get changed by the time they hit the screen. As directors will tell you, film is a director’s medium... so whatever weird idea the director comes up with goes in the film. And you can’t sell a film without a star - which gives the star all kinds of power over the film. On one of my movies the actor (who was being paid a cool million) decided that his character should recite some poetry in the film, to show his sensitive side. And he *must* wear his lucky leather jacket - even though it didn’t fit the character he was playing at all. You know what the answer to that was? Change the character! Plus, there were some things he wanted in the story that made no sense - but without this guy there was no movie. So I did the rewrites... hating every minute of it. I’ve had directors who had me change *researched facts* to be what the director thought was true. And this blog’s name comes from a really silly note I got from HBO on CRASH DIVE - they wanted a sex scene in a film that takes place on a submarine manned by 110 *men*. No women allowed. “A *gay* sex scene?” I asked. “No! No! With a woman!” (Today they’d *want* the gay sex scene.) “How do I get a woman on the submarine?” “You’re the writer - be creative!” Next thing you know, there’s some hot woman having wild monkey sex on a submarine for no apparent reason.

Even if you were the director, star, producer, writer, prop guy and everything else; you need to bend the script to fit the locations and shooting schedule - and that often means major changes. Things go wrong on every movie... and that means you’ll need to make changes on the fly to get things back on track. It rains, so that big outdoor scene now takes place in the warehouse where you store your equipment. When you make a film there are hundreds of people involved and hundreds of things that can go wrong. Everything seems to be conspiring against you. You never really get your vision up in screen. You have to compromise with real life and hope what ends up on screen is close to what you wrote.

I was at Frank Darabont's house once, and across from his desk he had a bookcase filled with his own scripts. I thought that was kind of odd (and maybe a little vain), so I asked him about it. He told me those were *his* screenplays the way *he wrote them*. I liked that idea so much, I now have a bookcase in my office with *my* scripts the way I wrote them. You know, I wonder what Frank's Indiana Jones was like? (Actually, I think I have the PDF in my “to read” pile along with INGLORIOUS BASTERDS (hey - spellcheck flagged that!)

The only thing we control is our scripts... so we have to be happy with what's on the page, not what ended up on the screen. If it's all about what ended up on the screen, it's a lifetime of heartbreak...

Which is why a screenwriter needs to be optimistic. You must have hope that some day you will end up with the right combination of director and actors and producers who all want to make the script you've written. Usually everyone wants to make a different story, and the whole thing goes to hell.

I’ve had a couple of films that got close to what I wanted. HARD EVIDENCE is probably closest to what I wrote (although the rewrites for location had the horrors of spending your life in a Canadian prison *instead of* a Mexican prison and much more sex than the spec script had), and it’s also my most financially successful films. You’d think that would be a compelling reason not to completely screw up my scripts - but Hollywood is all about changing a silk purse into a sow’s ear. On CYBERZONE the director and I were on the same page - but it was not a page that lead to Oscar nominations. The producer wanted a film about robot hookers from outer space... so that’s what we made. The director and I were both making the same movie - a comedy - but the distrib wanted a *serious* movie about robot hookers from outer space. So the jokes were cut out as well as some of the character stuff and we ended up with a silly movie instead of a funny one... but most of what I wrote is still there on screen, though. It’s a miracle.

And on every film (except CROOKED) something I wrote ends uo on screen. Usually a handful of scenes in each film remain more or less intact - and I can be happy about them. I used to *hate* BLACK THUNDER and CRASH DIVE, but both films have grown on me. The parts that I wrote now overshadow the parts that got messed up on the way to the screen. And I’m always hoping that the next script makes it to the screen the way I wrote it... or maybe even *better* - I would really love to work with a director with a vision and a cast with real talent who make *positive* contributions to the film. I don’t mind changes that improve the script - I *welcome them*. I have had some *good* notes on scripts in the past - and would love to get more of those! It’s the silly ones that change the script into crap I could live without. Every new script sale is another chance to have a great movie made!

I was on a panel once with Robert Roy Pool who wrote the spec script that became ARMAGEDDON a couple of years ago. His original script was about a guy in the government whose job was to write reports about reports. He'd read dozens of reports and condense them into a paragraph each for the Presidential briefing. He came across a bunch of different things in different reports that seemed to be connected - the most amusing one was an Indian tribe that wanted to move their reservation because their shaman had forseen a giant asteroid hitting Earth where their reservation was now. He discovers that there really is a giant asteroid heading toward Earth, but the government covers it up. So he goes about grabbing his estranged wife and everyone he loves and finding a safe place for them - some caverns he knows about from reading reports. They find safety... and the asteroid strikes. Okay, about a dozen writers were hired - one after another - to change that into ARMAGEDDON. One of the things that *every* writer hated was the scene where the Mir space station blows up for no reason. Now, some of these writers were being paid huge amounts of money to do these rewrites - there were Oscar winners - and every single one of them *lost* the argument and had to have the Mir space station blow up for no reason. The film is *nothing* like Robert's original script, and I don't think any of those dozen rewriters liked it much.

But Robert and none of those writers quit the business because the script was ruined by bad notes... instead, they went on to write other things. Because every script is a chance to have it all come together (by some miracle) or maybe just get pretty close. Good films *do* get made. Great films *do* get made. Sometimes it all comes together. You just have to have faith that it will happen sometime... and until then, you still have that bookshelf of scripts the way you wrote them.

You have to be optimistic in this business. You have to believe that the next script will end up on screen even better than the way you wrote it - that the producer and director and cast will come up with some amazing ideas that you never thought of and turn a great script into a completely fantastic amazing script. And even if that deal doesn’t work out and results in another disappointment... there’s the deal after that!

Somewhere down there, there’s a pony!

- BillIMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Character Conservation and ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Subway Black Forest Ham.
Bicycle: Sunday they closed off some major streets in downtown LA so that cyclists could ride from downtown to the sea... but I'm on the other side of the hill, so I just rode west.

Quality Rules

From May, 2009... the end of the DVD market is predicted!

From Patrick Goldstein's LA Times Article:
Even more alarming, especially for studios who've thrived on seducing moviegoers into seeing mediocre product, is the realization that audiences are becoming more quality conscious. In the past, if a forgettable action film hit pay dirt at the box office, it would perform correspondingly well in DVD, allowing studios in greenlight meetings to provide a conversion rate--i.e. that if a movie of a certain genre made $100 million in the theaters, that would equal X millions of units in DVD. But judging from recent DVD sales figures, films that had poor word-of-mouth--signaling significant audience dissatisfaction--were underperforming in DVD, even if they had enjoyed lofty box-office numbers.

The example that made the biggest impact in studio circles involved "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." The two films, released within weeks of each other last summer, did almost the exact same amount of business in their U.S. theatrical runs--roughly $318 million. But when they arrived on DVD, "Iron Man," the film that performed far better in exit polls (not to mention with critics), easily outperformed "Indiana Jones," whose DVD numbers were far lower than expected. Among the big-grossing summer films, "Hancock" was also a poor performer (in terms of box office vs. DVD numbers), while the DVD numbers for such well-liked family films as "Wall-E" and "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" held up far better.

The rest of the article: DVD Collapse.

The problem, as on studio chief says in the article, is that they don't know what films will sell well on DVD and what films will sell poorly...

Hmmm.... if quality sells, shouldn't that be the focus?

And quality in this case doesn't seem to mean Oscar winners, those are not doing well on DVD. Quality seems to be big mainstream films that deliver what they promise and are *good* - so that you would want to see them again. IRON MAN... but not the new INDIANA JONES movie.

By the way, for all of you who have asked me over the years where they can get the actual sales numbers for individual DVD titles, the answer is in this article... you can't. They are kept top secret.

Classes On CD On Sale!

- Bill

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Lame Confessions
Yesterday’s Dinner: City Wok sweet & sour chicken.

Movies: CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE - If you like Roadrunner Cartoons, but don’t like animation - this is the film for you. The sequel is just like the first film, only more so. That’s either a bad thing, if you did not like CRANK; or a good thing, if (like me) you thought it was a fun way to kill a couple of hours. These films are so not to be taken seriously, there is no reason for that standard legal disclaimer at the end of the movie that the film is fiction. Folks, this film is so unreal it’s funny - and that’s probably the point. It *is* a cartoon with live actors.

It starts with a clever recap of the end of the last film - an Atari game showing two men falling from a helicopter and shooting and fighting until both are about to hit the ground... then they cut to “real life” as Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) slams into the roof of a car on the street, bounces, and lands right in front of the camera... dead... until one eye pops open. The end of the last film. Then, an unmarked truck pulls up and men in hazmat suits scrape him off the sidewalk and throw him in the back of the truck - taking off before the police and ambulances can arrive.

A couple of months later, Chev wakes up in some back alley doctor’s office hooked up to a million machines - alive - but his heart has been harvested for transplant (because it is the strongest heart of any man alive). Chev has an artificial heart keeping him alive so that the bad guys can sell of any other working parts he might have... including his penis. Chev doesn’t want them to harvest that particular organ and breaks out - fighting a bunch of people - and with his battery powered artificial heart goes on a cross-town quest to recover his actual heart. Even though that Atari game thing was only used for a minute at the beginning of the film, the rest of the movie is no more realistic with humans instead of bad video graphics - and that’s okay. This is a cartoon and cartoon laws of physics apply - also cartoon logic.

After Chev gets into a car wreck chasing his heart, the battery pack on his artificial heart is destroyed and only the small internal battery exists - and it must be manually recharged constantly... in a variety of silly ways that are fun. From jumper cables attached to some gang banger’s low rider car’s battery, to rubbing up against an old woman to create static electricity, to disregarding the Danger: High Voltage warning on a transformer box and just bear-hugging the humming electrical contents. Like Popeye with his cans of spinach, Chev must get charged up before he gets into a fight - and there are many of those. Along the way he finds his true love Eve (Amy Smart) working as a stripper (with strips of electrical tape over her nipples for some reason - makes no sense to me as her breasts are smashed against a police car window at one point just as the breasts of the Catholic High School Girls In Trouble breasts were smashed against the shower door in KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE - and the combination of crass gratuitous nudity and those little bits of electrical tape modesty end up being funny... and maybe that was intended?).

Now that he’s found his true love, he must find his heart - and as silly and cartoony as this film is - this symbolism is entirely intended and is what made me like the first CRANK movie much more than I liked SHOOT ‘EM UP, even though no one can play a cartoon character like Paul Giamatti. The CRANK movies have heart... even though in this one the heart has been stolen.

As Chev and Eve and the other characters chase and fight across Los Angeles, each one sillier than the one that came before - in one instance turning into giant Godzilla-sized people who battle it out in a bad miniature version of the city, knocking down buildings and power towers, we get some Road Runner-Wiley Coyote laughs and at least one public sex scene on a horse racing track. Eventually David Carradine makes his appearance as the Chinese gang lord who needs a new heart - and wants the strongest heart in the world as his replacement... and the villain from the first film, who is now - much like Walt Disney - a head kept alive by machines. It’s just this crazy movie that never tries to be real or even make a whole lot of sense... and by the time we reach the end, they have set up an impossible situation that you know will lead to the third film in the series. I suspect in that one, Chev will have to borrow people’s skin for short periods of time - so maybe he’ll be able to go undercover? At today’s ticket prices, you have to be a fan of the first film to fully enjoy CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE in the cinema, but on 99 cent rental night? You can’t go wrong.

Welcome To Hollywood!

From 2009...

From an article by Robert Elisberg in the Huffington Post:

Steve Martin tells of trying to pitch a movie based on the classic play "Cyrano de Bergerac." No studio executive knew what he was talking about, and all rejected it. Luckily, though, he was Steve Martin and knew the studio president, Guy McElwaine. And happily McElwaine was a bright adult who actually loved the play. And most fortunately of all, the movie got made - because otherwise no one would ever have seen the glorious "Roxanne."

A friend once pitched a version of Sherlock Holmes. "Who's that?" a studio executive asked, later thinking the world-renowned, fictional detective was a real person. Needless-to-say, it never got made. But imagine if that same executive had been pitched the new Sherlock Holmes movie which stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. You wouldn't see it this December.

Another friend was pitching a buddy movie to an executive who prided herself on the subject. "Let's discuss great buddy movies," she enthused, "I'm an expert." My friend immediately mentioned, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." "What's that?" the executive asked.

Honest.

Studio Execs and Readers and Other People Who Make Script Decisions.

- Bill

What Was I Thinking?

From early 2010...

The plan was to write FADE OUT on my kinda-new spec script 2nd SON sometime on Saturday, and then meet my friends and go out to dinner and then see IRON MAN 2 at the Arclight. Tickets were purchased way in advance so that we had the perfect seats. A decision was made that the Friday Night Movie Guys would meet on *Saturday* instead, because we knew opening night for IRON MAN 2 would just be crazy. But the movie was my “reward” for typing FADE OUT sometime earlier that day.

Except I did not type FADE OUT on Saturday, nor did I manage to type it on Sunday. I will probably type it sometime today (Monday). Pisser.

But I *did* see IRON MAN 2 anyway - dessert without first cleaning my plate (and eating those gross mushy peas). I was sure this would lead to the end of the world... and maybe it did. It didn’t really lead to the end of my script, I spent Sunday trying to figure that out. Oh, I know the end-end, I just don’t really know how to get there.

The reason why is simple - I’m an idiot.

You may remember this script from a little over a year ago - I started it, was happy with the with the way it was going, then an circling assignment went to script and it got set aside. I pulled it out a couple of times last year wondering what the hell I was thinking and couldn’t quite get back into the flow - and then something else would come up. I wrote a couple of *other* spec scripts instead, and just when I got back into it, landed another assignment and set it aside again. Pisser. The script is so close to being finished it seemed stupid not to just take the time and get ‘er done. But when I pulled it back out and started writing I ran into a couple of problems.

Problem #1: One of the times I was working on it last year, I came up with a really cool twist that upped the ante and improved the story. Now, as you know, a script is like a house of cards and when you change one little thing you also change all kinds of other things and may even screw up the screenplay. It’s the domino effect or the ripple effect or whatever the hell you want to call it. I did re-outline the end of the script when I came up with this idea, but that didn’t include the small things... like how to kill the villain. I now have something similar to that overnight rewrite I had to go on GRID RUNNERS where they lost the rooftop location so my villain could no longer fall to his death. Though this problem is even worse than that. It would be like changing the location for the villain-death-by-skyscraper-roof-fall to the desert. Not a building for miles. Not a mountain for miles. And limited ways to die quickly.

Problem #2: This script has some DaVINCI CODE type riddles in it, and I thought it would be fun to put the riddle that kills a supernatural henchman in a scene on page 15 - that way, the audience would forget about it by the time we get to that henchman’s death - and I would **not** mention the riddle when our hero kills the henchman. I would leave it for the second time you saw the movie. One of the things I think about sometimes is how to get people to watch the film again. If it is a theatrical, that’s another ticket sale - and get enough of those and you have a hit. I had to see THE SIXTH SENSE a second time to see if the twist end was there throughout the film - and it was. I mean, about a couple of minutes into that film M. Night Shamalamadingdong sets up the twist, and does it with such skill that you never see it! And watching that film with the knowledge of the twist turns it into a completely different movie. Though I wasn’t doing anything like that in my script, I did want to have some cool stuff with the riddles, so that you might want to see it a second time to see if the riddle prophecies were there and came true. But when I re-read that clever riddle prophecy for the henchman’s death - I was stumped. What the hell was I thinking?

The larger problem is - I didn’t write it down. At the time, the answer to the riddle seemed completely obvious to me - something I could never forget that was so simple to figure out I didn’t need to include it in my notebook for the script. This makes that one even more frustrating, because at one point in time while writing the script this was obvious to me - and now it’s the ravings of a madman. What was I thinking?

THE PLAN...

So, my plan on Sunday was to get on my bike and ride until I figured out the solution to problem #1 - which was required if I was going to do any writing that day. I might have to ride past a dozen Starbucks and Coffee Beans and Mom & Pop Coffee Shops before I figured it out. That was okay. I did end up taking a fairly long bike ride... and I also came up with one heck of a great ending bit. It strengthens the *villain’s* character and manages to demonstrate the hero’s character arc being resolved. I’m happy with it. It did require a better piece of dialogue in an earlier scene - and that made me happy. I went from having an okay line to something similar to Agent Smith’s little speech about the *smell* inside the Matrix. I am very happy with this solution.

But no matter how many times I tried to figure out that simple riddle thing - I still have no idea what it has to do with killing my henchman. What was obvious a year ago is a complete mystery to me today.

Now, there are two possible solutions at this time - I could change something in the script so that it matches the riddle, or change the riddle so that it matches something else in the script. That’s probably what I am doing as you read this. But that’s a pisser, because whatever I had originally intended will not be in the screenplay.

THE LESSON...

Um, write everything down. Everything. Obvious things. Things you think you don’t need to write down. I have a spiral notebook for this screenplay and I’m almost at fade out and about a quarter of the pages are blank. It’s not like I was going to run out of room in the notebook, and I have a bunch of empty notebooks on the shelf if I *did* fill this one. It’s better to have that stuff written down and not need it than not written down anywhere and need it - like with this danged script. I posted this on Facebook Sunday night, and a few other people replied that they have been through the same thing on their scripts. I have been through this on previous scripts. So, when will we learn to write stuff down? We are *writers*, not *memorizers*. (Folks - that survived spellcheck!) I do not know why I think I will remember things - especially when they are those freakin’ amazing flashes of genius that are like God’s voice whispering some idea in your ear that is way over your head and you know this is something you can never think of again...

And I didn’t write it down.

What was I thinking?

- Bill

2017 UPDATE: 7 years later and I still can't remember what the solution to that riddle was. Pisser.

All Work And No Pay...

From 2012... the Mayan End Of The World year...

A while back the WGA sent out a survey on whether producers had asked for that extra (unpaid) rewrite or “sweepstakes development” or a producer asking for the writer to spec a script for the producer (often for a sequel or remake or adaptation - what would normally be a paid assignment) - which seems to indicate that these practices are on the rise.

Though I have always been against working for free on someone else’s script (why not work for free on *my* script?) I have written that free extra rewrite on occasion to fix some development mistake or keep them from going to some other writer who will just screw up my script. And my policy has always been that I’d rather write another 15 page treatment than have to do a major rewrite that throws 110 pages away to start from scratch. And part of this business is endless meetings where I pitch my take or pitch some stories - and am sometimes asked to have a one page leave behind in the event they like my pitch and want to “send it upstairs” to some network or studio or the guy I probably should have been meeting with in the first place.

But you know what? That business-as-usual free stuff can easily be abused.

Here’s the thing - I get miffed when some script *I was paid to write* doesn’t get made. That gets depressing after a while. You feel like you are doing a lot of work for nothing - and when you write a scene or character or bit or dialogue that you really love and are proud of... no one will ever see it. If a tree falls in the forest...?

SCHRODINGER’S SCREENPLAY

Last year looked like it was off to a great start: I had a bunch of potential deals circling, including some where deal points were being negotiated. I have a script that keeps almost selling and getting me meetings every once in a while at studios – and someone wanted to buy it! That someone was the co-producer of an Oscar winning film! Plus, I had one of the stars of a big theatrical action flick who was interested in a screenplay (well, the producer on the project was interested – the star seemed uninterested in anything). And the producer of a new film from the director of a big Bruce Willis film you have seen was also interested in a screenplay. Things were *happening*! Then, one by one, all of these deals fell apart. And so did *everything* that was going to happen last year.

My Big Theatrical Remake Project seemed to be officially declared dead (or at least dead to me) last year. That was a project where I did several extensive treatments (free) before we went to screenplay, and I really thought we had a great script. There were studios who were interested in the project... but somehow decisions were made not to go with any of them. There was a better deal over the horizon somewhere. One of the things that is “business as usual” in this town is the page one rewrite on an “old” screenplay that everyone loved just to make it “new” and “fresh” so that it can be resubmitted to the same people who loved the old version. This seems completely backwards to me, since you risk making changes that will turn off the people who loved the first version. But this is a common way of reviving a stalled screenplay - and films like SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE which began as a big budget Julia Roberts movie at Universal get a rewrite by another writer when it stalled out in order to become a modest budget Miramax film with Gwyneth Paltrow. When a project dies - no matter what the reason - they rewrite the script. On my project, the rewrite notes sounded like they were taking the script in the wrong direction and I bailed rather than have a really bad version of the script exist with my name on it. Yeah, the producer will just hire someone else - and have to pay them... but maybe that makes them think twice about those notes?

On TREACHEROUS I did a strange version of this a few times - a free rewrite every time we approached a new star. In the Mickey Rourke draft he was a boxer. In the Rutger Hauer draft he was a soccer player. Each time I personalized the script for the star the producer was going after... and all of the old versions were garbage. I suspect at this time, if my script on the Big Theatrical Remake Project isn’t completely dead by this point in time, *my* script is garbage and they actually have hired some other writer to “take it in a new direction”... which will be farther away from what made the original film great and farther away from the version a handful of places seemed eager to make... but much closer to never being made. So, does that screenplay exist in the box or not?

Another recent Genre Assignment that was supposed to shoot crashed and burned – which I had seen coming from a mile away. It was a weird situation from the start. I don’t really think the producer wanted to make it, it seemed like the *investors* wanted to make it. This is a problem in the indie world – a producer wants to make something that has little chance of making a profit so no one will give him or her money for that project... but some genre film that will make money is easy to get funding for. So the producer starts to make the genre film (hires a writer) but their heart isn't in it, and they don't push it hard enough. They lose interest... because they really want to make whatever their passion project is... one time it was a serious drama about astronomy. I think I may have been partially at fault in these cases – I always try to make the genre story into something better than the title and logline given to me and this often makes the producer think the genre script maybe could be changed into the more artistic project they wanted to make... and it just can't be that. For that astronomy producer I actually included astronomy as part of the genre story - which may have actually caused more problems than it solved. Instead of simply making the great version of some silly genre film, they want to make something the project can never be... and ended up making nothing. Another script that may or may not exist in the box. Dead or alive?

So last year had some assignments I got paid for that just stalled out, and some spec sales that just stalled out, and that’s frustrating. I’m in the business to *tell stories* and that means the scripts have to go all the way to screen. I know the odds of that happening even once money has changed hands are about 1 in 10... but I still *try* to target companies that actually make movies rather than develop projects that are either alive or dead - we have to open the box and look inside to be sure.

FIELD OF DREAMERS

Add to that a number of projects that were “If you write this, they will come!” and then nothing came. These are kind of the sneaky Write On Spec deals because it’s *my* script. I’m just writing my own script on spec... because someone says they will buy it. If they *don’t* buy it, I have just written a screenplay I was going to write anyway. Sounds good to me... and I’ve done this several times. Weird problem - I don’t think a single one of those deals came through. I still own every single script I’ve written on spec because someone is interested.

The ultimate version of this was a meeting I had ages ago on a sequel in a popular horror series. The first couple of films had been theatrical, but now they were being funded by the home video department of the studio. I pitched my sequel idea and the producer loved it, but... It would be much easier for *him* to pitch to the studio if there was a treatment - something fleshed out. Hey, I’ll write treatments for free - so I wrote up the treatment for him. He read it, gave me some notes, I rewrote the treatment... We worked on this for months - back and forth, fine tuning that treatment until it was amazing. And then he submitted it to the studio. The studio decided *not* to make another film in the series, and I was stuck with the treatment. Later I wondered if the producer *knew* they didn’t want to make another film in the series and my treatment might have been his way to get them to change their mind. Nice if I had known that ahead of time.

Years later, I had a producer looking for horror projects, and I pitched that same idea as a stand alone non-sequel (a couple of changes and a slightly different killer) and he loved it and wanted to read the treatment. So I did a rewrite on the treatment to remove the series elements (and improved the heck out of it) and let him read the new treatment - and he loved that, too. But... See, he couldn’t afford to develop the script, but he needed a completed script to get the funding (might have even been the same studio home video division as before) so - could I write the screenplay for my idea for free? Sure. Oh, and because of a financing window closing soon - could I have it finished in 3 weeks? Sure. So I worked my butt off and delivered a shootable first draft in 3 weeks that would knock the socks off the funding source...

And what I did not realize is that there was a bit of “sweepstakes” writing going on here, and he had several writers specing their ideas for him... and he submitted a half dozen scripts and let them pick and they picked someone else’s. Though I still own that screenplay and it almost gets made every once in a while - the producers who told me if I wrote it they would buy it? Did not buy it.

There’s a treatment somewhere on my website called THE GHOST which began with a producer who claimed he owned the rights to a comic book series, and he wanted me to write a treatment (free) to securing financing so that they could pay me to write the screenplay. This was a slam dunk deal, I was told. I wrote the treatment, did some free revisions... and somewhere in there the producer dropped the bomb that he did not actually own the comic book rights, and my treatment was to get his financiers to pony up the money for the comic book rights. Great! I do work so that someone else can get paid! Except (as usual) it didn’t work out - some other company had already bought the rights to the comic book. The lesson I learned here was - make sure the producer ACTUALLY owns the rights before you do any work. So that lesson was applied to both the NYT Best Seller I adapted (they owned the rights) and ANGELS & DEMONS (they owned the rights). But the comic book thing? I ended up making some major changes to my treatment so that it could be a stand-alone story that maybe I could sell to someone else. So far, no luck.

WIMPY’S BURGERS

Last year I had a similar situation - a treatment that everyone loved... but in this economy producers are not developing things like they used to. If there was a script, there was a sale. Now, you might think by now I would have learned this lesson - but since this was *my story* and the treatment was always popular, when they told me they would buy a completed script (but not pay me to write it) I wrote the script. If nothing else, situations like this get me off my lazy butt and cranking out pages. I think when I look at my emotional conflict that the “We’ll Gladly Pay You Tuesday For A Screenplay Today” physical conflict brings to the surface, it’s that I am a lazy person who is motivated by *hope* that some damned script will sell and get made into a film. Without the *hope* I get burned out and do less work...

And that is the big problem, here - the giant asteroid headed towards Earth.

If I begin to believe I’m writing for the trash can with no *hope* of having the script made, I lose my motivation for writing, and begin that downward spiral. I think we all feel this way. We hit that point where we wonder if writing screenplays is pointless. If we seem to always get the stick and never get the carrot, we lose our enthusiasm for writing. And it seems to be one damned stick after another. The tough part of this job is to self motivate - to keep plugging away even after you feel that it may end up a waste of time. Part of that is actually *enjoying* the writing process - and that’s usually what keeps me going. Though it may end up that not a single living person ever reads this screenplay, that line on page 27 is something I’m proud of, and the characters and story were fun to write. Though sometimes writing can be torture, I guess I’m a masochist.

But last year I wrote another screenplay because someone said they’d buy it... and nothing happened. Though they didn't buy it, I still own the script and have since had another producer interested in it as a much bigger film... but then not go forward because they were really looking for something in another genre but really liked my script. I'm sure that script will sell eventually, but it didn't sell last year... and it didn’t sell to the people who got me to write it. Is it alive in the box or dead... and why the hell did I spend my time (time is money) on that script instead of some other script? The problem with these Wimpy Deals is that they trade on hope - they *abuse* my hope.

Someday has to be Tuesday, right?

STRAWS AND CAMELS

But here’s the thing about all of these free spec things - even if it’s my treatment and I planned on writing it eventually, I did it *now* as a favor to the producer. Every free rewrite is a favor to the producer. Those free treatments that radically change the story every time - a favor to the producer. And just like any favor (helping you move, taking you to the airport) eventually there needs to be reciprocation. Now, here’s the thing - I owe lots of people favors and will eventually pay them off. I do lots of favors for people, and if they pay it forward or thank me, we’re even. I don’t tally favors I’ve done for people (but am aware of favors others have done for me - weird, huh?). But there comes this point where I realize I am doing all of the favors and getting nada. Not even a “Thank you”. The favors become *expected*. And that’s when I start to feel like maybe I’m owed something.

There is a company I've pitched to every year for probably a decade – but has yet to buy anything. What pisses me off the most about this company is that every year some script of mine gets me a meeting where they want me to pitch ideas for their current specific needs... and then they pick about 3 or 4 of those ideas and ask if I would type up a page or three on each because it will make it easier for them to pitch to the studio... so I do this, and then nothing happens. Sure, I’ll do free treatments and free synopsis... but these are *favors*.

This has been going on for *a decade* with these guys. I have typed *hundreds of pages* of treatments and synopsis. There were times when they were looking for projects in 3 different genres, so I would come in with a bunch of ideas in each genre, they would like 3 or 4 in each and I would type up a short treatment on each, and then nada. Zip.

All work and no pay, makes Bill an angry boy.

Last year I pitched one they really liked – which had franchise possibilities – and they wanted me to type up a treatment for free so that they could go to the studio... and I did that... and then nothing happened. That ended up being the last straw with those guys, because I had typed hundreds of pages for projects that never happened and I could have just as easily written a few screenplays. Oh, and these are always hurry up we need them tomorrow morning at 9am things.

I am never going to pitch to them or write them anything again.

Screw them.

The next time someone passes them one of my scripts and it gets great coverage and they go, “Hey, that’s Bill! We love Bill! Let’s get him in here!” and they call me, I’m going to tell them to go eff themselves. They will probably be confused by that response, but they have had ten years to find some project to actually pay me for - and haven’t done that yet. And they have had open assignments that they filled with other writers. Writers with agents or managers who closed the deal - or who had other clients they wanted to work with. The worst part of this is that some of these films have sucked big time.

But I wonder if the writers on those open assignments wrote the scripts on spec? That may be why they didn’t “throw me that bone” - they know I won’t spec a whole screenplay for them. Which means that “bone” does not exist. For all I know they end up with the bad scripts because they *still* don’t spend any development money even once they have gone to script. Maybe I am *lucky* they never hired me when they needed a screenplay written? But if that’s the case - it’s worse than I thought... everyone was doing work for free. Those deals may have been like the scripts of my own I speced for people that I’m still stuck with. Dead in the box or alive? DEAD.

THE BUCK STOPS WHERE?

The problem is money... and it seems like over the past few years things have gotten worse. There isn’t the development funding there used to be - so producers either need to find that *perfect* script that they can just shoot tomorrow, or find writers who will work for free. When the producer is looking for something specific, they would rather have it written on spec to their specs than spend the time searching for one that already exists. The producer can’t afford to pay for the treatments or rewrites or whatever - and so that *cost* is passed on to the writer. And it *is* a cost. Time is money. The time I spend writing a bunch of free treatments could easily be used to write some script that *I* want to write, and that I think will have a better chance of selling. The time I spend doing that free rewrite that screws up the script because the producer “isn’t quite sure what’s wrong with the story so let’s make them cowboys and see if that works?” is wasting **my** time on a draft that doesn’t have a chance in hell... But no matter how much I discuss the reasons for the odd changes with the producer - he can not articulate why he’s *sure* the cowboy draft will be the one that gets the financing or that he can take into the studio. But it’s just a waste of my time, and I know it.

Part of the job is pitching your take on projects - and that burns up a ton of time for the writer. You have to read the material (book, comic book, watch the original film, etc) and then formulate the new version of the story - and that really means write a beat-by-beat treatment or outline and figure out the characters and find a bunch of great scene ideas - just so you can go in and pitch... and you are one of a couple dozen writers who do this. All so that the producer can hear a bunch of different takes and decide on one. Hey, wasn’t there a time when a writing assignment was just *assigned* to some writer after reading their material? The producer finds the writer they believe fits the material and hires them. Now, instead of the *producer* making that decision it gets passed down to the writers - a bunch of us basically write different versions of the same movie and then the producer picks the one they like. So they hear 24 pitches and pick one and the other 23 writers go home empty handed after reading a 478 page book and figuring out how to turn it into a 110 page script.

It's "auditioning" for a job - an actor doesn't get paid to audition, do they?

That would make sense if I could do an audition or two every day to try to land a job... but these things take *weeks* to put together. And after a good actor that everyone loves who keeps getting call backs auditions over and over again, the casting director tends to go out of their way to find them a role on something. They get thrown a bone.

Look - if the producer is the one who can’t pay me, the producer needs to GET THEIR SHIT TOGETHER and figure out *exactly* what needs to be done in the free rewrite to trigger the money flowing to *me*. No experiments. No whims. No giving me notes without *thinking* first. No asking me to write some treatment that has ZERO chance, or is the producer trying to get a door open using *my* work. The producer needs to be responsible. If you ask a writer to do a treatment or synopsis or - heaven forbid - a screenplay for FREE, you’d better be damned sure that it has a 80% chance of turning into money so that you can pay the writer. Asking writers to do a bunch of work you’re going to just throw against a wall to see what sticks is having the writer finance your incompetence.

For me the biggest issue is - no Thank You. No acknowledgment that I have done this production company that loves my work a bunch of major favors for the past decade. I have done a pile of unpaid labor for them, but they have done nothing for me. And I am not the only one. I’m sure there are other writers who have written a stack of free treatments and pitched takes on projects where they had to read some 478 page novel for them and never even got a thank you for it. The reason anyone does free work is to eventually get paid, and if that eventually never happens - well, you feel used and screwed over. I know I do.

Now, this is coming from a guy who is constantly saying that’s just the way the business works. No one in Hollywood has time to be polite. I’m not some new guy who gets miffed when some script that has traveled all the way up stream to the top gets a pass and no one tells me. No one owes me a rejection note or phone call. I’ve been doing this for 22 years, now - I know how the business works. But the unacknowledged favors seems to be getting worse.

That is the real problem. The WGA survey shows that this is not an isolated thing. *Many* producers seem to be asking for favors without reciprocating. As writers, we think “Hey, this might be the way in!” and it’s only writing a few pages, right? But that survey means writers have been complaining. They have reached the point where they are getting angry about the free work without even being thrown a bone. No eventual pay for all of the work - and that leads to complaints to the union... or at least whispers loud enough that the union is sure to overhear. Other writers may have already given that “Go eff yourself” response - or be one free treatment or one pitch or take away from it.

The solution is actually simple - when a producer asks a favor of a writer, and the writer delivers... the producer needs to realize that they now *owe* that writer a favor.

Or at least a Thank You.

When the producer is deep in “favor debt” to a writer? Time to pay them with real money. Hey, I know that your budgets have been cut and things are worse now than they were a few years ago... but they are worse for *all of us*. There seems to have been more abuse in the past few years than ever before... and it's time for that to stop.

Know when it’s time to throw the writer a bone... and if you owe too many writers too many bones? That’s a serious problem - what are you going to do about it?

What the hell did Harlan Ellison say?

- Bill (probably burning a bridge or two)

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Self Imposed

From 2011...

If you wander into the Studio City branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system, as I do every once in a while when I need to do research that can’t be found online, you will find a couple of rows of computers you can sign up to use in the back... and probably at least one homeless guy (with a duffle bag containing all of his belongings) surfing porn while the librarians discuss how to get him the hell out of there. In the old days, before computers, there were rows of typewriters in some libraries that you could rent for 25 cents and hour... and just like those rental computers in Kinkos, they were often being used by students who didn’t own a typewriter but still had to turn in typewritten papers in order to get a grade. Years ago Ray Bradbury, who did own a typewriter, bought a couple of rolls of quarters and went to his local public library to write a novel. The reason for going to the library is that a limited number of quarters equals a limited number of hours and the minute you sit down to that keyboard the clock is ticking. You need to get pages written! By the way, that novel was FAHRENHEIT 451.

Writers do all kinds of tricks to get themselves focused on writing. As I write this, the greatest living writer of private eye fiction, Lawrence Block, is *somewhere* writing a new novel. He’s not telling where. He’s been posting on FaceBook, but makes sure any clues to his location are impossible to figure out (a photo through his hotel room window has a view you could find in a million places). This is a common thing for novelists - they go to writers retreats or some strange city’s hotel room without their normal life’s distractions and lock themselves away in order to get a book done. Raymond Chandler was once famously locked in a room with a week’s supply of booze and a typewriter so that he could finish a project. Whatever works to get the pages done.

I usually look at time away from home as a way to get things done. Over the holidays I wrote a new script, and that wasn’t the first time I’ve done that. I”ve written several scripts over the holidays, using the time I spend out of town as a self imposed deadline. I wrote JUST BEFORE DAWN in 2 weeks over the holidays... and thought I had a deal for it when I returned... but the deal fell apart.

This time over the holidays (Thanksgiving to New Years - extended vacation) I planned on writing the new script *and* working on the book rewrite... but only managed to get the new script finished. Part of the reason for not getting things done was hanging out with friends, and that’s an acceptable excuse. The other part was a deal that seemed to be about to close any minute, my lawyer doing a great job of keeping things going in my absence. But the strange distraction of having to hop a plane at any minute for a meeting, and the strange way the deal was evolving from spec sale to some other sort of strange thing that didn’t make any sense, kept distracting me from writing. I was that dog in UP and the deal was the squirrel. The deal kept falling apart and then coming back together again and again, and it became a crazy soap opera where I had to know what happens next... and that took time and focus away from the work I was supposed to be doing. That deal eventually fell apart. It involved an actor whose name you know.

But over the holidays, while the deal looked like it was going to happen, airfares went on sale and I bought a round trip ticket to an undisclosed location. I thought I’d probably be doing rewrites on the deal in January and I had this other script I needed to get written, and would probably need some time off in late February. Plus - the airplane tickets were a deal! But when that spec sale fell apart, I got bummed out and thought maybe that week of vacation might be the consolation prize.

Except, like a squirrel, another spec deal popped up with its own set of strange elements and my hard working lawyer was busy again hammering out contract points. Once again, this was a distraction that kept getting in the way of my writing the new script, and at one point I went a little crazy about one of the deal points and probably spent a whole week doing nothing but bouncing off the walls. But this deal also crashed and burned at the last minute a day before I left for vacation. So, I was behind on the new script, and had not finished the rewrite of the Action Book, and had not done a pile of other things on the To Do List (new Script Tips? Um, never got around to writing any).

So, I decided to take this vacation week and write. I wouldn’t lock myself in my hotel room, but I’d be in a strange city without any of the usual distractions with a limited amount of time. I would not be able to finish the Action Book rewrite, but I could get a huge chunk of it done and finish the rest at my leisure. I decided to tackle the chapters that needed the most work, get them out of the way. I was looking forward to crossing off chapter after chapter and finishing the week with all of the heavy lifting done on the book rewrite. I would come home with things crossed off the To Do List!

Except, that hasn’t really happened. It was a great plan, but I managed to impose all kinds of problems on myself that sabotaged my self imposed deadlines. The first thing that happened wasn’t really my fault - I twisted my leg and my trick knee decided to become tricky again... as I was leaving the plane. So, I start off in pain. On top of that, I hadn’t been sleeping well, and that carried over on vacation for a while - then I ping-ponged between not enough sleep and over sleeping. But the biggest hurdle I imposed on myself was a frustration/depression/anger over having two deals crash and burn. That nagged at me - was there some reason? Was it because the scripts sucked? Was it because I’ve lost it? Was it because I’m out of touch?

Standard “Writer’s Paranoia” - when there often doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the business, you start to wonder if maybe your whole career is a mistake... and someone finally caught on. Or maybe there was an expiration date no one told me about, some sort of LOGAN’S RUN for my screenwriting career? These worries are silly, but like those squirrels they can keep you from focusing on what’s important.

Add to that the idea of starting with the most difficult stuff - which isn’t exactly a confidence or momentum builder. I *struggled* with the most difficult chapter to rewrite for freakin’ **days**! The plan was to knock off a chapter a day, and when that didn’t happen I became even more frustrated/depressed/angry. Crap! What if I never* get the book revised? What if it takes me months when I’m working on it full time? This made me want to avoid work, rather than continue... and I was on vacation, wasn’t I?

But here’s where I really screwed up - when I was playing hooky, I just felt guilty over not working... and didn’t enjoy myself much. Man, I just ruined a whole week! I didn’t get much done and I didn’t have much fun.

I have not gone to the movies. I brought 4 new DVDs with me, and have not watched any of them. I brought a book with me, and haven’t opened it. I have walked past a museum almost every day I have been here, and have not gone inside. Whenever I have done anything touristy, I have felt guilty about not writing.

So, now I have the most difficult chapter rewritten, but lots more to do. And I have to get back to work on the new script, because I really should have spent the week working on that - people are waiting. That means - I’m going to have to self impose a deadline to get that new script *finished* and just forget about the squirrels and forget about those self doubts and f/d/a about having a couple of deals crash and burn late in the game.

This is being written on the last full day of my vacation, and I think I’m just going to just say screw it and take the rest of the day off. Then, when I get back to Los Angeles, write like a son of a bitch to get this script finished. Maybe I’ll take another self imposed vacation week to get a few more chapters of the book rewritten.

Meanwhile, my lawyer has been working his ass off while I freak out and it seems one of the dead projects may be alive at some other place. The director from the busted project seems to have carried my script to a company that wanted to hire him. Maybe I'm not a fraud afterall?

If you have trouble getting pages written, find some way to create a self imposed deadline... then actually write!

- Bill

PS: Folks, no cheering up needed! I'm fine. Part of this blog is sharing what I am feeling, especially if it's something I think you guys might also experience. I don't want to be some god-like Robert McKee that you are not allowed to make eye contact with and has no emotions. I'd rather be as honest as I can.

Mamet Memo

David Mamet sent this nice little memo to the writers of THE UNIT, which contains all of the basics of screenwriting in very few words...

Mamet's Memo

That's like a whole screenwriting course in a page.

- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: COINCIDENCES - How many can I have in my script? Are bad coincidences okay?
Dinner: Movie Hot Dog...
Bicycle: Short ride.
Pages: Couple of pages.

WGA's Top 101 Scripts!

From 2009..

The WGA selected the top 101 scripts of all time a couple of years ago, and not one by *two* Pauley Shore films, plus Carrot Top's movie made the cut!

Here are the top 25, with a link to the WGA page with the rest...

1. CASABLANCA
Screenplay by Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. Based on the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison

2. THE GODFATHER
Screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo

3. CHINATOWN
Written by Robert Towne

4. CITIZEN KANE
Written by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles

5. ALL ABOUT EVE
Screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Based on "The Wisdom of Eve," a short story and radio play by Mary Orr

6. ANNIE HALL
Written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman

7. SUNSET BLVD.
Written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman, Jr.

8. NETWORK
Written by Paddy Chayefsky

9. SOME LIKE IT HOT
Screenplay by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond. Based on "Fanfare of Love," a German film written by Robert Thoeren and M. Logan

10. THE GODFATHER II
Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo. Based on Mario Puzo's novel "The Godfather"

11. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
Written by William Goldman

12. DR. STRANGELOVE
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Peter George and Terry Southern. Based on novel "Red Alert" by Peter George

13. THE GRADUATE
Screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry. Based on the novel by Charles Webb

14. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
Screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. Based on the life and writings of Col. T.E. Lawrence

15. THE APARTMENT
Written by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond

16. PULP FICTION
Written by Quentin Tarantino. Stories by Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary

17. TOOTSIE
Screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal. Story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart

18. ON THE WATERFRONT
Screen Story and Screenplay by Budd Schulberg. Based on "Crime on the Waterfront" articles by Malcolm Johnson

19. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Screenplay by Horton Foote. Based on the novel by Harper Lee

20. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Screenplay by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett & Frank Capra. Based on short story "The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern. Contributions to screenplay Michael Wilson and Jo Swerling

21. NORTH BY NORTHWEST
Written by Ernest Lehman

22. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
Screenplay by Frank Darabont. Based on the short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King

23. GONE WITH THE WIND
Screenplay by Sidney Howard. Based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell

24. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman. Story by Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth

25. THE WIZARD OF OZ
Screenplay by Noel Langley and Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf Adaptation by Noel Langley. Based on the novel by L. Frank Baum

The next 76 in the big parade!

- Bill

Free Book! (FINAL DAY!)

Last week I gave away my short story PRIME RATE and this week I've been giving away another free short story, FOLLOWED HOME, that was *supposed* to be only 4 pages but ended up 22 pages. That's fine, because what increased was the suspense. This is not a Mitch Robertson story, but a stand alone. I plan to write a few of these, just fooling around with story ideas I've had that aren't right for screenplays. Next up should be SHOTGUN EFFECT with badass detective Shelly Steele... when I find time to write it between Blue Books!

This story has beeen FREE for five days (June 12 through June 16 - TODAY!), and I'd like to ask you a favor: Tell all of your friends about it, so that they can get it free, too! If you want to read it first, that's fine (it's only 23 pages, a quick read).

There are a couple of reasons for giving a way a story:

1) This was written for fun, and you guys are all my friends. If I could figure out a way to make it *always* free at Amazon, I would do that. But they limit the give aways to five days. After that, the lowest price I can charge is 99 cents. I only make about a quarter of that, so it's obviously not about the money!

2) If I give away a lot of books, it climbs the Amazon sales chart and becomes visible to people who have never heard of me. Then, *they* get the book for free... and the book continues climbing. When the free deal is over, some stranger may actually pay 99 cents for it, and I'll be able to afford a pizza. And maybe someone will discover the Hitchcock Book or the Blue Books in the process. Every short story I write will be free for the five days Amazon allows, so that you don't have to pay. It's good publicity and a thank you to everyone who paid for one of the Blue Books or Secrets Of Action.

One more favor...

Could you go to Amazon and GoodReads and write reviews? I'd love it if each of the books I have out managed to get an additional 10 reviews each on Amazon. That helps people who have no idea who I am decide to buy (or not) the books. An interesting thing I've noticed with the Blue Books is the number of reviews from *novelists*... those folks don't know me and are discovering the books by word of mouth. I'd love to have more reviews!

Thank you!

Bowden knew the best place to find a victim is somewhere they feel safe. And the best place to find a rich victim is someplace where rich people feel safe. He’d learned the hard way about country clubs; those rich people are all armed with golf clubs and tennis rackets and shit and beat the hell out of you before calling the cops. End up punch ugly and busted up at your arraignment... and the jury applauds every damned yuppy who beat on you when they testify at trial. No more country clubs for Bowden. But a nice, upscale supermarket like Archstone with a parking lot filled with Beemers and Mercies and massive Cadillac SUVs? No shortage of rich people who feel safe. Now all Bowden had to do was pick one.

Diane Taylor put the final bag of groceries into the Range Rover, pushing it back to give herself room for the huge 40 pound bag of dog food on the bottom of the cart. That’s when the strange man came from the shadows between cars and smiled at her, “Hey, pretty lady, let me help you with that.”

FREE BOOK: USA!



FREE BOOK: UK!

FREE BOOK: GERMANY!

FREE BOOK: FRANCE!

FREE BOOK: CANADA!

FREE BOOK: INDIA!

Bill

The Story Behind THE TERMINATOR's Story!

What's up with that acknowledgment to the works of Harlan Ellison credit at the end of THE TERMINATOR?

Let's find out in this excerpt from my book THE TERMINATOR MOVIES!

THE TERMINATOR (1984)

It began with a fever dream about a robot skeleton rising from the flames. James Cameron was sick as a dog, editing his first feature: PIRANHA 2: THE SPAWNING, and had this nightmare which became an idea for his next film... if he ever had a next film. He was fired from PIRANHA 2 twice, locked out of the editing room, and thought his career might be over before it ever really began. But his next film, THE TERMINATOR, would insure that he would still be making movies to this day... and probably allow him to escalate his budgets on those latter films to record breaking amounts.

James Cameron was from the “Roger Corman school” and had worked on a bunch of low budget films doing set design and special effects work. The great thing about working for Roger Corman is that you learn how to make a movie for next to nothing that looks enough like a big film that people will buy tickets. Cameron worked on the special effects crew for BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, Corman’s science fiction retelling of THE SEVEN SAMURAI with a screenplay by John Sayles (LONE STAR, EIGHT MEN OUT) and a great cast... unfortunately, one of the worst directed movies ever to come out of the Corman factory. But the space ship miniatures in that film are amazing - and I think some of those were the work of Cameron. Those space ships ended up being recycled into a movie that *I* wrote for Roger Corman! By the time Cameron came to direct TERMINATOR film, he already knew how to get the most bang from your buck, and did storyboards and production sketches and even paintings that were used to entice stars. The great thing about low budget filmmaking is that it forces you to use imagination instead of money to solve problems. And this film is *full* of imagination.

The concept is brilliant. Basically a riff on a serial killer movie like HALLOWEEN (1978) about a relentless killer of women and the “Final Girl” who has to fight to survive, Cameron gave it a high concept twist by having the killer be an android from the future sent back in time to kill the mother of his enemy. That android is an infiltration unit, so it looks just like a human. The great part about that is that it is just an actor (great for low budget) who is playing a machine. While other low budget movies just found different ways to kill the teenagers in their HALLOWEEN knock offs, Cameron’s high concept twist takes this out of the horror genre and into uncharted territory. His imagination made this film something we hadn’t seen before. Those other producers could have made the same film... if they’d had the imagination.

Though Lance Henrickson was originally supposed to play the Terminator, and then O. J. Simpson was up for the role, they ended up casting Arnold Schwarzenegger... who took special care to move like a machine (I could easily make a joke about that, but the way he moves his head in this film is *not* the way a human would - real acting was involved.) But Cameron didn’t stop at HALLOWEEN with an android, he kept adding more twists and turns to the idea - including an “I’m my own grandpa” romantic subplot... and a soldier from the future sent back in time to protect that “Final Girl”.

Which brings up Harlan Ellison and his end credit on the film for “acknowledgment to the works of” What the heck does that mean? Well, his short story “Soldier From Tomorrow” which was made into the OUTER LIMITS episode SOLDIER which was the first episode of the second season on that show. That story is about a pair of soldiers on opposite sides of a war in the future who are zapped back to Los Angeles in our time. One of the soldiers is captured by the police who have trouble believing his story, but linguist Tom Kagan who has been brought in to translate his futuristic version of the English language befriends the soldier. The soldier has only known war, never known family. So Kagan takes him home to live with Kagan’s family. But that enemy soldier has also been zapped back in time, attacks the Kagan home... and our soldier gives his life so that the Kagan family will be safe, killing the enemy soldier.

Ellison has another short story made into an OUTER LIMITS episode DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND about a man named Trent who is zapped back from a future at war into an office building in our time that is closed for the night... the only person inside is a pretty woman names Consuelo. Enemy soldiers have been zapped back in time to capture him, and there is a deadly game of hide and go seek as they chase Trent and Consuelo through the dark building. Trent’s mission - to save the human race. Of course he falls in love with Consuelo and...

After the success of THE TERMINATOR, Ellison sued - believing the film was based on his material. Though I think all three stories contain the same germ of an idea, all three are completely different... unlike, say, Ellison’s SHATTERDAY and the ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS episode THE CASE OF MR. PELHAM which are pretty similar. But they settled out of court with Ellison and he gets a closing credit on THE TERMINATOR. Which explains that strange credit.

The idea of a military defense computer system being given control of our nuclear weapons... and then deciding that humans were the real problem, can be found in movies like COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (1970)... and a bunch of material written during the Cold War when we were afraid that *someone* might push that button an unleash the nukes, beginning World War 3 and ending the world as we know it. So all of these ideas were floating around out there, but what Cameron did is find his own way to tell the story and make a low budget movie that really delivers. A movie that has spawned four sequels and counting!

247 pages!

*** THE TERMINATOR MOVIES *** - For Kindle!

He's back! The release of "Terminator: Genisys" (now on BluRay) is set to begin a new trilogy in the Terminator story... 31 years after the first film was released. What draws us to these films about a cybernetic organism from the future sent back in time? Why is there a new proposed trilogy every few years? This book looks at all five Terminator movies from a story standpoint - what makes them work (or not)? What are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? How about those secret story details you may not have noticed? Containing a detailed analysis of each of the five films so far, this book delves into the way these stories work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.

USA Folks Click Here!

UK Folks Click Here!

French Folks Click Here!

German Folks Click Here!

Espania Folks Click Here!

Canadian Folks Click Here!



(Others go to your country's Amazon pages!)

Only $3.99 - and no postage!


- Bill