Why movies often suck #1 The Complaint: There are no original ideas! Look at the top-grossing 25 films of the 2000s -- 23 were remakes or adaptations! How lazy can these writers get? The Problem: Even if you know nothing about how movies get made, you know that there are very specialized tasks -- the sound guy is an expert in microphones and audio but probably couldnt be trusted to do stunts. And, you assume that when it comes to thinking up the ideas for what happens in the movie, somewhere its all just some writer hunched over a keyboard -- a professional who is an expert in story, plot and character. Not so. In almost all cases, the initial ideas for movie plots dont come from screenwriters at all, but from producers (basically, the people in charge of the money side of the project). So most of the movies playing in your nearest theater didnt come from some writer thinking up a story he wanted to tell -- they came from some producer saying, There hasnt been a ThunderCats movie yet, has there? At that point, the producer and whoever else is involved (other producers, maybe a famous actor if theyre lucky) will then hammer out a rough idea for the movie that will appeal to at least two of the four market demographics (young males, young females, older males, older females). So if its an action movie aimed completely at young males, you throw a romance in there for the ladies. Its only then that they will give a screenwriter a call. In other words, in most Hollywood films, the writer is basically there to fill in the dialogue holes and think of clever catchphrases for Ryan Reynolds to say every time he socks a guy in the jaw. For Example ... The Halloween franchise wasnt cooked up by a plucky man named John Carpenter who had a dream about a man in a creepy mask. Instead, two producers approached him after they decided it would be cool to have a movie about a psycho stalking babysitters. So what about those screenplays that your friend working at the video store is constantly writing, in hopes they will some day get made and star a naked Natalie Portman? In reality, even the great ones are treated as spec scripts (basically, a literary audition). The script is proof to the people in charge that the writer is, for the most part, not illiterate. So if you submit a powerfully emotional piece that deftly explores the facets of love and loss, you might impress someone enough to get a job co-writing Transformers 4. On the rare occasion that an original script does get picked up for production, its likely to get swept up by one of the big franchises. I, Robot was initially an original script called Hardwired that no one would touch until a famous Asimov title was attached to it. Die Hard 2, 3 and 4, Oceans Twelve and Starship Troopers were all original ideas that were snapped up and rebranded as franchises. So if youre working on a passion project, maybe its time to let the dream die and just start focusing on a gritty reboot of She-Ra.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Feb 2014 03:54:32 +0000
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