"If this script is flawed, how did it end up on the Black List?"

Avishai asks:


Every once in a while, a script finishes high on the Black List and gets turned into a movie. And sometimes, that movie is panned by critics. Often, the movie is criticized for its script more than for anything else. A current example of such a movie would be Killing Season, originally titled Shrapnel, a screenplay that finished on the 2008 Black List. 

Recently, I was given a screenplay to cover as a test of my scriptreading abilities. I got the screenplay without the title page. I read it, disliked it, and made sure the coverage reflected my feelings about the story's shortcomings. After I sent in my coverage, with some internet sleuthing, I managed to discover that this particular script made the 2011 Black List and is currently in production. With more sleuthing, I found out that the script divides its readers. Some love it, some hate it. The one thing they can agree on is that the screenplay is slow and could use a rewrite or two. 

So I guess my question is twofold. One, why do imperfect (for lack of a better term; no screenplay I've ever read is perfect) screenplays finish high on the Black List? And two, do you think people are more forgiving of a mediocre script that made the list than of an equally mediocre script with no credentials? 

As to the first,  you have to understand that most of the scripts out there range from terrible to mediocre.  It's not just that a lot of scripts are bad, it's that they're blandly bad.  In that sea, a script that makes bold choices will stand out more.  Sometimes this means that the script will make choices that are polarizing.  There will be people who dislike it for being bold, perhaps in matters of sex or violence, but there will be just as many people who remember the script for having the guts to go places few scripts go - and do it well.

A good example might be LOOPER.  I thought it was a good movie, but it wouldn't have been on my Top 10 last year.  However, I know plenty of writers who named it their #1 favorite movie of last year and many of them pointed to one scene that really elevated it.

The premise is that Bruce Willis has been sent back in time and that after he escapes his past self, he sets off on a mission to kill someone who will grow up to murder Willis' wife in the future.  Of course, in this timeframe, that person would be a child and Willis unfortunately can only narrow his search down to three possible children.

So this means he not only has to kill a kid - he possibly will have to kill THREE kids to be sure he kills the right future bad guy.  That's dark stuff and most movies probably would have found a way to avoid showing their hero execute an innocent child.  And no, we don't see Willis execute a kid on screen, but the murder definitely happens.  There's no cop-out at all, no whitewash.

That's the kind of bold storytelling choice you'll find in a lot of Black List scripts - but not done in an exploitative way.  Bad scripts are brutal just for the sake of being so.  Good scripts make that kind of dark choice and give it weight.  Everything builds up to that moment and when it happens, it's awful, but it's also earned.  It's rare to see that in a script with brutal violence.

Some Black List scripts get on the list because of memorable risks like that.  Others get on there because of strong voice, heartfelt storytelling or really compelling characters.  I don't think you can point to any one factor.  What they have in common is that they stayed with those readers long after they were done with the script.

As one who reads a lot of scripts, I can tell you that 90% of them will fade from memory before too long.  When a script comes along with a truly unique hook and it's got strong writing behind it, it might not need to be flawless to earn a reader's admiration.  If the peaks are so high that they render the deficiencies moot, that could explain how it ended up on the Black List.

As to the second question, I'm sure that it can't hurt a script when a reader knows that it was on the Black List.  But I suppose there are times when it can backfire too.  I certainly have read a couple Black List scripts that I was less than impressed by. When those scripts aren't life-changingly awesome, perhaps my disappointment is more profound than with non-Black List scripts.

As an aside, I read Shrapnel long before I knew it was on the Black List and I really liked it a lot.  It's tense, well-structured and is a really engaging read.  I've seen the trailer and... I'm not expecting the same experience from the film.  But that has to do with a lot of factors outside of the script.

The bottom line is that there are a wide variety of scripts on the Black List, and the perceived flaws of each script are so different that it's mostly academic to debate if the Black List credentials cause people to be more lenient with it than if it was submitted without that.  Here's how I look at it - there had to be some concensus to get the script on the Black List in the first place.  Thus, plenty of people liked it absent that credential in the first place.

Bummer about Killing Season, though.  I really liked it back when it was just a script.

Film School Rejects post: "The Biggest Challenges Facing a Wonder Woman movie."

I've got another post up at Film School Rejects, this time I examine the difficulties that Warner Bros. will face as they attempt to adapt one of their comic book properties, in an article called "The Biggest Challenges Facing a Wonder Woman Movie."

If you have a moment, check it out and then read the comments.  I take no small amount of pride in the fact that my previous two articles, "Why the World Needs Superman Returns" and "If the Internet had existed when Wrath of Khan hit theatres" both got a lot of comments.  In fact, in the case of the Superman article, I'm fairly certain some people were so eager to comment that they added their thoughts before even reading the article.

So if you have some time, check out the article here.

"If a coverage service likes my script, how can I capitalize on that?"

John emailed: 

I received feedback from a screenplay reader service that rated my script a "Consider" and gave me a great review along with some good notes. I emailed them, thanking them for the coverage and asked whether or not I could name drop them and their review in my query emails. My script is a coming-of-age drama that doesn't have high-concept hook and my thinking was any kind of positive review could only help. 

The response I got was as follows: "I wouldn't mention the Consider, nor would I mention a Recommend. Our opinion means nothing to agents and producers." 

My question: if my script gets positive feedback from a (reliable) script reader with the industry credits it claims to have, can I use it to solicit my script? Otherwise, what's the point?

What is the point indeed? You just hit on the reason why so many people advise against paying someone for coverage.  In most cases a positive review will mean very little as far as opening the doors.   At least with most coverage services, I'd never spend the money on the hope that a positive review will somehow get you read somewhere.  Most of the time, I'd suggest using those services only as a barometer of how good your work is relative to all the other amateurs out there.

Your reader is right in that their opinion probably won't open many doors.  There aren't many coverage services that have a strong enough reputation to make a real pro interested in something that service liked.  The Black List is one of the few that does.  If you get an 8 or higher on the Black List, I bet you'll get some read requests when you mention that fact in a query.

Since that was a quick one, let's get in one more question.  This one comes from Annette:


I hope you would be willing to answer a quick question about written dialog. I have a redneck character who speaks like this: "Yer gonna hafta read somethin' here" 

Do you have an opinion on writing like that or would it be better to write in the action, a character who talks like a redneck and let the actor mold his voice? 

Either alternative is acceptable.  I think the trick to writing dialect is not overdoing it.  Sometimes it helps the read to have the dialogue written that way.  However, you can't go too far overboard in writing out the speech phonetically.  I read one script with a Scottish brogue and the writer seemed determined to give every syllable a thick accent.  The result was I had to read each line of dialogue carefully, often sounding it out before I could make sense of what was said.

That's a case of the accent working against the script.  It forced too much effort on my part and kept breaking the flow of the story.  The result was not a very good read.  The plot was rather weak too, but it certainly wasn't helped by the presentation.

So go with whatever flows best.  As you point out, the actor can always add the accent later themselves.

Asking another writer to collaborate

I got this email about a week or so ago:

Let me start by saying that I do not consider myself even a remotely professional writer. I pulled together some funny stuff that has happened in my life & put it into a "script". I am a great story teller not so much a writer. I have faith that people will find hilarity in my story I just need help getting it to them. I'm thinking maybe a collaboration??? I will be more than happy to send a sample for you to see if it's something you'd be willing to read. Please let me know your fee & hopefully we can work something out. 

The person who sent it may have been well meaning, but this is the kind of email that writers hate getting. But don't take my word for it - hear what screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe had to say about this on this edition of a Broken Projector podcast (the relevant material starts at 20:45):

I've probably covered this on the blog before, but there is so much more to writing than just coming up with the idea. Hell, in most cases getting the idea is the easy part. The hard part is breaking it down, structuring it and putting in the time at the keyboard. Pro writers don't want to work on your idea - they have plenty of their own. Usually, when a writer wants to collaborate, it's going to be with someone they know and THEY will be the ones to initiate contact.

This particular email has the additional red flag of the author informing me that they aren't really a "writer" and then invites me to read what they have done. Well gee, when you make it sound so enticing...

I'm not interested in collaborating with writers who aren't as good as me, and I'd bet most writers would agree with me on that statement. In any partnership, there are bound to be areas of screenwriting where one writer's strengths are greater than the others, but I've never seen a successful collaboration where one writer was vastly ahead of the other writer in development.

An email like this really says that the author wants to ride the coattails of a better writer. I probably don't need to explain why so many writers find that concept offensive.

Meeting your idols at Comic-Con

I had an awesome weekend at San Diego Comic-Con, though that was probably evident from the fact that I couldn't get my act together and have a new post up yesterday.  SDCC can be an incredibly fun event, but also incredibly exhausting.  And yes, a lot of that is due to how crowded the show has gotten in recent years.  This was my tenth year attending the con, so I've seen a lot of changes just in that time.  To give you an idea of what kind of changes those are - during my first visit in 2004, one of my friends was able to buy his admission badge on site.  For Saturday.

This year, ALL passes for all days sold out in a matter of hours.  Panel audiences have gotten insanely crowded in the last couple of years, to the point where it is almost necessary to pick one panel you really want to see and line up for it at the start of the day, if not overnight.  (During my first year, I saw multiple panels in one day, including walking right into Ballroom 20 and Hall H without waiting in any lines.)

It's easy to complain about how the overcrowding and long lines dampen what used to be a great celebration of fandom.  It's hard to deny the effect that the Hollywood-ization has had on the con, to its detriment in a lot of ways.  But every now and then, you have an experience or four at the show that reminds you why you love this place to begin with.  After all, this is a place where I have run into Joss Whedon by chance - twice!

I've been pretty open in the past about my former hobby of collecting Superman comics.  It's a hobby that started in 1986 and only recently walked away from it a year ago, as detailed in this two part post.  If you read those, you might remember I spoke with great admiration for an era of Superman comics from the late 80s to the mid-90s, the Stern/Ordway/Jurgens era, as some call it.  That era was my "Golden Age of comics" and this past weekend, I got to meet four creators responsible for large parts of that era.

The first of these was a signing featuring writer Louise Simonson and artist Jon Bogdanove.  In the 90s, they were the creative team on SUPERMAN: MAN OF STEEL and created the character of Steel, who was far more interesting than his feature film made him out to be. There are a couple nice things about these sorts of signings.  First, since there are fewer people in line, there's less of a wait and you're less likely to be rushed along.  This also means that you can have a more meaningful chat while your books are being signed.

I always try to think of something interesting to say to these people.  This is partially because I used to be tongue-tied in situations like this, and partially because I've witnessed WAY too many awkward con encounters.  (Don't be shocked, but a fraction of comic book fans have issues with social awkwardness.)  Oh, who am I kidding? I was a tongue-tied fool during my first meeting with Joss Whedon during my inaugural visit to SDCC and I wasn't much better during my second chance meeting four years later.  Fortunately, making conversation with people whom you are a fan of is one skill I've honed from a lot of industry wrap parties and holiday gatherings.

I had a brief chat with Louise about some of her writing in the acclaimed "Funeral for a Friend" storyline and then it was my turn with the man affectionately known as "Bog."  I decided to ask him about how much effort it took to do the art for MAN OF STEEL 37, an issue that saw a time anomaly bring Superman into contact with Batmans of multiple timelines.  To underscore the effect, each alternate Batman was drawn as an homage to a specific era of Batman comics, with Bogdanove doing spot-on imitations of other artists' styles.

Bog's face lit up as I mentioned the issue, and he went on to tell me he immersed himself in research.  He studied all of his predecessors' and really got inside their process.  If I understood him correctly, he'd sometimes get only one of those Batmans drawn on the cover in a day, taking his time to get it right.  The most interesting thing was he said he learned a lot by trying to get inside the technique and style of those other artists and that it taught him a lot about his own craft.  He said it improved his technique to gain that insight and that it might have been one of the most important things he did for his craft.  It struck me that his experience could also be analogous to writing.

Speaking of writing, one of my favorite encounters of the weekend came at another signing, when I met legendary writer/artist Jerry Ordway.  Jerry's first issue of Superman (Adventures of Superman 424) was also one of my first comics, and eventually Jerry graduated from pencilling to writing and drawing as well. He was a part of the Superman family from 1987 to 1993, so he played a significant role in shaping that incarnation.

Jerry also happens to follow me on Twitter, so I introduced myself via my handle. Though I'm not sure he saw my review of MAN OF STEEL, he definitely remembered a tweet I made about how comic writer Mark Waid has a right to his negative opinion of MAN OF STEEL, just as I have a right to dislike Waid's own Superman origin series BIRTHRIGHT.  This led us to discuss how we both enjoyed the Zack Snyder/Henry Cavill film, and how we were perplexed at how little credit some people were giving it.

Jerry's said on Twitter that he enjoyed the film, so I don't feel like I'm betraying any confidence by repeating that here.  He went on to mention talking with another comics creator who really disliked the film, and that led us to a 5-minute chat about everything we liked about the movie and what we loved about Superman in general.  It was just like any chat you might have at the comic store, except at one point it hit me that "Holy shit, I'm geeking out about Superman with a guy who had a lot to do with SHAPING my concept of Superman!"  It was surreal, but very cool.

Jerry was also very gracious in signing several of my books, by the way.  When I asked for a picture with him, he also insisted on getting one on HIS camera, saying he likes to get pictures with the fans.  This was a stark contrast to several years ago when I lined up for a certain Star Trek actor's signature and the good captain couldn't be bothered to look anyone in the eye.  His eyes were downcast at what he was signing the entire time.

I had an equally great encounter with Dan Jurgens, a Superman writer/artist best known as the man who drew the landmark Superman 75, which was the issue where Superman died.  Jurgens first issue was actually Superman 29 in 1989, one issue after I convinced my parents to get me each new issue rather than purchasing it sporadically.  He was a regular artist on the books until 1995 and a writer until 1999.  He briefly returned to the book as the regular artist for six issues soon after the reboot of the series in late 2011.  Jurgens was pretty much the definitive Superman artist of the 90s. When I picture Superman, most of the time it's Jurgens art that I see.

I was one of several people who arrived early to line up for Dan's signing after attending a spotlight panel focusing on his work..  When he arrived at the table, he looked a bit perplexed, perhaps thinking that surely all of these people couldn't just be there waiting for him.  But we were and when my time came to get my books signed, I mentioned how long I'd been following him.  I couldn't help but mention that my comic collection actually ended with his last issue, to which he said, "I'm sorry to hear that."

I told him that I felt that the incarnation that was being published now was no longer "my" Superman.  Back when Dan and Jerry were doing great things with the character in the 90s, fans attached to the Silver Age era regularly complained that Superman had been ruined and that they missed the old version.  As someone who loved the then-current Superman, it always annoyed me that those fans couldn't let go of the past.  I told Dan, "I don't want to be the guys angrily raining on the fans' parade. If someone loves the current version, that's great, but I don't need to keep buying it just to make a point about how angry it makes me."

Dan reflected on that too, saying that though they got a lot of grief from the older fans, if those fans had their way, then it never would have led to great stories like the Death and Return of Superman.  That's a good point to to appreciate as writers - you can't be so scared of radical change that you close yourself off from exploring new ideas.  We chatted a few more minutes and I left with a feeling not unlike the one I had following the Ordway signing.

These guys were - in an odd way - an integral part of my childhood.  I waited every week for the release of the latest issues.  I knew Jurgens' artwork so well that I could detect the different nuances brought out by individual inkers.  Ordway artwork was equally unmistakable. I re-read those issues so often that I practically have each panel memorized, even more than two decades later.  So to meet them decades later and have substantive, if brief, conversations with them about that passion was oddly affecting.  (When I relayed the stories to my wife, she said, "That's like if Julie Andrews came over and had a conversation with me about Mary Poppins!"  What can I say? She gets it.)

I also had the opportunity to meet TV writer Jane Espenson and Brad "Cheeks" Bell, her co-creator on the webseries Husbands.  In a humbling moment, they both recognized my Twitter moniker and Cheeks said he was pretty sure he followed me and that he liked my stuff.  The highlight for me was that I got to thank Jane for a letter she wrote to me ten years ago.  I had written her a fan letter asking advice about breaking into TV writing and she graciously responded even as she was cleaning out her office on Buffy.

So yeah, it was a good con.

Bitch about the long lines, the terrible food, the incredibly rude volunteers and the convention-goers who never bathe all you want.  For two days this weekend, I got to reconnect with a major part of my childhood AND get it touch with some experiences that reminded me why I wanted to be a writer in the first place.  Some sore feet, over-priced parking and a little claustrophobia are a small price to pay for that, wouldn't you say?  Experiences like these will always keep me coming back to SDCC as long as I can.

This is not a contrarian review of PACIFIC RIM

I hate contrarian reviews.  They're a fact of life in the world of geek pop culture and there are no shortage of people going out of their way to attack something that's fairly widely loved.  (Conversely, there are those who declare widely disliked works to be unfairly evaluated gems.)  What I hate most about those reviews is that they sometimes turn from examining the film to insulting the audience.  ("You may have liked MAN OF STEEL, but that's only because you're not smart like me, who is somehow able to engage the film on a superior level that delivers an objective verdict that an intelligent person could not overlook the flaws in this film.")  Popular consensus can be "wrong" but you win no points by calling your audience idiots.

So let me say this at the outset - if you enjoyed PACIFIC RIM, I'm happy for you.  See it again in IMAX 3D, buy the blu-rays, read the ancillary tie-ins, go crazy.  There is a lot I found entertaining in the film myself, but I suspect that since I didn't come out of the theatre declaring that Guillermo del Toro had made love to my eyeballs, this is a review that will anger people.  Remember back when I complained that we're no longer allowed to have a middle-ground reaction to a film? That we have to love it or wish death on those involved?  Yeah, this is one of those middle-ground reviews.

The bulk of PACIFIC RIM takes place in 2020ish, about 8 years into a war between humanity and giant Godzilla-like monsters called kaijus.  The invaders are emerging through a dimensional rift at the joining of two techtonic plates in the Pacific Ocean.  The world has come together to fight these monsters, who emerge with increasing regularity.  For a long time, the only effective weapon against them has been Jaegers, giant robots controlled by two humans. The drivers are connected by a neural link called The Drift, which demands that the two minds be as compatible as possible.  A side effect is that the linking of their minds also links their memories and it's possible for a person to be lost in the memories of either themselves or the other person.

Most of this is exposited in an opening montage sequence with voiceover explanations.  Charlie Hunnam's Raleigh Becket explains what it was like to live through the first few attacks and brings us up to speed. We learn how the Jaegers work and that the Jaegers and kaijus eventually became a part of pop culture, with the Jaeger pilots being as celebrated as rock stars.  It's a lot of world-building that's just tossed at us in a fairly packed sequence.  I have to admit that if I was reading this in script form, the info-dump would probably set my teeth on edge.

And yet, in a world where every major tentpole now seems to spend so much time on world building that it's hard to find one that runs less than two and a half hours, I kinda admired the brevity.  The story that del Toro and screenwriter Travis Beacham wanted to tell was clearly one about the end of the war, not the beginning.  It would be unfair to knock it for that choice, but MAN would I be really interested in a prequel that showed the world reacting to these things for the first time.

The best parts of PACIFIC RIM are when the action is bombastic and the actors find the right tone that mesches with that excess.  Ron Perlman's performance as the scene-stealing Hannibal Chou is pretty much the platonic ideal that every actor should be reaching for.  Unfortunately, no one is as consistent or as enjoyable to watch as Perlman.  I'll admit that I liked Charlie Day and Burn Gorman's scenes quite a lot, but they weren't devoid of hamminess.  Idris Elba was dependable, but didn't leave much of an impression.

Hunnam doesn't quite carry the movie.  Whatever you felt about MAN OF STEEL, almost everyone walked out of there declaring Henry Cavill a star.  Hunnam gives a mostly bland performance and we can't peg all of that on the script and the direction, even though del Toro seems to be allergic to subtext.  If a character point is made in the script, you can count on del Toro to overemphasize it to the point of bludgeoning the audience.

Rinko Kikuchi is just straight-up awful as Mako.  I really, really hate beating up on one of the few major female roles in this summer's tentpoles, but there's no getting around the fact that there was not a single moment of her performance that I believed.   She's not helped by being tied to the single weakest element in the film - the budding romance story.

Kikucki's chemistry with Hunnam is just short of flacid, which forces del Toro to over-sell their attraction with his directing.  Their first meeting could have been played as a moment where the two of them causally find each other attractive, but her mooneyes performance and Hunnam's reactions push this all the way into "they fall in love instantly" territory.  I'm fingering the direction here because I can easily imagine that the scene on the page was less blunt and could have even taken more of a "two attractive people sizing each other up" approach.

This wasn't a movie that needed a love story, though I can see what they were going for with the idea that Mako and Raleigh needed to learn to develop their "neural handshake" so they can work together in harmony.  I can get behind that as a concept if there was more conflict between the two of them.  There's a slightly predictable subplot between Raleigh and another Jaeger pilot who thinks that Raleigh's inexperience and attitude are a threat to the mission.  (Yeah, it's basically Iceman/Maverick.)  It feels like a more logical development of the "working together" concept would have put these two in the same Jaeger and forced them to work as a team.

Instead Mako's development is only partially realized.  She's traumatized after having survived a Kaiju attack as a child and her first time in the cockpit of a Jaeger ends badly when she is forced to relive that memory and nearly blows up the military installation in a haze of confusion.  Not unreasonably, she's grounded after that.  Look, if one of the seven people you were trusting with the fate of the Earth suddenly cracked up and nearly razed your base with a plasma gun, you'd take away the keys to their war-toy too.

And yet, when urgent circumstances arrive as the film approaches the third act, Mako is pressed back into service to co-pilot with Raleigh.  It's one of the most unmotivated developments in the film.  We've already seen that there are at least a dozen candidates at that base who could be qualified to be Raleigh's partner - why not draft one of them?  Why would get back into the cockpit of that machine with the one person who had a major freak-out the last time they used it.  Literally anyone else would have made more sense.  After all that, it seems a bit too easy and unearned that the two of them suddenly are capable of working in harmony. I know I'm swimming against the tide here, but Mako was a big miss for me.

I saw this film with two friends and while we all walked in hoping to be blown away, as we exited, we had one of those conversations where we kept asking questions about the film, gradually finding more and more elements that just didn't work for us.  Throughout this review, I will include their questions/observations in italics, many of them drawn from a post-film text chat, the rest paraphrased from our post-film discussion.

Quick! Tell me the name of any character in this film besides Mako!

Fuck you.  Ummmm... Hannibal Chao... and...

Yeah, I got nothing here.  I had to have Wikipedia open to get the character names right for this review.

For as big as the movie was, the world felt really small.  After 20 minutes or so, it's like the outside world didn't exist.

I can't really argue with this.  For all the set-up about the drivers being celebrated as major celebrities, it's ultimately a throwaway detail that feels under-exploited.  Even when we venture into the city, we don't get a feel for much beyond Hannibal's operation.  My friends were also bothered by a lack of reaction to the destruction of the Rift at the end of the film.  They wanted an "Ewok Celebration" kind of moment.  I hadn't thought about that until they brought it up, but I agree something like this would have given more finality to the defeat of the Kaijus

So the world government's big plan is just to build a wall?  Even if the Jaegers have been less effective than before, they've still got to be more effective as an offensive weapon.

I admit it's a dumb plan.  But I also don't find it implausible that a government would come up with an idiotically stupid defense plan.  The real issue here is one that comes with the infodump.  We're told straight out that the Jaegers are these awesome defense tools and that their controllers are considered massive heroes.  Then just as quickly, the film reverses course on that and has to sell us on the idea that the Jaegers aren't so awesome after all.  It's a weird transition to make, particularly when it comes with a time-jump of several years.

Maybe it would have been better to set up the Wall from the start as the real endgame, with the Jaegers being a stopgap that until recently had been doing an extraordinary job of holding the line.

After 10 years of these things attacking the coastal cities, why the fuck do people still live there?

Um, beachfront property.

Dammit. I don't have an answer for that one.  I guess you could point out people stay in California despite the threat of earthquakes, but that's hardly the same thing.

At least the bunkers are effective... oh.

Dammit, now you're reminding me about the odd story beat that has the Kaiju seemingly able to sense Charlie Day after they shared a mind-meld link.

Alien mind-meld.  Independence Day anyone?

I'll argue this. It's a convenient expositional tool, but they handle it better than ID4.  Here it's a deliberate choice to use the mind-link for interrogation and it's justified by the technology that links the Jaeger pilots.  ID4 just used it as a convenient way for the President to suddenly know what the alien plan and motivation was.

This one was mine: if you need a monster to open up the rift/gate/dimensional portal/whatever, then how the fuck do the escape pods get out from the other side?

It's a one-way sphincter? Like a butthole? And those pods are the poop. Totally guessing here.

If the Jaegers have swords, rockets and blaster weapons, why do they spend so much time wrestling the monsters and fighting them hand-to-hand?

Well... a few of those have to be justifiable as "heat of battle" decisions.


But why are they not even TRYING to slice these guys in half from minute one of the fights?

The best I've got is that maybe those are actions that require more refined coordination/communication between the pilots and it takes a while to warm up to that level.  I'm willing to rationalize that, but it is kind of an open question in the film.

And because this text exchange between the other two made me laugh:

"Category 5! We've never seen this before!" Kinda looks the same as the others.

-Went down like a little bitch too.

I really wanted to come out of this film as ecstatic as many of you did.  I didn't want to come out gunning for this film or anyone connected to it.  I did my best to avoid the hype, just to keep my expectations realistic, but I'm afraid I'm lukewarm on this one.   Del Toro has got some really fantastic visuals here - I'd never argue against that - and the VFX are top notch.  It's not a bad movie and it's certainly one that demands to be seen on the big screen. I wouldn't even call my reaction a "thumbs down."  But it also fell far short of being a rapturous experience.

Why would a pro use The Black List site? An interview with writer/director Derrick Borte

Two weeks ago I put out a call for loglines from people who had placed their scripts on the Black List site.  My assumption was that everyone who replied would be hoping to attract an agent or a manager through the exposure.  Honestly, it never occurred to me that anyone submitting would already have representation.  I certainly couldn't have anticipated that at least one script would come from a writer who was not only repped, but who had also already directed a feature film, but that's exactly what happened.

Derrick Borte submitted H8RZ, a script he co-wrote with Daniel Forte.  The two are repped at ICM and Echo Lake Management.  Derrick also wrote and directed the 2009 David Duchovny/Demi Moore film THE JONESES.  So what does a guy with all of this going for him think that some screenwriting blog and the Black List can do for him?  To get those answers, I reached out to Derrick for a brief interview.


Most people who use the Black List site are amateurs hoping to get someone to represent them. Franklin Leonard has made some efforts at attracting pros to the site, but I suspect they're still a minority there. Can you talk a little bit about what you hope the Black List (and by extention, my blog) can do for you? 

The first script I saw on the Black List was by a friend of mine who is a far more accomplished writer than myself, so I thought if he was using it to get his work out it could be a way to get more eyes on mine as well. I think that sometimes people need to be told what to like, and the fact that others approve of certain material seems to carry some weight. This material seems to be a little difficult for some people and I thought that maybe this could help build some momentum/buzz that might uncover some production company that I'd like to partner with to make the film.

What had your reps' strategy with regard to this script been up until now? When did you first hear about the Black List, and what was your reps response when you decided to put the script up there? 

The script kind of got discovered on the talent side, where the response has been spectacular. I've been meeting with some great actors over the past few weeks and hope to have a few of the roles cast soon. My reps weren't really part of me submitting the script to the Black List, so I guess I'll know what they think shortly.

I know a young director who went wide with his own script many years ago and kept taking meetings with people who loved the writing but wanted someone else to direct. Has this been something that's happened with H8RZ? If so, is backing off from directing this an idea that you'd entertain? 

That actually happened early with my first film, THE JONESES, which I only wrote it so I could direct. I held on for 7 years to finally direct it. I can't imagine any scenario that would get me to sell H8RZ without directing it myself.

Was there any quantifiable reaction to my blog post? Using the Black List stats, can you get a sense if my review was able to drive some traffic over to your page, and did that traffic convert into downloads? 

The views went from 1 to over 70, and downloads popped quite a bit as well. Unfortunately the number of ratings hasn't gone past the 1.

Beyond plugging your script my page, do you have any other strategies for taking advantage of the Black List posting? 

It would be great to get some buzz from the Black List, and your page has been great for visibility. I guess we'll see where this leads. As always, I'm just stoked to get great feedback on the work that Danny and I have done.

Check out H8RZ on the Black List.