Scott Myers

Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 231st installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest. SXSW 2016: The Complete List Of Film Festival 2016 Audience Award Winners. SXSW 2016: The Best and Worst of the Film Festival. SXSW 2016: What

Happy Birthday, Joseph Campbell!

Joseph Campbell’s birthday is today. If he were alive, he would 102 years old. His physical body died in 1987, but his ideas live on. He was a fascinating guy. I first studied Campbell’s work as an undergraduate at UVA, so originally I thought of him strictly in

Interview (Video): Richard Linklater (“Everybody Wants Some”)

A Studio Q interview with Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, School of Rock, Boyhood) who is writer-director of the new movie Everybody Wants Some. A trailer for the movie: For other Studio Q video, go here.

Daily Dialogue — March 26, 2016

DOORMAN: All right, you want to come in, you’re gonna have to go to the end of the line and wait like everybody else. DEBBIE: I’m not gonna go to the end of the fucking line. Who the fuck are you? I have just as much of a

Zero Draft Thirty 2016 Spring Challenge: Day 25

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 25. March 1: Type FADE IN / The Beginning. March 30 31: Type FADE OUT / The End. 30 31 days. 1 script. Movie script. TV script. First draft. Rewrite. Whatever. I’m doing it. You’re invited. For background on how the Zero Draft Challenge came into

Spec Script Deals Analysis 2015: Top Sales

Continuing our week long analysis of spec script sales from 2015, today we look at the deals with the biggest payoffs (at least as reported by various news outlets): Humbug — Family Fantasy Todd Jones, Earl Ritchey Jones — High six figures against low seven-figures Ascension — Science Fiction Shannon Triplett — Mid-

Jake Gyllenhaal on the importance of “story”

As writers, it behooves us to pay attention to actors and directors when they talk about what draws them to a particular scripted project. In this video, David Gordon Green talks with Jake Gyllenhaal and the very first question he asks is this: What is it that draws you to

Joseph Campbell: “All the gods are within you”

It’s Joseph Campbell’s birthday on Saturday and to honor this great thinker, I am reprising a five part series I posted back in 2012 to take us deeper into The Hero’s Journey. This is the fifth in a series of posts I’ve been writing this week

Script To Screen: “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”

This is an unusual Script To Screen entry. The screenplay is an early draft of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl [screenplay by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio, screen story by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio and Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpert] with an ending that

Daily Dialogue — March 25, 2016

TOM: Where’s Verona? BURT: I think she’s in the bathroom. Where’s Munch? TOM: I have no fucking idea. MUNCH comes out on stage. BURT: Uh-oh. TOM is mesmerized as his wife begins to dance. TOM: She had another miscarriage. BURT: What? When? TOM: Thursday. BURT: This

Zero Draft Thirty 2016 Spring Challenge: Day 24

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 24. March 1: Type FADE IN / The Beginning. March 30 31: Type FADE OUT / The End. 30 31 days. 1 script. Movie script. TV script. First draft. Rewrite. Whatever. I’m doing it. You’re invited. For background on how the Zero Draft Challenge came into

2015 Spec Script Sales Analysis: Agents & Managers

We continue with our analysis of spec script deals in 2015. Today: Agents and Managers. Note: A majority of projects were repped by both an agency and a manager / management company, so the total numbers of reps listed will be significantly higher than the number of scripts sold. First the

Background on sale of $3M spec script “Bright”

In case you weren’t paying attention to the blog on Sunday, there was this: A two-week bidding battle has finally ended and Netflix has won Bright, a Max Landis scripted cop thriller with fantastical elements and tent pole potential that David Ayer will direct, with Will Smith and

Joseph Campbell: “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned”

It’s Joseph Campbell’s birthday on Saturday and to honor this great thinker, I am reprising a five part series I posted back in 2012 to take us deeper into The Hero’s Journey. This is the fourth in a series of posts I’ve been writing this week

Writing and the Creative Life: Dark Places

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” This is a quote from Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology, and it speaks to a fundamental truth not only about life, but also creativity. For in order to write stories that are authentic

Daily Dialogue — March 24, 2016

George Bailey: Mary Hatch, why in the world did you ever marry a guy like me? Mary: To keep from being an old maid! George Bailey: You could have married Sam Wainright, or anybody else in town… Mary: I didn’t want to marry anybody else in town. I want

Zero Draft Thirty 2016 Spring Challenge: Day 23

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 23. March 1: Type FADE IN / The Beginning. March 30 31: Type FADE OUT / The End. 30 31 days. 1 script. Movie script. TV script. First draft. Rewrite. Whatever. I’m doing it. You’re invited. For background on how the Zero Draft Challenge came into

2015 Spec Script Sales Analysis: Buyers

Yesterday we looked at 2015 spec script deals by genre. Today we break down the numbers per major studios, mini-majors, subsidiaries, production companies, and financiers to see which were the most and least active in the script acquisition market. The totals: 6 Universal 4 20th Century Fox Relativity Media

Twitter Rant: Zack Stentz on Rewriting Strategies

Tweetstorm: Zack Stentz on Rewriting Strategies Zack Stentz has carved out a 15 year career both as a screenwriter and TV writer-producer. His writing credits include the movies Agent Cody Banks, Thor, and X-Men: First Class , (co-written with Ashley Edward Miller) and TV series “Andromeda,” “Terminator: The

Joseph Campbell: “Where you stumble, there lies your treasure”

It’s Joseph Campbell’s birthday on Saturday and to honor this great thinker, I am reprising a five part series I posted back in 2012 to take us deeper into The Hero’s Journey. On Monday, I wrote the first in a series of posts this week on Joseph

Great Scene: “Network”

The WGA has an annual honor called The Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award. And even though it’s for writers who work in TV, where Chayefsky ruled during its so-called “Golden Age,” there is no piece of writing that displays Chayefsky’s brilliance than this famous monologue in the movie

Daily Dialogue — March 23, 2016

ELLIE: You can do it. Push! (Diego groans and seems to be going through birth labor.) Push! DIEGO: I…can’t…do…it… ELLIE: Just one more big push. DIEGO: You have no idea what I’m going through. A change of perspective shows Diego barely holding a pair of

Zero Draft Thirty 2016 Spring Challenge: Day 22

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 22. March 1: Type FADE IN / The Beginning. March 30 31: Type FADE OUT / The End. 30 31 days. 1 script. Movie script. TV script. First draft. Rewrite. Whatever. I’m doing it. You’re invited. For background on how the Zero Draft Challenge came into

2015 Spec Script Deals Analysis: Genres

By my count, Hwood studios, production companies, and financiers acquired 55 spec scripts in 2015. During this week, I’ll be breaking down those numbers. Today we look at deals by genre. Some scripts are categorized as cross genres or sub-genres, so those are noted where relevant under their

Hollywood’s New Four-Quadrant Movie Model

You need to know: The old Four-Quadrant Model has changed. This per Wikipedia: In the movie industry, a four-quadrant movie is one which appeals to all four major demographic “quadrants” of the moviegoing audience: both male and female, and both over- and under-25s. Films are generally aimed