How do you keep from your screenplay from being just another summer blockbuster?

I dunno, I kinda think I'd want my screenplay to be a summer blockbuster... I'd love to be the guy who wrote Iron Man or Batman Begins...

A good problem to have.

A good question.

Here are some things you can do:

Make it suck.
Don't sell it.
Write a low-key drama.

I'll take a summer blockbuster. Hell, I'll take a winter blockbuster.

But believe it or not, most summer blockbusters come from inspiration, talent, and drive. Look at Inception. Or The Dark Knight. Or Thor. Each one of them is unique in its own sense.

Most people don't write summer blockbusters for a reason.

Wouldn't worry about it.

Once you sell your screenplay, you've sold it. Period. They can do whatever they want with it. The only way to prevent this is to become so famous and powerful that you become an executive producer on the film, or are hired to direct it yourself, or create your own studio to produce it.

And I agree that it's not easy to write a summer blockbuster. And most screenwriters are hired to write those movies after they've already been greenlighted. Those guys are pros.

I will admit that the scripts to many would-be blockbusters are frequently awful, but there are just as many terrific screenplays out there. Go read a Pixar script (maybe except for Cars 2). All were massive smash hits, and all are pretty brilliantly written. The Wall-E script might be my favorite.

we all have a vision of how our screenplay should look on the screen but the fact of the matter is that once you have handed it over then the decision is no longer yours.

if you are happy to take the money then you have to make some concessions

If you're lucky enough to sell a script that goes that big, cry all the way to the bank.

This is an extremely cart before horse question.

How to keep control? Make it yourself. The owner of the screenplay is the one with the power.

satyesu said:

I have very few movies I watch regularly, and for those I do it's because I have siblings. I'll do some repeats on Netflix, sure, but how do you keep a director from screwing up y9our scrip to make another week-long tenant in theaters? Books seem to have a bit more immortality to me, but I'd be happy to have the opposite view explained.

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"Books" as such have neither more nor less immortality than movies or plays or any other art form. It's sometimes instructional to take a look at the best selling books or authors of fifty years ago, or seventy-five years ago. You'd be surprised to find just how few of the books and authors you'd have read, or even recognize.

How many books of John O'Hara have you read? Do you even know who he is? In the 1960's he was one of the biggest, best selling writers in America.

And not some schlock writer. People considered him to be a serious writer.

So much for immortality. And the fact that a movie is enormously successful doesn't necessarily mean that it's junk.

The Godfather was enormously successful. Casablanca was enormously successful. Some of the greatest movies of all time are also some of the most successful movies of all time. Some are just popcorn movies -- but you shouldn't think that just because it's a big action movie that it somehow isn't a "real" movie or a movie devoid of serious intentions.

And just because a movie takes place in a kitchen and has lots of long pauses and people dying of diseases doesn't mean that it isn't a piece of schlock crap. The indie world has a much higher per capita rate of unwatchable crap that the world of summer blockbusters. It's just pretentious low budget unwatchable crap rather than expensive effects-laden cliched crap.

Whatever you do, don't substitute your intentions to do something good for something that's actually good.

I've seen countless folks take scripts that were not very good (and oh, did I warn them of this), invest their own money, other people's money, and countless hours and endless effort, to turn them into movies that were, unsurprisingly, not even as good as their not-very-good scripts, because not only were they only so-so writers, they were not even as good directors as they were writers and even worse as producers and worse still at all the other tasks they took on in a misguided attempt to keep their not-so-good scripts from being ruined by others.

Instead - at great effort and expense, they took on the job of ruining them themselves. Not that the scripts were so great to begin with.

I have seen this many times. It is not a pretty sight.

If a script is really great, and if you are lucky, it may attract the people and the money to get to the screen relatively intact. But most importantly, if you have the talent to write one great script, you have the talent to write another and that means that you will have a career ahead of you -- and that's ultimately the most important thing.

NMS

Some movies that weren't originally well-thought-of or controversial are more enduring than overt financial successes: Blade Runner, Donnie Darko, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and certain films are not mainstream but are incredibly enduring such as The Servant, Good Night and Good Luck and the original B&W version of Dorian Gray. All of these films have fantastic (IMHO) scripts. The fact that the filmmakers capitalised on that is a nice way of saying that a movie should not just be equal to, but should be greater than the sum of its parts, of which script is one.

satyesu said:

I have very few movies I watch regularly, and for those I do it's because I have siblings. I'll do some repeats on Netflix, sure, but how do you keep a director from screwing up y9our scrip to make another week-long tenant in theaters? Books seem to have a bit more immortality to me, but I'd be happy to have the opposite view explained.

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Most people WANT their screenplay to be a summer blockbuster.

Most stories are structured to sell (see Kal's excellent work on this at http://www.clickok.co.uk/index4.html)

If you don't want to be a hit, just ignore everything we've ever learned about writing good stories.

Your problem is that deep down, you really do want to be a hit...it's just that you want to be SO original as to be respected as a genius.

satyesu said:

I have very few movies I watch regularly, and for those I do it's because I have siblings. I'll do some repeats on Netflix, sure, but how do you keep a director from screwing up y9our scrip to make another week-long tenant in theaters? Books seem to have a bit more immortality to me, but I'd be happy to have the opposite view explained.

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A good movie is not measured by its success. Most movies at theaters right now are derivative crap, minor works making an impact due to Hollywood's marketing machine.

1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes $54M -->derivative
2. The Smurfs $21M -->derivative
3. Cowboys & Aliens $15.7M --> don't know, haven't seen it
4. The Change-Up $13.5M -->old, overplayed concept for shits and giggles
5. Captain America: The First Avenger -->derivative

And that's what sells. You want to be original, it stands to reason it will take longer and success is not guaranteed(is it ever?).

Don't write one. Write the story you want to write. If it's a big scale popcorn movie, where's the bad? If it's a quirky cerebral personal script, great as well.

Personally, I feel that's kind of a premature and silly question to ask. You should be focusing on what kind of car you're gonna buy with all that money you're gonna make.

Gollum said:

A good movie is not measured by its success. Most movies at theaters right now are derivative crap, minor works making an impact due to Hollywood's marketing machine.

1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes $54M -->derivative
2. The Smurfs $21M -->derivative
3. Cowboys & Aliens $15.7M --> don't know, haven't seen it
4. The Change-Up $13.5M -->old, overplayed concept for shits and giggles
5. Captain America: The First Avenger -->derivative

And that's what sells. You want to be original, it stands to reason it will take longer and success is not guaranteed(is it ever?).

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Derivative doesn't automatically equal crap. Derivative means it was successful in another or earlier form so they think it will be successful again.

They're taking a known commodity and changing it and repackaging it and presenting it from another angle or sequel or form.

Every movie based off books, comics, and games are all derivative. All remakes are derivative. But derivative doesn't equal bad. It just means it's a material the public is already familiar with and a safer bet. Hollywood and all entertainment industries for that matter are all for safe bets. It keeps them in business.

They want the assurance that they'll make money off it. It's also why indie films tend to be very low budget, because investors don't want to take the risk. It's a lot of risk to take, millions of dollars of risk. So for the movies that the creators feel very strongly about but can't convince the investors they'll make piles of money, have to make due with small budgets and big dreams. Some make it big, most fall flat.

Derivative doesn't automatically equal crap.

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But it does mean it's not a fresh, original idea, which is fine if the original idea had more mileage in it. But really... I'm not sure Transformers had enough mileage for one movie, let alone however many we're up to now. Then again Godfather did. Aliens did. Toy Story did.

And for the record, I really don't want to write a summer blockbuster. I don't want to write those kinds of stories.

spinningdoc said:

But it does mean it's not a fresh, original idea, which is fine if the original idea had more mileage in it. But really... I'm not sure Transformers had enough mileage for one movie, let alone however many we're up to now. Then again Godfather did. Aliens did. Toy Story did.

And for the record, I really don't want to write a summer blockbuster. I don't want to write those kinds of stories.

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I doubt you could find anything that is truly original. All base stories have been done. It comes down to making it fresh enough that it doesn't seem like an old hat. This goes for derivative works too.

This goes for derivative works too.

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Well, yes, you could claim Back To The Future was derived from Oedipus if you really wanted. And I really like Back To The Future. But I was using 'derivative' in the perjorative sense of 'apparently safe retreads', as per Gollum's post.

They're taking a known commodity and changing it and repackaging it and presenting it from another angle or sequel or form.

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Commercially, good sense. Creatively, a really good chance of ending up with crap.